Mitch Milam's Dynamics CRM and xRM Discussions

I ran into an interesting requirement this morning that let’s me show off one of my favorite CRM add-on utilities: Stunnware Tools.  Let’s cover both.

The Requirement

I needed to create a list of users that were members of a specific security role.  Rather than writing an application or designing a SQL query, I opened Stunnware Tools for Microsoft Dynamics CRM so that I could create a query in the FetchXML Wizard.

Using the FetchXML Wizard

The FetchXML Wizard allows you to query CRM by building a FetchXML query.  Here is a screen shot of the Designer:

Designing the Query

The following steps were required to created the desired query:

Step 1:

Query the SystemUser entity and return the Full Name of the user.

Step 2:

Include a Linked Entity that links the SystemUser Entity to the SystemUserRoles Entity

Step 3:

Add another Linked Entity from SystemUserRoles to Role.  This link will have a filter applied where the Name of the Role is equal to salesperson.

Here is the resulting FetchXML query:

<fetch mapping="logical" count="50" version="1.0">
  <entity name="systemuser">
    <attribute name="fullname" />
    <link-entity name="systemuserroles" from="systemuserid" to="systemuserid">
      <link-entity name="role" from="roleid" to="roleid">
        <filter>
          <condition attribute="name" operator="eq" value="salesperson" />
        </filter>
      </link-entity>
    </link-entity>
  </entity>
</fetch>

Which produces the following result set:

This whole process took me less than 5 minutes because the FetchXML Wizard Query Designer understands the links between CRM Entities and allowed me to quickly select those links and specify the necessary filter to produce the dataset I needed.

The Export to Excel module included in Stunnware Tools allows me to export the above result set to an Excel worksheet.

More About Stunnware Tools

There are two editions:

• The Community Edition: It's free and contains the Metadata Viewer, FetchXml Wizard and Excel Export.
• The Professional Edition: A subscription-based version with access to all tools of the Community Edition plus the Code Generator for C# and VB.NET, the CRM Help File Generator, additional features of the FetchXml wizard and the Customization Comparer.

Stunnware Tools is probably the most valuable Dynamics CRM add-on that I have.  I use it on a weekly, if not daily basis and which makes me a much more productive developer.

I’ve released a new free utility for CRM users that allows you to bulk-delete CRM Entity Attributes.

The user interface is fairly straightforward, as you can see below:

How It Works

The operation is pretty simple:

1) Select if your organization is OnPremise or CRM Online.

2) Enter the name of your server and the credentials required to connect properly.

3) Select the organization you wish to connect to.

4) Select the Entity you wish to delete attributes from.

5) Select the attributes to delete.

6) Click the delete button.

Behind the Scenes

This utility uses standard CRM SDK methods to delete the attributes you specify.  A log file is written to the location where the application is stored.  All actions will be logged and if errors are encountered, the log file will be displayed at the end of the processing cycle so you can see what happened.

Remember: The same rules that would apply if you were to delete an attribute through the CRM user interface apply here.  For example: if the attribute is used on a form, a view, or within a workflow, the deletion will fail and you will be given a list of locations where the attribute is in use.  You must remove the attribute from those locations before you can continue.

Download

You may download it here.