CRM 2011 Client Diagnostics Tool for On Premise

Previously only available for CRM Online, the CRM Diagnostics tool is now released with CRM 2011 Update Rollup 4 for On Premise installations.

It runs a couple of tests, measuring latency to the datacenter/server, bandwidth, and performs a few Javascript performance tests to measure the CPU/browser performance of the machine.

You can access the tool using the following URL after you install UR4 or later.
http://<serverUrl>/tools/diagnostics/diag.aspx

The latency and bandwidth test the download speed across the wire from the CRM web site to the client browser. A low latency and high bandwidth is ideal. If your values show a high latency and low bandwidth then your CRM experience may be slow depending on the extremity of the range. For some performance reading you can take a look here.

Optimizing and Maintaining Client Performance for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and CRM Online
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=23261

Optimizing Performance for CRM Online 2011
http://community.dynamics.com/product/crm/crmnontechnical/b/crmonlineteam/archive/2011/04/08/optimizing-performance-for-crm-online-2011.aspx – even though this is for Online there are some important points

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Performance and Scalability with Intel
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=16673

Improving Microsoft Dynamics CRM Performance and Securing Data with Microsoft SQL Server 2008
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=8438

Optimizing and Maintaining the Performance of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server Infrastructure
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27139

The above documents should give you a solid understanding of performance related improvements you can apply to your Dynamics CRM deployment.

The JavaScript test items are testing your CPU/browser performance of your machine. Ideally you want low values here and upgrading your IE browser to the latest version should give you the best results.

Happy tuning.

Cheers,

Rhett Clinton

CRM 2011 SDK version 5.0.6 available

The MS CRM Team have released an updated CRM 2011 SDK version 5.0.6 which can be downloaded here http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=24004 or viewed on MSDN here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309408.aspx

Some of the additions include:

• Added Plugin Registration tool support for Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control Services (ACS) 2.0.
• Updated the AppFabric SDK links and added information on how to use Windows Azure AppFabric ACS 2.0.
• Added documentation for the Plug-in Profiler tool.
• Added guidance recommending the use of PNG web resources for icons.
• Added comment to clarify about the supported use of jQuery.
• Added guidance for improving performance using the setVisible method.

 

xRMVirtual User Group Event – Customizing the Ribbon in CRM 2011 with Yaniv Arditi

Today June 7th 2011 at 9am PST (5pm GMT), xRMVirtual UG are hosting a live meeting session with Yaniv Ardity titled Customizing the Ribbon in CRM 2011.

Check out the session details here http://www.xrmvirtual.com/events/CRM2011_ribbon

The event description is as follows

When: June 7th 2011 at 9am PST (5pm GMT)

Duration: 1 hour. 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 – Customizing the Ribbon

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 introduces the new Microsoft Office 2010 contextual ribbon to deliver a consistent, familiar navigation and user experience. Highly customizable, the Ribbon offers many new UI features such as dynamic menus, contextual behaviors and rules along with a rich gallery of UI controls such as Combo Box, Text Box and Label. This session will cover Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Ribbon features and capabilities while demonstrating the Ribbon’s customization techniques and elements.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 VM now available

So this is what everyone has been waiting for, a ready made CRM 2011 VM. This is available on PartnerSource and its an approx. 13Gb download.

You have the option of downloading a second VM that has exchange so the VM builders look to have put some thought into providing some performance with regards this virtual machine setup.

There is more info on PartnerSource so if you have access, happy downloading…

For interest I have included the setup steps here for reference from page 5 of the CRM 2011 VM Overview document.

This Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 VM must be run on a 64bit server with Hyper-V. 

1.       Download the compressed files

2.       Double click the .exe file to begin the decompression, specify the desired output location

Virtual Machine	Approximate Size	RAM Allocated
CRM2011	36 GB	4096 MB
CRM2011-Exchange	10 GB	2048 MB

3.       Open Hyper-V Manager

4.       In the Actions pane (on the right), click Virtual Network Manager

• o    Click New virtual network, select Private, click Add (Name: CRM2011, Connection type: Private virtual machine network), click OK

Optional: For Internet access from the VM a second virtual network (Connection type: External) is required.  Repeat step 4 but select External (Name: CRM2011-External, Connection type: External).  If you have an existing virtual network you can assign it to the VM after import.

5.       Click Import Virtual Machine…Browse to the folder CRM2011 in the output location specified in step 2.

• o    Import Settings: Move or restore the virtual machine…
• o    Note: Import will complete with some warnings if you used your existing virtual network, click OK

Optional: To send E-mails between users on the Virtual Machine, repeat steps 4 & 5 to import the CRM2011-Exchange VM.

6.       Within the Virtual Machines window of the Hyper-V Manager, click on CRM2011

7.       In the Actions pane (on the right), under CRM2011 (at the bottom), click Settings

8.       Under Hardware, click on Network Adapter.

9.       Select the Network: Local Area Connection – Virtual Network, click OK

10.    In the Actions pane (on the right), under CRM2011 (at the bottom), click Start

Optional: To send E-mails between users on the Virtual Machine, repeat steps 6 – 10 to configure the CRM2011-Exchange VM.

11.    Within the Virtual Machines window of the Hyper-V Manager, double click on CRM2011 to connect to the VM

12.    Once the VM loads, click on the  icon (representing CTRL+ALT+DEL) to login.

13.    Initially login using the administrator credentials.

14.    A popup will appear stating You must restart your computer to apply these changes, Click Restart Now

Microsoft Dynamics CRM TechNet Wiki

Microsoft Dynamics TechNet Wiki

The purpose of this wiki is to provide a comprehensive guide for IT professionals to learn about then implement, configure, customize, maintain and support Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Just like the CRM SDK, CRM Forums, books and CRM Blogs, this repository of CRM knowledge based articles and general Dynamics CRM information is a great place to learn and expand your CRM knowledge. The CRM MVP’s and various others have been working hard to build up a knowledge base to help the community find useful information with topics covering a wide array of Dynamics CRM and related technologies.

Check it out and learn something new…

Microsoft Application Framework – CRM, NAV, AX, GP

Microsoft CRM is built upon a platform that allows for an ever increasing level of customisation and extension. Microsoft is providing this platform packaged as a CRM system and we now have the term XRM which is devised to break Microsoft CRM down to this core platform and then build something up from it. It’s this platform for rapid application development that would be ideally shipped as a framework of some sort that allows for custom systems building and also with the ability to install add ons such as CRM, NAV, GP, etc… 

Name it the Microsoft Application Framework or Dynamics Application Framework (DAF, ok maybe not the best acronym) but integrated with Visual Studio, SQL Server, SharePoint and the various other Microsoft technolgies. Imagine the ease of integrating CRM with NAV if both systems existed within the same framework.

Obviously Microsoft is building up and investing alot of effort into this feature rich application framework, namely Microsoft CRM and its underlying platform, and only time will tell if the true  potential of this technology mix will be achieved. We could maybe take and alter a statement from HomerSimpson by saying “The Microsoft Application Framework, is there anything it can’t do!”, and although this doesn’t actually exist just yet, I hope it will.