‘Start Menu’ style navigation for CRM2013

When Windows 8 didn't have a 'Start Menu' there was so much fuss that we saw it return with Windows 8.1 (sort of). If you miss the navigation style of CRM 2011 you might find my CRM 2013 Start Menu solution very helpful. The solution provides a 'Start menu' on most screens that provides drop down m... [More]

Ribbon Workbench updated - getServerUrl is removed in CRM2013 UR2

With CRM2013 UR2 being released very soon I have made an update to the Ribbon Workbench that you'll be prompted to install by the auto update when you next open the Ribbon Workbench. I strongly advise you to install this update before you install UR2 otherwise the Ribbon Workbench will no longer wor... [More]

Real Time Workflow or Plugin?

I have been asked "should I use Real Time Workflows instead of Plugins?" many times since CRM2013 first introduced this valuable new feature. Real Time Workflows (RTWFs) certainly have many attractive benefits over Plugins including:

Uses the same interface as standard workflows making it very qu... [More]

Subliminal Moshlings…

Those of you who've attended an event that I've been speaking at will know that I quote often talk about my kids…My daughter is absolutely mad about Moshi Monsters. Right about the time I was dreaming up SparkleXRM, my daughter was just beginning her obsession and insisting that I spend quali... [More]

Chrome Dynamics CRM Developer Tools

Chrome already provides a fantastic set of Developer tools for HTML/Javascript, but now thanks to Blake Scarlavai at Sonoma Partners we have the Chrome CRM Developer Tools. This fantastic Chome add in provides lots of gems to make debugging forms and testing fetchXml really easy: Form Information-... [More]

Spot the difference!

If there is one way of keeping an application looking fresh it's by frequently tweaking the user interface. This approach is adopted by Facebook with success and stops their user interface from feeling old hat. With the latest Dynamics CRM Online update (6.0.1.61) you might have spotted some li... [More]

Form File->Properties dialog in CRM 2013

One of the lesser known features of CRM 2011 was the File->Properties dialog that you could view on a record form. It would look something like:

This dialog was very useful for finding out the effective permissions of the current user on a particular record but in CRM 2013 it is no longer pres... [More]

Restore Add Activity buttons in CRM 2013

By default the CRM2013 form Command Bar doesn't show the old 'Add' tab buttons for activities. The intension is that users will want to use the new Activities Tab control on the forms as show below:

In an upgrade from CRM 2011 you may want to preserve the add activity buttons on a form. This post... [More]

Using the CRM 2013 Developer Toolkit to target CRM 2011

If you find yourself constantly juggling multiple development environments, you'll no doubt come up against the issue of the Developer Toolkit only supporting a single installation – either for CRM 2011 or CRM 2013. To overcome this, I have been using the CRM 2013 version again CRM 2011 with ... [More]