In many CRM implementations, users adopt a loose attitude when it comes to where they put customizations.  Changes are made to production and development simultaneously, and then changes are pushed from development to production.  This causes things to get overwritten and break.

To mitigate this, a firm commitment to making changes in development and then pushing them to production should be taken.  In regards to CRM 2011 Solutions, we recommend you always work out of an update solution when making changes so nothing is left behind when the changes are pushed.

When workflows aren’t firing in CRM (CRM 4/2011), usually it is due to one of a few things

• Your workflow is published with a User scope, and the owner of the record that should be firing the workflow is not the same as the owner of the workflow.  You should set it to be organizational or some other scope if this is the case.
• The workflow is not published.  If it isn’t published, publish it.
• The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Asynchronous Processing Service is not running.  Go into the service manager and start it.  See below.

We were running into an issue with ISV code not running in our newly upgraded CRM 2011 environment.  We got the error that said,

Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Crm.Sdk, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference

Adding the following assembly binding redirection finally solved our problem right after the configSections tag in the web.config of the CRM website.

<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.Crm.Sdk" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" culture="neutral" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="4.0.0.0" newVersion="5.0.0.0"/>
</dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>

When doing an upgrade, if you fail to delete the contents of the ISV.config in CRM4, you are left with a bunch of garbage in the Ribbon.

Here is a snippet that can help you wipe out all of the test Ribbon Xml from your CRM4 to CRM 2011 upgrade.  It can be used on the application ribbon or any entity in the system.  For a default upgrade, you would want to place this in the account entity and the application ribbon RibbonDiffXml sections.

<RibbonDiffXml>
<CustomActions />
<Templates>
<RibbonTemplates Id="Mscrm.Templates"></RibbonTemplates>
</Templates>
<CommandDefinitions />
<RuleDefinitions>
<TabDisplayRules />
<DisplayRules />
<EnableRules />
</RuleDefinitions>
<LocLabels />
</RibbonDiffXml>
    
      
      
        
      
      
      
        
        
        
      
      
   

This applies to the following situations:

• You need to get the salesorderid property on a salesorderdetail (Order Product) record
• You need to get the invoiceid property on an invoicedetail (Invoice Product) record
• You need to get the opportunityid property on an opportunityproduct (Opportunity Product) record
• You need to get the quoteid property on a quotedetail (Quote Product) record

Xrm.Page.context.getQueryStringParameters()["_CreateFromId"]

I just discovered an option to delete workflow jobs automatically if they complete.  This is similar to registering an asynchronous Plug-In step. 

Since workflows often take up the most space in your system, this may be a way to minimize the workflow bloat.

To do this, edit a process, and on the Administration tab, check the box outlined below: