How to disable “Convert the incoming email to contacts” option for the entire organisation

In CRM there an option to convert the incoming emails/appointments into contacts or leads. This option is available only on user level not on the organisation level. The default option is to create contacts.

User can enable or disable this option from File->Options—Email tab. But what if you are using queues to receive emails. Queues use email router to send or receive the emails and there is no option to disable “Automatically create records..” option.

I have read somewhere on the CRM forum that if you are using the email router,  “Automatically create records..” setting is derived from the user used in the deployment tab of the email router.

 

If the “Access Credentials” is chosen “Other specified” then we may be able to achieve the result by changing personal settings of this user.

But if the “Access Credentials” is chosen “Local System Account”  then you don’t have an option as “System” user settings cannot be modified. So there is only one option available and

that is to disable for the whole organisation. This is also a better option if we have to disable auto creation option for every user in the organisation.

How to disable this option for the whole organisation

This can be achieved using  “OrgDBOrgSettings Tool” for CRM2011. Follow this link  to read a kb article on the tool.

• Once you download the tool and make the changes to the Microsoft.Crm.SE.OrgDBOrgSettingsTool.exe.config as described in the kb article.
• Run this command  Microsoft.Crm.SE.OrgDbOrgSettingsTool.exe Retrieve [/u] <OrgName>. The result will look like the following screen.
  
  
• Run this command Microsoft.Crm.SE.OrgDbOrgSettingsTool.exe Retrieve [/u] <OrgName>  AutoCreateContactOnPromote False. The result will look like the following screen.



• Now run the retrieve command again Microsoft.Crm.SE.OrgDbOrgSettingsTool.exe Retrieve [/u] <OrgName>.
   
• Check the “Current Value” of AutoCreateContactOnPromote. It will be “False”. There you go. It’s done.

 

 

 

How to display a warning message on the CRM form

We use JavaScript for client side validation on CRM forms. Mostly we use the pop up message box (JavaScript alert function) to display the error/warning messages. The user has to press ok to proceed. If the validation code is running on the formload event then the system will keep poping up the message box everytime the user opens up the record unless the problem is fixed. But if you just want to display a warning message without forcing the user to press ok and fix the problem immediately.

The post is about displaying a warning message without the pop ups.  This solution will display a warning message if the field failed the validation. This does not require any immediate response from the user.

Here is the screen shot of the warning message on account form.

For this solution we need 3 web resources

1. An Image web resource (warning or ! image in front of the message)
2. A HTML web resource
3. A JavaScript web resource

You can download the solution containing these web resources from here. Download the solution and publish it.
Here are steps to add the warning message to an account entity form.

• Open the account entity form in a customise view.
• Add a new section to the general on the form and move it to the top of the tab. Make sure the name of the tab is “general” and the name of section is “sect_alert_notification” as shown in the screen shot. We are using the tab and the section  name in the JavaScript  web resource.
  
  
• Add the “Notification.HTML” web resource to section. The following screen shots display  the properties of the web resource.
  
  
  
• Add the “new_Notification.JS” JavaScript web resource to the entity form
• Call the ShowNotification function on formload event and on onchange event of field you are validating.
  
• Update the validation code as required in "ShowNotification” function.
  

  function ShowNotification() 
  { 
      var Validated= false;
      // Add Validation code Here     
  
  
      if (Validated==false)
       {  
          Xrm.Page.ui.tabs.get("general").sections.get("sect_alert_notification").setVisible(true);
         
      }
     else
     {
        Xrm.Page.ui.tabs.get("general").sections.get("sect_alert_notification").setVisible(false);
     }
  }
  

• Publish the customisation and test the solution.

Thanks to my colleague Russel Devine for the code. Please leave the feedback as required.

Social CRM has finally arrived

Social CRM is finally here, bigger and better than ever before. So what is social CRM? According to Wikipedia
“Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is use of social media services, techniques and technology to enable organisations to engage with their customers”
Microsoft is trying to incorporate social into dynamic CRM for some time.

First came the “Activity feeds”. It brought the social sites like features into CRM. Activities feed provides the face book like functionalities. You can follow the accounts, contacts, users and opportunities etc. and write post on the walls like face book. But it is still the communication between internal users.

Then came the “Yammer” integration in roll up 12. It took the conversation out to the external customers. You can communicate with internal users and customers using yammer integration. It is a work in progress and it may kill the activity feed in future.

And now comes the Netbreeze. I am very excited about this collaboration. Microsoft acquired Netbreeze, a social media monitoring and analytics company. I did not go the convergence 2013 but I have an access to “Virtual Convergence”. There are a lot of new features coming out in the next release but Netbreeze integration is my favourite one.

The demo was just amazing. The demo was regarding social feeds for CRM products. Here are some of screen sheets.


You can analyse the product you are interested in. For example the following screen shot displays the information about Microsoft CRM.


You can drill down further to any of the above information. For example channels or sentiments as shown in the following screen shots.




You an drill down further to the individual posts. You can even respond to the feeds straight from the system.


There are a lot of other things you can do. Anyway I believe it’s a start of an exciting journey.

Please leave feedback.