MSCRM and Outlook Keyboard Shortcuts

I had a customer ask me recently about keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft CRM. Shortcuts are documented in the CRM help file but here is a quick list of MSCRM and Outlook shortcuts.

CRM Shortcuts

Select all text in current field	CTRL-A
Close the current window	ALT-F4
Move to next field	TAB
Move to previous field	SHIFT+TAB
Save current form	CTRL-S
Save and Close	ALT-S
Save and New	CTRL-SHIFT-S
Open/Close Form Assistant	CTRL-SHIFT-F
Cancel edits and close Form	ESCAPE
Delete record	CTRL-D

Outlook Shortcuts

Switch to mail	CTRL-1
Switch to Inbox	CTRL-SHIFT-1
Switch to Calendar	CTRL-2
Switch to (Outlook) Contacts	CTRL-3
Switch to Tasks	CTRL-4
Create new Appointment	CTRL-SHIFT-A
Create new Contact	CTRL-SHIFT-C
Create new Task	CTRL-SHIFT-K
Check Spelling	F7

CRM 4.0 Rollup 3

CRM 4.0 Rollup 3 was just released yesterday. It can be downloaded from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=05453fa4-9551-4a88-9852-634a9ad0e140. Patch notes can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961768.

Again there are a number of manually activated fixes so be sure to read through the patch notes carefully.

We have encountered some issues with this patch and the C360 addons Summary and Relationship Explorer. If you have either of these addons, we recommend you hold off on this addon until C360 updates those modules.

Hotfix that significantly speeds up Outlook 2007

One of the most common complaints that we get about Microsoft Dynamics CRM doesn't really have to do with CRM itself but with outlook. In a previous post, I outlined a number of tweaks that can be used to help get your Outlook up to speed but sometimes even the tweaks won't help your speed. Microsoft has released a hotfix for Outlook 2007 that addresses a number of issues including the startup and shutdown speeds. We noticed at least a 400% increase in Outlook shutdown and startup speeds. The hotfix can be located here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=961752

Rollup 2 and Registry Keys

After installing CRM 4.0 Rollup 2 which was released late last month, I found myself saying, "Hey! I thought that was supposed to be fixed!". The particular problem I noticed was that CRM Hosting Process was reserving a significant amount of memory over time which was supposed to be fixed in this last rollup. Well, as it turns out, it was fixed.

If you read very carefully at the KB article for the rollup, you'll notice that there are "Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually". It turns out we need to add registry keys to enable this feature: Add a Dword to the registry entitled EnablePeriodicCollection under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\ and set its value to 1. There is a short list of fixes that need to be manually activated by modifying registry keys and running sql queries.

That got me curious though, what manually activated fixes did I miss in rollup 1? It turns out another somewhat important fix (at least as far as outlook performance is concerned) needs to be manually activated from rollup 1. This fix allows Outlook to continue loading even if the CRM addin hasn't completed loading. To enable this fix, add a Dword to the registry entitled DelayUIDuringAddinInit under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\ and set its value to 1.

Here's the short list of manually activated fixes for rollup 2:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955452/ - Line feeds are not used when you send an e-mail message that uses an e-mail template to render data that has line feeds in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955745/ - Error message when you try to configure the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook: "This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform FIPS validated cryptographic algorithms"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956527/ - The Microsoft Dynamics CRM client for Outlook consumes three times as much memory in version 4.0 as in version 3.0
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959248/ - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 slows to unacceptable levels when you process e-mail messages by using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957871/ - The Workflow Expansion Task records cause the AsyncOperationBase table in the MSCRM database to grow too large in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0


Here's the short list of manually activated fixes for rollup 1:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950175/ - You cannot use Outlook as expected until all Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 add-ins are loaded
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953340/ - E-mail messages from a CRM user to a queue are not delivered in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

CRM Workflow Error with Rollup 2

Ran into a problem with workflow and CRM Rollup 2 today. We were getting errors after attempting to publish any workflow. Turned on tracing and the following popped up into the logs:

Error Number: 0x80045001

Error Message: Workflow compilation failed:
WF1399: Activity 'CreateStep5_policy' validation failed: Property "RuleSetReference" has an invalid value. Rule set is invalid. Rule "main" validation failed. Type System.Globalization.CultureInfo is not marked as authorized in the application configuration file.

Thanks to Tom Cadman on the Microsoft forums for pointing out that this was caused by some missing lines in the CRM web.config:

<!--
    * CRM SE 6681 V4:  Hotfix needed for CRM Workflows before WF.Net security patch
   -->
   <authorizedType Assembly="mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" Namespace="System"  TypeName="Void" Authorized="True"/>
   <authorizedType Assembly="mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" Namespace="System.Reflection"  TypeName="AssemblyFileVersionAttribute" Authorized="True"/>
   <authorizedType Assembly="mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" Namespace="System.Reflection"  TypeName="AssemblyVersionAttribute" Authorized="True"/>
   <!--
    * CRM SE 5934 V4: Workflow Designer and Runtime Do Not Handle Decimal Numbers Correctly
   -->
   <authorizedType Assembly="mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" Namespace="System.Globalization" TypeName="CultureInfo" Authorized="True"/>

CRM Client for Outlook Performance tweaks

One of the most common complaints I get from clients that use the CRM for Outlook add-in is that "It takes forever to open" or "It makes my outlook run slow!". Many of the performance problems that are actually related to the CRM add-in were fixed individually with a hotfix or more recently fixed in rollup 1 which was released late last month. (And can be downloaded here)

Most of the speed problems are Outlook issues and can be resolved a number of different ways. Before I begin, let me explain the difference between a .pst and an .ost. If you are using outlook to download e-mail from your e-mail provider via pop3, IMAP or some other service, you are most likely storing your e-mail in a .pst (personal store). If you connect to an exchange server to get your mail, you most likely running in cached exchange mode and have an .ost. The .ost is just a cached version of what is stored for you on the exchange server but is located on your hard drive similar to a .pst. Now that that is out of the way, lets move on to the actual tweaks.

1) The enhancement that I find gives me the most bang for the buck (this is for Outlook 2007 users) is to rename the extend.dat file under the individual user's profile. On XP this is located in c:\documents and settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook and in a similar location on Vista under the c:\users directory. Renaming another file, FRMCACHE.DAT located here: C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\FORMS has also been known to improve outlook startup and response times.

2) The way I understand it, Outlook loads its data store into memory at startup. If you have a lot of e-mail, this can decrease the performance of Outlook significantly. Archiving e-mail into a separate .pst file or deleting old e-mail can help performance.

3) Prior to outlook 2003, .pst's and ost's could not exceed 2GB's. In 2003 and later this issue was fixed but for many users, outlook performance decreases significantly when the .pst and .ost sizes reach the 2GB and greater mark. If your .ost file is larger than 2GB, try archiving old e-mail into a local store (.pst). OST's do not shrink in size once data has been removed so if you recently deleted a large quantity of mail and noticed that your .ost hasn't shrunk in size, you can fix this by renaming the .ost file (with outlook closed). When outlook opens again it will connect to the exchange server and re-create the .ost file using a more appropriate size.

Crm 4.0 Rollup 1 and CRM's Auto-Update Feature

With the first roll-up now available for CRM 4.0, I'm sure there are administrator's out there dreading deploying the client patch on each and every afflicted computer. I just wanted to take a moment to uncover a post from the Microsoft Team blog that could save you a lot of trouble in the future: https://community.dynamics.com/blogs/cscrmblog/archive/2008/05/08/crm-client-autoupdate.aspx

Essentially it outlines how to set up the auto-update functionality in the outlook client from the server. It does mention that you need to add a key to the registry of each computer that has CRM but remember you can easily deploy the key via netlogon scripts deployed using active directory.