Display more than 2000 characters in SSRS report

We would like to share one of our experiences with SSRS reports. One of the reports we were building required displaying of notes that could hold more than 2000 characters.
 

 Including a text box worked fine for most of the records but we observed that the ones that had more than 2000 characters reported error. To show the entire content of the notes in SSRS reports you can try the following workaround:
 

Add a textbox with the following expression

 =IIF(Len(Fields!description.Value) >= 2000,Left(Fields!description.Value,2000) ,Left(Fields!description.Value,2000))

 
This will show the first 2000 characters.
 

For the next 2000 add a blank row and include a textbox with the following expression

 

=IIF(Len(Fields!description.Value) >= 2000, cstr(Fields!description.Value).Substring(2000), "")

 

If the content included is less than 2000 characters in the first place itself, then to hide the blank row add the following expression to the visible property

 

=IIF(Len(ReportItems!txtDescription.Value) >= 2000,false,true)

 

Note ReportItems!txtDescription refers to the same textbox that we are hiding

 

This way we were able to increase the display limit to 4000 characters to increase it further add another text by using the same logic as above.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Developer Toolkit: "No Organization has been specified" error.

 

 

You may come across the following error when you try to open a project that was created using Developer toolkit

 

To resolve this problem you need to delete *.SUO(VS Solution User Option) file from Visual Studio Project folder.

(These file records all of the options that you might associate with your solution so that each time you open it, it includes customizations that you have made)

This .SUO file is hidden in the project folder next to solution file which you can see in below screenshot.

 

 

Simply delete the above selected red rectangle file(.SUO) and run solution file.

 Now it will prompt for Connect CRM Explorer.



 

Note: SUO (solution user options) are user settings files. Completely disposable, you can delete it and the most common thing you will lose are breakpoints.

Import attachments using OOB Import Wizard in Dynamics CRM 2011

As we all know that the there is no separate entity for the attachments in Dynamics CRM 2011. We can add the attachments into the Note (annotation) entity.

But in order to import Notes and attachments in the CRM 2011, it is essential that you must have the separate files for them.

For importing Notes with the attachments by the import wizard you need to Arrange all of your files and attachments into a zip folder as shown into the below screenshot.

 

Where the “Notes.csv” contains the data of the Notes as shown into the below screenshot.

 

And “Attachments” folder above contains all the attachment documents. The files contained in the Attachments folder are as shown below.
 

After that please zip both the Attachments folder and Notes.csv into a single folder, and then import with the following mappings.

After completing the import it will display the data as follows under the corresponding regarding records.

Important points to note:

 

• Only map that column of the source file to the Document (documentbody) field of the Note record type which includes information about attachments. The mapped value in the source column to the document is the file name that is used to search a file in the Attachments folder in the .zip file.

• Each note record can have one attached file. You cannot import attachments to e-mail messages, sales literature items, or to any record type that does not support notes. The types of files that can be attached are determined in the Set blocked file extensions for attachments section of the System Settings dialog box.

• If you import file attachments, each attachment has two names: a physical name (Document in our case)and a logical name (File Name in our case). The logical names might not be unique. The physical names must be unique.

• During import, you must map the column with physical names to the "Document" field of the Note record type. You must map the column with logical names to the "FileName" field of the Note record type.

• The value in source column that is mapped to the Document is the file name that is used to search a file in the Attachments folder in the .zip file.

•  Each attachment must have a unique name to import. It is mandatory to include a column for the physical names in the source file. Also include a logical names column assigned to the file that is imported. You must map the column containing the logical file name to the File Name attribute in the Note (annotation) record type.

• We recommend that you map the column that contains information about the parent record to the Regarding field of the Note record type. This column creates the relationship between the note and the parent record to which the note is attached.

• In the .zip file, the folder containing attachments must be named Attachments.

 

 

Hope you find this information helpful.

 

Maplytics Release Announcement !!

The much loved Geo-analytical tool for Dynamics CRM 2011 which uses Bing Maps API now has an update available that will make Maplytics a must have tool for Dynamics CRM

We have added the following new features in Maplytics 5.4 version,

1.      Support for all entities defined in Dynamics CRM. Configurable entity maps
2.      Ability to map the address fields to be used for Geo-coding
3.      Color coding of pushpins based on configurable categorizations
4.      Heat Maps added
5.      Configurable tool-tips
6.      Dashboards. You can now include Maplytics component as a Dashboard web resource
7.      Dashboard   queries is configurable
8.      Overlay of nearby locations like airports, restaurants etc. along with the Dynamics CRM search results
9.      Ability to save the geographic search results as static views in Dynamics CRM for later use
10.      Ability to export search results to external file
11.      Ability to save the geographic search results as static views in Dynamics CRM for later use

For more details have a look at the White Paper

Maplytics supports all CRM Deployment models namely On-Premise, On-Line, Office 365 and Partner-Hosted.

It is supplied as a managed solution that is easy to install and un-install without affecting your existing customization.

We already have a 15 day fully functional trial available of our product. We are now also making available for a limited period only, a Community Light version of the product. This product is free to use for the next 6 months for up to 5 users after which you can order the product from us and upgrade to the unlimited full license of the product.

You can download the light version from http://www.inogic.com/Trial/DynaMapsCommunityVersion.zip. This is valid until 26^th December 2012.

The light version has the following limitations.

1.            Available for use with only account, contact and opportunity entities
2.            Mapping capabilities restricted to plotting of 50 addresses at a time on the map
3.            Only 5 dashboards can be configured
4.            Only 5 way-points can be defined for routing

After downloading contact us with your CRM install details to avail the 6 month free license.

Contact us for the 15 day full trial of the product.

Note: Bing Maps API is chargeable and you need to purchase Bing Maps subscription from Microsoft. We have entered a contract with Microsoft Bing Maps partner to make this license available to you for use with Maplytics at a reasonable price.

Here is a complete list of features included in Maplytics:

1.       Plot any entity record on the map
2.       Street View for any address
3.       Color coding of pushpins based on configurable categorizations
4.       Routing using multiple way-points
5.       Geo-spatial analysis of Opportunity and Sales data for summary analysis
6.       Uses Dynamics CRM views that can be easily created using the Advanced Find feature of Dynamics CRM. No learning curve required
7.       Print the Map and Driving directions
8.       Configurable Entity maps and Dashboards to support any Dynamics CRM entity
9.       Dashboards. You can now include Maplytics component as a Dashboard web resource
10.       Dashboard queries is configurable
11.       Overlay of nearby locations like airports, restaurants etc. along with the Dynamics CRM search results
12.       Ability to save the geographic search results as static views in Dynamics CRM for later use
13.       Ability to export search results to external file
14.       Ability to save the geographic search results as static views in Dynamics CRM for later use

Go ahead and request the trials and pour in your valuable feedback!

Report not running on more than 25 records

We created  a SSRS on-premise report using CRMFiltered parameter and the report was working fine except for the case when we ran this report on more than 25 records. In that case the report was crashing. When we used Diagnostic Tool then we found the below error.

The error was that it was concatenating the GUID’s instead of separating each other.

 

We found that the CRM FilteredAccount parameter only returns 25 records, not more than that. Hence, to fix this we used CRMAF_filteredAccount parameter and then the report was working fine.

 

Hope this trick helps!!!