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The Stunnware Tools for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 combines a set of tools created for CRM developers and consultants. Initially being divided into multiple standalone applications, the tools framework serves as a single container for all of them, allowing for interaction between components which wasn't possible before. The application has two different flavors:
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The Stunnware Tools for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 combines a set of tools created for CRM developers and consultants. Initially being divided into multiple standalone applications, the tools framework serves as a single container for all of them, allowing for interaction between components which wasn't possible before.
The application has two different flavors:
- The Community Edition: It's free and contains the Metadata Viewer, FetchXml Wizard and Excel Export.
- The Professional Edition: A subscription-based version with access to all tools of the Community Edition plus the Code Generator for C# and VB.NET, the CRM Help File Generator, additional features of the FetchXml wizard and the Customization Comparer.
The setup program installs a help file with detailed information on all modules. The same help file is available as a separate download, allowing you to get familiar with the features before installing the application. Please refer to this help file for more information; the following is just a small overview of the product features.
The Stunnware Tools Framework
The
Stunnware Tools for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Framework
serves as a container for extension modules, so-called
plug-ins, that perform specific tasks. The Framework itself
manages these extensions and allows interaction between them.
The only notable functionality besides extension management is
the logon to a CRM 4.0 organization and
the software activation process, which is required to
turn the Community Edition into a Professional Edition.
The Metadata Viewer
The general purpose of the
Metadata Viewer is to get a quick overview
of entities, attributes, relationships and everything else contained
in the CRM Metadata. CRM does provide a
graphical representation of the metadata: type in http://crmserver:port/organization/sdk/list.aspx
in Internet Explorer, replacing crmserver, port and organization
with the respective values, and you get an
entity list and information about attributes and relationships
as well. However, when extensively working with information
from the CRM Metadata, you may find the
Metadata Viewer easier to use.
Stunnware has made available Metadata Viewers since early 2006 and previous releases can still be found on Michael Hahne's CRM Blog. It is a free extension and doesn't require a subscription.
The Excel Export
The
Excel Export is a small utility allowing to
export data being displayed in views into the
Excel 2003 XML format. It is a free
extension and doesn't require a subscription.
The FetchXml Wizard (enhanced features in the Professional Edition)
The FetchXml Wizard is a graphical query editor based on the FetchXml query language. Like a designer in Visual Studio, you can create a query either in a designer window or in a code window. You can also execute queries, look at the result XML and create .NET code based on your query. Since version 4.4.24 you also get an intellisense-style context sensitive help for the FetchXml source and the generated C# and VB.NET code.
The Professional Edition contains additional features that are not available in the Community Edition: Compile and execute the generated .NET code, investigate the sent and received SOAP messages and create JavaScript code for use in CRM forms.
The
Code Generator (Professional Edition)
A big disadvantage when
working with the Microsoft CRM SDK assemblies, is
that you have to use dynamic entities most
of the time. While the DynamicEntity class was
enhanced in CRM 4.0 to make it easier
to use, you're losing a lot of benefits
you had when using the web services:
- Type and property checking: You don't know at compile time if your code is correct, because you are not using strongly typed classes and you don't access named properties.
- Intellisense: because of the above, you also don't get any context-sensitive help while developing in Visual Studio
- You have to use the more complex RetrieveRequest and RetrieveMultipleRequest messages with the Execute method instead of the Retrieve and RetrieveMultiple methods.
All in all your code becomes more complex and it takes more time to develop and test. The Code Generator module gives you back everything you lost plus some additional benefits:
- Works with the CrmService class and the ICrmService interface from the Microsoft CRM SDK assemblies
- Creates C# and VB.NET code
- Creates classes for all or selected entities, providing nullable properties for easy access
- All attribute names in each class are defined as constant strings, so you never have to look at CRM again to remember the correct spelling
- Creates enumerations for all picklists, state and status attributes
- Adds methods for easy use of the CRUD operations (Create, Retrieve, RetrieveMultiple, Update, Delete)
- Adds methods to change an entity's state
- Provides easy management of all reference types (Lookup, Owner, Customer), e.g. you write account.Primarycontactid = myContact.ToReference()
- Adds comments to classes, properties and methods, which are available in Visual Studio through Intellisense.
- Allows you to create your own code generation templates. If you want some special methods in every class, then simply add it to the template files.
The Code Generator is limited to the account and contact entities when running the community edition.
The Help File Generator (Professional
Edition)
The Documentation module is meant as a
tool to create technical documentations of a CRM
organization. It uses the Microsoft HTML Help Compiler
to create a compiled HTML file (chm extension)
that you can deliver to customers or use
it for your own reference.
Though there is a complex example shipped with the product, you are totally free in defining the content and look and feel. In summary, the CRM documentation extension allows:
- Selecting the entities to document. This can be all entities or a subset only.
- Defining the structure of the Table of Contents.
- Using templates to create documentation for entities and attributes.
- Merging information from the CRM Metadata and customizations.
- Documenting script source, including all OnLoad, OnSave and OnChange events, plus CRM scripts used by CRM internally.
- Builds a help index automatically.
- Optionally compiles the HTML source files and views the final help file.
The Help File Generator is limited to the account and contact entities when running the community edition.
The Customization Comparer (Professional
Edition)
If you have to troubleshoot a CRM
installation, it's very important to know if the
system has changed and what changes have been
made since the last time you deployed your
solution. Many problems are based on customization changes,
but finding the differences between the current and
a previous system state is very difficult and
time-consuming.
The Customization Comparer takes two CRM customization export files (customization.xml) and compares their contents. All modifications are shown in a result tree, giving a quick view of what has changed. All you have to do is exporting all customizations and save the file for later reference. You can then, at any time, do an export again and compare these files. You can also export a subset of customizations instead.
The Trace
File Viewer
Sometimes weird things happen in Microsoft
CRM and the error messages provided are not
always helpful. The good news is that CRM
provides a powerful logging mechanism, called CRM tracing.
To enable tracing, please refer to the appropriate
Microsoft KB Article.
The bad thing about these trace files are that they are hard to read and analyze. If you don't know what exactly to look for, then it can be a very time-consuming process. The Trace File Viewer allows easy parsing of such files and offers a variety of filtering options.
The ISV Config
and Sitemap Editor
The ISV.Config editor and the
Sitemap editor allow you to easily load the
customizations from CRM, edit the XML in an
XML editor, validate and save it back to
CRM. Since version 4.4.24 you also get an
intellisense-style context sensitive help when editing the XML.
Stunnware Tools for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 -
Prices
The Stunnware Tools for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
4.0 can be run without a license, in
which case it is called the Community Edition.
The extended features of the Professional Edition are
available through a yearly subscription.
Evaluation
There are
no evaluation licenses for the Stunnware Tools application.
Some extension modules will provide limited functionality until
you buy a subscription though. Just think of
the Community Edition as being the evaluation version
of the Professional Edition.
There is no setup included in this version. Simply extract the zip file to your hard drive and run SwTools.exe. This version uses the same subscription mechanism as before, so your subscription key does work as well.
Note: This version requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 to be installed on your system.