Bradley M. Law

Hi,

I have a CRM client with the pockets to polish the applications to their needs. I, being the semi coder that I am and having little experience with plug-ins searched high and low for a tool to hide the annoying system views that cannot be removed from CRM 4.0. By pur chance I am certain the CRM team does not allow CRM 4.0 system views to be unshared as could be done in 3.0.

After locating a few other posts out there in the web I stumbled across the “lightly documented” Codeplex Plug-in by David Jennaway completed with source code and compiled code. After annoying the MS Forums (Even David himself jumped in) looking for help I finally got it working and decided to give back by giving some instructions as to the configuration of this Plug-in.

Let’s begin…

What makes David Jennaway’s plug-in simply amazing is that it can handle just about any system view you throw at it because a non coder doesn’t have to configure it with much more than the actual view name. From beginning to end here is how to to get this plug-in working on your CRM server.

1. Download the following files from Codeplex:
   1. David Jennaway’s Compiled “Hide System Views in CRM 4.0″ Plug-in here. Alternate here.

   

   1. Download the Plug-in Registration Tool from Codeplex found here. Alternate version as of this writing here. Installation should be easy, I installed it on my CRM server however a walkthrough is available in the ReadMe file in the zip download.
2. Install both parts items:
   1. Install the Plug-in registration tool
   2. Unzip the Plug-in (step 1a) into a folder, something like C:\(YOUR DESIRED PATH)\Plug-ins\HideSystemViews
3. Register the “Hide System Views in CRM 4.0″ Plug-in
   1. Open the Plug-in registration tool and connect to your CRM server
   2. Once connected select the “Register” button which opens another box, select “Register New Assembly“
   3. Within the registration tool select Step #1 and select the path to the “Hide System Views in CRM 4.0″ Plug-in you chose in my step 2b above.
   4. Within the registration tool Step #2 you should see the Plug-in with a check box to its left.
   5. Within the registration tool Step #3 I chose “Database” (not based on any reason other that I like databases)
   6. Within the registration tool click the button at the bottom “Register Selected Plug-ins”
   7. It should look like this

      

1. If you noticed when you downloaded the compiled plug-in there is a XML files called SampleConfig.xml, this is the excellent method David J. used to tell the plug-in what Views to hide!
   1. The key here is that your specifying the entity otc number as in <entity otc=”1″>, the “1″ representing the “Account” entity. If you need to hide the view for other items you can get the otc# from your servers SDK by connecting to http:/<crmserver>/sdk/list.aspx and clicking the button for the entity in question. Adjust your xml as necessary then proceed.

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<entities>
<!- Sample configuration data. Entities are identified by the otc attribute, and views by name
  -->
<entity otc="1">
  <view>Inactive Accounts</view>
  <view>Accounts: No Orders in Last 6 Months</view>
  </entity>
<entity otc="4">
  <view>Leads Opened Last Week</view>
  <view>Leads Opened This Week</view>
  </entity>
  </entities>

1. Select/Highlight the (Assmbly) Plug-inHideSystemView node
2. Select the “Register” button you used above in my step 3b.
3. This time select “Register New Step”
4. Fill out the form as follows:
   1. Message: RetreiveMultiple
   2. Primary Entity: savedquery
   3. Event Pipeline Stage of Execution: Post Stage
   4. Execution Mode: Synchronous

   Note: the other options can be changes per your wishes…

5. Enter your adjusted XML into the top right pane “Unsecured Configuration (like the SampleConfig.xm file)
6. Click Update
7. It should look like this

   

1. Add a step with that looks just like this screen shot:
2. Now the magic, if you noticed when you downloaded the compiled plug-in there is a XML files called SampleConfig.xml, this is the excellent method David J. used to tell the plug-in what Views to hide!
   1. The key here is that your specifying the entity otc number as in <entity otc=”1″>, the “1″ representing the “Account” entity. If you need to hide the view for other items you can get the otc# from your servers SDK by connecting to http:/<crmserver>/sdk/list.aspx and clicking the button for the entity in question. You final Step should look something like this!

      

   2. Verify and your done, your client is happy and you are happier than I was when I needed to use this great plug-in!
3. Alternate method below! I have not done this one!

More »

My current engagement has a lot of red tape in terms of network teams and security teams, I must admit I have downloaded the Dynamics CRM Implementation Guide and Planning Guide several times over the last few years despite knowing it was available online. At any rate Tiaan van Niekerk 0f the CRM DE LA CREME Blog has summarized the items relating to CRM 4.0 System Requirements and Required Components.

For the most up-to-date information about system requirements and required components, see the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Server Readme.
For more information, see:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server hardware requirements
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server software requirements
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for SQL Server Reporting Services
Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router software requirements
Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook hardware requirements
Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook software requirements
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web client software requirements
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Data Migration Manager hardware requirements
Data Migration Manager software requirements
64-bit supported configurations
Language support
Currency support

Great videos on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 development. found here.

Most appear to be large wmv downloads.

Microsoft Corporation

July 2008
Summary

This article contains links to presentations and labs to help developers use their existing .NET skills to build on top of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 platform.
Applies To

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
Introduction

This kit is for .NET-based developers who want to ramp up and build on top of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 uses familiar components such as Web Service endpoints, Windows Workflow Foundation, SSRS reporting, and more; making it a general purpose platform for any line-of-business applications. Developers can use their existing .NET skills to take advantage of various features of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. This kit drills into the details of such development and explains how developers can connect, extend, and embed with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. It includes presentations, hands-on labs and a VPC environment for practicing. This content was delivered earlier as part of the Metro Early Adopter initiative and the video recordings of the ramp-up presentations are included as well. Familiarity with the .NET Framework, Microsoft Visual C#, Microsoft JScript, Microsoft SQL Server and general Web development is recommended.

The default image is as follows:

Referenced from Caesar De La Torre Blog here are some instructions for updating the logo in Dynamics CRM 4.0. This is of course a non supported change to the system.

1.-
The image file is located in the following place:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM Server\CRMWeb\_imgs\masthead.jpg
You could copy another image with the same name within that folder.

2.-
Also, you could change the .CSS definition, which is a TD, within:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM Server\CRMWeb\_common\styles\global-dynamic-styles.css.aspx

The TD name is:
TD.ms-crm-MastHead-Logo
Then, you could change the name of the image’s file within this TD definition. (in case you want to use a different image file).

Of course, I warn you that anything you change within CRM files could be re-applied when installing service-packs, etc., so be careful with this kind of changes…

Because of this, it is a clear unsupported stuff, even though it is a very simple customization.

I’m quite sure we’ll have it as a regular customization in future versions.

So!, It is a little hidden, but, quite easy, of course.