Peter Gernburd's MSCRM and SharePoint Lounge » Miscellaneous

Calling LoadLibraryEx on ISAPI filter failed for CRM DefaultAddonFilter.dll

pgernburd — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:23:47 +0000

My colleague and I were working this morning installing Update Rollup 14 on a client’s Production environment. Shortly after patching and rebooting the application server, we were greeted with a not-to-friendly error message when launching CRM:

HTTP Error 500.0 – Internal Server Error
Calling LoadLibraryEx on ISAPI filter “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server\Server\bin\DefaultAddonFilter.dll” failed.

The CRM application server was hosted on a 64-bit server with 8GB memory, running Windows Server 2008 R2, IIS7.

The cause of this problem was related to missing Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 runtime components. After installing these component, CRM worked like a charm.

Below are links to the runtime libraries in case others run into this issue:

x64: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=ba9257ca-337f-4b40-8c14-157cfdffee4e&displaylang=en
x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=a5c84275-3b97-4ab7-a40d-3802b2af5fc2&displaylang=en

Synchronization failed for 1 items on mobile phones

pgernburd — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:06:58 +0000

A number of our client’s have reported synchronization issues on their handheld devices after tracking CRM appointment. Specifically, when CRM-tracked appointments are synchronized to the handheld device (in our findings, iPhones and Android phones are affected), users may see the following generated email:

—

Synchronization with your iPhone failed for 1 items.

Microsoft Exchange was unable to send the following items to your mobile device. These items have not been deleted. You should be able to access them using either Outlook or Outlook Web Access.

Item Folder:
Calendar

Item Type:
IPM.Appointment

Item Created:
DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM:SS
—-

At the time of this writing, we are aware that the problem affects mobile users who have Rollup 12, 13, or 14 installed. A source suggests that a possible fix is slated for Rollup 15. Another solution appears to be a downgrade to Rollup 11.

EDIT: ~~The issue has been resolved in~~ Rollup 15: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=2449283
EDIT #2: The issue continues to persist for users with Rollup 15. We have re-opened our ticket with Microsoft Support.

Microsoft KB article outlining this issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2447256

Tracked email messages do not appear ‘tracked’

pgernburd — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:16:16 +0000

We recently had an interesting case brought to our attention. Inbound e-mails were being tracked into the CRM, and a corresponding email activity was properly created and linked in the CRM. The Track-in-CRM button was active when the user opened the email. However, the user was concerned that she could not see e-mail messages being tracked in CRM through the default Outlook window (the double-head icon was missing). In other words, no e-mails ‘appeared’ to be tracked in CRM from the main window.

Turns out, the Icon column was missing from the user’s Inbox window.

Hopefully this simple solution will help others who have a similar issue:

1) From the Outlook main window, click on Inbox
2) Right-click on the columns area and select Field Chooser

3) Drag the Icon field from the Field Chooser to the columns area window

Before (Missing Icon column):

After:

Missing contacts from Mail Merge

pgernburd — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:04:05 +0000

Suppose you’ve selected a list of CRM contacts for a Mail Merge (MM). However, the list of recipients in the Mail Merge do not equal the number of contacts that you had selected for that MM. The recipient list, although correct, is incomplete. What happened?

To understand this problem, we need to understand how Microsoft CRM uses several out-of-the-box fields to select which contacts should and which contacts should not be selected to receive MM material.

There are two levels of control that Microsoft CRM uses to decide if a contact should be selected.

The first field, donotsendmm (commonly labeled as ‘Send Marketing Materials’) is the overriding option. This option controls whether a contact could be selected in a MM (value = Yes), or not (value = No) altogether. If donotsendmm is set to ‘Yes’, CRM then looks at a subset of other fields that outline which type of MM activity the contact can be included in. The list of MM types include Letter, Email, Fax, Envelope, and Label. This granular level of detail is necessary if, for example, a contact may wish to subscribe to MM e-mails, but not MM faxes. These settings are controlled by individual fields.

The table below summarizes what field and option set is needed for a contact record to be included in a MM.

MM Type	CRM Field	Field Option
Letter	donotpostalmail	Allow
Email	donotemail	Allow
Fax	donotfax	Allow
Envelope	donotpostalmail	Allow
Label	dotnotpostalmail	Allow

Note: The table above assumes the field donotsendmm has been set to ‘Yes’

Removing AutoUpdate patch

pgernburd — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:27:17 +0000

* This information is provided in the CRM 4.0 implementation guide.

Extending our earlier article on using the Auto Update feature to update CRM for Outlook clients, this article dives into the process for removing a patch that either had been mistakenly deployed, or no longer needed in the database.

Note, that this method does not actually remove a patch that has already been installed. Rather, the steps below removes the autoupdate patch link from the database.

The process is quiet simple.

1) Retrieve a copy of the PatchId for the update you want to removed.

See the initial article: Auto Update feature to find out how to retrieve the PatchId

2) Create an XML file as follows (e.g., Rollup6-remove.xml). Replace the PatchId with the update to be remove.

{7E83D1E5-7B7A-45D1-8930-4FEFB4123B57}

3) Issue the following command below to remove the update:

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server\Tools\Microsoft.Crm.Tools.ClientPatchConfigurator.exe” “c:\crmpatches\Rollup6\Rollup6-remove.xml”

Note: Change the path to the ClientPatchConfigurator utility and the path to the xml file as required.

Dropping Microsoft CRM Smart Matching for Tracking Tokens

pgernburd — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:09:57 +0000

By default, Microsoft CRM uses Smart Matching to match and regard inbound emails to existing CRM records, so that similarities in emails threads are linked to the same object record. For a review of how Smart Matching works, please visit: http://community.dynamics.com/blogs/cscrmblog/archive/2008/11/11/microsoft-dynamics-crm-email-correlation-and-smart-matching.aspx

Microsoft CRM can also be configured to use Tracking Tokens to help predict which inbound emails should link together. A tracking token is an alphanumeric string generated by Microsoft Dynamics CRM and appended to the end of an e-mail subject line. It matches e-mail activities with e-mail messages.

In the past, we have had reported issues where smart matching technology has work inconsistently, often times leading to incorrect tracking of records. Some clients have asked on the possibilities of switching from Smart Matching to Tracking Tokens. This article covers such steps.

Prerequisite:

The CRM environment is at least at the Rollup 3 level.

Part A:

Review and complete all steps in Microsoft Knowledgebase article 969946: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969946/

Note: While running the Microsoft.crm.se.emailtrackingtokenextractortool.exe I received an error regarding the execution in the .NET Framework. Specifically, the error message was: Execution of user code in the .NET Framework is disabled. Enable "clr enabled" configuration option”.

I executed the following commands in SQL server:

exec sp_configure ‘clr_enable’,’1′
RECONFIGURE

The Microsoft.crm.se.emailtrackingtokenextractortool ran properly.

I then disabled this functionality after the tool completed.

exec sp_configure ‘clr_enable’,’0′
RECONFIGURE

Part B:

Review and complete all steps in Microsoft Knowledgebase article 958084:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958084

There is a hotfix, as well as a registry key setting that are applied to the CRM application server, and all client machines running CRM for Outlook.

Part C:

Enable Tracking Tokens in CRM by following these steps:

Open CRM | Settings | Administration | System Settings | Email (tab)

Click Use Tracking Tokens

If necessary, specify additional properties for tracking tokens, such as the subject prefix, number of digits for incremental message counter.

That’s all. From here on, new CRM-tracked emails will have a tracking token appended to the end of the email subject

CRM 4 and AOL extension in IE

pgernburd — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:35:45 +0000

One of our client user’s reported an issue saving records in the CRM. This issue had affected only one user in the organization. Clicking the save (or Save and Close) did not generate any action, and no database entries were written to. Further, no error message alerts came up. Simply stated, nothing happened.

Clearing the user’s IE cache did not resolve the problem. Upon a repair of IE, the issue was resolved. A repair of IE, among setting items to default settings, disables various third-party IE addon extensions.

After the issue was resolved, we had re-added the AOL addon to the user’s IE profile. After this extension was re-added, the CRM save issue had re-appeared. Disabling the addon once again rectified the problem.

To be clear, this is simply an observation of our issue. There may be a host of factors that could be contributing to this problem (copy of AOL that was downloaded, other machine factors, etc.).

Using Import Wizard in Microsoft CRM

pgernburd — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:42:12 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team blog has written an interesting article about using the import wizard in Microsoft CRM. It’s well worth a read for readers interested with basic importing needs.

http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2009/04/07/using-the-microsoft-dynamics-crm-4-0-import-wizard.aspx

Allowing CRM for Outlook to act as the e-mail agent for CRM e-mail activities

admin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:25:01 +0000

The way in which a user’s e-mail is sent from within the Microsoft CRM is configured on the user profile in the Microsoft CRM.
CRM -> Settings -> Administration -> Users -> User Profile Record

For both the incoming and outgoing access types, you can select to have CRM e-mail activities use the E-mail Router (if installed), or Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook to act as the sending agent. In CRM4, you can configure the CRM for Outlook to deliver standard Outlook e-mails, CRM-tracked e-mails, and e-mail activities created from within the CRM.

To allow CRM for Outlook client to send all CRM e-mail activities:

1) Navigate to CRM -> Settings -> Administration -> Users -> User Profile Record

2) Select Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook on both Incoming and Outgoing e-mail access types in the E-mail Access Configuration for each User Profile Record that should use the CRM for Outlook to send CRM e-mail activities.

Click ‘Save and Close’

3) On each Outlook profile, open the Set Personal Options by clicking CRM -> Options

4) Switch to the E-mail tab

5) Under ‘Check how CRM for Outlook should integrate e-mail with Microsoft Dynamics CRM’ check on: Allow Microsoft Dynamics CRM to send e-mail using CRM for Outlook

When an e-mail activity is created and sent by that user, this e-mail activity will be sent through Outlook on next synchronization.

Availability of the Settings module in CRM3 while running CRM for Outlook

admin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:20:52 +0000

Several of our clients have noticed that, and commented on, when the CRM for Outlook component is installed, and Outlook is running, the ‘Settings’ module in the CRM web is hidden from view.

Several of our adventerous client users have suggested overcoming the problem by clearing the Temporary Internet Files while Outlook is opened, and refreshing the CRM web page. That will work, but for a long-term solution, but good friends at East Region Microsoft CRM provide the following suggestion:

a) Close CRM web and Outlook
b) Click on Start -> Run. Type ‘regedit‘
c) Browse to the tree: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\
d) Find ‘ServerURL’
e) Change the DNS portion of your CRM servername to it’s IP equivelant (e.g., from http://crm/MSCRMServices to http://11.12.13.14/MSCRMServices )

The Settings area will now be available at all times while CRM for Outlook is opened and running.

Peter