sobota 29. prosince 2007

Boo Castle ASP.NET

OK, so after a help about Global.asax in ASP.NET 2.0 and ActiveRecord initialization, first version is working. Stay tuned :-)

Castle Boo - II

I am trying to write a small project to understand both Boo and Castle Project.
I have already written my first two small rules here.
Today I try to solve the question of inheritance. It may seem silly to ask a question wheather EnteredBill should inherit from Task if EnteredBill is Task in my concept, but as I have written before, I like the generics and it is not yet completelly usable in Boo (read here).


I will update this when I find the suitable way.

úterý 25. prosince 2007

Castle Boo

Using Castle in Boo

Finally I got to write few things about my ongoing work. I am not sure that this is completely correct and how it should be done.

I need to write a really simple tracking application and I decided to use Boo and Castle to both finish the task and to learn those two exciting technologies.

There is a simple inheritance structure in the project and few relationships and so I have finished with these two simple rules to follow:

1. generics is better so do not try to define your own base class. Use

[Castle.ActiveRecord.ActiveRecord]
class Event(Castle.ActiveRecord.ActiveRecordBase of Event):


2. if there is HasMany/BelongsTo relationship, use:


_expenses as IList = ArrayList()
[Castle.ActiveRecord.HasMany(Expense, Table:"Expense", ColumnKey:"accountid", Inverse:true) ]
Expenses as IList:
get: return _expenses
set: _expenses = value

on the "parent" side and


_fromAccount as Account
[Castle.ActiveRecord.BelongsTo("accountid")]
FromAccount as Account:
get: return _fromAccount
set:
_fromAccount = value
_fromAccount.Expenses.Add( self )


on the other. This way it works the way I like: setting Account property but being able to read list members at the same time.

pátek 7. prosince 2007

To get the examples working...

... you need to have Boo dlls registered in GAC or you have to have them in the bin subfolder. I will correct it in the next "release".



On Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0 you'll also need to create a wildcard mapping to "aspnet_isapi.dll" to mask the .rails extension. It may be done on a virtual directory only; it is on the Directory tab under Configuration button.

čtvrtek 6. prosince 2007

BrailTest3 - layouts and AJAX

Just a little bit of layouts and AJAX to change the design easily and to try to get the date dynamically. Grab it from here.

středa 5. prosince 2007

BrailTest2 - current time at least

Ok, ok, the first sample was a little bit about nothing, so I have created a second one showing a data from controller at least. Download here.



To set it up, just unpack it all on Windows to C:\inetpub\wwwroot so you will have folder C:\inetpub\wwwroot\BrailTest1\. In IIS management console, create a virtual directory from the BrailTest1 folder, set it up to run under ASP.NET 2.0 and corresponding application pool. If you open http://localhost/BrailTest1/, you should get redirected to http://localhost/BrailTest1/home/showtime.rails that is showing your current time. The method is defined in this file C:\inetpub\wwwroot\BrailTest1\controllers\HomeController.boo.

BrailTest1 - downloadable empty sample

I am still very interested in modern programming techniques. I have always liked the MVC concept and disliked the wiring concept in WebForms. I decided to try Castle, Boo, MonoRail and Brail. I will post samples here, the first is just simple empty structure to entend. Download here.

čtvrtek 18. října 2007

One Lead

I have found this article called Sales and Marketing Alignment: One Lead, One View, One Result. We have already implemented the first two points of "Roadmap to Success" mentioned there let say 5 months ago in Sprinx (or Sprinx CRM? It is the same in fact as far as we are considering Sprinx as the CRM company). Today we are about to implement the third one in upcoming release.


This was really very interesting article on CRM Buyer!

neděle 14. října 2007

That wasn't in the original specification

Another one from one of my favourite blogs here http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/10/14/The-Consulting-Game.aspx. I really hate people hiding behind the specification without seeing the bigger picture - it is applicable not to developers only, you know...

15 minutes

I can still remember how nervous I was when a colleague of mine had been working on an assigned task for more then few minutes. I have found much better story here http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/10/14/Failure-and-trashing.aspx.

pátek 12. října 2007

From http://www.crmlady.com/2007/10/dynamics-crm--1.html

As mentioned in earlier posts I attended the 1st Microsoft Dynamics CRM v4.0 Partner Readiness Event (in NYC). During this event I took notes on all the highlighted and demonstrated top 25 new features and yet I also realized that there are sooo many existing features in v3.0 that many a partner does not know about. In future days I will also be focusing on these untapped gems. Today however we will focus on a few of the "oh cools". Understand that these are from my NOTES and as such can be misinterpreted either by me or anyone else and are simply shared as is, no guarantees to complete perfect accuracy.
The list is in no particular order.
• Multi-currency: Oh not just localized versions, but the ability to mix currency choice within one specific company.
• Multi-language: The same as above and a big thank you to the team from the many companies with multiple global offices!
• Support for roaming profiles when using terminal service environments
• Significant development around increased WAN performance
• Multi-layers of advanced duplicate detection. A major thank you from me to the team! They went above and beyond on this one (although this demanding little gemstone can always find more to want)
• Support for SQL Monitoring and SQL Clusters
• Support for alternative deployments
• "self updating" installation
• Diagnosis and process monitoring
• Embedded Auto-Complete on numerous fields
• More Bulk Changes and Data Cleansing features
• Web Based Mail Merge
• A new Report Wizard to empower customers to extract all the data they want to extract in the way they want to extract it
• Integration with Office Communicator (think embedded IM)
• Presence control (who is on-line)
• 360 Degree View of the Customer
• Cross entity advanced find enhancements
• Role based report foundation
• New Deployment Wizards which include bulk importing of users from Active Directory
• OneNote Integration
• A new level of Bi-Directional integration to Excel (Export to Excel, make changes, re-import into DynamicsCRM)
• New workflow Wizards, Templates and libraries
• Web based/Client Workflow configuration
• Break down any workflow into stages
• Multi-criteria e-mail tracking. E-mail tracking token can be turned off.
• New more flexible licensing options such as device versus user CALs
• Role based Report Foundation - Reporting can be dependent on the user's rights, security and roles
• New Microsoft Dynamics CRM Resource Center
• Reconfiguration/Redesign of the Outlook Client for CRM to allow for the wide variety of outlook footprints and variables in the field
• Diagnostic Tools in the Outlook for CRM client
• The Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) with more integration to MOSS (SharePoint)
• Many to Many Relationships
• System to System Relationships
• Pop3 Support/Exchange 2007 Support (64 bit)
• Direct External Interface into Dynamics CRM without a required VPN
• Asynchronous processing
• Offline and On-line use is consistent no change of features when offline
• New Data Mapping features
• Multiple ways to Authenticate
• Various components from within Dynamics CRM can be split out onto different application servers including API Calls, WorkFlow, UI Calls, etc.
• Greater Organization Visibility
• New Client Migration Toolkit
• Multi-Tenant platform for enterprise hosting
• E-Mail Topology changed to support more multiple choices of e-mail routing
• E-mail routing can be done without Exchange
• Reporting stored within the database for easy disaster recovery planning
and sooo much more!

pátek 5. října 2007

How to Use Microsoft Dynamics CRM Service Module for tracking issues

If you came here, it was probably because of a Google search for "service module" for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Please note that this is quite old now and there is Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta available now.
If you want to know about CRM software, follow my CRM page on Gassumo.




From http://www.crmlady.com/2007/10/how-to-use-micr.html

ITC = Information Technology Consulting Firm
So you already own Microsoft Dynamics CRM (partners get it in their action pack) and you want to automate your business. Here is how you track time and service in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
1) As a service is needed you go into MS Dynamics CRM, Choose the Account and Create a new CASE (you can rename CASE to TICKET easily with configuration if you prefer).
This case is the big picture bucket for all work that will be preformed to resolve a problem or complete a service.
2) Create open Activities that need to be done to complete the service/problem/case and assign these to the case. These can include an appointment to visit the client, a task to research the problem, an e-mail to request more details or a service activity to assign and schedule resources or a phone call.
3) Do the work. As you complete each activity, mark that activity completed, make notes and assign the duration.
4) Once the case is completed - RESOLVE the case - This will role up total time from all closed associated activites.
5) Using the Dynamic Excel Spreadsheet feature of MS Dynamics CRM on completed activities you can actually have a report of total time by client/case/date/etc.
Why are Microsoft Partners not using Microsoft Dynamics CRM for their Professional Service Automation?
1) They are being reactive as opposed to pro-active. Tracking time in Microsoft Dynamics CRM in a reactive manner is painful. There are just too many steps. If partners can be pro-active then cases can be created, resources assigned and processes automated easily.

čtvrtek 4. října 2007

What is new in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4

From http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2007/10/03/titan-first-look-videos.aspx

• Multi-tenant web services
• Duplicate Detection
• Windows Live ID Authentication with a SOAP web service
• New relationship features
• Workflow
• Multi-Lingual User Interface (MUI)
• Plugins/Assemblies in CRM 4.0
• Windows Workflow Foundation Activities
• The CRM Live 'experience'
• The Internet Facing Deployment (IFD) 'experience'
• Outlook Client enhancements
• Task Management
• Web Import
• User Management
• Multi-Currency
• Metadata API
• Lookup Auto Resolve
• Translating the User Interface
• The Resource Center
• Mail Merge
• Offline SDK

středa 12. září 2007

Microsoft CRM 3.0: Lemonade Stand

I am really not sure what to think about this ad ...

středa 5. září 2007

Install BlogThis! + patch

I wanted something that would make blogging easier. As I am using Internet Explorer 7 and there is no BlogThis! button in Google Toolbar, I have downloaded and Installed BlogThis. It took only a few minutes to change the script to make it compatible with last Blogger. I will put the script here.

Bluetooth Remote Control for Windows Mobile

I have found this piece of software today. We have been discussing my last analysis of CRM with the customer and during a break he showed me something like this on his Sony Ericsson. I think it is cool and I am very happy I have found Bluetooth Remote Control for Windows Mobile as well.

pondělí 3. září 2007

The Machine is Us/ing Us by mwesh

This is really a great video about Web 2.0, simple, informative, awesome! Found here.