Tag: Windows Live ID

Windows 8, Outlook 2013 and Dynamics CRM – part 2

Back in August I wrote about my initial experiences of using a Windows 8 PC with Office 2013 to connect the Outlook client to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. During that time we only had the preview versions of both the OS and Office, so some quirks were naturally to be expected. Now that Windows 8 is generally available and also the RTM bits of Office 2013 can be downloaded from MSDN (with commercial launch expected by end of January), it’s a good moment to revisit the topic. Upon my latest test I came across a few configuration gotchas that I though might be useful to share for anyone who’s struggling with the same issues.

Connecting to CRM Online with WLID

Our official work setup is still on Windows 7 / Office 2010 level, but being the kind of eager early adopter that I am, my home PC’s have moved to the brave new world of Windows 8 some time ago already. I installed Office Professional Plus 2013 on a Windows 8 64-bit laptop that’s not joined to a domain, so my login credentials to Windows are linked to my Microsoft Account (previously known as Windows Live ID). In my first tests in August this was a blocker for using a CRM Online organization where the user’s WLID / Microsoft Account was different in CRM and on the local machine.

Update Rollup 11 removed the need to manually enable Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) on Windows 8, but out of old habits I checked that it was available before configuring CRM. Launching the CRM client Configuration Wizard and selecting CRM Online on the Server URL field of the Configure Organizations prompt gave a familiar error: “Cannot connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM server because we cannot authenticate your credentials.” Just like before, it appears that the Configuration Wizard automatically attempts to use the Microsoft Account of the local user for logging in to CRM Online. Logging out of the account in Internet Explorer and then logging in to CRM Online in the browser didn’t seem to resolve the issue with the Outlook client connectivity, as a further error message was presented later in the Initializing the Organization phase:

There is a problem communicating with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server. The server might be unavailable. Try again later. If the problem persists, contact your system administrator.
[Expanded Information]
Unable to load the native components of SQL Server Compact corresponding to the ADO.NET provider of version 8082. Install the correct version of SQL Server Compact. Refer to KB article 974247 for more details.

The KB article referenced in the error message discusses the following issue: “You receive an error message when you run a SQL Server Compact 3.5-based application after you install the 32-bit version of SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 Service Pack 2 on an x64 computer.” However, downloading and installing the x64 version of Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 Service Pack 2 for Windows Desktop didn’t resolve the CRM configuration error, so I opened a support ticket with Microsoft. They instructed me that I also needed to install the Cumulative Update 2 for SQL Server Compact 3.5 Service Pack 2, which is a hotfix that you need to request a download link to be sent to you by email. After my SQL CE 3.5 had been updated to build 3.5.8082.00, I was finally able to connect my Outlook 2013 with our CRM Online demo organization.

Connecting to CRM on-premise with IFD

During the previous test with CRM Online I had also tried to connect the Outlook 2013 CRM client to our production on-premise CRM server that is IFD configured. I kept receiving the following error: “Cannot connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM server because we cannot authenticate your credentials. Check your connection or contact your administrator for more help.” Looking at the error details there was a message claiming “no credentials are available in the security package.” (more…)

January 12, 2013
Windows 8, Office 2013 and Dynamics CRM 2011 Outlook client

Windows 8 is done. The bits will become available for download to MSDN, Technet, Software Assurance etc. subscribers in mid-August. Woo-hoo! The biggest OS update since Windows 95 will soon be at our hands and we can start to think who it will change our lives for better (new touch-optimized Metro apps) and for worse (clumsy desktop experience sans the familiar Start button).

Office 2013 is not quite done yet, but the preview version is available for anyone to download and experiment with. Although we don’t get an actual Metro Office with 2013, there’s plenty of reasons to get excited about the updates to this suite of business applications, which promises to deliver a seamless experience across PC’s, servers and especially public cloud.

With all these shiny new MS apps getting released and the Dynamics CRM updates getting postponed to Q4, it’s a good opportunity to test how we can mix the old with the new. In other words, how does Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 work with Outlook 2013 on a Windows 8 machine?

Before we begin with the experiment, it’s important to note that neither Windows 8, Office 2013 or even Internet Explorer 10 have officially been announced as compatible with Dynamics CRM 2011. As the development roadmap slide from WPC 2012 showed, the Office 2013 compatibility will be delivered in the Fall 2012 (Q4 2012) update. Anyone who’s tried CRM on IE10 also knows that there are still some minor quirks there, and since the big cross-browser update for Dynamics CRM has been re-scheduled to Q4, these may not be resolved before that time frame either. So, it’s better not to deploy this combo into production use quite yet. Remember that unlike with all the other applications in Office 2013, you can’t run the Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 versions side by side, but you have to choose one or the other.

The test drive

Does it work then? Given the right circumstances, yes it does, based on my experiment. You can install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Outlook client onto a Windows 8 Release Preview machine with Office 2013 Preview. Below is a screenshot that proves it. I used the CRM Outlook client installer package with Update Rollup 6 and then applied the Update Rollup 8 hotfixes (check current UR status here: http://bit.ly/crmurinfo).

You’ll notice the Metro style facelift has flattened the look & feel of Outlook 2013 quite considerably. Colors and icons have been removed from the UI components, so the CRM folders appear as a stripped down textual hierarchy. Also the “wunderbar” that’s been present in both Outlook and web client UI’s in the lower left corner is now a text based horizontal menu at the bottom, listing the CRM organization name alongside Mail, Calendar, People etc. Since the actual CRM add-in has not been updated yet, the icons on the ribbon as well as the related record pane below an email message appear just like they would on Outlook 2010.

If we navigate into the CRM solution, the screen becomes even more familiar looking. Some minor adjustments in the UI chrome inherited from Outlook 2013 as well as Windows 8 can be noticed, but all in all both the icons and layout appear in the 2010 style. How much of the graphics and contrast we’ll lose in the coming Fall 2012 update remains to be seen, but I personally hope Microsoft won’t go all monochrome like they did with Visual Studio 2012 beta (and received tons of feedback as a result, not all positive).

Opening a record form reveals a few glitches in the preview version. Most notably the monetary fields on a form are missing icons. The radio buttons and dropdown menus have a new look, which probably comes mainly from IE10 since we’ve now left the Outlook chrome behind when navigating to a pop-up window. One annoyance I encountered was the vertical scroll bar. Can you spot from the bar the location we’re in on the page right now? Yeah, neither could I, since the shades of grey used there were practically identical. Some adjustments ahead, I’m sure. Apart from the graphics, all the usual functionality of the Outlook client appears to be working as expected based on my quick test drive.

OK, not exactly all the functionality. As a part of the experiment I also wanted to test if it was possible to install the CRM offline components into Outlook 2013. At first I didn’t encounter any issues after clicking the “Go Offline” button for the first time and installing SQL Server 2008 Express on the Windows 8 machine. Going offline appeared to be working as well, with the data synchronization dialog completing without errors, but then the troubles started. Outlook 2013 didn’t seem to grasp the concept that CRM could be operational even without a network connection (the new, handy Airplane mode available in Win8) but rather prompted me to login instead of showing any CRM data. “Ok, I’ll go back online then” I thought, except that I realized there was no way back. Outlook had eaten up the “Go Online” button from the ribbon and didn’t seem to offer me any menu options out of the situation.

I tried a quick registry hack and disable/enable procedures for the client, but then I figured that this was as far as I’d get with my experiment without an uninstall/re-install of the CRM Outlook client. Considering the final bits for Windows 8 would become available in just a couple of weeks, I decided to leave it as it is and return back to the topic once I had an RTM version of the OS.

Mixed identities

Were there any other issues along the way? Yes, there was a big one. With my original Windows 8 user profile I was unable to login to any CRM Online organization. Even though I had manually enabled the Windows Identity Foundation (note: in Windows 8 you don’t install the WIF package, instead you just turn on the feature), no credentials I gave to any organization or user were accepted. Instead I always got the following prompt: “Cannot connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM server because we cannot authenticate your credentials”. The related knowledge base article KB2666080 suggested this could be caused by the Windows Live ID not being verified, but that wasn’t the case here.

Eventually I decided to do the following: create a new local user for Windows 8 that was using the same Windows Live ID as the CRM user. Surprise: problem solved! Since starting from Windows 8 most users will be signing in to their PCs (or slates) using a Windows Live ID, nowadays known as the Microsoft account, this appears to be currently messing with the authentication mechanism expected by the CRM Outlook client.

On Windows 8 when you open up Internet Explorer, you are by default logged in to your ~~WLID~~ Microsoft account, which means the user has direct access to their ~~Hotmail~~ Outlook.com emails, Windows Store and other Microsoft hosted services. It’s how the world already operates when it comes to iOS, Android or Windows Phone devices, so no big shock there. What this means for anyone who needs to work with multiple Windows Live… sorry, Microsoft accounts remains to be seen. If you’re supporting customers in multiple CRM Online environments, you’re already familiar with the agony related to switching between different accounts. While the intention of building a seamless experience for the end user is of course admirable, I hope the admin/developer experience won’t degrade further as a result of pursuing this goal.

In a corporate environment you’d login to your Windows 8 PC with a domain account instead of a Microsoft account, but there’s the option to connect a Microsoft account to you domain account (unless a group policy is blocking this). Although on Outlook.com (the webmail previously known as Hotmail) you can choose to manage linked accounts and access several inboxes across different identities, this doesn’t appear to affect any authentication related services, so linking more than one Microsoft account onto a domain account doesn’t seem to be possible.

Now that new CRM Online organizations are created by signing in with Microsoft Online Services accounts instead of WLID, it’s good to note that a MOP account on Office 365 is not the same as a Microsoft account. However, you can create a new Microsoft account using your MOP account’s email address, but then you don’t get a new Outlook.com email address. Also, it looks like this doesn’t help in getting past the CRM Outlook client authentication issue, even if you’d sign in to your Windows 8 PC with a user@company.onmicrosoft.com type of an address. So, some more work is still needed on the authentication front to make all the latest desktop software and cloud services from Microsoft play nice with each other. I’ve read that with an on-premises Dynamics CRM server connecting with Outlook 2013 is already working today with the preview releases, so don’t let this put you off from getting your hands dirty on the Office 2013 preview.

Update 2013-01-13: I’ve written a part 2 of the article where I test configuring Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 UR11 organizations to connect with the RTM versions of Windows 8 and Outlook 2013. Read it here.

August 3, 2012
Signing up for CRM Online in the Microsoft Online Services era
Starting from July 19th, you no longer can/need to use a Windows Live ID to sign up for a 30 day trial of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Instead you’re directed to the Microsoft Online Services Portal (a.k.a. MOP) to follow the same registration steps as you would when starting an Office 365 trial subscription. So, how does it work in practice then? Let’s sign up and see.

There are a few additional steps in the registration process now. In addition to specifying the name of your company, you also need to select a new domain name, such as “yourcompany.onmicrosoft.com”. You’re given the chance to check for domain name availability, but it’s important to note that this only checks the .onmicrosoft.com domain. Your actual CRM Online organization will still be at yourcompany.crm.dynamics.com (depending on the region) and if the name given already exists on that side, the CRM provisioning process will automatically adjust the URL (I sure hope it’s better than those org85fs321nad type of CRM organization name monsters we had before). Additionally, since we don’t yet have a Microsoft Online user account in this case (if we did, the process would be somewhat easier), we’ll need to provide a user name and password.

Once the data input has been accepted, we’re greeted with the administration portal that’s familiar to anyone who’s been managing an Office 365 subscription. Instead of the Exchange, Lync and SharePoint services we’ll see Dynamics CRM as the only available option. The actual provisioning process can take a while, so you may need to keep your eye on the spinner and refresh the screen quite a few times. In the US data centers the process took just a couple of minutes, but in EMEA I had to wait for half an hour before CRM was enabled in the Microsoft Online trial subscription. Presumably things will speed up as CRM becomes an everyday part of the Online portal.

Under Dynamics CRM there’s a Manage link, so let’s click on that and off we go… Ouch, grey screen! You weren’t using a non-IE browser, now were you? Just because Office 365 web apps are compatible with most browsers, doesn’t mean Dynamics CRM would be. Remember how that cross-browser support was re-scheduled to Q4 2012? That’s ok, it’s easy to forget such minor details. Also, since Microsoft still doesn’t want to make it clear to the potential customer what the system requirements for Dynamics CRM are, many of them will surely be greeted with the below screen once they login to their CRM Online trial with Chrome, Firefox or Safari, puzzled about why they’re seeing this mobile UI instead of the pretty charts and familiar Office experience they were promised.

After we click on the CRM link inside MOP with Internet Explorer, we get an additional dialog that used to be a part of the CRM Online sign-up form: selecting the base currency for the CRM organization. Once done, the familiar CRM provisioning screen is presented, alongside the promotional WMV video telling us how Dynamics CRM will improve your productivity etc. Wait a couple of minutes and you’re given the button to launch CRM Online.

From this point onward the user experience is exactly the way it used to be back in the Windows Live ID days. Once you go to add more users into your CRM Online subscription there is however something new in the UI: instead of allowing you to add new CRM user records, a popup window will instruct you that in order to add more users to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, you’ll need to go to the Microsoft Office 365 Admin Portal.

Ok, let’s click on the Add and Licenses Users button. We’re taken to the Online Services portal and get to specify a name for the new user. There’s also a “bulk add” option available, but since that would require creating and uploading a CSV file, we’ll skip that for now. Similarly to the subscription administrator (the first CRM user you created), the new users will be given a user@yourcompany.onmicrosoft.com user name. You can enter more details for the user, but not an email address (more on that later).

Moving forward, we’re given the option to grant a CRM user license to the user. However, unlike the native CRM dialog windows for adding users, the MOP dialogs won’t allow you to assign any CRM security roles to the new users. Instead, you’ll need to go back to the Dynamics CRM administration menus to perform this operation. Don’t forget this part, as otherwise your users will have a user account but no access rights to CRM.

Ok, we’re now almost done and are presented with the option of sending details of the new user name and temporary password by email. By default the recipient will be the admin user. Don’t send it there. Why? Because even though it looks like an email address and MOP considers it to be one, there is no email service available for you to access this inbox. Remember: you’re just configuring a CRM Online trial, not Exchange Online. So put a real email address in there, or then just copy & paste the data from the next screen.

Once the new user account becomes available in the CRM users view (it can take a couple of minutes), you can open up the record and assign the required security roles to the user. Another thing you should do is to specify the real email address of the new user, so replace the @onmicrosoft address with a proper business email. While you’re at it, you may notice that not all user profile fields are available for editing on the CRM user form like they would normally be. Changing details like job title, main phone, mobile phone etc. needs to be done in the Microsoft Online Services portal and not CRM, as these are part of the user information maintained in MOP’s directory. Unlike in a traditional on-premises implementation with Active Directory, changes to the user profile fields will actually be updated onto the corresponding CRM user record after it has been created. See the following MSDN article for details: Sychronized Users in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365.

In addition to user management, also the subscription management for CRM Online now utilizes the Office 365 platform capabilities rather than the old system that was used for billing Xbox Live credits and other consumer services. What this means is that a potential customer might as well go and sign up for an Office 365 trial to go alongside their CRM Online trial. All it takes is finding the link under Subscriptions – Purchase – Microsoft Office 365 (Plan E3) – Trial and they can take the Exchange, SharePoint and Lync functionality for a test drive. Cross-sell opportunities galore!

Are there any benefits then for a customer who just wants CRM from the public cloud and not Office 365? Yes, because the new Microsoft Online based authentication allows setting up an integration with the existing Active Directory that the customer has. No need to manage separate credentials for CRM Online anymore if you configure AD federation between your domain and the cloud services hosted in Microsoft’s data centers to offer the users a single sign-on (SSO) experience. It requires some level of effort, though, so start by getting to know the following article: Plan for and deploy AD FS 2.0 for use with single sign-on.

Another nice addition is the access to a CRM Online Service Health dashboard. Similar to what Office 365 has offered, you can now also see information about the current status and pas issues related to various CRM Online service components. While Microsoft has actively promoted the new CRM Online Trust Center, effectively it’s just a static page with information regarding security policies and certifications. In comparison, the Office 365 (and now CRM Online) Service Health dashboard will tell you what’s going on with the service right now and what maintenance breaks are planned. Compared to, say, trust.salesforce.com, it’s less transparent due to the requirement of having an administrator login to access the information, but it’s a good start.

What if you’ve already implemented CRM Online and want to take advantage of the integration with Office 365 user accounts or on-premises AD? At the moment, there’s not much you can do. The changes introduced on July 19th only apply to new CRM Online organizations, which will now be provisioned onto the Online Services Delivery Platform (OSDP). Existing organizations on the old Commerce Transaction Platform (CTP) will eventually be migrated, but there is no official schedule for this yet.

My guess would be that we’re not going to see any updates for existing CRM Online customers until the Office 2013 wave of updates rolls out to Office 365 customers, as Microsoft will surely put all its resources behind ensuring the Windows 8 launch with the accompanying business apps is a success. With plenty of other things on the Dynamics CRM development roadmap, it may take another year before we can finally say goodbye to the Windows Live ID based authentication in CRM Online. In the meantime, why not sign up for an Office 365 Enterprise Preview to see what the 2013 wave has to offer on SharePoint, Office and other products?

Edit 2012-07-31: here’s a list of a few Office 365 issues that can cause problems for new CRM Online organizations:
- Setting an integration user account to Non-Interactive access mode doesn’t reduce the count of assigned CRM licenses in MOP, as there are no free service accounts on Office 365 at the moment. In the past CRM Online allowed 5 free non-interactive user accounts. This is no longer the case, so any integrated application with its dedicated credentials will consume a full license on CRM Online. Unless this policy changes, it will increase the license cost for existing customers when they are eventually migrated from CTP to the new OSDP environment.
- Developer toolkit and plugin registration tool cannot connect to CRM Online, default discovery service URL has changed from dev.crm.dynamics.com to disco.crm.dynamics.com (see thread on CRM forum)
- Internet Lead Capture functionality is currently unavailable for new organizations in US (other regions have never had this functionality to begin with)
- Instead of *.live.com, now you’ll need to add *.microsoftonline.com and *.accesscontrol.windows.net into IE Trusted Sites alongside *.dynamics.com to avoid prompts during the authentication process
July 30, 2012
Upgrade gotchas: Outlook client for Dynamics CRM 2011
Last weekend I finally did my first installation of the RTM versio of CRM 2011 Outlook client onto a machine with Outlook 2010. I had previously only worked with the Outlook 2007 client version, which is lacking a few nice features in the UI, as described in my earlier post.

I came across a few issues that might cause problems in the installation process, so I decided to link the relevant KB articles and other related content into this blog post to help you save some time when upgrading to the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM on your client machine. I’m using CRM Online here, so some things may differ from the on-premises client version, which no longer has a separate client version, but of course the authentication methods do differ.

Before you begin: go with 32-bit

Yeah, I’m sure most of the new business laptops nowadays come with a 64-bit (a.k.a. x64) version of Windows 7. Nevertheless, you should treat 64-bit applications with caution. Why? Well, it’s a bit like with IPv4 vs. IPv6. Everyone knows the old world as we know it is coming to an end, but there simply isn’t a concrete enough reason for developers or companies to go “all in” with the 64-bit apps.

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 the situation was quite nasty, as there was not and there will not be support for the 64-bit versio of Microsoft Office. You simply had to tell the users to “downgrade” their Office, which is not the most optimal starting point for getting someone to adopt a new application such as Dynamics CRM. Now with the arrival of Dynamics CRM 2011 we do in fact have an x64 client for Outlook, so everything should be in order, right? In theory, it is, but if you’re planning to install any fancy RIA apps from the Dynamics Marketplace into your CRM 2011, you should read this blog post from Customer Effective. That’s right, Microsoft hasn’t releases a 64-bit version of the Silverlight add-on for Internet Explorer, which leads us into the following situation:

KB2500373: Microsoft Silverlight web resources cannot be viewed in the 64-bit version of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Microsoft Office Outlook

It’s a fact of life: the world is not 64-bit just yet. With the Office applications there’s not likely to be a significant performance boost from using the x64 version, so take the easy way out and just install the 32-bit Office 2010. Let’s revisit the topic when we all have Windows 8 and Office 2013, shall we?

Favorite folders no more

KB2494600: There is no option to add Microsoft Dynamics CRM entities to favorites in Microsoft Office Outlook 2010

The Solutions Module is a new feature that has become available in Outlook 2010, as described here in the MSDN library article. It allows developers to integrate their applications directly into the Outlook navigation pane, which is what Dynamics CRM 2011 Outlook client is doing to achieve the seamless integration into the native Outlook navigation items.

What’s the downside? Unfortunately the add-on solution folders cannot be added to the Outlook favorite folders group. Bummer. This was one of the first things I always instructed people to do when training them on how to use Dynamics CRM. There’s no better way to drive CRM adoption that getting the list of the company’s accounts and contacts to be available right below the Outlook inbox folder, where most people start their day at the (MS) office. Even though the CRM folders are now more visual and available under the CRM navigation pane tab, there’s still likely to be tens of entities visible for most CRM users, out of which they typically access just 3-4 most popular ones. I, for one, hate navigating through hierarchical folders that require you to expand them to see the what’s hidden on the next level, so always visible one-click navigation is how I prefer to arrange my working environment, be it SharePoint workspaces or CRM menus in Outlook.

Following the instructions in the KB article, you can achieve the old favorite folders functionality also in Outlook 2010, but this will require you to disable the Solutions Module. Which, if I’ve understood correctly, will again turn the flashy CRM folder icons into the generic folders that we see in Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2003. Guess we’ll just have to figure out which is a bigger loss for the end user experience and make a choice, until there is a feature enhancement available for the Outlook 2010 Solutions Module (I hope there’s no technical limitation on why this couldn’t be implemented in a future service pack).

Clashes with Windows Live Essentials

KB2498892: Unable to Configure the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Outlook against Dynamics CRM Online

Seems like the Windows Live ID authentication in CRM Online has some issues with the “consumer products” for Windows Live. This might not be a big issue in big corporate environments with locked-down client machine configurations that don’t allow using consumer targeted services such as Hotmail or Skydrive. However, as Dynamics CRM Online is clearly making the former enterprise level applications like Customer Relationship Management suites available to even the smallest organizations with its low monthly cost per user and ease of deployment, there’s likely to be more and more users who’ll be transitioning from Microsoft’s consumer product lines to the new cloud-based business product lines, such as CRM Online and Office 365.

Basically you’ll need to run a repari install on the Windows Live ID Sign-in assistant or Windows Live Essentials 2011 to make it compatible with the Outlook client for CRM Online, which is also using Windows Live ID to connect you to the CRM server. That should do the trick.

But wait, isn’t Dynamics CRM Online a business product? Why is it using the WLID authentication method meant for the consumer products? For comparison, here’s an aswer from Allen_MSFT on the Office 365 FAQ to a question regarding weather using Office 365 will require WLID.

“Re Windows Live ID, you don’t need a Windows Live ID to use Office 365 or to use your Windows Phone 7 with Office 365. Windows Live services are for consumers, so they are not linked within the Office 365 portal.”

Indeed. I’m waiting for the day when also Dynamics CRM Online will be migrated over to the new Microsoft Online Services Delivery Platform, which will hopefully give us better tools for managing CRM user accounts and authentication.

Missing Outlook ribbon after CRM client installation

KB2494581: The Outlook and CRM ribbons disappear from Microsoft Outlook when you use the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Microsoft Office Outlook

I had this one happen to myself, since I had been using a previous beta version of the CRM 2011 client on my machine. I had uninstalled both Office and CRM, but there still remained a few lines in the registry that needed to be removed to get the Outlook ribbon to reappear.

I have to tell you, Outlook 2010 really looks naked when the ribbon is gone (not just hidden). I’m not sure if there even was a way to do any basic Outlook operations like sending emails with the ribbon completely blank, so I started googling around immediately and came up with the instrcutions that pointed to the following steps required to restore the ribbon:
- Run Regedit.exe
- Locate the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{2DF8D04C-5BFA-101B-BDE5-00AA0044DE52} key
- Delete the 2.4 key that’s found under it. It’s not needed anymore, there should only be 2.5
Update Nov 9th 2011: Since this appears to be quite a popular post on my blog, I decided to append this information here. Today I was creating a new Windows user profile on a PC that already had the CRM 2011 Outlook client installed on a different user profile. When launching Outlook for the first time as this user, the ribbon was missing from the CRM menus (not the whole Outlook as in the aforementioned case), even though everything was working fine for the previously configured user account. In this particular occasion the client was linked to a CRM Online organization which had received the R7 update (a.k.a. Q4 2011 Service Update), but the Outlook client was still on Update Rollup 3 level. After I deployed Update Rollup 5 on the machine and rebooted, the ribbon was restored for this new user profile. So, be sure to check that the client and server hotfix levels match if you encounter a ribbon display problem.

Reading pane always shows the contact layout

Dynamics CRM Deployment Forum: CRM 2011 reading pane error in Outlook 2010

Unfortunately this one doesn’t have a knowledge base article or a fix yet. I encountered this issue briefly when installing the Beta version of CRM 2011 Outlook client. Back then, all it needed was a reboot and the reading panes and icons were restored. With the RTM version of CRM 2011 client, the issue is more persistent. Each and every CRM entity appears as if it was a contact, presented in a business card layout that only contains the entity primary field (name) and not any other data. Click the image below to see an example of the account record shown as a business card with the contact icon.

Update Nov 10th 2011: Thanks to Wimco’s post on Dynamics CRM Forums, I was finally able to fix the reading pane layout problem on my PC. I simply uninstalled the Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies, after which I also applied the latest Update Rollup package and voilá: the reading pane now shows the fields specific to each entity.

Further update, March 23th 2012: The EMEA Dynamics CRM Support has published an article, where they suggest another fix for the Outlook client preview pane problem. Apparently an existing DisableFormRegions registry key can cause the contact form to be shown instead of the correct entity form.
March 12, 2011