Convergence 2014 is just around the corner!

Once again, it is time to refresh yourself, Convergence 2014 is just around the corner! If you are a CRM consultant or developer, this is the opportunity that you network with people, share and learn what you can do with Microsoft Dynamics, hear from Microsoft about their most recent progress with Microsoft Dynamics software.

This year, there will be many exciting news from Microsoft, particularly since Microsoft has acquired MarketingPilot and NetBreeze last year. Convergence 2014 will be the venue you can learn more details about the integration story after those two acquisitions.

This will be my second time attending Microsoft Convergence, it has been a fascinating experience last year, I am expecting even more this year.

I have a couple of co-presenting opportunities at Convergence as one of the panel members. In addition to that, KingswaySoft will have a booth at Convergence this time, I will be mostly attending our booth fulfilling my duties as a KingswaySoft staff.

The following is what my schedule looks like.

Day	Time	Session/Activity	Room/Area
Tuesday	3:30 pm – 4:30pm	Ask the MVPs session: Administrative Edition	B201
Wednesday	9 am – 10 am	Interactive Discussion Session: Data quality best practices	B204
Wednesday	2 pm – 3 pm	Ask the MVPs session: Developer Edition	B201
Thursday	5 pm - 6pm	Interactive Discussion Session: Data quality best practices	B201
All other time		Booth exhibition (KingswaySoft)	Booth #108

Come to join any of the above sessions or stop by our booth #108 if you are available, we can have a chat for any topics related to Microsoft Dynamics.

See you in Atlanta!

CRM Connection Error: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: authenticationCredentials.SupportingCredentials

I just published a blog post on my company's blog site, which explains the reason why you might encounter the "Value cannot be null. Parameter name: authenticationCredentials.SupportingCredentials" error when connecting to CRM discovery service.

This error could happen when you use CRM SDK code, Plugin Registration Tool, or CRM Developer Toolkit to discover CRM organizations.

Since the blog post particularly discusses the usage SSIS Integration Toolkit and relevant screenshots, so I will keep the post there, but provide a link here.

Hope this helps.

CRM Developer Chat with Fellow MVPs and Resource Links

Today, I had the privilege to do a Google Hangout with three fellow CRM MVPs (Donna Edwards, Dave Berry and Jamie Miley) to talk about some CRM development practices, including development tools, HTML5 vs Silverlight, CRM Polaris and Orion releases, JavaScript, JSON, etc.

I had a lot of fun during the session, particularly when Jamie decided to put a pirate hat on himself.

You can watch the recording of the session below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=i82l7ENifBk



I mentioned a few tools and technical resources during the session, here are the links to them.

• CRM 2011 Web Resource Linker/Publisher
• Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.js library (An open source TypeScript library that enables CRM SOAP service calls through JavaScript)
• Dynamics CRM 2011 Type interface for TypeScript (TypeScript definition file for Xrm object model)
• AdxStudio ALM Toolkit (A tool suit that enables automated CRM development experience)
• HTML 5 Learning Resources
• HTML5 Tutorials on Youtube (A series of learning tutorial which contains 53 lectures which have great coverage of HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript)
• HTML5 Introduction on W3Schools (The starting page of a series of HTML5 articles)

Hope these links are helpful.

Presentation Deck and Demo Code for XrmVirtual Presentation

Thanks to all who have participated in the XrmVirtual session yesterday.

The following is the presentation deck that I used yesterday.



The demo code is also available for download at the following URL.

There are three solutions in the zip file, which are:

• CrmWebServiceIntegration, this solution contains two projects which show you how to load data from an .csv file to CRM using early bound and late bound programming style. 
• AzureServiceBus, this solution demonstrates the capability that you can use CRM Azure Service Bus in CRM plugin. In order for the solution to work, you need to first configure a service endpoint using CRM plugin registration tool, that you can use in the plugin code. 
• OnPremiseServiceBus, this solution hows to send message to Service Bus for Windows Service (on-premise installation) from CRM plugin. 

In order to run the sample solutions, you need to update the configurations in the code. Those changes can be found from the project if you search "TODO" keyword. I have used hard-coded configuration for simplicity reason. 

I used CRM developer toolkit for the two plugin projects. In case you have trouble opening the AzureServiceBus project, it is probably because you don't have CRM developer toolkit installed. And also, I was using Visual Studio 2010 instead of VS2012. If you are using VS2012, you might have trouble to deploy the plugin from Visual Studio environment.

Please note that the sample code is for demonstration purpose, and it is NOT production quality code. 

The presentation's video recording is also available for download on XrmVirtual site if you are interested in the topics. Watching the video, you would have to bear with my accent, and my poor presentation skills.

Presentation on Enterprise Data Integration for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

I will be presenting for XrmVirtual tomorrow by the topic of Enterprise Data Integration for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The session starts at 9am PST Apr 9th, 2013, and it will first kicks off by CRM SDK team to share with us some more recent updates in the latest SDK release (v5.0.15) related to UR13 and CRM Online updates.

My session will starts right after CRM SDK team's announcements and updates. In the session, I will try to cover some data integration options that you might have when working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM projects, including CRM SDK programming, Import Data Wizard, ETL, Service Bus, etc. The session will be concluded by sharing some tips and tricks that I learned when working with some large-scale data migration and integration projects, and also some lessons that I learned while designing and developing SSIS Integration Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The session has been planned to be a one-hour session which includes CRM SDK team's updates, but I have got the permission from XrmVirtual team that the session can go a little longer (mainly due to the amount of information to be covered in one session), so the entire session could run for about 90 minutes although the original invite is only for 60 minutes.

The following is the download link to the meeting invite, you are more than welcome to join the session if this interests you.


Note that the session will be recorded by XrmVirtual team. If you can't make it, you will still have a chance to view the presentation at a later time. Further information about the session can be found at XrmVirtual website.

XrmVirtual is a user group for professional CRM developers who are passionate about Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and is run by two Dynamics CRM MVPs, Julie Yack and Shan McArthur.

See you then!


[UPDATE - Apr 10, 2013] I have uploaded the presentation deck file and demo code that you can download, check out here. The presentation's video recording is also available for download on XrmVirtual site if you are interested. Watching the video, you would have to bear with my accent, and my poor presentation skills.

Introducing SQL2FetchXML Online Converter

Today, I would like to share with you that KingswaySoft, where I work, has just launched a new website called SQL2FetchXML.com, which is a free online converter that helps convert SQL script into CRM FetchXML query.

FetchXML is a proprietary query language that is used in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which helps query data from CRM system through its web service interface. We, as developers, are usually familiar with writing SQL script. Often the case, we take pride in our productivity when writing SQL script, and sometimes complex ones. But when it comes to FetchXML, we need to worry about the XML syntax, formatting, which makes us much less productive. With sql2fetchxml.com website, you can continue to use your SQL mindset, and let the utility handle the conversion for you.

Please feel free to give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Hope you find this utility useful.