CRM 2016 Service Pack 1 (Update 1.0) and Outlook Client added

Posted on August 20, 2016 by AgileXRM Blog

Hi CRMers!

It’s been a while since the last update to the Dynamics CRM Installation dialog but we were busy tuning AgileXRM for the Cloud (more about that later).

For those of you new to the concept of this dialog, it is a step-by-step wizard that helps you install Dynamics CRM on your servers the correct way. You can install CRM on one machine or on a number of distributed servers. All of the steps are done through PowerShell remotely.

There have been thousands of executions of this dialog so far by members of the CRM Community, and we are happy to provide some more improvements:

Support CRM 2016 SP1 Update
Outlook CRM Client installation
Allow creating the OU for CRM in any path
Execute DNS scripts remotely
Execute AD scripts remotely
Optionally Enable CRM Tracing
Remove HTTP binding after HTTPS binding is set up
Fix bugs of course

Happy installing and don’t forget to share if you like it!

Dynamics CRM Installation Guide now documents it for you

Posted on April 7, 2016 by AgileXRM Blog

Hi CRMers!!!

More jazzy stuff packed into the dialog.

A new version was just published which has these enhancements incorporated:

Generate Implementation Documentation
Saves you time documenting your installation. It puts all the configuration settings and values of your particular deployment into a nicely formatted Word document and sends it to you via email
Language Packs and non-English Org Base Languages
User-selected Lang Packs are downloaded and installed with a PowerShell. Then it allows you to create new Orgs with non-English Base Languages
Apply Rollup Updates (if applicable)
Before, it just pointed you to the download page for the RU. You had to know what to install where. Now it takes care of it for you, including the MUI updates for the Lang Packs
Do not allow Reserved Words as Org names
Avoids installation errors, because some words are just not allowed
Get Report Server URL PowerShell bug fixed
This was not working if there were more than one instance of RS on same machine. Now it does.

And here is a complete list of all the pending enhancements, in no particular order:

Include Outlook Client installation and configuration (Work in Progress)
Include BIDS installation
Allow adding additional Deployment Administrators
Allow selecting CRM Server Roles per server
Add CRM Upgrade Wizard (from CRM 2013 to 2015 or 2016)
SubDialog for NLB Configuration
Execute AD scripts remotely
Optionally Enable Tracing
Remove HTTP binding after HTTPS binding is set up
Install with all Firewalls On (set Firewall Rules)
Extend or Disable ADFS Certificate Rollover
Automate USD 2.0 installation
Install and configure Dynamics CRM List Component for SharePoint

Keep the feedback coming and Happy Installing!!!

More Enhancements for Dynamics CRM Installation Dialog

Posted on March 18, 2016 by AgileXRM Blog

Keeping up-to-date with all the requests we are receiving asking us to add even more functionality to the dialog, on top of our day jobs, is a challenge but a good one. So we are busy and happily doing them.

In fact, we already finished localizing the dialog to Spanish. To see it, just change the lcid=1033 in the URL to lcid=1034 and you get the Spanish version (or click here).

Here is the list of new requests:

Generate documentation of my deployment configuration
We agree that this is very useful. So we’ll add the possibility to send you a document (in Word format so you can further edit it if you wish) at the end of the installation with all the configuration choices you made in the dialog.
Allow Base Languages other than US English
Only normal, given the extensive non-English fans of Dynamics CRM. We’ll first allow the user to select all the Language Packs they want to add to the deployment. After that, creating a new Org with a different Base Language is simple
Allow adding additional Deployment Administrators
Just adding a user in Deployment Manager is not enough. There are a whole lot of specific permissions that the new user needs to have, to become a CRM Deployment Administrator
Do not allow Reserved Words as Org names
There is a list out there with names that you cannot use as Org names. Dialog will make sure you cannot use these in the Org name field
Allow selecting CRM Server Roles per server
This would permit, for instance, to combine your Back-end/Front-end and Deployment Servers or any other combination. But this has more consequences that requires plenty of work in the dialog. But we’ll get there!

There was also a bug that has already been fixed and published:

Report Server URL field’s validation rule did not allow certain valid URLs

That’s it for now. Happy Installing!!!

CRM Installation Wizard Enhancements

Posted on March 8, 2016 by AgileXRM Blog

Since the release of the CRM Installation dialog/wizard (find it here) to the CRM Community a month ago, we have had hundreds of instances executed and have received a lot very heartening and useful feedback:

This one, we particularly liked (Thanks Jukka) :

Apart from some minor changes, like allowing Report Server Instance Name to be different to the SQL Server Instance, users have asked for the following enhancements:

Include Outlook Client installation
This is currently being done and will be available soon. Also there will be pages for the installation of Report Authoring Extensions.
Translate dialog to other languages
The Spanish-speaking community asked for this one. The same dialog can be translated to different languages and Spanish is being done right now and will be available soon.
Add CRM Upgrade Wizard (from CRM 2013 to 2015 or 2016)
We will consider this for a future enhancement.
SubDialog for NLB Configuration
We did not originally include this, as from our experience, clients usually have a more powerful load balancing solution in place and we have never seen MS NLB being used. However we will consider it for a future enhancement as it will be useful for setting up non-production environments.
Install CRM 2016 on Windows Server 2012 R2 Core
Theoretically, the dialog as it is, can be used for this purpose, but when we tried it, we hit issues regarding access to Windows installation media, and even with following many suggestions on the internet, we were unable to make it work. So if anyone knows how to make the following PowerShell work remotely on a Windows Server 2012 R2 Core, comment below and we will incorporate it in the dialog:
```
Install-WindowsFeature Web-Server -IncludeManagementTools -IncludeAllSubFeature;
```
Execute AD scripts remotely
Right now, you need to execute the scripts locally. This will be done soon.

Please keep the feedback coming!

Happy installing!!!

Dynamics CRM Installations for everyone!

Posted on February 8, 2016 by AgileXRM Blog

Just type How to install Dynamics CRM in your search engine and you get back a huge number of hits. And another massive set of pages if you search for CRM issues that are installation-related.

When we arrive at a client, Dynamics CRM is usually already installed there. We just need to connect to it to add our business process functionality. However nearly every time, there are issues. To make it worst client would say “Look, I navigate to CRM and it is working, so the issue is on your side”. Just because CRM Web app is working, does not mean CRM is properly installed and everything else in CRM is also working.

We are yet to find a 100% clean CRM installation (I am sure yours is one of the 100% ones 🙂 ). So we ended up troubleshooting their CRM installation and fixing them until it became clear that if we could find a way to help clients install their CRM properly in the first place, everyone would benefit. No more finger-pointing and joy for all.

So we thought why not use our own dog-food and create a wizard (a dialog) that guides the user with installing CRM in any type of deployment.

The first person we approached (no names) to ask his opinion, if this was doable, told us “It is impossible. Don’t waste your time”. He became our first beta-tester, and an avid fan.

So judge for yourself. Try the dialog and install a fully working environment: