September 2, 2010 – Sometimes, old-fashioned is the way to go. This is often the case when it comes to many-to-many (or “N:N”) relationships in Dynamics CRM. I’ve had a few questions lately about this, so I wrote up a summary that compares the two main approaches for doing this, and recorded a video on how to create old-fashioned (”manual”) N:N’s. Enjoy!

August 2, 2010 – When it comes to maxims, the pithier the better, I always say. Most of the CRM 4 maxims in this article fail the truly pithy test, but I hope they make up for it in usefulness. Let me know what you think.

The terms “customizing” and “extending” are code-words for “getting Dynamics CRM to do more stuff than it does out of the box”. They’re actually pretty well-defined concepts, however, and here’s my attempt at summarizing the concepts and clarifying what we mean by extending Dynamics CRM.

July 6, 2010 – Dynamics CRM entities can have one form only, which seems limiting at first. But you can still create a custom view of a form based on a user’s security role and other factors. This article demonstrates a role-tailored opportunity form and includes copy & pastable JavaScript and instructions.

1,276,607,270,204.00 – That’s JavaScript for a little after 8:00 AM GMT -6, June 15, 2010. A recent question from a reader prompted this article #4 in the Useful Form Scripts series, which drills down on form scripting with date fields. Enjoy!

Sometimes Dynamics CRM form scripts are pretty simple little snippets of code. But just because they CAN be simple doesn’t mean they’re ALWAYS simple. Here’s an example of form script that is very useful (updating a contact record with information from its parent account)…but complex enough that it will make you appreciate using Visual Studio to figure it out.

June 7, 2010 – CRM implementations can fail — or be perceived to fail — for lots of reasons. This article discusses some of the most common ones, drills down on one in particular, and describes how a “role-tailored” user experience snatch success from the jaws of failure. Or at least help a little bit.

June 3, 2010 – Three more examples of JavaScript snippets I use a lot and always find myself scratching my head and saying, “darn, where did I put that useful JavaScript snippet?!”, so now all I need to do is go to the Trick Bag and search on the Form Scripting category!

May 24, 2010 – Dynamics CRM form script – JavaScript behind form events – should be in your repertoire if you’re a Dynamics CRM professional. This article discusses its use, compares it to a couple of other methods that can sometimes be used for the same results, and provides a few useful snippets of JavaScript for CRM forms.

May 23, 2010 – Dynamics CRM 4.0 is a great platform for building custom apps, and if you’re interested in learning how to do that, I’ve got some good options for you. Here’s a short summary.