CRM2011 roll up 13 and the new SDK is released.

Microsoft released the  roll up 13 for CRM2011. The rollup 13 introduces the support for windows server 2012 and ADFS 2.1. The rollup also resolved the numbers of issues. For the complete list of hot fixes and updates read the following kb article.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2791312

Microsoft also released new SDK (version 1.0.15) to support roll up 13. Here is the download link.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=24004

If you have not work with SDK version 1.0.14 then a look at “EntityMetadata” spreadsheet. It lists the metadata about all the out of the box entities ( Entities, entity privileges, attributes, picklist values, relationships and global option sets).

Comparing JavaScript execution time in IE, Chrome and Firefox for CRM Polaris

Last year my team was trying to compare the execution time for REST and Soap (FetchXML and RetrieveMultiple) calls. We did not find any significant difference. Now after rollup 12, CRM supports multiple browsers. I have noticed that chrome seems to load CRM screens quicker than its counter parts.
So, I decided to compare the JavaScript (Rest, FetchXML and RetriveMultiple calls) execution time in Internet Explore, Chrome and Firefox.

Test UI

We have created a custom fields to run these tests. Here is the screen shot of those fields.

Here is how the results screen looks like.

Test Results

For this test, I set up the frequency to 10 as it may take a bit extra time for the first call. Every call retrieved 10 records. This test is carried out on  CRM Online organisation.

Internet Explorer 10- response time (in milliseconds)

 

Chrome 25- response time (in milliseconds)

Mozilla Firefox 19- response time (in milliseconds)

Conclusion

All the execution time are less than sub 500 milliseconds with few exceptions. You can’t tell much difference.
Still REST calls the quickest in Internet Explorer. Overall Chrome is the quickest. You can tell Chrome loads the CRM UI quicker than its counter parts.
Results can vary based on server/client machine’s configuration and work load.
Thanks HP team for the coding.

How to switch between classic and new process flow forms in CRM Polaris

Polaris introduced new UI forms in CRM2011. These new forms come with “Process Flow” and classic form views. They look great but they have some functional limitations.
For example. You can switch from “Process Flow ” to classic view but you can’t switch it back. To get back to “Process Flow Form”, you need to close the form and open the record again. It is very annoying and does not provide a good user experience.

Here is the solution to the problem. We need

1. HTML Web resource
2. Form Id of the new form
3. Add a Navigation Link on the form

In this blog I am going to deploy this solution on lead entity.

1. HTML Web resource

I have created a HTML web resource to switch from classic view to “Process Flow Form”. It have added the web resource to a unmanaged solution. You can download it from PolarisSalesForm_1_0.zip. Import the solution into your CRM deployment and publish the solution.

2. Form Id of the new form

We need the form Id of classic view of the form. Here are steps to retrieve the form Id of the lead entity.

• Open the lead entity in customize mode. Open the form name “Lead” from the list of forms as shown in the following screen shot.
  
• Press F11 to get URL of the form. It will look like following screen.
  
• Copy the URL into a note pad or any text editor and look for formId. The highlighted part represents the guid of the formid.
   

3. Navigation Link on the form

• Add a new navigation link to the lead form.
• Add a name and icon file as shown in the screen shot
  
• Choose the External URL for the navigation link and refer the URL of HTML webresource we imported in step 1. Use the relative path of the html webresource as shown in the above screen shot.
• The most important part of the URL is the parameter named data. we will pass formid retrieved in step 2 to this parameter.
• The URL will look like the following URL.
  /WebResources/new_SalesForm?data=E3B6DDB7-8DF0-4410-AC7B-FD32E5053D38
• Save the changes and publish the form.

Test The solution

• Open a entity record.
• Switch to classic view.
  
• The classis form will look like a following screen.
  
• Click on the “Sales Form” link on left navigation and it will take you to “Process Flow” form.

I hope this helps.