Wondering if anyone can help a total newbie to Dynamics 365. Have started working on an existing implementation of Dynamics 365 (on premise) and am told by current developers that under no circumstances can I amend a column in a table for one of our entities directly on the DB. I am simply wanting to default an INT column to value 1.
They tell me "Dynamics is a black box and you will be breaking the law if you amend directly". This can't be true can it?
Thanks for any advice you can offer.
Building on what Josh said, it is true that the Dynamics SQL database is a black box. Everything must be done through the API with the exception of creating custom indexes on tables and reading from the "Filtered" views.
(And with the new T-SQL endpoint in preview for the online product, you're able to run SQL select queries against an online org.)
The reason for this that all events in Dynamics go through the "platform" via messages. For example, you might have plugin or workflow automation that triggers on the Update of an Account. When the platform receives the "Update" message for an Account, it searches for subscribers to that event and runs any subscribed processes. If you write a change directly to an Account record in SQL, you deprive the platform of the opportunity to run its processes for that event.
And it is good to note that Microsoft uses the same event framework for internal events. So, if you say, "Well, I have no custom plugins or workflows running on the Update message for Accounts so I can edit Accounts directly in SQL." By doing so you'd still risk breaking an internal Microsoft process that triggers on that event.
In a nutshell the platform's need to process ALL events is why direct updates to the database are unsupported. If you do them, Microsoft will refuse to support your system.
Another consideration is that if you ever want to move to the Dynamics Online, writing to the database isn't even possible, so you'd have to redo any automation that relied on that. This is another reason why everyone generally accepts the need to customize their system in the supported way.
Do people occasionally do unsupported things, with good justification? Yes, perhaps most commonly in making unsupported changes to the UI. Even so, writing directly to the database is among the highest offenses to be avoided.
Back to your scenario... it can be jarring to discover that the SQL database is off limits for any direct writing or schema changes. Fortunately Dynamics provides many other automation "hooks" including client-side JavaScript, Business Rules, Power Automate Flows, workflows, and plugins (synchronous and asynchronous).
To set a default value in the UI, the options include a Business Rule and JavaScript. To set a default value in the database, a synchronous workflow or plugin would do the trick.
The Developer Guide is a good place to start.
This would be considered an “unsupported” customization by Microsoft. If it breaks something in the logic of the app, Microsoft won’t help you fix it. If you ever move to Online instead of On-premise, you won’t have this ability. The current developers are battle-hardened and are trying to help you. This is a very bad idea - better would be to create a plug-in on Create of that entity that sets up default values for null fields. This way your logic is in the app with all the other custom logic and is supported.
Related
I've inherited a Dynamics CRM system at work, running: Version 1612 (8.2.2.112) (DB 8.2.2.112) on-premises.
We're in a situation where duplication seems to be happening intermittently via failed form submissions, with a subsequent re-submission. We've internally released a document explaining this behaviour and expressed how important it is to check first if some or all of the transaction actually succeeded. But humans will be humans, and often forget...
With that said, as a DBA, my first instinct was to create a unique constraint/index. However, it's not clear to me how to best accomplish this in the scope of Dynamics. I'm not confident in the application-level Duplication Detection that's available built-in, and Alternate Keys don't work for us since many of our unique constraints require the inclusion of a DATE field or two.
From what I can tell, adding indexes to the CRM base tables is a supported DML action, but indicates that it prevents upgrades. Does this mean that we can't upgrade in the future? Or simply that the indexes will not be migrated during the upgrade?
Are there better solutions that I'm missing, which offer database-level consistency and don't impede upgrades?
With on-premise CRM you can add indexes, and it does not specify that this does not extend to clustered indexes. I very strongly recommend indexing CRM databases for performance. Per the developers guide:
For Microsoft Dynamics 365 on-premises deployments, adding indexes is
supported per the guidelines in the Deploying and administering
Microsoft Dynamics CRM documentation. This applies to all Microsoft
Dynamics 365 databases and the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Outlook
local database.
(I don't actually see anything related to indexes in the documentation mentioned above)
I am not sure which documentation you are referencing regarding upgrades not supporting these indexes, I have never experienced any difficulty upgrading CRM orgs with databases I indexed. However, there are apparently issues with upgrading to v9 related to full text indexes:
https://community.dynamics.com/crm/f/117/t/242951
Also if you ever move to CRM online, this entire approach will no longer work.
The approach which IS supported with all CRM environments is to write a synchronous pre-operation plugin which checks your uniqueness condition, and throws an InvalidPluginExecutionException. This exception can include a user friendly message which the user will receive in the standard error pop up window when they try to create a duplicate. This is guaranteed to be nicer experience than whatever happens when the application violates an index constraint.
I enforce contact email address uniqueness using this method and it works very nicely. I have a duplicate detection rule set up, and if the user ignores the duplicate warning and creates the contact anyway, they receive a message that duplicate email addresses are not allowed.
I have a logic question regarding the capabilities of automatically resolving Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM (or similar platforms) cases. I utilize an Access database to create emails to send to customers with specific data, while copying my team email to keep track of communications in Microsoft CRM. This action creates a new case in my CRM, which I then need to "Work On" case, add my specific operational catalogs and affected contacts, then finish case as Resolved just to ensure tracking in the CRM system.
My team is currently testing out the capabilities of XML coding in the email which allows the CRM to automatically capture the case specifics described above, however they still need to go in and resolve each case at the end of the day.
After some research, I see that a workflow may be able to do this job of automatically Resolving cases. Is this a possible function for a workflow or plugin to do? Alternatively I have been told by my IT department that we need to have a robot built to complete this task, but I would like to keep this as efficient (and cost savvy) as possible. Any input or suggestions are greatly valued and appreciated.
Thank you!
There are two ways you can solve your problem.
If you want to close all the "CASES" by the day end you can schedule
a "System Workflow" that will execute daily at a specific time and
"Close/Resolve" all the open CASES in your system. Please find below
link on how to setup a "Schedule Workflow" in Dynamics CRM Create
Recursive or Scheduled Workflows in CRM
You can resolve specific cases on Dynamics CRM using C#. Please find below link on how to resolve case using C#.How to close cases in crm 2011 programmatically
Yes. Workflows can be used to close Case records in CRM
If you have the resources (staff) available to write CRM code, you can do it via Code (C#) as well
I'll try to explain my goal as good as I can;
I want to trigger a script whenever there is a new computer added to a Organizational Unit.
To do this i need to activate the logging of this event under the local security policy/audit policy. I guess my question is, do I need to do this on all the domain controllers, or is it enough to do it one just one?
Also, is it possible to see the event from a member server with the Management Tools pack installed? As I don't want to put too much work on the Domain Controllers.
Here is the Microsoft article that gives 4 ways of tracking changes in Microsoft Active-Directory. You will find everything you need from configuring the eventlog to receiving notifications by way of different kind of polling.
I can't find much about this online so I was wondering if someone knew here.
Is SSRS 2005 if a user creates a subscription, will other users be able to view and edit those subsciptions? If not, is it possible to make subsciriptions visible to everyone?
Thanks
Quick answer is no.
Long answer is:
AFAIK, there is no site-wide subscription management functionality. The best you can do within Report Manager is site-wide schedule management, which allows admins to set up schedules at preferred times and let users choose those schedules when creating their subscriptions.
Our solution for controlling/centralising subscriptions was to set up a generic Windows user, log in to Report Manager and use that user to create all subscriptions. This means that all requests for subscriptions go through the IT department (+ or - depends on your situation. We didn't want users creating subscriptions themselves). All users who know the generic username/password can manage subscriptions in one place. Not ideal but it works for us.
Another option is that all the data for subscriptions is held on the Server, either in the Reporting Services database or in the Jobs themselves. If you are brave you can delve in and set up some sort of interface to access this.
This is definitely an area in which I find SSRS lacking.
Update:
You live and learn. I've just found that (provided you have sufficient privileges) if you open a report, then go to the subscriptions tab, you can view and edit any subscriptions that are set up on this report by any user. Still not ideal as you don't get an overview of the subscriptions across the system but better than the bleak picture I painted previously!
Is there a way to track user activity in Microsft Dynamics CRM? The end result would be a list of users, showing a datetime for each access into CRM, and possibly what modules are being accessed.
Also, is there a way to tie users to database connections, as is done in AX?
Why do you want to do this? The reason I ask is because there are many different ways to log user access depening on purpose.
Detailed access logging can be performed by IIS (web log).
Logons are also tracked in the Event Log->Security log.
Changes to entities can be tracked by implementing an audit log using workflows (or buying a third party component to do this).
The third option is to write a .NET plugin that logs whatever you want on whatever event you want on the entities you choose. Lookup plugins in the Microsoft CRM SDK for more information on how to do this.