3 simple steps: (this assumes you have setup a remote branch called upstream that points at the original repo)
And to setup a remote called upstream that points at the original repo:
git remote add upstream {url to the original repo}
for more info see: https://help.github.com/articles/syncing-a-fork/
On the Case entity, the KB search is embedded as part of the Social Pane:
Now on a custom entity, after you have enabled it for Knowledge Management (done via Settings >> Service Management >> Embedded Knowledge Search), you have to add the KB control on to the form:
But, what if you wanted to add make it look like the Case entity, where the KB Search is part of the Social Pane? The “KB Search” tab does not show up as part of the properties of the Activities Tab.
The only way I have found to get it on the form is to manually edit the FormXML so that it shows up and then edit it via the form editor.
Here are the steps:
<parameters> |
<parameters> |
An azure website out of the box will not allow you to download static content files such as JSON, MP4, etc. If you need to enable this feature, you need to add a web.config file in the site/wwwroot folder with the following contents
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<staticContent>
<!--following needed only if extensions were defined at a different level -->
<!-- <remove fileExtension=".json" /> -->
<!-- for a good list of other mimetypes see: https://www.sitepoint.com/mime-types-complete-list/ -->
<mimeMap fileExtension="json" mimeType="application/json" />
<mimeMap fileExtension="mp4" mimeType="video/mp4" />
<mimeMap fileExtension="ogg" mimeType="audio/ogg" />
<mimeMap fileExtension="m4a" mimeType="audio/mp4" />
<mimeMap fileExtension="flv" mimeType="video/x-flv" />
<mimeMap fileExtension="woff" mimeType="application/font-woff" />
<mimeMap fileExtension="woff2" mimeType="application/font-woff2" />
<mimeMap fileExtension="ttf" mimeType="application/font-ttf" />
<mimeMap fileExtension="csv" mimeType="text/plain" />
</staticContent>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
You can pick and choose the values you need for fileextensions.
The Plugin Registration Tool stores its log files at: “C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Microsoft Dynamics365© Plug-in Registration Tool\”
You can get to it via this shortcut: %appdata%\Microsoft\Microsoft Dynamics365© Plug-in Registration Tool\
And while we are at it, the path to XRM Toolbox’s logs is: %appdata%\MscrmTools\XrmToolBox\Logs\
Note to self:
1. When a currency is labelled as being strong, it means that you get more of the other currency against the currency (eg: US$ is stronger than the Indian Rupee, that would mean you get more rupees per US$).
2. When a currency is labelled as being weak, it means that you get fewer of the other currency against the currency (eg: US$ is weaker than the Indian rupee, that would mean you get fewer rupees per US$).
So in this chart, the US$ has become stronger when compared to the INR (because you getting more INR per $ (INR 63.2/$) today than 52 weeks ago (INR 74.4/$)).
When a currency is stronger than its counterpart, different people benefit: The weaker sides exporters are happier as their exports are cheaper and the stronger sides exporters are less happy as their exports
US Exporter | US Importer | US Currency Holder | Indian Exporter | Indian Importer | Indian Currency Holder | |
US$ stronger/INR weaker | Unhappy | Happy | Happy | Happy | Unhappy | Unhappy |
| US$ weaker/INR stronger | Happy | Unhappy | Unhappy | Unhappy | Happy | Happy |
| Examples | Caterpillar, Boeing, US Software companies | Walmart, World Market | American tourist to India | Indian Software companies, Indian manufacturers | International companies that manufacture their goods elsewhere and import to India, Indian resellers | Indian tourist/student travelling to US |
If you get this error when working in Javascript with DynamicsCrm (or any system that uses Odata), and you get this error, then you most likely need to setup your object like this:
var request = {
ObjectId: {guid: "E8C656B7-6AD1-E811-A967-000D3A30D5DB"}
};
Otherwise, the request that will get sent will have undefined value and the response will have an error with the following message:
message=An error occurred while validating input parameters: Microsoft.OData.ODataException: Cannot convert the literal 'undefined' to the expected type 'Edm.Guid'. ---> System.FormatException: Guid should contain 32 digits with 4 dashes (xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).
When should you use a business rule (BR) and when should you use workflows?
First thing we should understand are that business rules are just another type of a process (just like Workflows and Business Process Flows). You can validate this by performing an advanced find and setting the category to Business Rule. Other options for category are:
Now when you create a business rule, there are 3 options (2 really), one that applies it to forms (all or specific) and the other that applies it to the entity. When you choose entity and create your BR, and activate it, you will find 2 entries in processes with the same name. One of these handles the javascript part (that gets run client side). The other is a synchronous workflow that runs on create and on update of the fields that are in conditionals of the business rule. You can look at the JavaScript that will run by looking at the ClientData field on Process. Also, the XAML field contains workflow.
Why is this important to know? Here is why:
1. If you have a business rule that needs to be run client side, then Business Rules are your best option. This is especially true if you want to show error messages or perform data validation.
2. But if you are going to have an entity level business rule and it doesn't really contain validation or error messages, then you have a choice: If you use a Workflow, you can decide to run it in the background (asynchronously).
Some other things to consider:
Business Rules have a nicer UI. But, every business rule that fires at the entity level creates a new synchronous workflow that fires on create and on update of a single field. If you use a workflow, you have more choices: you can create a single workflow that runs on Create, that does all the things that need to be done on create, this in my opinion is more efficient, then having multiple workflows that are all firing one after the other.
Also, look at the limitations of BR as defined in microsoft docs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/dynamicscrm-2016/admins-customizers-dynamics-365/mt826761(v=crm.8)#limitations
Inner workings of Business Rule javascript:
Finally, if you are curious about the inner workings of business rules, see the code at: https://github.com/rajrao/CRM-Tools/tree/master/JavaScript/BusinessRules
But basically here are the main things to know:
The javascript for the business rule is injected into the formscript for the form.
The function itself is setup to run on change of the fields that are in the conditionals.
The function is run once at form startup.
If you get the error: then know this: case matters and the field name is the schema name of the field!
An error occurred while validating input parameters: Microsoft.OData.ODataException: An undeclared property 'aaa_xxxxxid' which only has property annotations in the payload but no property value was found in the payload. In OData, only declared navigation properties and declared named streams can be represented as properties without values.
Please note that the field names are case sensitive and go by the “schema name”. In my case, the schema name was ‘aaa_XxxxxId’. Once that was fixed the code began working!
var entity = {};
entity["customerid_account@odata.bind"] = "/accounts(21876381-dc67-e811-a954-000d3a378ca2)";
entity["aaa_XxxxxId@odata.bind"] = "/aaa_xxxxx(c9edf6c0-d670-e811-a958-000d3a3780dd)";
entity.caseorigincode = 1;
entity["msdyn_incidenttype@odata.bind"] = "/msdyn_incidenttypes(6760f919-77b0-e811-a95c-000d3a378f36)";
The following notes are with regards to the “.net standard” Microsoft.Azure.ServiceBus library and details what each parameter is (because I found the documentation lacking in this regard).
Creating a token
Tokens are created using a TokenProvider. There are many options in instantiating a token provider and then one I am showing here utilizes the Shared Access Signature (SAS). But, if you are running your code in Azure, a better option would be to use the ManagedServiceIdentityProvider, as one doesnt need to share keys, etc.
To create a token using the “CreateSharedAccessSignatureTokenProvider(string keyName, string sharedAccessKey)”, you need a key name and its key. This is retrieved from the “Shared access policies” blade in Azure. Once you have these 2 values, you can create a tokenProvider.
TokenProvider tokenProvider = TokenProvider.CreateSharedAccessSignatureTokenProvider(keyName, sasKey);
The CreateSharedAccessSignatureTokenProvider has overloads, in which you can specify the TTL of the token and the scope (namespace vs entity).
To create the token, you need to use the “GetTokenAsync(string appliesTo, TimeSpan timeout)” on the tokenProvider. The “appliesto” defines the either the namespace or the entity and should be defined as follows:
For access to the entire namespace: testservicebusinstance.servicebus.windows.net
For access to an entity in the namespace called myFirstQueue: testservicebusinstance.servicebus.windows.net/myFirstQueue
Using the token
The GetTokenAsync method returns a token. The token contains a property called TokenValue. You use this TokenValue to work with the servicebus.
var tokenProvider = TokenProvider.CreateSharedAccessSignatureTokenProvider(token.TokenValue);
var client = new QueueClient("testservicebusinstance.servicebus.windows.net", "myFirstQueue", tokenProvider);
.
.
.
await client.SendAsync(message);
Controlling of access to the service bus:
There are 2 things that are possible:
1. restrict scope to the entity
2. specify if the token can manage,send or listen
The first one, I showed you in “creating a token”. The second one is not so obvious and is controlled by the Claims on the SaS policy that you are using (the keyName and sasKey for which you pulled from the SAS Policies blade in Azure).
When to use tokens:
Say you have a lot of different micro-services and they all need to get access the ServiceBus. Also, you dont want to give each one a key, as you now will have to figure out what to do if the key got compromised. Also, you dont want all services to be able to do anything and everything on the ServiceBus. In this case, you would need to stand up a token provider service. The microservices, would then authenticate with the token service and the token service would then determine what the microservice is authorized to do and return a token that has the appropriate claims and scope.
Best practices:
As you can see with the SharedAccessSignature option, you still need to provide your token service the sas-key. Instead, with the release of managed service identities support on ASB, one can do this without the sas-key. So, if your service is going to be hosted in Azure, then MSI is definitely the way to go.
With a Http request based trigger, how do you retrieve the query parameter values (eg: &queryParamName=hello%20world)? I did not find an answer easily on the internet, so here it is:
@triggerOutputs()['queries']['queryParamName']
The above example, will retrieve the query param value for a query param named “queryParamName” and return it as a response.
Another way to achieve the same thing, but in a simpler manner is to use the RelativePath:
When you add the relative path, you will have to get the updated HTTP Get URL (that gets generated for you) and in the URL you will find
invoke/queryParamName/{queryParamNameVar}
To call the logic-app, all you have to do is replace the bolded section with a value (invoke/queryParamName/hello%20world/.
I prefer using the relative-path method, because you will find that the logicApp designer will make the variable (in this case queryParamName), easily available to other actions, which is not just nicer, but also protects you from typos.
Here are all the steps needed to setup a secret in databricks (not key-vault) in Databricks. This works with the standard version of DB:
Install Databricks CLI:
1. install databricks cli (needs python)
pip install databricks-cli
2. Setup databricks token (needs token from user-settings in Databricks. Also needs the host url: eg Host: https://northcentralus.azuredatabricks.net)
databricks configure --token
3. Create a scope
databricks secrets create-scope --scope dbSecretsScope --initial-manage-principal "users"
4. Add a key-value to scope
databricks secrets put --scope dbSecretsScope --key mydbPassword --string-value myPasswordValue
5. List keys in scope
databricks secrets list --scope dbSecretsScope
Create a Python notebook and add the following code in a cell and run it
sqlserver = xxxxx.database.windows.net'
port = '1433'
database = 'myFirstDb'
user = 'iamspecial'
pswd = dbutils.secrets.get("dbSecretsScope","mydbPassword")
print "password is", pswd #will display redacted – very important!
table = 'myFirstTable'
## Load Data Frame ##
df1 = spark.read \
.option('user', user) \
.option('password', pswd) \
.jdbc('jdbc:sqlserver://' + sqlserver + ':' + port + ';database=' + database, table)
df1 #to display the dataframe to make sure we connected
Error: Only owner can revoke access to the owner. CallerId: xxxxxx, OwnerId: yyyyyyy
I was getting this error when attempting to revoke access from yyyyyy via code on an account entity. What I found out was that while yyyyyy was the owner of the entity, I could successfully revoke access from the entity.
Instead, I first had to assign the entity to the new owner (xxxxxx) and only then could I revoke access from yyyyyy.
Xrm.Page is being deprecated and one needs to pass the executionContext to the javascript function to get at the data that was available from Xrm.Page. But, how do you test your function from the browser’s debbuger?
What I do is I create my own executionContext variable and then pass it to my js function to see how it would work.
| fakeExecutionContext = { getFormContext: function(){return Xrm.Page;}, context: Xrm.Page.context } |
and you would call it like this:
myTestDynamicsFunction(fakeExecutionContext);
You might get the “Please provide a valid tenant or a valid subscription” error when running some Azure powershell commands (I got it when I ran “Get-AzSKAzureServicesSecurityStatus”).
The first thing to make sure is that you have at least version 5 of PowerShell. You can find this by running “$PSVersionTable” and making sure your PSVersion value is 5.0 or greater.
In my case, what I found out was the reason I was getting this error was that the subscriptionid I was providing was not the same one as the account that I was logged in on the computer. So, what I had to do was to log in to Azure using “Login-AzureRmAccount”. Once I had done that, running the command worked flawlessly.
I was trying to use the Logic Apps “Sql Server” trigger (When an item is created), and the trigger was always being skipped.
After much testing and looking, I found the following requirements for a SQL Server trigger: https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-triggers-in-the-sql-connector/
Limitations
The triggers do have the following limitations:
- Table must have an IDENTITY column for the new row trigger
- Table must have a ROWVERSION (a.k.a. TIMESTAMP) column for the modified row trigger
A table with the following definition will trigger LogicApps, when data is added (or updated, based on the type of trigger you use):
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Test2](
[Id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[RowVersion] [timestamp] NOT NULL,
[Message1] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
[Message2] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_Test2] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[Id] ASC
)WITH (STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
Its unfortunate that LogicApps works without any errors, when you dont have an identity and a rowversion column defined on your table. It would have saved me some time if it had!
FlatIcons.net is a great resource for free icons for Dynamics CRM.
I have found the following settings work best: (you need a 16x16 and 32x32 icon and I use 0 padding on both).
The icon color is set to 656565.
And here is an example of how it looks
Not sure if this is a v9.0 issue or not, but I dont have the “My Apps” link, which is needed to manage applications available to your organization (specifically, I needed to manage roles to hide some of the apps from users).
To fix this:
You should now have a link to My Apps:
And you should be able to fix the roles via:
To understand how SLAs work, its good to follow along how things get setup on a new entity that is enabled for tracking SLAs.
For a quick intro, first read: http://blog.aggregatedintelligence.com/2018/07/creating-enhanced-sla.html
Enhanced SLAs allow you to track SLAs on any entity. For this example we will use the “Workflow” entity (which behind the scenes is pretty much a custom entity).
Testing:
Notes:
As of this blog post, here are some limits you need to be aware of (and they only apply to the online CRM instance):
For this example, we will create an SLA on the Case entity to measure the first response sent KPI. We will set it up to such that we expect the First response to be sent within 15 minutes of the case being created and a warning will be displayed if the first response has not been sent within 5 minutes.
Testing the changes:
You need to setup your advanced find like so:
<fetch version="1.0" output-format="xml-platform" mapping="logical" distinct="false">
<entity name="workflow">
<attribute name="workflowid" />
<attribute name="name" />
<attribute name="category" />
<attribute name="primaryentity" />
<attribute name="statecode" />
<attribute name="createdon" />
<attribute name="ownerid" />
<attribute name="owningbusinessunit" />
<attribute name="type" />
<attribute name="rendererobjecttypecode" />
<order attribute="name" descending="false" />
<filter type="and">
<condition attribute="category" operator="eq" value="0" />
<condition attribute="rendererobjecttypecode" operator="in">
<value>9750</value>
<value>9751</value>
<value>9752</value>
</condition>
</filter>
</entity>
</fetch>
Sometimes when opening an entity record in Dynamics CRM, you get the error “Record is Unavailable” and in the log file it contains the following error: “Microsoft.Crm.CrmException: systemform With Id = xxxxxxxxxxx not found”. I am not sure why exactly Dynamics CRM gets into this state and some of the solutions online are to clear your browser cache, etc.
In my case, the only way I was able to get the form to open was to get a link that forced a different form to be opened. You can do this one of 2 ways:
1. Have someone open an entity that you are having issues with and have them email you the link, using the Email Link functionality in the ribbon bar. Or
2. Use the following link and fill in the highlighted sections and enter it in the browser:
https://[dyanmicsCrmUrl]/main.aspx?pagetype=entityrecord&etn=[entityNameHere]&extraqs=formid%3d[GUIDHere]
And here is an example of how that might look:
https://myorgname.crm.dynamics.com/main.aspx?pagetype=entityrecord&etn=account&extraqs=formid%3d6da2bf43-566a-4622-9c06-f350ac6ebf67
I was trying to go from a standard tier to the free tier and I got a conflict error.
There are many reasons that you might get this error and they are typically related to some functionality not available in the free tier that you enabled in paid tiers. To figure out why, go into your App Service Plan and look at your activity log. You should an entry for operation name: “Update hosting plan” with a status of failed. If you look at the “Json” and search for “statusMessage”, you should be able to figure out why.
In my case the error was caused by the fact that I was using a hybrid connection.
"Cannot change to the target SKU 'Free' because the Hybrid Connections count will exceed the new limit of '0'\"
$applicationId = "Guid"
$tenantId = "Guid"
$subscriptiondId = "Guid"
$sharedSecret = "SharedSecretKey"
#convert to securestring
$secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $sharedSecret -AsPlainText –Force
#create credential object
$credential = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $applicationId, $secpasswd
#connect to Azure
Connect-AzureRmAccount -ServicePrincipal -Credential $credential -TenantId $tenantId -SubscriptionId $subscriptionId
#test it!
Get-AzureRmResourceGroup
When you need to deploy from VSTS (VisualStudio.com) either via a build or via the release pipeline, you need a service principal that allows VSTS to access your Azure subscription. When the Azure subscription is connected directly to your VSTS account, you can use the simple version of the “New Service Endpoint” dialog. But, if the VSTS or Azure subscriptions are disconnected, then you need to use the full version of the “New Service Endpoint” dialog. This post goes into how you can manually do that:
What you need on the Azure side:
In Visual Studio:
Now click on “Verify Connection” and it should come back with a value of “verified”.
curl url -s --write-out "Total Time: %{time_total} Code: %{http_code} downloadsize: %{size_download}" -o output
eg:
curl https://www.google.com -s --write-out "Total Time: %{time_total} Code: %{http_code} downloadsize: %{size_download}" -o output
outputs: Total Time: 0.234000 Code: 200 downloadsize: 24744
The house that I lived in had a 50 gallon storage water heater which was installed when the house was built (around 1995). In 2017, it had put in almost 22 years of service and instead of waiting for it to fail and deal with all the problems that might come with it, I decided to proactively replace it.
One of the options I wanted to investigate was replacing the old water heater with a tankless water heater, which are supposed to be more efficient in their energy usage. What I found was that the price for tank + labor was quite a bit more: $1800 for storage water heater vs $4500 for a tankless (approximately). There are lots of variables in the quotes as it depends on features, permits that you might have to pull and installation location. Its normally cheaper to replace the storage water heater with another storage water heater, as it typically will go into the original location with very little plumbing changes. Whereas, with a tankless water heater, you need to move it to a location where you can mount it (typically a wall) and it needs venting, etc. Apart from the price of a tankless water heater, something else that people complain about is the amount of time it takes to get hot water out of the faucet.
Having looked at my 2 major options, I opted to go with a tankless water, and the main reason was to get more space in my small basement. I dont think the energy savings will justify the price difference (at least in the short run of 5 to 10 years), but I think the extra space I get when I finish my basement will definitely make it worth it.
The above pictures show the old storage water heater and the new tankless water heater and it shows the amount of space I saved by going to a tankless system thats mounted on the wall.
There are many tankless water heater models: Rheem, Navien and Rinnai, just to name a few. I really liked the Navien for its looks, but I settled on the Rinnai RUR98in. RUR98in is a 9.8 gallon per minute (i.e. it can heat by a certain amount 9.8 gallons of water per minute. A RUR80 model would be able to heat by the same amount, 8 gallons of water per minute). Rinnai has a nice tool on their site that can recommend a tankless water heater model for your home: Residential Product Finder. The IN stands for indoor natural gas. The R in the RUR, stands for recirculation and what that means is that this water heater comes with an inbuilt recirculation pump (that Rinnai calls ThermaCirc360 technology).
The ReCirc technology, requires a special bypass valve to be installed at one of your farthest sinks. Once you have the by-pass valve installed, you can set up the water heater to automatically turn on at predetermined times and it will begin circulating water and pre-heating it, so that you dont have to wait for hot-water, which is the biggest complaint that people have with tankless water heaters. In my experience, with the old storage water heater, it used to take about 1 minute until hot water began flowing from the faucet in the mornings (at the sink that was the farthest from the water heater). With the tankless water heater and recirc mode turned off, I find that it now takes about 2 minutes before hot-water flows from the faucet (I have high efficiency faucets, which means 1.5 gallons per minute). Obviously, with the recirc mode turned on, there is no waiting for hot water ( maybe 15 to 20 seconds). One issue I have with the Rinnai RUR98in, is that you get to only control the time at which you turn on the recirc pump in 1 hour increments. This seems inefficent and I wish it was controllable at a finer grain of time (15 minutes or 30 minutes). So, for now, I have the recirc pump turned off as I am trying to figure out the difference in energy consumption between using the Recirc mode and not using it. Something else to note is that Rinnai has multiple ways to turn on the Recirc pump (wifi, sensors, etc). These dont come standard with the tank and have to be bought separately.
Installation Experience
I got estimates from multiple companies. Some were proper plumbing companies, others were local plumbers. The price difference between 2 groups was on average about $750 (local plumber being cheaper). With both groups, I requested that the work be done with all the proper permits being pulled. I choose to use a local plumber, not only because they were slightly cheaper, but because I wanted to support somebody that was local and they came with good recommendations from the community. I bought the water heater personally from Lowes, as I was able to put it on my credit card, which worked out well for me. This option didnt turn out so well for me, as the plumber was very busy and the entire process from when I bought the tank to when it got installed almost took 4 months. So your mileage might vary. Something I would advice on is that, which ever option you pick, you must ask for a permit to be pulled. The main reason for this is, this is a gas appliance and you want all the safety measures to be taken during installation. Again, this is where my experience was not the best: if you look closely at my tankless water installation, there is no valve on the gas in-line to the tank, this is required for safety reasons and a building inspector would not pass the permit until this is installed. Another piece, that I think is missing is an expansion tank that should be put on the water-in line. Now, I need to find a different plumber who can remediate these issues and finish up the permit process. But apart from those 2 issues (that I know of), the local plumber did a good job of installation and everything is nice and clean and is still working 3 months since it went online.
I also, installed a Explosive Gas and Carbon Monoxide Alarm in the basement, just to be sure that there were no leaks, etc (amazon link).
I will continue to post here any future updates I have with my experience with my tankless water heater.ha
Update: 9/8/2018:
The plumber that I had used, did not install a gas shut off valve at the tankless heater. This was a safety issue for me. I had Hot Water Now come out and install a gas valve. At the same time, I had them also perform a flush of the unit. The cost was $150 + parts. Definitely gives me peace of mind and the next time, I can perform the flush myself, as the unit now has the gas shut off valve.
Also, now that I have had the unit running for almost 8 months I have some energy usage stats:
The unit was installed in December and the graph above shows the energy usage and temperature over that period. The winter months, show a higher natural gas usage and I think that is because of the lower temperatures. What is interesting is the energy savings over the spring and summer months, as those are the months, where the only gas consumption was by the water heater and the furnace was off for that entire period (red box). As you can see from the table below, the savings are quite dramatic:
Though the $ amount saved was about $40 for the entire period (Jan to Aug).
Here are some extremely useful videos regarding Tankless water heaters:
Flushing/Descalling
Tankless water heaters should last a long time (20+ years as opposed to 10 years for modern storage water heaters). But there is maintenance that one needs to do. Approximately every year or 2, you need to perform a flush to descale the inside. Here is a video that shows you how this is done:
