Posted on

Microsoft Dynamics Template for Visual Studio updated

I have recently updated my Visual Studio Template for holding Microsoft Dynamics Assets. Its available on the Marketplace by searching for Hallstudios, or you can download it using the button below.

  • I have added a new Project within the Solution Template for holding TypeScript files for use in the Entity Forms. Creating and editing a TypeScript file will automatically create a matching JavaScript file which can be uploaded to Dynamics.
  • The solution also includes Intellisense for the Xrm Client API within the TypeScript files.
  • The Solution Unpacker tool has been updated with the latest version so it now supports packing and unpacking Dynamics Solutions that contain Flow’s.
Download Now!
Posted on

Update to CRM Utilities for Visual Studio

Just recently updated the CRM utilities extension with the following fixes :

  • Supports SVG files correctly. Although publishing files to an SVG Web Resource was working, if a file in Visual Studio had the SVG extension, when right clicking it, it would not offer the option to Link or Publish.
  • When extracting a solution from Dynamics, if the Web Resource naming convention does not have a file extension, then the Publish and Linking features would not work properly. Now, if it detects that the file has a corresponding “filename.data.xml” file (which it will if its been exported and unpacked from Dynamics), then it will offer the Publish and Linking options.
  • When trying to link or publish a TypeScript file, if an equivalent JavaScript file exists in either the same folder, or in an alternative JS folder, then its that file that will get linked or published. This means you can directly edit a TS file, save it and publish, without having to select the JS file.
  • An Entity Filter has been added to the Class Generation options allowing a list of entity logical names (separated by a semi-colon) to be entered. When creating a class file, any entities that are found in this list are not added to the file. This is very useful when you have a similar named custom entity that always clashes with a system entity. For example, if you have your own address entity, you can exclude the system address entity.

As usual, you can get the update from the Marketplace, or by downloading here :

Download Now!
Posted on

Solution History

The other day, I was investigating some solution import issues, and I need to see who was guilty of importing a solution into an environment that it should never have been imported into.

I fired up the old XrmToolbox, to use the Plugin called Solution History which I always found a nice handy little tool for getting at the history of when and who imported solutions.

It was at that point that I realised that CRM now supports a Solution History view within the user interface. I have no idea when this appeared, but it seems to be sometime this year.

Since then, I have found this invaluable for investigation solution issues, and also for updating environments where you need to follow the exact pattern of solution imports that were done within a test environment.

To use it, simply get to your Settings area of Dynamics, and choose Solution History from within the Customization section.

This will then give you a nice list of the solutions that were imported, exported, succeeded and failed.

Posted on

Adxstudio 7 solutions do not import into Dynamics 365 V9

Here is a bit of useless information for you!

I setup a trial of a V9 instance of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for some testing, and I found that the Adxstudio 7 solutions would not import.  The installer goes in, but installing the base portals solution fails.

To get round this, I converted the instance to a sandbox, reset it to V8.2, installed the solutions, and I intend to upgrade it to V9, although I will have to wait a week for the scheduled update to work.

So there you have it.  You cannot set up a new V9 instance to run old portal code on.

Posted on

Solution export error, check SLA’s

Recently I had an issue where all of a sudden, a solution would not export from the development environment, even though it was previously fine, and as far as I knew, it had not changed.  Dynamics would throw a very unhelpful error, with no details of what went wrong.

I tried creating a new solution, and adding the exact same components and that one also failed, so I knew it was not the solution itself, but its contents.

After a bit of trial and error, I discovered that it was the SLA’s that were causing the issue.  Turns out that it was because one of the SLA’s had not been activated.  Never thought it needed to be, but in this case, it was causing an issue.

So, if it ever happens to you, make that one of the first things you check, it might save you some time.

This was a version 8.2 on premise install, but I didn’t have access to the actual server.

Posted on

Microsoft.Crm.Entities.PluginType and PluginTypeNode: System.Xml.XmlElement caused an exception

I was getting this error when trying to import a solution into an On Premise Dynamics 365 environment.

This was a solution that I knew had previously imported into other environments, so I was very confused why it would not import.  Turns out, the Sandbox Processing Service on the server was not actually running.

Restarting the Service allowed the solution import to proceed.

I believe this must have happened as we had experienced a power cut, and I have certainly seen Dynamics services not restart properly when a server is not safely switched off correctly.  Also, it may have had something to do with the fact that this one little Virtual Machine server was running about 20 different CRM Organisations at once.

Anyway, never assume that its an issue with your solution.  Nine times out of ten, it is, but always remember to check your environment as well.