Dynamics CRM 2011 upgrading from trial license

I often see on the CRM forum questions how to upgrade CRM from a trial installation into a full licensed environment without the need to re-install CRM, so decided to create a quick post on how to do this and where to find the newly purchased CRM license key.

Registry key
If you purchased the full license, Microsoft will provide you with a Media download link, so you can download the installation DVD. The key is not provided by the sales assistant's because the registry key is now built-in in the media. However you can retrieve this key form the DVD on:

D:\Server\amd64\License.txt

Upgrade Trial License
Open deployment manager:

PowerShell

You can also set your new license key with PowerShell, below are the commands to do this:

To activate CRM PowerShell commands type the below command:
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Crm.PowerShell

To set the new CRM key run:
Set-CrmProductKey -ProductKey [string]

To get your current version:
Get-CrmLicenseProperty

Dynamics CRM troubleshooting Kerberos Authentication

This is Part 2 of my article on improving CRM performance with Kerberos http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.com/2011/12/extreme-performance-with-dynamics-crm.html

Kerberos is not the easiest protocol to troubleshoot due to it's complex architecture, I would like to share with you a few tips on how to tackle kerberos issues.

To troubleshoot kerberos I'm going to use the following tools:

• Wireshark (we could use Microsoft network monitor but for Kerberos I think Wireshark is simpler to use and illustrate)
• Fiddler (capture HTTP packets)
• ADSI Edit or Command prompt setspn
• Microsoft Kerbtray to list/purge tickets or command prompt klist.

If you read the first article on how to improve performance with kerberos, you understand that when you use  custom service accounts you will need unique SPN's configured to allow authentication to succeed. However you could use built-in accounts, the best practice and recommendations from Microsoft is to always use custom service accounts, and it's here where things get a bit more complicated. I'm assuming you have attempted to configure Kerberos based on my first article and you run Fiddler for the first time and let's assume you see this on the first attempt:

This ticket is an NTLM ticket, Kerberos failed somewhere and we will try to find out using wireshark.

Open Wireshark start capturing network traffic and on the search field type: Kerberos

Wireshark shows a packet with error: KRB5KDC_ERR_S_PRINCIPAL_UNKNOWN highlight this packet and on the below screen expand the Kerberos packet details and you find that the missing DNS is HTTP/crm.ha Kerberos is looking for this and can't find it. The next step is to register an SPN under the service account CRM website is running on.

Configuring SPN

a quick way to create visualise SPN's  is using the Microsoft command tool Setspn, open the command prompt and type:

setspn -L DOMAIN\SERVICE_ACCOUNT 

Replace DOMAIN and SERVICE_ACCOUNT with your own domain and service account. This will list any SPN's configured under that account.

If you can't find the SPN listed under that account create the SPN:

setspn -a HTTP/crm.ha SERVICE_ACCOUNT

Run again the first command and check if the SPN has been created.

Another way to create SPN's is using the ADSI Edit GUID, it's easier to manage multiple SPN's for multiple accounts etc..

To install ADSI Edit follow the following instructions:

On the Server manager under Features add new features and navigate to the following options:

When installed  go to: Start menu > Administrative Tools > ADSI Edit

Open ADSI Edit and right click and choose connect to...
On the below screen type the name of the object you want to use, and leave default naming context and type the SERVER_NAME click ok. replace SERVER_NAME with the name of Domain controller in your network.

Below Expand the folders until you see the service account you want to configure the SPN's

 When you find the account, right-click and properties. The below screen appears. Scroll down to servicePrincipalName and click Edit.

On the below screen you can manage the SPN's and add the needed SPN, you can type HTTP/crm.ha and click OK and Apply and it's done.

Looking for Kerberos tickets

We have configured the missing SPN, the next step is to run wireshark and look for the kerberos ticket.

Highlighting the first packet show us what request's are going through in the process.

I highlight the first HTTP packet and I already see the first negotiation using Kerberos tickets look for Authorization: Negotiate YIIUM this is a Kerberos ticket.

Below I highlight the next in line HTTP packet HTTP/1.1 found and you see a reply with a kerberos ticket again.

It looks like we are now using Kerberos. if we look back at Fiddler now, we should see the following:

Also another way to check your kerberos tickets it's using Microsoft Kerbtray or the command line prompt klist.

Usage: Klist.exe [-lh ] [-li ] tickets | tgt | purge

On the command line run:

klist [ENTER] This should show you all kerberos tickets issued to your machine and user account, you may see a number of them.

To purge the tickets do:

klist purge

You can also use a GUID tool called kerbtray you can download kerbtray from here:

• http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17657
• http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7887

Kerbtray will appear as a green icon on your tray area, right-click this icon and you can purge tickets or list the current tickets. This is the same functionality as the klist command.

Event Logs

You could also look for kerberos authentication issues by enabling Kerberos debug logging on the server, this would generate a number of detailed event logs on your server which can be quite handy:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262177

Summary

I hope this was helpful, the article is designed to give an overview of the tools available for troubleshooting kerberos authentication issues and how to use this tools to look for the right information.

References
If you interested in learning more about Kerberos and it's architecture, I would recommend you read this article which gives a great overview on this. You may also find loads of high-level articles on this.

• http://cs.unc.edu/~fabian/course_papers/steiner_neuman.pdf

Dynamics CRM 2011 Reduce your javascript code footprint with Microsoft Ajax Minifier tool

Did you know about Microsoft Ajax Minifier tool? I use this tool for some time now and I think is great, it gives developers the chance to reduce their 'code footprint' by compressing javascript and css files.

You can download the tool here:
http://ajaxmin.codeplex.com/

As customization in CRM 2011 are more flexible, developers have more functionality on their side to impress customers, it's easy to end up with long and complex javascript files which end up increasing the download and processing time; so a good practice in a production environment is to remove all comments and un-necessary spaces to compress the code, with Microsoft Ajax minifier tool, can do this for us and also minify the code compressing it to the optimal size.

The same concept as jquery-minimized version, I would recommend in a production environment minimize all your code to get optimal performance.

Below is an example of a normal javascript code from a previous post on a jquery duplicate detection pop-up.

function idp() {
var isCreateForm = Xrm.Page.ui.getFormType() == 1;
if (isCreateForm) {

$.ajaxSetup({cache:false});
$(document.body).append("
A possible duplicate record was found, please review:
");

$('#name').focusout(function() {

var name = Xrm.Page.getAttribute('name').getValue();
var query = "/AccountSet?$filter=Name eq '"+name+"'";

var serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl();

    if (serverUrl.match(/\/$/)) {
        serverUrl = serverUrl.substring(0, serverUrl.length - 1);
    }

    var ODataURL = serverUrl + "/XRMServices/2011/OrganizationData.svc" + query;

    $.ajax({
        type: "GET",
        contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
        datatype: "json",
        url: ODataURL,
        beforeSend: function (XMLHttpRequest) {
            XMLHttpRequest.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");
        },
        success: function (data, textStatus, XmlHttpRequest) {
           var entities = data.d.results;
    $.fx.speeds._default = 1000;
    $(document).ready(function() {
        $("#dialog").dialog({
            autoOpen: false,
            show: "blind",
            hide: "explode",
            modal: true
        });

    });
if(entities.length > 0 ) {
  for( i=0; i< entities.length; i++)
  {
     var entity = entities[i];
}    

var entityUrl = "main.aspx?etn=account&pagetype=entityrecord&id=";
$(document).ready(function() {
                             $("#link").empty();
                             $("#link").append(document.createTextNode(entity.Name));
                             $("a#link").attr("href","/"+entityUrl+"%7B"+entity.AccountId+"%7D"+"");
                             $('#dialog').dialog("open");
});          
}

        },
        error: function (XmlHttpRequest, textStatus, errorObject) {
            alert("OData Execution Error Occurred");
        }
    });
});
}
} 

Install Ajax minifier tool and from the command prompt run:
AjaxMin.exe idp_engine.js -out idp_engine_min.js

The end result will be something like this:

function idp(){var n=Xrm.Page.ui.getFormType()==1;if(n){$.ajaxSetup({cache:!1}),$(document.body).append(""),A,possible,duplicate,record,was,found,please;n:");";$("#name").focusout(function(){var r=Xrm.Page.getAttribute("name").getValue(),u="/AccountSet?$filter=Name eq '"+r+"'",n=Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl(),t;n.match(/\/$/)&&(n=n.substring(0,n.length-1)),t=n+"/XRMServices/2011/OrganizationData.svc"+u,$.ajax({type:"GET",contentType:"application/json; charset=utf-8",datatype:"json",url:t,beforeSend:function(n){n.setRequestHeader("Accept","application/json")},success:function(n){var u=n.d.results,f,e;if($.fx.speeds._default=1e3,$(document).ready(function(){$("#dialog").dialog({autoOpen:!1,show:"blind",hide:"explode",modal:!0})}),u.length>0){for(i=0;i

We have compressed the code from:
Original Size: 1953 bytes; reduced size: 1085 bytes (44.4% minification)

The tool also provides an approximate Gzip compression:

Gzip of output approximately 887 bytes (18.2% compression)

Summary
This tool can help reduce the code footprint on customizations with large usage of javascript and css files, and is a great way to tackle latency and keep the code running at optimal performance.

Hope this was useful.

Dynamics CRM 2011 Provision Rollups per Organization

With Dynamics CRM 2011 we can now deploy update rollups without updating the Organization database, the advantages are:

1. Deploy Update Rollups per Organization and not to the entire Environment.
2. Test binaries before updating the database

By default it updates the database as you install an update rollup, to stop it from automatically update the databases, run the following powershell script:

Open PowerShell copy+paste the below commands; on the last line hit enter:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Crm.PowerShell
$setting = New-Object "Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Deployment.ConfigurationEntity"
$setting.LogicalName = "Deployment"
$setting.Attributes = New-Object "Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Deployment.AttributeCollection"
$attribute = New-Object "System.Collections.Generic.KeyValuePair[String, Object]" ("AutomaticallyInstallDatabaseUpdates", 0)
$setting.Attributes.Add($attribute)
Set-CrmAdvancedSetting -Entity $setting

Note: what the powershell script does, sets to 0 the database field AutomaticallyInstallDatabaseUpdates on the DeploymentProperties table of the MSCRM_CONFIG database.

Now if you Install the latest rollup; when you open deployment manager the column 'version' should still show the previous RU version for all organizations; to update the database for a specific organization right click the organization you want to update and click Update:

 If you get the below error, stop the Asynchronous service and try again.

 

 



















After you update the organization, you now have one organization with RU6 and other with RU10:

You ready for testing :)

Hope was helpful.

Dynamics CRM 2011 leverage duplicate detection with jquery

Have you come across a situation where users take a considerable amount of time filling in a form and at the end the CRM duplicate detection pops-up?

With Jquery we can pro-actively check for duplicate records performing a number of checks on the background; on a successful trigger alert the user.

The process is straight forward, however I have used jquery CSS UI libraries to give the solution a better look-and-feel. You can download the CRM unmanaged solution on the following link:
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Dynamics-CRM-2011-3e9fdb10

If you would like to change the pop-up colour and layout, look at the available jquery UI libraries:
http://jqueryui.com/

When you download the solution and import it into CRM, load the following resources on the account form properties:

Below is the javascript code that performs the duplicate check.  On this example it checks for the account name, however you can extend this and perform multiple checks and combinations of data:

function idp() {

var isCreateForm = Xrm.Page.ui.getFormType() == 1;
if (isCreateForm) {

$.ajaxSetup({cache:false});
$(document.body).append("
A possible duplicate record was found, please review:
");

$('#name').focusout(function() {

var name = Xrm.Page.getAttribute('name').getValue();
var query = "/AccountSet?$filter=Name eq '"+name+"'";

var serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl();

    if (serverUrl.match(/\/$/)) {
        serverUrl = serverUrl.substring(0, serverUrl.length - 1);
    }

    var ODataURL = serverUrl + "/XRMServices/2011/OrganizationData.svc" + query;

    $.ajax({
        type: "GET",
        contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
        datatype: "json",
        url: ODataURL,
        beforeSend: function (XMLHttpRequest) {
            XMLHttpRequest.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");
        },
        success: function (data, textStatus, XmlHttpRequest) {
           var entities = data.d.results;
    $.fx.speeds._default = 1000;
    $(document).ready(function() {
        $("#dialog").dialog({
            autoOpen: false,
            show: "blind",
            hide: "explode",
            modal: true
        });

    });
if(entities.length > 0 ) {
  for( i=0; i< entities.length; i++)
  {
     var entity = entities[i];
}    

var entityUrl = "main.aspx?etn=account&pagetype=entityrecord&id=";
$(document).ready(function() {
                             $("#link").empty();
                             $("#link").append(document.createTextNode(entity.Name));
                             $("a#link").attr("href","/"+entityUrl+"%7B"+entity.AccountId+"%7D"+"");
                             $('#dialog').dialog("open");
});
          
}

        },
        error: function (XmlHttpRequest, textStatus, errorObject) {
            alert("OData Execution Error Occurred");
        }
    });


});

}

}

Dynamics CRM 2011 take other user share view ownership - workaround

Have you previously come across a user that wants to delete a number of views shared by another user that left the company?

The problem in CRM is that at admin level you can't take ownership of the view assigning this to yourself, because the level of permissions on the security role are only at the user-level.

I have filed an improvement request on Microsoft Dynamics CRM connect website to introduce more flexibility around this, Please vote:
https://connect.microsoft.com/dynamicssuggestions/feedback/details/757204/admin-full-access-to-shared-views

To resolve the problem you could easily reset the user AD password, however in large companies you would have to file a HR form requesting permissions for this, because you will be accessing information owned by someone else in the company.

The workaround for this is quite straight forward and all done on the CRM side.

1. Create an AD test account
2. In CRM open the profile of the user that left the company and change the Domain Logon Name to the new test account, press tab, make sure the first and last name loads for the new account and press save, make sure you assign a security role.
3. Over the IE icon, press SHIFT+Right-Click > Select Run as different user 
4. Type the credentials of the test account you created on step 1, IE will run under the test account context.
5. Open CRM and voila your test account took ownership of all the data of the user that left the company
6. Update the views etc...
7. Revert the changes back to the user account that left the company by again updating the Domain logon name.

Note: you obviously don't want to do this everyday, the long term solution is to wait on Microsoft to introduce new features around this. Please vote on my feature request above.

Dynamics CRM 2011 Optimization guide

View the wiki technet article here:  http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/13661.dynamics-crm-2011-quick-optmization-guide.aspx

I've put together a high-level list of optimizations for dynamics CRM to centralise information for myself, and thought sharing would be helpful for someone, I'll keep this list updated as I find more information.

1. Authentication
2. IIS
3. CRM Registry Keys
4. Database
5. Outlook Client
6. Internet Explorer
7. Email Router
8. Monitoring
9. Resources

1. Authentication

The number of authentication request's and authentication challenges takes valuable seconds deteriorating performance.

• Application Pool Kernel Mode authentication enabled
• Enable Kerberos
• http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/extreme-performance-with-dynamics-crm.html 
• Enable useAppPoolCredentials
• Enable authPersistNonNTLM
• [PFE] - SPN confguration SpreadSheet
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2012/12/20/crm-2011-service-principal-names-spn-generation-and-usage.aspx

Resources:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2593042

2. IIS

• AppPool Recycling
• Configure to recycle after hours.

• WCF Compression - enable compression for the content-type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf8 this content type is used by the Outlook client HTTP requests. Compressing this traffic reduces network traffic and improves communication.
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2011/12/29/enable-wcf-compression-to-improve-crm-2011-network-performance.aspx
• Enable Dynamic Compression
• http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/system.webServer/httpCompression
• 
  

3. CRM Registry Keys
A number of tweaks can be done on the CRM side to improve performance.

• You can control the size of the Workflow table by deleting completed Workflows with a registry key, this is a nice way to improve performance on the database side, however this can only be applied if you don't need the workflow history.
• Name: AsyncRemoveCompletedWorkflows
• Type: DWORD
• Value: 1
• Improve SQL Performance EnableRetrieveMultiple
• Type: DWORD
• Value: 2 (Decimal)
• Fixes a number of issues around the SQL tempdb database and improves performance
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2535245
• Note that with RU10 the suggested default option is 0 read more on the [1] resource document optimizing and maintaining performance.
• Disable the email pop-up reminder to speed up load times
• Name: DisablePendingEmailReminder
• Type: DWORD
• Value: 1
• Set a preferred Domain Controller to speed up AD checks
• Name: PreferredDC
• Type: String
• Value: DC_Name
• 
  

There are a number of registry keys targeting different types of performance issues and types of environments, Microsoft is now releasing with each update Roll Up a package named:'tools'.This package contains a tool that can implement a number of updates/optimizations which were previously reserved for registry implementations, this way makes it easier to enable optimizations centrally and avoid creating registry keys across multiple front-end servers.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2691237
e.g number of registry keys part of RU6

• DisableSmartMatching
• Default Value – False
• AutoCreateContactOnPromote
• Default Value - True
• BackgroundSendBatchFile
• Default Value – 10
• DisableInactiveRecordFilterForMailMerge
• Default Value - False
• LookupNameMatchesDuringImport
• Default Value - False
• EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization
• Default Value - 1
• DoNotIgnoreInternalEmailToQueues
• Default Value - False
• SkipSuffixOnKBArticles
• Default Value - False
• SkipGettingRecordCountForPaging
• Default Value – False

4. Database

• CRM Indexes with DMVs
• http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/dynamics-crm-database-optimization-with.html
• CRM SQL Maintenance jobs
• https://community.dynamics.com/product/crm/crmtechnical/b/crminthefield/archive/2012/04/26/avoid-performance-issues-by-rescheduling-crm-2011-maintenance-jobs.aspx
• http://crmjobeditor.codeplex.com/
• Optimizing CRM built-in maintenance jobs with Indexes
• http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/dynamics-crm-2011-optimize-built-in.html
• Max parallelism set to 1
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979074.aspx 
• Enable Lock Pages in memory forcing SQL queries to run using physical memory
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190730(v=sql.105).aspx
• Enable Read Committed Snapshot isolation to avoid deadlocks
• http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24923
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345124.aspx
• Maintenance of the Workflow Table AsyncOperationBase
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968520
• Maintenance of the Principal Object table PrincipalObjectAccess
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2664150
• SQL Deadlocks article
• http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/dynamics-crm-40-sql-dead-locks.html

5. Outlook Client

• Outlook client optimization
• http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/dynamics-crm-2011-outlook-client.html
• Registry Keys
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2585157 
• Increase the CRM Sync options, this depends on your environment.Settings > Email
• Promote emails
• Syncronization
• Manage Outlook filters
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crm/archive/2011/06/02/controlling-user-synchronization-settings.aspx
• Disable cached pinned-views with a registry key on the client side
• Name: DisableMapiCaching
• Type: DWORD
• Value: 1

Note: Make sure you enable IIS WCF compression from point 2. IIS

6. Internet Explorer

• Ensure CRM url is added to the local intranet zone
• Authentication Options
• AutoLogon
• Windows Integrated Authentication
• Reset Zoom level for new windows and tabs
• Disk space for temporary internet files
• 250MB
• Increase IE connections to the server with Registry Keys
• http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=282402 

7. Email Router

• Installing email router on multiple servers
• http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/dynamics-crm-installing-email-router-on.html
• Load Balance Email router
• http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/dynamics-crm-load-balance-email-router.html
• Scalling Email router with Business Units
• http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/dynamics-crm-2011-scaling-email-router.html
• [PFE] - Email router scalability and availability
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2012/10/28/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011-e-mail-router-availability-and-scalability.aspx
• Reduce the configuration update period
• Open the Microsoft.Crm.Tools.EmailAgent.xml in notepad and edit the following line to 86400000 this will set the email router to update the user list once a day, this is important if you have a large number of users in your environment.
• <configupdateperiod>86400000</configupdateperiod>
• Increase the number of emails to process on each batch
• On the same file as above you need to add an extra section to override some of the settings, this will stay included on the  <systemconfiguration> section:</systemconfiguration>
•  <provideroverrides>
•   <cachecapacity>1024  </cachecapacity>
•   <pendingstatusdelay>300000 </pendingstatusdelay>
•   <sendingstatusdelay>1800000 </sendingstatusdelay>
•   <maximumdeliveryattempts>10 </maximumdeliveryattempts>
•   <retrievemessagecount>10  </retrievemessagecount>
•   <batchsize>50 </batchsize>
•   <requestbatchsize>50 </requestbatchsize>
• </provideroverrides>

for more information on how to use <proveroverrides> </proveroverrides> go to:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972150

If you have more than 5000 users in your environment you will need to increase email router limits on how many users to load from CRM by setting MaxRowsPerPage on the front-end server:

• Name: MaxRowsPerPage
• Type: DWORD
• Value: Number_of_rows (Decimal)

8. Monitoring

• Use SSIS to monitor pending emails
• http://quantusdynamics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/dynamics-crm-2011-using-ssis-to-monitor.html

 8. Resources 

1. [CRM 2011] Optimizing and Maintaining the Performance of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server Infrastructure. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27139
2. [CRM 2011] Optimizing and Maintaining Client Performance for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and CRM Online. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=23261
3. [CRM 4][NB] Security and Authentication in Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Connectivity and Firewall Port Requirements in On-Premise Deployments. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=12774
4. [CRM4][NB] Security and Authentication in Microsoft Dynamics CRM: The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Security Model. http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=12108
5. [CRM4] Outlook Synchronization in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17594
6. [CRM4] [NB] Offline and Online Synchronization in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2737
7. [CRM4] Sharing Data across Microsoft Dynamics CRM Deployments. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10151
8. [CRM4] Optimizing and Maintaining Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3997
9. [CRM2011] [Email Router] How to configure the Microsoft Dynamics CRM on-premises and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online E-mail Router in different deployment scenarios. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21445
10. [CRM 2011] Deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and CRM Online Solutions from Development through Test and Production Environments. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27824
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