How to merge records in Dynamics CRM

In one of our earlier posts we had explained the Duplicate Detection Feature that is now available in Dynamics CRM 4.0. However suppose there was not Duplication detection rule setup and it resulted in you have duplicate records of Accounts in your CRM.

For this CRM provides the option to Merge 2 records.

This feature is available only on below entities:
- Account
- Contact
- Lead

Using merge functionality user can merge two records and can deactivate the duplicate record. Below is the screen shot which will show you the button to merge the selected two records.

When user clicks on merge button user will be prompted with following window using which user can choose fields which are latest one and update record with latest values while other record will get deactivated.

- User can choose master record which is at the end will remain active and other will get deactivated.

- Also there is an option to directly choose the filled values from two records. If for a field there is value present in both the records then master records value will get selected here. For this user need to checked on check box as shown in below screen shot.

New Plugin Messages made available by Microsoft in Dynamics CRM 4.0

Execute: The execute event always gets fired when you open the views. Like from Main application view, lookup view, Advanced search view etc. (but not from associated views).
While registering this event, no primary entity name is required.
Input parameter: fetchxml - The fetchXML query sent.
Output parameter: fetchxmlresult - The resultant records of the fetchXML query

Retrieve: The event is available for each of the entities like account, contact, custom entities etc. When user opens CRM record (CRM form) this event is fired
Input parameter: columnset - the attributes requested in the Retrieve Message
Output parameter: businessentity - The resultant business entity found.

Retrieve Multiple: The event will fire when user goes to associated view of Contacts or Custom entities that do not use the Rollup message. So it works for all associated views that does not provide the “Related Regarding Records” option.
Input parameter: query - Query passed to the Retrieve Multiple message
Output parameter: businessentitycollection - The resultset business entity collection.

Rollup message can be used for associated views that provide the option of displaying related records. However the Plugin registration tool does not provide for registering on the Rollup message. So that is something we still need to find out how it works.

Route: Route event gets fired when any of below entity instance moves from one queue to another.
Appointment
CampaignActivity
CampaignResponse
Email
Fax
Incident
Letter
PhoneCall
ServiceAppointment
Task

For email entity new events introduced are,
Assign, BackgroundSend, CheckIncoming, CheckPromote, Create, Delete, DeliverIncoming, DeliverPromote, DetachFromQueue, GrantAccess, Handle, ModifyAccess, Retrieve, RetrieveMultiple, RetrievePrincipalAccess, RetrieveSharedPrincipalsAndAccess, RevokeAccess, Route, Send, SendFromTemplate, SetState, SetStateDynamicEntity, Update

So with Dynamics CRM 4.0 Microsoft has given greater control to the developers to trap appropriate messages and perform custom actions.

How to use the Duplicate Detection Feature of CRM

CRM 4.0 provides a facility to detect duplicate records with same attribute value. To enable the duplicate detection you have to create a duplicate rule.

To create duplicate rule GoTo ->Settings->Data Management->Duplicate Detection Rule->New. Then you will get below window.

In above screen shot The fields which are covered with red rectangle are as follows :

1. Name : Name of the rule.
2. Status Reason : Status reason is by default unpublished. When you published this rule then status reason get Published automatically.
3. Base Record Type : In this we choose an entity by which we can find duplicate records.
4. Matching Record Type : In this we choose an entity on which we check the duplicate records.
5. Now we define the attributes on which we want duplicate detection.

Here I select contact in both “Base Record Type” and “Matching Record Type” because I want to compare “First Name” and “Last Name” of contact only.
If you want to check Is there any existing Contact With “First Name” and “Last Name” that you fill in the lead. Then do the following

Select Lead as “Base Record Type” and Contact as “Matching Record Type” and select the attribute of both entities on which you want to duplicate detection.
In this case whenever you want to save a lead then duplicate detection will run if a contact exists with the lead’s “First Name and “Last Name”.

When you create a record then duplicate rule will search for any existing record With “First Name and “Last Name”. If any existing record is found then The following pop up is generated.


Now if you want to save the duplicated record then click on Save Record if not then click on Cancel.

Note : Please Start Asynchronous Service before running the duplicate detection.

CRM Live Login LogonManager error

We were working on making one of add-ons CRM Live compatible. During development all worked well. However on a test environment it was unable to instantiate the logon manager object.

After checking around a lot and playing around with a lot of settings on the server we found that the issue was with the AppPool under which the website was being run. The identity of the AppPool was Network Service as usual, we changed that to run under Local System and voila it worked!!!

So the prerequisites to get the application designed for CRM Live working would be:

1. have the “msidcrl40.dll (IDCRL Dynamic Link Library)” present in your System32 folder.
2. Make sure that the website is running under an AppPool identity that has permissions to access the msidcrl.dll

This solved our problem and we were able to login to the Live account of CRM from aspx page.

We are not sure about the security and stability aspect of this and we just posted this as it happened to solve our problem immediately. More in this later as and when we research and get feedback.

Microsoft Office Accounting Integration Link with Microsoft Dynamics CRM now supports Dynamics CRM version 4.0 Partner Hosted deployment

Our Integration Module for Office Accounting and Dynamics CRM now supports the Partner hosted deployment as well.

In the Partner hosted model, the Integration Module shall be setup locally on users local machine and does not require any files to be hosted on the server.

For more information on the Intergration module visit http://www.inogic.com/integration_off_accounting.htm