Getting started with writing JScript in MS CRM 2011: Step by Step

We are just in the process on migrating to 2011 and I was just trying to write some JScripts for testing purposes. However, I found that the way of writing JScript in 2011 has changed a bit and after some trying, the below are the steps that I used to write my JScripts:

1. I created a simple JScript function as shown below in Visual Studio:

function welcome() {

    alert("Welcome to CRM 2011");
}

BTW, it looks like all the JScript in 2011 can only be accessed using functions.
2. Save this file as TestWebResource.js
3. Open CRM and go to your custom entity's customization and click on Form Properties
4. Under Form Libraries -->Click on "Add"
5. In the Look Up Record, click on the "New" Button
6. In the "Web Resource: New" window, fill the mandatory fields and then click on "Browse" -->select the JScript file that we  had saved earlier and open. Save this file(I also published it).
7. Select OK in the "Look Up Record" window
8. You should be back at the main "Form Properties" window as shown below:

9. Now, click the "Add" button under Event Handlers for the onLoad event.
10. The library will default to our jscript file. Type "welcome" as the function name and click on OK
11. Save and Publish.
12. Click on Preview-->Create Form
13. You should see the alert being displayed:

Thanks!

Error while Importing a solution in CRM 2011 - The solution file is invalid. The compressed file must contain the following files at its root: solution.xml, customizations.xml, and [Content_Types].xml

I was trying to add a button to the ribbon but I was not able to test it as I would keep getting the below error while trying to import the solution zip files:

After spending a huge amount of time checking and rechecking my code, I was finally sure that the issue had to be somewhere else.
Finally, it turned out that when I used to zip the folder using the built in windows compression(zip), it would create a folder inside the zip file and place the solution files inside this folder.

So, as the error above states, CRM is looking for those files in the "Root" but was actually finding a folder in it's place and hence throwing the error. When I selected the solution files and zippped them directly, the import was successful. I know this might be a small thing but it definitely cost me an awful lot of time. :)

Adding a button to the CRM 2011 ribbon

I found a nice article about adding a button to the CRM 2011 ribbon here:

http://gtcrm.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/quick-reference-for-adding-a-button-to-the-crm-2011-ribbon/

Invalid column name 'DeletionStateCode' CRM 2011 upgrade

I was getting the error "Invalid column name 'DeletionStateCode'" when I was trying to upgrade from 4.0 to 2011. After a lot of trials and errors I got to know that there were many stored procedures and triggers in the database which were referencing to this column. 


Since the 'DeletionStateCode' has been dropped in 2011, maybe it was erroring out while trying to upgrade them.


Solution: I deleted all the triggers and stored procs from the database as it was just a test environment and I was able to install 2011 sucessfully.

Bulk Delete/Drop Stored Procedures from Database

I had to recently clean up a database and get rid of all the custom stored procedures in it. Unfortunately, there were more than a 100 SP's in the database and it was not possible to delete them one by one. Fortunately, I found a great line of code here (http://forums.asp.net/t/1340617.aspx) that will give me a list of all the stored procedures with the 'Drop' command. I just had to copy the results from the below query, paste and execute them in the query editor window.

Select 'Drop Procedure ' + name from sys.procedures Where [type] = 'P' and is_ms_shipped = 0 and [name] not like 'sp[_]%diagram%' and name like 'usp_%'

Getting the CRM 4.0 License Key from the Database

Hi,

I found the below query that can help us to retrieve the CRM 4.0 license key from the database. Run it against the MSCRM_Config DB:

SELECT LicenseKey FROM ConfigSettings

Update

The above code does not work for CRM 2013. Please find the updated query to find the license key specific to an Organization in CRM 2013

SELECT B.NVarCharColumn 
FROM [dbo].[ConfigSettings] A , [dbo].[ConfigSettingsProperties] B
Where A.Id=b.Id
And B.ColumnName='LicenseKeyV6RTM'

Getting clean HTML from a Word document using Gmail

Recently, I had to convert a word document into an HTML file. First, like everyone else, I tried to directly save the word file as HTML web page from word.
This saved the file as HTML alright, but when I went to view the HTML source, there were just too many unnecessary tags and the HTML looked almost illegible. So I had to find other means to get this done.

After some search on the Internet, I got to know the following method which helped me get clean HTML out of my word document.
1. Send the word document as an attachment to your Gmail account.
2. Log into Gmail.

3. Open the email with this attachment and click on the "View" next to the attachment.

4. This will open up a new window/tab where Gmail tries to read your word document.
5. On this page click on View->Plain HTML
6. Now you should see the same data without all the formatting as just plain text.
7. Right Click on this Page->View Source to get the HTML portion of this page.
8. The HTML you have right now will be very clean and you can easily work with it from here on.

That's it!