Last night we headed to Suite 410 in Seattle for cocktails. It was my first time there and Ellie’s second. Our occasion was birthday drinks for Todd’s new GF (or whatever the appropriate term is). 410 is a small bar which meets the Washington State liquor licensing requirements by serving for appetizer items. It’s nice to actually go to a bar not a bar/restaurant. Ambience is good with funky bar stools, comfortable lounge seating and hardwood floors. The cocktail menu contains the obligatory specialty cocktails however I was pleasantly surprised with the inclusion of a Pisco Sour and a Caipirihna. Like most good cocktail bars you are better served with ‘sticking to the classics’. Ellie tried a variant on the Cosmo (with pomegranate juice) and then a chocolate martini (unfortunately they didn’t have dark crème de cacao so she had Godiver liquor with Stoli Vanilla). I went for a Plymouth Gin Martini which I found a little too mild and a Pisco Sour (yeah – I know – I usually avoid the specialties but who can say no to pisco). Rating: worth it.

It's been a while since I posted a reading/watching list (which must the meat and drink of most blogs).

Watching: Blade The Series, Colbert Report, The Closer, South Park and Doctor Who (1970's not recent).

Reading: Jpod, Jim Kramer's Mad Money, Judas Unchained.

Listening: Bugger all. NPR is my audio stimulation at the moment. In the battle of word vs music I tend toward the word (the more political the better).

I'll be in Minneapolis for a couple of days next week visiting one of our prospective customers (prototyping and conducting some user research). If anyone has any good suggestions for good cocktail bars in the MSP area please feel free to email me.

Lately I've been doing a lot of CRM customizations (for Titan planning, dogfood efforts and prototype assistance for customers/partners). At lunch today I wrote a quick version tool which some might find helpful. It's a CRM entity (Version) with some code attached (in the form of a callout). Each time you create a new Version record it automatically exports all customizations and saves them as an attached xml file.

Install of the solution is easy if you are familiar with callouts (Business Logic Extensions).
1) Import this entity xml.
2) Edit the Version entity (which you just imported) and set it to display in the Settings Area (or whatever works for you).
3) Publish the Version entity.4) Copy this DLL and the callout.config.xml to your \Program Files\Microsoft CRM\server\bin\assembly folder on your CRM App Server. If you are using a network load balanced cluster remember to do this on all your machine. If you have callouts already running on the server merge the callout.config.xml elements together appropriately.
4) Reset IIS.

More information regarding callouts can be found in the SDK and here on MSDN.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Joris has a great sample over on his blog for using an AJAX methodology inside CRM. Check it out here.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft dynamics crm microsoft crm

I discovered today an interesting customization which might interest some readers. One of our Engineers suggested that this might be possible and not surprisingly it is (our Engineers are usually right).

Normally (ie. in the Customization User Interface) you can’t modify the criteria of a Lookup View. You just get stuck with all the records for that entity. However the FetchXML (one of CRM’s query languages) for that ‘default query’ is exposed in the Import/Export XML.

Simply export the entity which you want to modify the lookup for. Then look for the Lookup View. In the example below this can be found on line 47. The gotcha here is that the name sub element is at the bottom of the saved query element. Now look for the fetchxml element (row 4) and make some changes! In this example I added a condition which says that all Accounts must have an accountnumber = 100 (unrealistic I know – but it illustrates the point). Once you have made the changes then import the entity back in and publish it.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Here is today's tip: When Importing 'big' customization files (OK - when importing 'any' customization files) I suggest Terminal Service'ing into one of your app boxes to do the Import. The exception to this is the ISV.config and SiteMap.xml imports - these work like a dream over the network.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Well the cat is out of the bag! Not sure how much more we are saying at the moment...

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Here is my updated house cocktail list. I've added Ellie's current favourite (Black & White) and my current indulgence (Japanese Slipper). Download the PDF here.

Last Friday Ellie and I were looking for somewhere casual to have a quick drink and dinner. We decided to check out the new Trader Vic’s in Bellevue. When we arrived it looked a little more formal than the website (see photo in the link). As a general rule: the less lighting a restaurant has the more expensive it is and Trader Vic’s didn’t disappoint. The prices were a slap in the face considering the very average food quality and ‘chain restaurant’ service quality. The Mai Tai (Trader Vic invented the Mai Tai) was OK but hardly earth shattering. For the kind of $$ we paid it was a total waste of time. My verdict: Don’t do go there under any circumstances. It’s simply not value for money.

I'm heading 'off the grid' this week to focus on spec writing. I also think I might have developed a rather nasty email addiction (great if you work with me as I have zero unread mails I'm really responsive on email).

As my blog also serves as a platform for intra-company communication: here is my abridged OOF:

During the week of 7/10 to 7/14 I am focusing on spec writing and will not be reading email or RSS. My contact options during this time will be:
Phone: +1 425 ●●● ●●●●
Communicator: philipri@microsoft.com
Live Messenger: philip@philiprichardson.org
Hotmail: philip@philiprichardson.org
In Person: Building ●●●, Office ●●●●
I apologize in advance for any inconvenience which this may cause. My intention is to focus my time on the important task of writing some great specs!

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

For those going to WWPC (which is not me) remember to check out the Oak Room, Sonsie and 33 (but not Mother Anna's). I've seen some of the demos for CRM which will be shown: they look really cool.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Last night I check out Superman Returns with B & C (but not E as she tired and had to work early today). Overall it was a good movie and it's worth seeing on the big screen. Casting was excellent and I enjoyed Brandon Routh, James Marsden, Frank Langella and Kevin Spacey. I did not enjoy Kate Bosworth in any sense. Her presence just didn't work for me. The special effects were well done (nice but not overwhelming in a Star Wars Episode 3 kind of way). It was fun to see the familiar scenes in Sydney (where the film was made but not set): Martin Place, the park behind Wynard Station and many more.

A friend of mine, Todd, is current heavily invested in the 'dating scene'. He uses modern tools like match.com, cell phones, email etc to manage his dating (or courting as it was once called). During our conversation I noticed the similarity between's Todd's 'scenario' and that of a typical salesperson. Todd had a pipeline of leads and was actively working a number of opportunities.

So it got me thinking. Where else can we apply the lessons of CRM in our personal lives? There are plenty of task tracking apps out there on the web and good old pen/paper works well. But CRM is more than just tracking it is about making better decisions. Todd is trying to decide what girl to date (but no doubt he is also considering long term potential). At the moment I'm trying to work out what MP3 player to buy my wife. Neither of us have a toolset which aids our decision making process - beyond research & communication.

This has me thinking...

Tags: crm