Author: beanieabroad

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leaving CRM back to Salesforce

Well after less than 18months after being forced onto Dynamics CRM, and then upgrading to CRM2013,  users have rebelled against the apparent complexity of CRM 2013 and we reverting to Salesforce.

 

Why?

  1. Salesforce isn’t Microsoft.  Have a large OSX based community who shudder at the M word..(!)
  2. Cloud Based – ok CRM can be as well (though we were using the on-premise version).
  3. Integration into other products eg Jira, Skype is easier / free
  4. User interface – so much better say the users.  Actually I like the new CRM 2013 UI – it’s simplified, and once – “once” – you get used to menu items and how is been setup, life is quick to navigate around.  Alas, my sales users don’t share the same opinion.
  5. etc etc

 

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CRM 2013 Login Error “Invalid Action”

Using Microsoft Dynamics 2013, today we had this quite informative error   “Invalid Action – The selected action was not valid” which was preventing all users from logging in!

 

crm_invalid

After confirming it wasn’t the ADFS server at fault checked the services on the CRM server  checking the services found that  the “Microsoft CRM Asynchronous Processing Service” had stopped.

Starting this then allowed all users to log back onto the CRM server again.

crm_stop

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Allowing Read Only FTP Access to another account

On an ftp server, needed to create the ability for a user to have read only permission against another account.

Scenario

Master Software Distribution – account = source  with Read Write permission on its home directory

customer account needing read only access to a nominated share folder upon the master software directory.

AN easy fix is to  mount the source directory onto the customers home folder

 

 

master source file : = /home/master/source

customer = /home/customer

mkdir /home/customer/master
mount --bind /home/master/source /home/customer/masterfiles

So now, when the user logs in they will see a directory called masterfiles which has read only permission

 

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List of users in the instance

Needed a list of all users on the instance as per their domain name:

use master;
SELECT name FROM sys.database_principals
WHERE type_desc=’DATABASE_ROLE’ and name like ‘domainname%’
UNION ALL
SELECT name FROM sys.server_principals
WHERE type_desc=’SERVER_ROLE’ and name like ‘domainname%’
UNION ALL
SELECT name FROM sys.syslogins where name like ‘domainname%’

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Paxton Net2 – Door Entry Security

Recently had a problem passed to me  by a client for their door entry system not working with all users unable to access the offices.

Phone rang early one morning..   after suggesting to the user to grab a coffee, sat down to google whats going on.

So..  the security key cards turn out to bear no relation to the controlling software – which is Paxton Net2   .

Now, I’ve never dealt with such before – but given it’s an IT system at heart, must be easy right?   Hmmm.

First things first…  google.

ok next, i need to know the IP for the controller.    Checking the DHCP scope from the DC, looks like a previous system admin has kindly made a reservation and cunningly named a device called “card reader”.  so far so good..

now i assume this is the controller unit.

scanning using Wireshark, i find no open ports on the device. 😦

guess  I was being too 21st cent in expecting the device to have it’s own internal unit.  Fortunately Paxton supply some client software, with install instructions available here.

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Dynamics CRM EMail router – failing to load data

On a client site it was decided to switch to using SSL and using the Email Router to allow communication from Crm to Exchange.

The configuration profile was set to use email type – Exchange 2010 and auto discover the location for the exchange Webservices.

Image

however, this didn’t and have some lengthy triaging realised we had to change this to full https address eg https://[servername]/EWS/Exchange.asm

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CRM – Disable Users by Business Unit

My company is organised into regions and this is reflected in CRM as separate Business Units.

If we wish to prevent all users attached to the business unit from logging in, we can either disable each user individually or at a BU level.

Setttings> system > Administration > Business Unit

Then just tick against the BU you require

More actions > Disable.

The great thing with this it will also disable any currently logged in users.  So when they next try to perform an action, they will be denied:

crm_disable_Business_unit

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How to send email to a distribution group list in CRM 2011

Using Dynamics CRM 2011, needed to send an email to a list of people.

Marketing lists don’t really apply here as it could include a bunch of internal users etc.

Quite simple it turns out.

steps

1. Using Exchange, define the group and the group members.  eg crm-test@domain.com

2. in CRM, create a contact with the primary email address as per step 1.

What happens next when sending the email from CRM it will connect as normal to the email server thereby picking up this email distribution group.

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Varnish Configuration

Varnish startup configuration is contain in file /etc/sysconfig/varnish.

– this file is used by the Linux service

The main items it contains :

port number to listen upon – by default this is port 80.

port number and address for the admin interface -security warning here!

location of the main configuration file

VARNISH_VCL_CONF=/etc/varnish/default.vcl

location of the secret file

Size and storage of the Varnish cache

#
# # Cache file size: in bytes, optionally using k / M / G / T suffix,
# # or in percentage of available disk space using the % suffix.
VARNISH_STORAGE_SIZE=6G

VARNISH_VCL_CONF=/etc/varnish/default.vcl
#
# # Default address and port to bind to
# # Blank address means all IPv4 and IPv6 interfaces, otherwise specify
# # a host name, an IPv4 dotted quad, or an IPv6 address in brackets.
# VARNISH_LISTEN_ADDRESS=
VARNISH_LISTEN_PORT=80
#
# # Telnet admin interface listen address and port
VARNISH_ADMIN_LISTEN_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1
VARNISH_ADMIN_LISTEN_PORT=6082
#
# # Shared secret file for admin interface
VARNISH_SECRET_FILE=/etc/varnish/secret