Dynamics CRM 2011 Rollup 15 available - CRM Outlook Client Improvements

I've published an article a few weeks ago on improving Outlook performance here:
http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/dynamics-crm-2011-outlook-client.html

I basically recommended upgrading to SQL CE 4 for better memory handling this is because Outlook 32bits is limited to 2GB of memory and this causes the application to crash or become very unstable.

With the latest Rollup 15 we have great news on CRM Outlook client improvements/stability this now natively upgrades to SQL CE 4 and introduces a number of memory handling features making Outlook client a lot more stable.

Quote from the Rollup 15 page:
Update Rollup 15 for Dynamics CRM 2011 provides the following improvements:

• It includes a new feature that is scheduled to be delivered with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013. This feature moves the CRM client-specific workload into its own process so that it no longer shares memory with the Microsoft Office Outlook process. This feature is also known as Process Isolation.
• It includes an upgrade to Microsoft SQL Server for Windows CE 4.0 for better memory management, better caching, and connection enhancements.
• It updates the CRM for Outlook configuration files to make the CRM for Outlook SDF files compatible with SQL Server for Windows CE 4.0.
• It materializes the Address Book Provider to reduce performance issues that are caused by large address books.
• It limits the amount of active open forms.
• It provides a MAPI Lock time-out.
• It hard codes a previous registry setting that prevented pinned views from pulling down information to local SQL CE cache. This new DisableMapiCaching setting defaults to a value of 1. For more information about the behavior of this setting, see Slow Performance When Pinning Views in Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Rollup 15 it's available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=722e9791-0d27-4939-ac15-0e05f254490a 

Dynamics CRM 2011 Updating Currencies with SSIS

I continue my voyage on SSIS for CRM packages and I find this solution I'm sharing really interesting because you can void all those javascript/plugin code overheads to get currencies updated with real markets exchange rates.

By using this SSIS package you can get currencies updated with live markets and at the same time running it from any SQL server you wish, without directly affecting the CRM SQL server performance.

Overview of the package:

1. Query an internet WSDL service to retrieve live exchange rates GBP vs EUR and store it as XML
2. Extract the value using a XML task
3. Create a local txt file using a script task
4. Update CRM

1. Setting Up the Web Service Task

On the HTTP Connection manager you need to specify the URL to connect to, I'm using the following WSDL server:
http://www.webservicex.net/currencyconvertor.asmx?WSDL

On the below screenshot select

• WSDLFile: You can create a empty wsdl file e.g. currency.wsdl
• set OverwriteWSDLFile to true
• click on the button: Download WSDL 

On the below screenshot:

• Service: select CurrencyConvertor
• Method: ConversionRate

Then select from the list the currencies you want to retrieve:

On the output you need to define a xml output file, create an empty file e.g. currency.xml

 2. XML task

Using an XML task we extract only the values and store it into a variable type object. Use the below configuration:

3. Retrieving Currency CRM GUID

We need a new Data Flow task to use the kings ways software CRM component to retrieve the 'transactioncurrencyid' using FetchXML and then store it in a variable type object using the Recordset Destination task

4. For each loop container
As we storing the variable as an array of objects I'm using a foreach loop to retrieve the content of each index.

5. Script Task

The script it's essentially building a flat .txt file which will store the relevant information to be used later as the input columns when updating CRM via the Kings way software component.

Select the variables we created above on the read only variables field, when you done click 'Edit Script'

The following code it's creating a .txt file on the C:\ drive with the variables information:

6. Update CRM
We load the flat file confirm we have an exchange rate column and the CRM GUID and link it to the KingsWay Software component to update CRM using the API.

And it's done!

Conclusion
Hope you enjoyed the concept it's really that easy and straight forward. You can deploy this package on any SQL server that has the SSIS component installed, you don't need to install it on your CRM SQL server and this is a great advantage because you not impacting performance on your CRM SQL server.

Schedule the package to run on a specific interval as per your requirements and voilà you get your exchange rates matching daily market rates.