Posts Tagged: Dynamics
Schedule workflows on Dynamics CRM
Playing with Dynamics CRM you probably faced many times the necessity to schedule workflows. (No) Big surprise…there is nothing OOB available! In this post I collect all the approaches and solutions I spotted or used through time.
When talking about scheduling workflows we have two main scenarios:
- Recurring workflows: WF to run periodically (hourly, monthly, …) or based on conditions (birthday greetings, warranty end reminders,…)
- One shot delayed workflows: you simply have to schedule WF one time in the future
This post will focus on scenario no.1. Scenario no.2 can be targeted as a specific case of scenario no.1 or creating a workflow with the scheduled delay and running it by hand (on-demand process).
Methodologies
- Using the Bulk Deletion Process to Schedule Recurring Workflows http://www.crmsoftwareblog.com/2012/08/using-the-bulk-deletion-process-to-schedule-recurring-workflows/
- Trigger custom entity + Bulk Deletion Process http://blog.clickdimensions.com/2013/01/how-to-schedule-workflows-in-microsoft-crm-online.html
- Wait step and child workflow http://www.powerobjects.com/2016/07/11/setting-up-recurring-workflows-in-dynamics-crm-2016/
- How to create a repeating schedule workflow rule https://crmbusiness.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/how-to-create-a-repeating-schedule-workflow-rule/
Packaged solutions
- Alexander Development Workflow Scheduler(http://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/09/19/updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows/)
- North52 Scheduler (http://www.north52.com/business-process-activities/scheduler-for-microsoft-dynamics-crm-xrm/)
- Workflow Automation (for Dynamics CRM 2011) (https://workflowautomation.codeplex.com/)
The winner is…
All above solutions do work and each one has pros as well as cons (free vs pay, on-premises vs online, customizable vs uncustomizable, DIY vs solution, …).
As Apex CRM team we currently applied some of above approaches. Since it’s release we really loved Alexander’s solution and we applied it to our latest projects. Why we love it?
- easy to configure and monitor
- works on both Online and On-Premises
- free
We’ll keep on working with Alexander’s solution and any related news will be posted here.
Scheduling definition sample
Apex Planner – How to set default Team / Resource Group / Site
Apex Planner – How to change activities’ Status
Apex Planner – How to view your appointments on open
Apex Planner – How to do some basic operations
Apex Planner – How to Find Availability
Meeting rooms booking in Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a good solution to manage meeting rooms or venues. This article explains how to create rooms and how to make reservations.
Creating venues and meeting rooms
Facilities/equipment is the Microsoft Dynamics CRM entity designed to create meeting rooms and venues. Go to settings->Business Management->Facilities/Equipment to create the meeting rooms. Each meeting room can be associated to a Business unit, to a Site and to a Time Zone. All those settings are very important if you have to manage different meeting rooms in different locations.
Booking rooms
Booking a Meeting rooms in Microsoft Dynamics CRM means adding the rooms to an Appointment or to Service Activities as a required or an optional resource. In the service calendar, you will then see all the bookings associated to the meeting rooms.
Service calendar and display options
Unfortunately, the standard service calendar does not allow to save a default view. Also, you cannot choose a default site or how many days you want to display by default. You have to edit each appointment to move bookings and to assign a booking to a different room as the drag and drop is not implemented in the calendar. When you look at different meeting rooms in different locations with different time zone, the standard service calendar shows all the bookings in the time zone of the current user. A room booked in New York from 8AM to 12AM appears as booked from 3AM to 7AM to a user logged in London.
Advanced calendar options
Apex Planner overcomes those issues by providing an advanced calendar expressly designed to enhance the Dynamics CRM calendar. Apex Planner features a user-based configuration with 30+ default settings to create the most efficient view of the calendar. Apex Planner allows drag and drop to reschedule, reassign and clone bookings. Apex Planner can also show Meeting Rooms Bookings in the room’s own time zone. On the other hand, Apex Planner preserves all the standard features of the Dynamics CRM calendar and it is also aware of custom entities, custom statuses and plug-ins you may have in your CRM implementation. Learn more about Apex Planner at http://www.apex.it/en/crm/apex-planner
Apex Planner 3.4 available!
This version brings some new features:
- Conflicts management
- Calendar auto refresh option
- Availability search for service activities
- Service Activity duration bound to Service default duration
plus some UI improvements and bugs fixed:
- Lookup double click
- Performance improvements
Register to the Apex Planner website to get your license and download the new version!
Do you have any feature request? Let us know in the comments!
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