Error: The given key was not present in the dictionary
Today I had the following error "The given key was not present in the dictionary" in MS CRM when opening an associated view.
Searching for a solution I came accross many blogs indicating that plugins might be the cause.
As it turned out I had deleted a picklist option from the entity without reassigning the existing data to a new option value. Thanks to Daniel Cai for pointing me in the right direction.
How to find the CRM 4.0. Build numbers and rollup
There is an easy way to check which CRM 4.0 build number and rollups are installed on both the MS CRM server as well as your Outlook Client.
![clip_image002[5]](http://crmxpg.nl/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/clip_image00251.jpg "clip_image002[5]")
Step-by-Step
- Open up MS Outlook.
- Go to Help, About.
- Check the last 4 digits to see determine the rollup number
- Go to http://vidmar.net/weblog/archive/2009/08/11/ms-crm4-build-numbers.aspx to see the complete list of build numbers. The list is constantly updated as new rollups are released.
Mail merge not possible on Sales Order entity in MS CRM
Apparently the mail merge option is not available on the Sales Order entity in MS CRM 4.0. I found an article on the Dynamics CRM community by MayankP describing an unsupported workaround for this:
Following article will help you enable mail merge of any CRM entity.
Again note that this is unsupported way to add this sales order entity in to the list as mentioned in steps below…
- Export Sales Order Entity customization from CRM Environment
- Open Customization file and then Update (or Add) IsMailMergeEnabled as 1, Save the changes.
Continue the read the article…
Track Emails directly from Shared Mailboxes
A customer wanted to know if it was possible to track emails directly from a shared mailbox. Up till now, the only way to do this was to move or copy the emails from the Shared Mailbox to a Personal Mailbox and track the emails from there, which is a workaround you would rather not advice to your clients.
Recently I came across a post from Huib Aarts explaining that some hotfix has made this possible. Below is a summary of his post:
On the page “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 updates and hotfixes” (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949256) there is a section “Hotfixes that have limited distribution”. In this section hotfix number 953812 is mentioned with the title “A hotfix that enables you to track an appointment in a shared calendar in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook is available“. The details of this hotfix describe it not only works for Shared Calendar, but also for Contacts and Tasks.
After some experimenting I found out it also works for Shared Mailboxes !!! Problem solved.
The message “Only items in the default Microsoft Outlook store can be promoted to Microsoft dynamics CRM.” is History!Only catch, the solution is supported, but the functionality I use it for isn’t, so it can be undone with a future rollup pack or something. I have succesfully tested it with Rollup 4. (With Rollup 2 it didn’t work.)
Here’s the complete article Tracking E-mails directly from Shared Mailboxes.
Update 22-04-2011:
The article by Huib Aarts has been removed because the hotfix no longer works beyond Rollup 7 !!
For those of you who still have customers on Rollup 7 or lower, here is the hotfix.
But remember, using this hotfix to promote emails from a shared mailbox is not what this hotfix was intended for. Use at own risk!
Create a button on a MS CRM form
This post explains how to create a button on the form, using java script. First of all we need to create a nvarchar attribute and put it on the form where we want our button.
![clip_image002[4]](http://crmxpg.nl/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/clip_image00241.jpg "clip_image002[4]")
Note: see Add a button to a text field in MS CRM on how to e.g. add a lookup button to a text field.
Copy the following code in the form OnLoad event.
15 Favourites MS CRM Industry Solutions by Software Advice
Lauren Carlson has recently posted a blog about the 15 Favourites Microsoft Dynamics CRM Industry Solutions:
When most industry observers hear customer relationship management (CRM), they think of applications for sales, service and marketing. However, actual CRM software users think of the much more specific functionality required to do business in their industry. For example, sales software used by a pharmaceutical rep to track FDA-related information will vary greatly from that used by a cattle rancher to track their herd. Yes, there’s an app for that.
To meet these unique industry requirements, Microsoft has called on hundreds of partners that resell, customize and implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM. These value-added resellers (VARs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) are extending the core Dynamics CRM applications to meet the unique needs of companies in a range of vertical markets. There are now over 750 certified industry solutions built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The breadth of industry solutions available is impressive – a testament to the scope and sophistication of the Microsoft partner channel.
To demonstrate the specificity of these solutions, we decided to highlight some of our favorite Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner solutions. For easy navigation, we’ve linked each industry to its corresponding solution:
Add a button to text field in MS CRM
This function can be used to attach a click event to a text field. I have slightly modified the original script Adi Katz by adding an extra property to the gTextFieldButton object to present a tooltip when you go over the button.
Note: see Create a button on a MS CRM form how to convert a text field into a button.
The gTextFieldButton object exposes the following properties:
- MouseOver image URL – this is the path to the image url (required).
- MouseOut Image URL – The default image URL (required).
- Click – A function to call when the user clicks on the image (required).
- Width – Integer, used to adjust the image positioning (optional, defaults to 21).
- Title – a tooltip when you move over the button (optional)
Copy the code in the Onload event:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Help – Answers Online
From The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Blog:
If you have questions about Microsoft Dynamics CRM we have answers online (as well as in the product). Here is a guide that should be bookmarked by every power user: http://rc.crm.dynamics.com/help/# It looks like this:
Slow performance when loading forms in MS CRM
Are you having performance issues when loading certain forms in MS CRM? Could it be that you are using one or more iframes to display an associated views on your forms? And are these iframes all loading at once?
Explanation
In all major browsers, the connections are shared between the main page and its iframes. This means it’s possible for the resources in an iframe to use up the available connections and block resources in the main page from loading. So the more iframes loading at once the slower the main page will be.
By default, Windows Internet Explorer 7 and earlier versions limit the number download connections at one time to two. Windows Internet Explorer 8 limits the number of files that you can download at one time to six.
Solutions
There are a couple of things you can try to increase performance:
- One way to improve performance is to delay loading an IFRAME until the tab where it is located is clicked. See this post: MSCRM: IFRAME Performance.
- Another approach could be to load each IFRAME after the other has finished loading.
See this post: CRM 4.0 Performance: Many-2-Many Performance in IFRAME. - Last but not least you can increase the number of connections in your Windows Internet Explorer 7 (and earlier versions) to say six connections. This fix requires a modification in the registry of each user. This post on Microsoft Support explains how: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/282402/en-us.
Complete list of MS CRM 4.0 statecodes and statuscodes
Microsoft has published a list with statecodes and statuscodes for all default entities in MS CRM 4.0. See this post StateCode and StatusCode Values on MSDN.