CRM Insights Blog

Microsoft CRM Tip & Trick: Improving Microsoft CRM's user interface

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When building forms in Microsoft CRM one of the simpler ways to improve the user interface is often overlooked:  Section Formatting.  Most people blow right past the Formatting tab on the section creation dialog box.  By selecting the fixed width formatting option, it makes the user interface a little more conducive to fitting data fields into the given space.

Microsoft CRM Tip & Trick: Moving a Scribe Insight Instance

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Scribe Insight is arguably the most popular data integration and data migration tool for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application. As such, it's fairly common to encounter situations where the application is installed on one server but the some part of it needs to be moved to another server. We will review the steps to affect this transfer process. For our example the original and new SQL servers will be the same version.

Preparation
You will want to have the Scribe registration key (a 16 character string), a current backup of your SCRIBEINTERNAL database, the Scribe installation media for the version currently running or the upgraded version (as this would be a good opportunity to upgrade), a copy of the collaborations folder, and verification that the new environment meets the prerequisites normally required for your Scribe installation. The prerequisite I am thinking of in particular is the message queues.

Final step once you are sure you are moving the database: remember that the old server installation must first be unregistered in order to free up the licenses. This is done through the help menu of the Scribe workbench.

Steps to follow in the new environment are:

• Restore the database on the new SQL server
• Install the Scribe Insight application
• Be sure to point the installation to the existing database and not create a new one.
• If it is an upgrade, the INTERNALDB utility will open up and guide you through the database upgrade.
• Add your user to the new local group Scribe Console Users and restart the server.

• Copy the collaborations folder into the Scribe program files folder overwriting the old one.
• Using the INTERNALDB.exe located in the Scribe program folder, move the internal database.
• Open the Scribe Workbench and register the application with the registration key.
• Open the Console and verify that you can see the integration processes built in the previous system.
• Open the integration processes to ensure that they open properly and ensure that they connect to the target and source correctly.

These steps will help you successfully move an installation. However, this procedure is not flawless. I have encountered various small problems that are varied and unique while doing this.  Going forward, I will address them here in our blog.