January 19, 2012 – I get lots of Dynamics CRM questions in my inbox, but rarely as well-articulated as one I received today. A question does not have to be polished to deserve an answer, but if you want it to turn, unedited, into an article, it helps. Forthwith, January’s Dynamics CRM Trick Bag Stump the Experts question, regarding how to use JScript to link records in an N:N relationship.

November 20, 2011 – Unlike workflows, dialog processes have a form-based UI, and like other forms in Dynamics CRM, they can be accessed directly by a URL. Sometimes the best way to expose these to users is from a link on a dashboard. This article explains how to do that dynamically, so a click on the link will always run the dialog as the current user. Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving!

June 7, 2011, D-Day + 24,091 – You can give reports more prominence by exposing them on Dynamics CRM 2011 dashboards. Here’s an article that explains how to do it for a very useful and often under-appreciated out of the box report, “Activities”, that includes information about activities, grouped by user, activity type and a few other things.

May 26, 2011 – The style of JScript we need to write for Dynamics CRM 2011 has changed significantly in the upgrade from CRM 4.0. If you learn best from examples, here are a few you may find helpful: Hide or show account tabs; create a URL for an opportunity record, construct a SharePoint search or a Bing map URL from an account form and display in an IFrame.

Dec. 24, 2010 – You don’t have to write as much code in CRM 2011 as in CRM 4.0. And in situations when you do need to write code, you can do it more efficiently and re-use it better. JScript libraries are in CRM 2011 one of the many types of “web resources” you can create and which are stored in the CRM database. In this article I provide an introduction to JScript libraries in CRM 2011 and show an example of some useful code to format phone numbers.

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.