Analysing SQL Queries in CRM environments

I've another post here on the Dynamics CRM team blog describing some techniques I use to make effective use of SQL Profiler and SQL Management Studio. This post also references a tool I published here on the MSDN Code Gallery

Data Integration using Reports

I've another post on the CRM Team Blog site at http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2009/09/22/data-integration-a-reporting-approach.aspx

This is another post on design patterns (like this one), looking initially at potential data integration approaches and key issues, then covering some specifics on the reporting approach.

CRM Design Patterns - and back on the MSCRM Team Blog

I seem to be using my invitations to post on the MSCRM Team blog as a prompt to publish posts - I've posted a starter post on Design Patterns.

I'm intending this to be the first in a series of posts on Design Patterns for MS CRM. I'm using the term 'Design Pattern' deliberately to echo the same term used in object-oriented design, though I'm not intending the posts to be particularly formal or prescriptive. If you're interested in the more formal ideas of design patterns, wikipedia as good a place as any to start.

My reasons for investing time in this are two-fold:

1. I don't like having to do thinkgs more than once. When designing MS CRM solutions for a customer probably about 90% of the design decisions I make now are wholly or partly based on a previous, similar design for another customer. A lot of this information is in my head; the intention of building design patterns is to create a structure to be able to communicate this information to others
2. MS CRM solutions are a mix of out-of-the-box functionality, and specific customisations and extensions. This gives a lot of options, and a lot of additional considerations beyond traditional ground-up development, or out-of-box deployment, and I think there's a lot of new and interesting design work that can be done in this environment

Using the IIS Logs to get CRM Usage information

I've been posting on the Microsoft CRM Team blog again.

The article describes how to make use of the IIS logs to get useful information about who is accessing CRM and when.

This technique uses some SQL objects (tables, view and functions), and a reporting services report. The source code for these is available on the MSDN Code Gallery

Posting on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

I've been invited to post again on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog. This time I've included information about plugin messages, and how a couple of tools can be used to record information about all plugin events on a CRM 4.0 deployment. The article is here: http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2008/05/21/plugins-which-message-and-which-pipeline.aspx

The two tools are both available on the MSDN Code Gallery:
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/crm40pluginbulk
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/crm40pluginlogger