by Gustaf Westerlund | Aug 25, 2015
When using federated users in a CRM Online, we encountered an error where accessing the CRM worked fine, but accessing the system using the Outlook client (configuring it) or accessing it via the tablet client did not work. It seems that some additional settings were required on the AD FS server.
We we working with a customer who had set up a CRM Online with federated users to their AD via their AD FS. When accessing this via the web client, it all worked well, but when trying to configure CRM for Outlook we just got an error “An error has occured. Please contact the system administrator”. Our customer’s IT manager started a premier support case as I felt this was most probably a AD FS related issue (there were no problems with the non-federated users).
After a couple of screen sharing sessions we got some great help from Pedro R at Microsoft Support and I learned something new which I thought I’d share with you and that is this;
When using federated users in CRM Online and when using IFD CRM with AD FS you have to enable the Outlook and Tablet authentication to pass through the AD FS, otherwise it is blocked.
There is a Technet article on this which can be found here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699726.aspx#BKMK_WS2012R2
I think this is often something that might be overlooked why I thought sharing it with you would be a good idea. Maybe you’ll find it and save yourself some time!
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, Founder and CTO at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
by Gustaf Westerlund | Jun 5, 2015
Been working lately with a customer in CRM 2015 Spring wave and I must say I really like it! My number one feature is the lovely menu which I enjoy every time i use it!
If you havn’t noticed the excel export/import functionality now supports .xlsx (finally!) which is great. I did have an issue with importing data into CRM from xlsx-file once, which might have been due to the fact that I had added a column by hand (with the correct field name!). The sad thing was that I got an error when uploading this and no option to download a log file. So, I don’t really know what was wrong, but I think my new column was it. It was easily solved, anyway, I just saved the document as “XML Excelsheet 2003 format *.xml”, which is the format used when exporting excel-templates in CRM 2011 and 2013. Importing that worked great. Some of you might think that csv-files are better, as the overhead is smaller in these, but I would warn against using these as I have had some issues with these. The most obvious being that the csv-format is regions sensitvie. With a en/us locale it will use the comma (,) as the separator but in Sweden (se/sv) it will use semi-colon (;). This will mess up a lot of.
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| Spring has come – when is summer comming? |
Another messy thing of CRM 2015 Spring wave, that I think most users of it have noticed, if they are not blind, is that form customizations cannot be done in IE11. I cannot understand how this bug could have escaped Microsoft quality control, and it will most certainly be fixed. Hence I use Chrome when customizing CRM. This made me notice another bug, that being that when using Chrome, I cannot save new mappings, which works perfectly well in IE11. Isn’t the multi-browser world wonderful! Just imagine the amount of money Microsoft must pour into this.
And on the subject of pouring money, we all want Microsoft to get us a lot of nice shiny features for CRM, and fix all the bugs, so how are we doing on the upgrades ourselves? Maintaining a lot of different code trees costs a lot of resources, which could have been used to other stuff. Think about that when you are requesting fixes for CRM 4.0.
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, Founder and CTO at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
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by Gustaf Westerlund | May 18, 2015
How synchronous workflows that fail, make emails disappear.
During the last few Days I have been having the not so pleasant experience of trying to find some really nasty errors in incoming emails to a queue in CRM. We are using CRM 2013 SP1 (on prem) and hence are using the Server Side Sync. Everything had been working great and we had developed some neat workflows that did some magic to convert emails to cases (as those features were not available, and not good enough either) when we develop our stuff.
Well, thing stopped working, I tried sending emails to the CRM server, but none were received in CRM. All I got in CRM was a not so descriptive general alert saying:
“An error occurred while creating incoming email in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for the mailbox XYZ. To view the email that failed, see the alerts in the mailbox record.”
and in the mailbox:
“An error occurred while creating the incoming email “Test 1512″ in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for the mailbox XYZ.”
As I am working on my telepathic abilities, I have not yet reached a level where I can understand what is wrong so I had a look in the trace, and I was very happy I was running an on-prem server. It is a bit long, don’t worry if you don’t understand it all, nobody (I think) does.
[2015-05-15 15:21:13.459] Process:CrmAsyncService |Organization:673c5996-a1fa-e311-93ed-00155d0a831d |Thread: 4 |Category: Platform.Metadata |User: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 |Level: Error |ReqId: | <>c__DisplayClass1.<LoadMetadataContainerFromDatabase>b__0 ilOffset = 0x14
>Multi-org sharable cache loading system and non-system metadata with build number 6.1.0.581 and language 1033
[2015-05-15 15:33:45.132] Process:CrmAsyncService |Organization:00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 |Thread: 26 |Category: Exception |User: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 |Level: Error |ReqId: cf367175-12a2-4719-a5af-f53f7f254399 | CrmException..ctor ilOffset = 0x7
at CrmException..ctor(String message, Exception innerException, Int32 errorCode, Boolean isFlowControlException) ilOffset = 0x7
at CrmException..ctor(String message, Exception innerException, Int32 errorCode) ilOffset = 0x5
at Exceptions.ThrowIfGuidEmpty(Guid parameter, String name) ilOffset = 0x18
at OrganizationSdkServiceInternal.Retrieve(String entityName, Guid id, ColumnSet columnSet, CorrelationToken correlationToken, CallerOriginToken callerOriginToken, WebServiceType serviceType, Boolean checkAdminMode) ilOffset = 0x16
at InprocessServiceProxy.RetrieveCore(String entityName, Guid id, ColumnSet columnSet) ilOffset = 0x28
at OrganizationServiceProxy.Retrieve(String entityName, Guid id, ColumnSet columnSet) ilOffset = 0x4
at EntityDictionary.TryRetrieveEntity(String key) ilOffset = 0xF8
at EntityDictionary.System.Collections.Generic.IDictionary<System.String,Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Entity>.get_Item(String key) ilOffset = 0x1B
at VisualBasicValue`1.Execute(CodeActivityContext context) ilOffset = 0x3A
at ActivityExecutor.ExecuteInResolutionContext(ActivityInstance parentInstance, Activity`1 expressionActivity) ilOffset = 0x35
at InArgument`1.TryPopulateValue(LocationEnvironment targetEnvironment, ActivityInstance activityInstance, ActivityExecutor executor) ilOffset = 0x2F
at ActivityInstance.InternalTryPopulateArgumentValueOrScheduleExpression(RuntimeArgument argument, Int32 nextArgumentIndex, ActivityExecutor executor, IDictionary`2 argumentValueOverrides, Location resultLocation, Boolean isDynamicUpdate) ilOffset = 0x16
at ActivityInstance.ResolveArguments(ActivityExecutor executor, IDictionary`2 argumentValueOverrides, Location resultLocation, Int32 startIndex) ilOffset = 0x9C
at ExecuteActivityWorkItem.ExecuteBody(ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager, Location resultLocation) ilOffset = 0x1C
at ActivityExecutor.OnExecuteWorkItem(WorkItem workItem) ilOffset = 0x53
at Callbacks.ExecuteWorkItem(WorkItem workItem) ilOffset = 0xD
at Scheduler.OnScheduledWork(Object state) ilOffset = 0xC5
at SendOrPostThunk.UnhandledExceptionFrame(Object state) ilOffset = 0x0
at PumpBasedSynchronizationContext.DoPump() ilOffset = 0x2E
at WorkflowApplication.Invoke(Activity activity, IDictionary`2 inputs, WorkflowInstanceExtensionManager extensions, TimeSpan timeout) ilOffset = 0x23
at WorkflowInvoker.Invoke(Activity workflow, IDictionary`2 inputs, TimeSpan timeout, WorkflowInstanceExtensionManager extensions) ilOffset = 0x36
at SynchronousWorkflowActivityHost.ExecuteWorkflowUsingInvoker(Activity workflow, ICommonWorkflowContext context) ilOffset = 0xD0
at SynchronousWorkflowActivityHost.StartWorkflow(WorkflowActivationData activationData, ICommonWorkflowContext context) ilOffset = 0x73
at SynchronousWorkflowActivityHost.StartWorkflow(ICommonWorkflowContext context) ilOffset = 0xBA
at WorkflowProcessServiceInternalHandler`1.ExecuteSyncWorkflow(Guid workflowId, PipelineExecutionContext pipelineContext, IGenericEventData workflowInstanceData, Boolean isTriggered) ilOffset = 0x59
at WorkflowProcessServiceInternalHandler`1.ExecuteTriggeredSyncWorkflow(Guid workflowId, PipelineExecutionContext pipelineContext) ilOffset = 0x21
at SyncWorkflowExecutionPlugin.Execute(IServiceProvider provider) ilOffset = 0x2C
at V5PluginProxyStep.ExecuteInternal(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x2A3
at VersionedPluginProxyStepBase.Execute(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x65
at Pipeline.Execute(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x65
at MessageProcessor.Execute(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x1FB
at InternalMessageDispatcher.Execute(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0xE4
at ExtensiblePlatformMessageDispatcher.Execute(PipelineExecutionContext pluginContext) ilOffset = 0x0
at ExtensiblePlatformMessageDispatcher.CreateWithInvocationSource(BusinessEntity entity, Int32 invocationSource, ExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0xB4
at BusinessProcessObject.Create(IBusinessEntity entity, ExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x54
at GenericActivityServiceBase.Create(IBusinessEntity entity, ExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0xA1
at CommunicationActivityServiceBase.Create(IBusinessEntity entity, ExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x1A
at EmailService.SetRecipientsAddAdditionalAttributeAndCreate(AddressEntry[][] allResolvedAddressEntries, Email email, Entity emailDeltaEntity, String traceSubject, ExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x1DA
at EmailService.Deliver(Boolean userPromote, Guid emailId, String messageId, String subject, String from, String to, String cc, String bcc, DateTime receivedOn, String submittedBy, String importance, String body, BusinessEntityCollection attachments, Guid campaignResponseId, Entity emailDeltaEntity, ExecutionContext context, Boolean validateBeforeDeliver) ilOffset = 0x524
at EmailService.DeliverIncoming(String messageId, String subject, String from, String to, String cc, String bcc, DateTime receivedOn, String submittedBy, String importance, String body, BusinessEntityCollection attachments, Entity extraProperties, Boolean validateBeforeCreate, ExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0xB8
at RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethod(Object target, Object[] arguments, Signature sig, Boolean constructor) ilOffset = 0xFFFFFFFF
at RuntimeMethodInfo.UnsafeInvokeInternal(Object obj, Object[] parameters, Object[] arguments) ilOffset = 0x25
at RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture) ilOffset = 0xCF
at LogicalMethodInfo.Invoke(Object target, Object[] values) ilOffset = 0x4F
at InternalOperationPlugin.Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider) ilOffset = 0x57
at V5PluginProxyStep.ExecuteInternal(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x200
at VersionedPluginProxyStepBase.Execute(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x65
at Pipeline.Execute(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x65
at MessageProcessor.Execute(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0x1C5
at InternalMessageDispatcher.Execute(PipelineExecutionContext context) ilOffset = 0xE4
at ExternalMessageDispatcher.ExecuteInternal(IInProcessOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory, IPlatformMessageDispatcherFactory dispatcherFactory, String messageName, String requestName, Int32 primaryObjectTypeCode, Int32 secondaryObjectTypeCode, ParameterCollection fields, CorrelationToken correlationToken, CallerOriginToken originToken, UserAuth userAuth, Guid callerId, Guid transactionContextId, Int32 invocationSource, Nullable`1 requestId, Version endpointVersion) ilOffset = 0x16E
at OrganizationSdkServiceInternal.ExecuteRequest(OrganizationRequest request, CorrelationToken correlationToken, CallerOriginToken callerOriginToken, WebServiceType serviceType, UserAuth userAuth, Guid targetUserId, OrganizationContext context, Boolean returnResponse, Boolean checkAdminMode) ilOffset = 0x1F1
at OrganizationSdkServiceInternal.ExecuteRequest(OrganizationRequest request, CorrelationToken correlationToken, CallerOriginToken callerOriginToken, WebServiceType serviceType, Boolean checkAdminMode) ilOffset = 0x2D
at OrganizationSdkServiceInternal.Execute(OrganizationRequest request, CorrelationToken correlationToken, CallerOriginToken callerOriginToken, WebServiceType serviceType, Boolean checkAdminMode) ilOffset = 0x26
at InprocessServiceProxy.ExecuteCore(OrganizationRequest request) ilOffset = 0x34
at IncomingEmailProviderBase.DeliverMessageInternal(EmailMessage emailMessage, Boolean validateBeforeCreate) ilOffset = 0x1B7
at IncomingEmailProviderBase.DeliverMessage(EmailMessage emailMessage, Boolean validateBeforeCreate) ilOffset = 0x19
at GetItemsStep.ProcessResponse() ilOffset = 0x5AB
at ExchangeIncomingEmailProviderStep.EndOperation() ilOffset = 0xFC
at ExchangeIncomingEmailProvider.ReceiveEmails() ilOffset = 0x92
at IncomingActivityProviderBase.Run() ilOffset = 0x42
at MailboxEmailOperation.PerformOperation() ilOffset = 0x2C
at MailboxOperationBase`1.Execute() ilOffset = 0xAA
at MailboxProcessingOperation.PerformOperation() ilOffset = 0x1A
at MailboxOperationBase`1.Execute() ilOffset = 0xAA
at MailboxOperationCommand.InternalExecute(MailboxAsyncEvent asyncEvent) ilOffset = 0x64
at AsyncCallbackHandler`2.ResumeExecution(IAsyncEvent asyncEvent) ilOffset = 0x56
at AsyncEventExecutionManager`2.ExecuteHandler(IAsyncEventHandlerFactory handlerFactory) ilOffset = 0x8A
at PoolHandler.ProcessAsyncEvent(IAsyncEventExecutionManager asyncEventExecutionManager) ilOffset = 0x144
at AsyncEventOperation.<.ctor>b__2(IServiceOperation operation) ilOffset = 0x0
at FaultToleranceBehavior.Execute(ServiceOperationAction operation, IServiceOperation operationParameter) ilOffset = 0x18
at MonitoredOperation.Execute() ilOffset = 0xD
at ThreadPoolQueueExecutionEngine.InvokeNextOperationInThreadPool(Object state) ilOffset = 0xC
at ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx) ilOffset = 0x70
at ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx) ilOffset = 0x4
at QueueUserWorkItemCallback.System.Threading.IThreadPoolWorkItem.ExecuteWorkItem() ilOffset = 0x30
at ThreadPoolWorkQueue.Dispatch() ilOffset = 0xA3
>Crm Exception: Message: Expected non-empty Guid., ErrorCode: -2147220989, InnerException: System.ArgumentException: Expected non-empty Guid.
Parameter name: id
[2015-05-15 15:33:45.304] Process:CrmAsyncService |Organization:00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 |Thread: 26 |Category: Platform |User: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 |Level: Error |ReqId: cf367175-12a2-4719-a5af-f53f7f254399 | ExceptionConverter.ConvertToFault ilOffset = 0x69
>UNEXPECTED: no fault?
My first thought was that the stack trace was really long… and then there was some mentioning of User with Guid 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.
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| Another kind of queue ticket |
As the Server Side Sync has something of a rep for not being the most reliable guy in Town, I wasn’t really sure if this error really was an error that we had caused or if there was something wrong with the server side sync. As my perception was that we hadn’t really changed any thing, I started with the recreating the mailbox, recreated the server profile, ran test and enable and that worked, but when I tried sending my own emails, from different email accounts, as you never know if there is something spooking it with a specific email address, I still never got the queue to read any emails, not even the test emails created by CRM. I was starting to get a bit short on hair by this time, so I resorted to my classical troubleshooting method of backing off as far as possible and seeing if things still were broken, and I hence deactivated all workflows and plugins that were associated to email and Queue item, and gave the user full access and I was once again awarded with this method, emails started arriving in the queue in CRM.
I then revoked admin access and started re-enabling each single workflow/plugin until thing started
breaking again. This turned out to be a painstaking process as the only way I found to test this was to send an email to CRM and then wait for about 5 minutes until it was/or was not pulled into the queue.
It took me more or less a days work just to find the two workflows that were causing the problems.
The actual problems in them selves, arn’t really that interesting, it turned out that the error message above was actually quite correct, If you try to set a null-user to an owner field, CRM will respond like this.
What I did notice however was that the workflows that we were using on “queue item” in this case were synchronous (yes, yes, we do have good reasons for it, I hope you do to, Otherwise, please choose asynchronous/background workflows) and as they broke, CRM did two interesting facts that are not very desirable and noteworthy:
- The mailbox was shut down for further email processing. It had to be “Test and Enabled” to start receiving emails again. I have yet to see a good way to do this in an automated fashion and to be able to monitor the mailboxes to see if they are working as expected.
- The email that was the cause of the breaking of the workflow, got lost. Even after the mailbox got reactivated, it had marked this email as read and did not read it into CRM despite the fact that it was neither in the queue nor as a lone activity which might have been the case if the Creation of the queue item broke. But obviously the entire process is handled atomically.
Based on this I have the following recommendations:
- If possible try to avoid an synchronous logic on receiving email or Creation of queue items. Try to move logic to asynchronous as this will cause errors to be non-fatal, like the two types of effects that are hard to handle above.
- If you do need to have synchronous logic on the receiving of emails or Creation of queue items try to add conditions in the beginning that will ensure that the logic only runs in those very specific cases where they are supposed to. Be aware of the fact that queue items can be associated to many different entities, so don’t rely on the fact that they should be only connected to something specific. At least take into consideration the fact that they will be connected to emails at some Point in time.
- I read an interesting fact today, that the activation of business rules Controls in which order they will be executed. If you are using CRM 2015 with server side (Entity) scope, this could probably cause similar issues if the activation is done haphazardly and causes the execution to be done in a way that can cause a bug and break processing of the queue item or email. I havn’t checked if these are run pre- or poststate but I think that depends on the action.
- If you get errors, especially when using CRM Online, try to replicate the error in the sandbox Environment and then either move backwards to a Point where it starts working again, or deactive Everything related to emails and queue items, make sure it works, and move forward. When you know where the error is, finding what the error is, is so much easier.
We also found a related bug in CRM today, if you try to create an asynchronous workflow that triggers on a field which has field based rights activated on it, it will break, with some weird error message about not being able to change domain for the user. The simple fix for that is to make the workflow synchronous and to make it run as the user that activates it, that worked. We didn’t try to run it as the user who created the workflow, as that is the same logic that is used in asynchronous workflows, I wasn’t too keen on trying something that was more likely to fail. If you have tried it, please leave a comment below.
I hope to see a lot of people tomorrow on the 19:th at the Swedish CRM UG Meeting!
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, Founder and CTO at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
by Gustaf Westerlund | Apr 19, 2015
I was recently contracted by Microsoft Sweden to hold two custom certification preparation classes for the MB2-704 Microsoft Dynamics CRM Application and MB2-707 Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customization and Configuration.
One of the things that struck me during the preparation of this course was that Microsoft have changed the names of the certifications. Previous certifications, for instance the matching certification for CRM 2013 Application is named “MB2-700 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Application”. For those who need it to be spelled out, the version name is no longer in the name of the certification…”
As Microsoft have at the same time moved all Microsoft Official Curriculum Courses (MOC) from being normal classroom Courses to being eLearning Courses, one might wonder if there might be a significant pattern here.
The last but not least piece of the puzzel, is the now increased version cadance, one new version for CRM Online every 6 months and a new major version for both CRM Online and On-premise every year.
My conclusion is, that the version number indicates that they might be sticking to this for some time. Creating, and maintaining new certificates probably takes a lot of Resources from their end so this might be a way to manage the current version cadance.
A related subject is that for Dynamics NAV, all certifications have been dropped. There are no new certifications for NAV 2015 and the requirements for partners are being revised. I don’t Think this will spill over to Dynamics CRM, but it is none the less interesting.
I also tried taking the new MB2-707-OP, Online Proctored version of the exam, but I didn’t even get to Writing the certification as my full formal name is “Nils Gustaf Westerlund” and this is also what my ID says. However, the “Nils” part is never used and is for instance not on any of my credit cards. I had hence not used “Nils Gustaf” as my first name in the Microsoft account either and I have never had any issues with this earlier when Writing exams at any of the test centers, and I wanted to test the online proctored exam so that I could tell the attendees of the class I was holding about it so that they could know if it was useful or not. As you probably could imagine from my elaborations regarding my name, when I had to show my ID to the supervisor of the exam, I was informed that my name was wrong. I tried explaining that this is how names are written in Sweden, and even showed him several of my credit cards with Master Card, showing only “Gustaf Westerlund” but that did not help. He was about as flexible as a piece of Concrete. After a lot of complaining and phone calls to Pearson Vue, I finally got them to pay me back. I can only imagine the kind of trouble you can have if you have a Chinese or Russian name. I strongly suggest that Pearson Vue shape up their understanding of international naming standards. I signed up for a test at a local test center the day after and there was no problem there but I am Always flabbergasted at what I am not good at based on the test, this time it was forms. If anything, I am actually quite good at forms, and I do teach CRM 1.2 (not so much any more), 3.0, 4.0, 2013, 2015 and have worked with CRM for 10 years. But I passed, and I guess that is what counts.
Now, I have to go to bed, tomorrow is Innovation Challange here in Madrid, eXtreme CRM! I hope you are here, don’t be a stranger! I don’t bite.
Don’t miss George Doubinski’s and my “7 Sins of CRM Development” on Tuesday at 11:00 in room Bangkok if you are here in Madrid.
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, CEO and owner at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
We we working with a customer who had set up a CRM Online with federated users to their AD via their AD FS. When accessing this via the web client, it all worked well, but when trying to configure CRM for Outlook we just got an error “An error has occured. Please contact the system administrator”. Our customer’s IT manager started a premier support case as I felt this was most probably a AD FS related issue (there were no problems with the non-federated users).
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