We are strongly considering using Workflow Foundation 4 in our products, however must support both SQL Server and Oracle. Does anyone know an Oracle Instance Store provider for Workflow Foundation 4?
I know I could use SQL Server Express for it, but some of our customers use Oracle, and don't want to have an SQL Server, even free, to manage.
Tks
If you do not mind using a commercial product then DevExpress has a very good solution. 16 database systems are supported along with re hosted designer and custom activities. Read more in this post XAF Workflow persistence storage
An updated devart link on the subject. It works well for me, for the persistance and the tracking participant also.
http://www.devart.com/blogs/dotconnect/?p=5566
AFAIK there is no publicly available version of the instance that works with Oracle. I have seen the question a number of times however so I can only encourage someone to publish one of those I suspect have been created privately on CodePlex.
Use this dll. We are using it and works well. Still need to check tracking and load testing.
http://www.devart.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21044&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=&sid=a5e672c431dafecb1e675b6fbecc5183
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I am new to Xamarin and I recently have an assignment that I need to access to a remote database through Xamarin Portable. I have an Appharbor database, and I heard that WCF will do the job. Any guidance to achieve that?
*It also needs the ability to alter the content of database.
The question is what database you use MSSQL ? At most databases you need something between the database and the App like WCF.
But today mostly used are Web API's for that thing. You can learn more about it here http://www.asp.net/web-api
I an new to both Dynamics CRM (Hosted) and LINQ, so please forgive my ignorance with this question...
I need to access some data stored in the CRM, but have no idea how to get at it. Normally I would open my SQL Management software and look around for the data, but I cant do that with the Hosted CRM data.
So.... My question is, is there anyway to visualise the 'database' to find the data I need to recal ???
Thanks in advance.
If you want manipulate the data of a CRM 2011 instance is necessary to follow some rules.
For CRUD and business operations you need use the CRM 2011 web services (also in combination with LINQ)
Is also possible (if you can connect to the DB) to read the data from Filtered Views, a Filtered View is a view mapped on a standard CRM entity (for example to read the data from the entity Account you can use the view FilteredAccount)
Read or modify the data directly from the tables is not supported.
If you want to know the structure of the entities you can use the Customization area inside CRM, or install the Metadata Browser (a solution available inside the CRM 2011 SDK) to see the attributes and the relationships.
A good starting point is always the CRM 2011 SDK, you can download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24004
Inside you will find many examples (if you want to use LINQ check the early-bound ones) and the assemblies and tools for development.
Download the SDK and import the Metadata Browser managed solution (\sdk\tools\metadatabrowser\metadatabrowser_2_0_0_0_managed.zip) into your CRM Live instance.
You could also try downloading the database schema for the out-of-the-box database setup. Not really optimal but it might work for you.
You could also install a local version of Dynamics CRM (say in a virtual machine) for testing (either via MSDN or the free trial download.) This will give you SQL access to the database.
I recommend going with the Metadata Browser, which will probably get you the information that you need. Since the Metadata Browser is a managed solution you can install and remove it without impacting the Default Solution or any other solution in the organization.
Actually it turns out it is possible to work with the Dynamics CRM Online 'database' in much the same way as you can with any number of SQL Manager tools.
Linqpad4 - allows you to work with a number of environments and write your queries in VB, C# and even SQL.
It looks like a great tool, and has already helped me greatly, it certainly makes the Dynamics / LINQ scenario much easier to explore and learn about.
LinqPad4 can be downloaded here: [http://www.linqpad.net/]
and the driver(s) for Dynamics CRM can be downloaded here: [http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/crmlinqpad]
I strongly recommend it.
It seems to me as a wise idea to test run my workflow on a local server before deploying in at the customer's. To be entirely sure, I'd like to copy all the data from their DB to my test organization (I have full access rights). The problem is that I can't see any straightforward way to export the whole shabang to a XML Spreadsheet.
What's the best way to export/import everything from/to a DB? The source and the target servers are not the same.
Of course I've got the option of backing up the clients DB and restore it, would the brown stuff hit the fan, but it'll far more professional if I won't have to.
The client's DB is in the cloud, which makes me suspect that perhaps I won't be able to access it at all and as far I can see, there's no way to back-up the data there. Am I missing it or is it that bad?
I fully agree that would be sensible. Usually we have a number development and test servers for all our work, generally we do not exactly mirror the data in the client database however.
We create a representative sample of data in our dev servers and then just move across the Crm solution for deployment.
As far as I know there is not straight forward way to get all the data, if you really want to do this I would suggest taking a back up of their database and importing to yours.
(As a side note, not all clients are happy for copies of their database - especially if its a live system - to be taken off site. Personally if it is a live database I wouldn’t put that risk on yourself, if the data gets lost or leaked you might suffer the consequences).
James raises good points about the business aspects of your request, however to get hold of the record-level data there are few options. The easiest by far is a wholesale export and import of the underlying SQL database. (For the record, the alternative is to do a data migration from live into a different db but this is no small task so I won't even entertain that any further here).
You mention that the client is using CRM Online ("...client's DB is in the cloud..."). You can raise a (free) support request with CRM Online Support who will provide you with a copy of the YourOrg_MSCRM database which can then be reimported into an on-premise deployment.
If you wish to simply have a test instance that has a copy of the Microsoft CRM Online organization, Microsoft does provide a means to do that. Depending on how many professional user licenses that the customer has, this may be free, but could be an extra cost and both instances would count against the storage limit for Microsoft CRM Online. You can see full details here - https://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/crmteamblog/archive/2014/03/20/introducing-sandbox-instances-in-crm-online.aspx . You can see steps on how to setup a sandbox instance here - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn467371.aspx "Add an instance to your subscription". This is something that I have used with one of our Microsoft CRM customers as it was a very good way to help validate the Scribe Online migration and customization changes we were making before moving those into production. The nice thing about doing it this way is that everything is still contained in the same Office 365 tenant and you can limit which users have access to the Sandbox organization, which is important for customers in knowing that their data is safe and not on some unknown server or machine.
I need the document or form to be automatically updated when the data in the Oracle database is updated. If not possible, could anyone give me guidance to a solution similar to this?
Thanks for the help.
Oracle supports triggers in Java, so you could execute some code when data is changed in the DB. Sharepoint 2007 does support WebServices, so you could create a client which calls the web service to update the form.
But that sounds more simple than it is. The documentation for the web services in Sharepoint ... uh ... could be better. Many installations of Sharepoint insist on domain logins, so you would need to figure out a way to run Oracle with a Windows Domain logon.
In the end, it's probably more simple to create an email when the data changes in Oracle and have someone manually update the form.
That said, you paid a lot of money to Microsoft for Sharepoint, so they are obliged to tell you which API to use and they can probably even provide an example in, say C#. If all else fails, you can run a little server in C# which updates the form and which listens to data packets sent by a Java trigger in Oracle.
[EDIT] [Here is a blog post]2 to get you started with Java, Apache Axis and Sharepoint. Post a comment if you have any updates. LuUnfortunately, I'm no longer working at a company which uses Sharepoint.
A client has asked whether or not I can provide some support for his intranet which runs on Oracle Application Server Portal. Not having used this technology before I thought I'd ask if anyone else has and what they thought of developing for it.
I'm a c#/ASP.NET developer so I note with apprehension that there's no mention of .NET in the developers guide. Anyone tried to make the two work together and lived to tell the tale?
Oracle Portal was never meant to be a "platform," but instead to fulfull a specific need. When Portal was not the right solution directly, the pointer was to JDev and BC4J, plus needed other stuff. I have done extensive Oracle Portal development and for what it is, it did just fine (i.e. a "portal" to core data and applications with some exposure of that data via the portal).
The current direction of the portal product is to separate it out and have it under Oracle's "Web Center." The focus here is to make the development of portlets closer and closer to standard java development. You can find the official statement here:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/portal/pdf/oracle_portal_sod_r11.pdf
Web Center is much more of a "platform" that has all the buzz words around the 2.0 technologies. Including content mgmt, portal, and a .NET WSRP integration feature/function. I would check that out in addition to portal (which does quick and easy portlets for web center too).
My company (a dedicated Oracle shop) and I have used Oracle Portal for many years and have been very successful with it. But I have to warn you against taking on this task if you do not have experience with PL/SQL (Oracle's proprietary database programming language).
An intranet built on Oracle Portal is likely to make extensive use of custom-built "portlets". You can build these in Java or PL/SQL; in my experience, 95% of all real-life portlets are built using PL/SQL.
Theoretically, if you use the latest version of Oracle Portal (10.1.4), you can consume WSRP 1.0 portlets. So if you can build portlets in .NET that will communicate using WSRP 1.0, you could integrate these. But if your customer asks for "support", they probably expect you to be able to tweak their existing portlets - and that would require PL/SQL programming experience.
There's a fairly good description of Oracle Portal on the Oracle Wiki:
http://wiki.oracle.com/page/Oracle+Portal
Strategically, Oracle has placed Oracle Portal is in the "Continue & Converge" category, which means that it's supported and will receive minor updates. Their strategic portal product these days is Oracle WebCenter, but that's a $125,000 per CPU behemoth; it's likely to be overkill for 99% of all sites built on Oracle Portal.
The only experience I've had with an Oracle Portal was obliquely, when I inherited a system that used one for a relatively simple maintenance web application. A large part of my opinion of Oracle's stuff comes from my background with SQL Server/ASP.NET, but Oracle is just plain harder to set up and administer and keep running, and that applies not just to the database but also to auxiliary stuff like Oracle Portal, their SOA suite, their Mobility Server etc. Even experienced Oracle people tend to agree with this, so hopefully I won't piss anyone off.
I would definitely not provide support for an Oracle Portal application (or any other Oracle product, for that matter) unless I had a lot of experience with the tools.
I have developed a dozen or so Java portlets for Oracle Portal over the past few years. If you are not necessarily tied into using .NET to develop portlets and do not want to use PL/SQL, I would recommend this approach. Oracle's Portlet Developer Kit (PDK) offers good functionality (http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/portal/pdk.html).
I've not tried the WSRP approach but have deployed ASP.NET apps using the Web Clipping Portlet that comes with Oracle Portal with some success.
I have found Portal to be difficult to work with at times and a good knowledge of the other components in the Application Server stack (OID, SSO, Oracle DB, etc) is very helpful.
I recommend that you take a look at Oracle's WebCenter 11g Suite. When Oracle acquired BEA, it took on a few portal products, but from everything I've heard, WebCenter 11g is Oracle's story as far as portals go for the future - all the active development will be concentrated there. You can find a decent amount of material out there. Here's a blog post to get you started on WebCenter 11g.