Two of its most notable capabilities are its ability to perform mathematical equations and phonetic codification solving for duplicate matching.

Sometimes you may want to calculate a percentage based on some of the fields on an opportunity, or you may want to perform a calculation to make a decision on who should work on a particular task. The solve equation workflow allows you to pass parameters and specify a formula for it to solve.

For example:

The benefit is that the solver can help you calculate values to include in an email or store data back to CRM. It does more than just basic math and can handle other constants and functions. One of the constants it can handle is rand, which generates a number from 0 to 1 similar to excel, and it handles randbetween to generate a number between two values.

The Manipulation Library contains two phonetic codification systems, SoundEx and a Metaphone-like system. Both of these can be used to convert text to a phonetic codified string that can then be compared for duplicate detection. There are complete instructions on how to configure workflow to perform SoundEx or Metaphone duplicate detection in the documentation.

The CRM Workflow Manipulation Library provides Calculation Utilities, RegEx Utilities, and String Utilities. It is a feature-rich workflow extension that provides the ability to do much more with the data already in your CRM system, and is definitely worth checking out on CodePlex.

The thing that makes this great is it is workflow. It is not tied down to an entity. You can use it on your custom entities, you can geocode your addresses, and correct them. You can do address verification and geocoding. You can control what you do using workflow.

Ok, while this isn’t anything complicated, I thought it was a good example of a custom workflow that used an external webservice. Please don’t forget to create a signed key for your project.

Workflow Class:

using System;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.Text;
using System.Workflow.Activities;
using System.Workflow.ComponentModel;
using BingWorkflow.BingMapsGeo;
using Microsoft.Crm.Sdk;
using Microsoft.Crm.Workflow;
using Microsoft.Win32;

namespace BingWorkflow
{
    [CrmWorkflowActivity("Bing Maps", "Geocode")]
    public class VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity :
        SequenceActivity
    {
        // Activity code goes here. 

        public static DependencyProperty AddressCityProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "AddressCity", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty AddressCountryProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "AddressCountry", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty AddressLine1Property = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "AddressLine1", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty AddressPostalCodeProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "AddressPostalCode", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty AddressStateProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "AddressState", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty BingKeyProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "BingKey", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty OutputCityProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "OutputCity", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty OutputCountryProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "OutputCountry", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty OutputLatitudeProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "OutputLatitude", typeof (CrmFloat), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty OutputLine1Property = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "OutputLine1", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty OutputLongitudeProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "OutputLongitude", typeof (CrmFloat), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty OutputMultipleFoundProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "OutputMultipleFound", typeof (CrmBoolean), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty OutputPostalCodeProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "OutputPostalCode", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        public static DependencyProperty OutputStateProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
            "OutputState", typeof (string), typeof (VerifyAddressUsingBingMapsActivity));

        [CrmInput("Address City")]
        public string AddressCity
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(AddressCityProperty); }
            set { SetValue(AddressCityProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmInput("Address Country")]
        public string AddressCountry
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(AddressCountryProperty); }
            set { SetValue(AddressCountryProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmInput("Address Line 1")]
        public string AddressLine1
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(AddressLine1Property); }
            set { SetValue(AddressLine1Property, value); }
        }

        [CrmInput("Address Postal Code")]
        public string AddressPostalCode
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(AddressPostalCodeProperty); }
            set { SetValue(AddressPostalCodeProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmInput("Address State Or Province")]
        public string AddressState
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(AddressStateProperty); }
            set { SetValue(AddressStateProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmInput("Bing API Key")]
        public string BingKey
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(BingKeyProperty); }
            set { SetValue(BingKeyProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmOutput("City")]
        public string OutputCity
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(OutputCityProperty); }
            set { SetValue(OutputCityProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmOutput("Country Or Region")]
        public string OutputCountry
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(OutputCountryProperty); }
            set { SetValue(OutputCountryProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmOutput("Latitude")]
        public CrmFloat OutputLatitude
        {
            get { return (CrmFloat)GetValue(OutputLatitudeProperty); }
            set { SetValue(OutputLatitudeProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmOutput("Line 1")]
        public string OutputLine1
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(OutputLine1Property); }
            set { SetValue(OutputLine1Property, value); }
        }

        [CrmOutput("Longitude")]
        public CrmFloat OutputLongitude
        {
            get { return (CrmFloat)GetValue(OutputLongitudeProperty); }
            set { SetValue(OutputLongitudeProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmOutput("Multiple Address Found")]
        public CrmBoolean OutputMultipleFound
        {
            get { return (CrmBoolean)GetValue(OutputMultipleFoundProperty); }
            set { SetValue(OutputMultipleFoundProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmOutput("Postal Code")]
        public string OutputPostalCode
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(OutputPostalCodeProperty); }
            set { SetValue(OutputPostalCodeProperty, value); }
        }

        [CrmOutput("State Or Province")]
        public string OutputState
        {
            get { return (string)GetValue(OutputStateProperty); }
            set { SetValue(OutputStateProperty, value); }
        }

        protected override ActivityExecutionStatus Execute(ActivityExecutionContext executionContext)
        {
            // Reset Outputs
            OutputLatitude = new CrmFloat();
            OutputLongitude = new CrmFloat();
            OutputLine1 = String.Empty;
            OutputCity = String.Empty;
            OutputState = String.Empty;
            OutputPostalCode = String.Empty;
            OutputMultipleFound = new CrmBoolean {Value = false};

            var key = BingKey;
            if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(key) || key.ToLower() == "registry")
            {
                key = GetAPIKeyFromRegistry();
            }

            // Create Bing Maps Request
            var bingRequest = new GeocodeRequest
                              {
                                  Credentials = new Credentials {ApplicationId = key},
                                  Query = AddressLine1 + ", " +
                                          AddressCity + ", " +
                                          AddressState + ", " +
                                          AddressPostalCode + ", " +
                                          AddressCountry
                              };

            // Filter for High Confidence
            var filters = new ConfidenceFilter[1];
            filters[0] = new ConfidenceFilter {MinimumConfidence = Confidence.High};
            bingRequest.Options = new GeocodeOptions {Filters = filters};

            // Create Client
            GeocodeServiceClient bingClient = null;
            try
            {
                var geoBinding = new BasicHttpBinding(BasicHttpSecurityMode.None)
                                 {
                                     Name = "BasicHttpBinding_IGeocodeService",
                                     CloseTimeout = new TimeSpan(0, 1, 0),
                                     OpenTimeout = new TimeSpan(0, 1, 0),
                                     ReceiveTimeout = new TimeSpan(0, 10, 0),
                                     SendTimeout = new TimeSpan(0, 1, 0),
                                     AllowCookies = false,
                                     BypassProxyOnLocal = false,
                                     HostNameComparisonMode = HostNameComparisonMode.StrongWildcard,
                                     MaxBufferSize = 65536,
                                     MaxBufferPoolSize = 524288,
                                     MaxReceivedMessageSize = 65536,
                                     MessageEncoding = WSMessageEncoding.Text,
                                     TextEncoding = Encoding.UTF8,
                                     TransferMode = TransferMode.Buffered,
                                     UseDefaultWebProxy = true
                                 };

                var geoEA =
                    new EndpointAddress("http://dev.virtualearth.net/webservices/v1/geocodeservice/GeocodeService.svc");

                bingClient = new GeocodeServiceClient(geoBinding, geoEA);

                var bingResponse = bingClient.Geocode(bingRequest);

                if (bingResponse.Results != null && bingResponse.Results.Length > 0)
                {
                    if (bingResponse.Results.Length > 1)
                    {
                        OutputMultipleFound.Value = true;
                    }

                    var bingResult = bingResponse.Results[0];

                    if (bingResult.Locations != null && bingResult.Locations.Length > 0)
                    {
                        var bingLocation = bingResult.Locations[0];
                        OutputLatitude.Value = bingLocation.Latitude;
                        OutputLongitude.Value = bingLocation.Longitude;
                    }

                    var bingAddress = bingResult.Address;

                    OutputLine1 = bingAddress.AddressLine;
                    OutputPostalCode = bingAddress.PostalCode;
                    OutputCountry = bingAddress.CountryRegion;

                    OutputCity = String.IsNullOrEmpty(bingAddress.PostalTown)
                                     ? bingAddress.Locality
                                     : bingAddress.PostalTown;
                    OutputState = String.IsNullOrEmpty(bingAddress.AdminDistrict)
                                      ? bingAddress.District
                                      : bingAddress.AdminDistrict;
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw new WorkflowTerminatedException(
                    "There was an error openning the connection to Bing Maps.", ex);
            }
            finally
            {
                // Close the client
                if (bingClient != null)
                {
                    bingClient.Close();
                }
            }

            return base.Execute(executionContext);
        }

        private static string GetAPIKeyFromRegistry()
        {
            // Opening the registry key
            var key = Registry.LocalMachine;
            if (key != null)
            {
                key = key.OpenSubKey("Software\\Microsoft Geocoder");
            }

            return key != null ? key.GetValue("APIKey").ToString() : null;
        }
    }
}

Please note, that this is not a supported modification or change.

Follow the steps below to modify your fetchXML and your layoutXML to have the queue name show up in the advanced find. You can even update the name in the UserQueryBase to rename your advanced find to something better.

1. Create your advanced find, setup your filters etc.
2. Save your advanced find (name it something unique)
3. Get the guid of your advanced find (using open pop-ups in a new tab or using a select statement to look it up in the db.

   SELECT UserQueryID FROM UserQueryBase WHERE Name='Cases (w/Queue Name) - IT Example'
   

4. Then using the id, execute the following code to add the queue name:

   UPDATE UserQueryBase SET
   FetchXml = REPLACE(FetchXml,'</entity>',
   '<link-entity name="queueitem" from="objectid" to="incidentid" visible="false" link-type="outer" alias="qi">
   <link-entity name="queue" from="queueid" to="queueid" visible="false" link-type="outer" alias="Q">
   <attribute name="name"/></link-entity></link-entity></entity>')
   ,LayoutXML = REPLACE(LayoutXml,'</row>',
   '<cell name="Q.name" width="200" disableSorting="0"/></row>')
   -- Make sure to change the UserQueryID
   WHERE UserQueryID='71F94C46-F217-DF11-A241-0050569B4FF3'
   

5. If you have your advanced find window open, close and reopen it before trying to run it and see the "Q.name" column.

If you have any problems or questions, let me know. Again this is setup to work on advanced find for cases, I’m sure it could be modified for other queue-able entities.

UPDATE UserSettings SET PagingLimit=1000 WHERE SystemUserId IN
(Select SystemUserId from SystemUserBase WHERE FullName like 'Carlton%')

Saved views are great for the organization, departments, and teams, but when a team uses them, often times they have someone create and share the views, then they leave the company or move to a different group within the company. They either can’t or no longer wish to be responsible for the advanced finds they have created and shared out with their fellow CRM users.

My custom page allows me to assign those views to someone else, allowing them to move the responisibility to another CRM user.

To update the CRM privileges to allow System Administrators full access (except for read) to all views, you can run the following sql code against the database.

SQL Code:

UPDATE RolePrivileges SET PrivilegeDepthMask=128 WHERE RolePrivilegeId IN
(
  SELECT RolePrivilegeId FROM RolePrivileges r
  INNER JOIN PrivilegeBase pb ON r.privilegeid=pb.privilegeid
  INNER JOIN RoleBase rb ON r.roleid = rb.roleid
  WHERE pb.Name in
    ('prvAssignUserQuery',
     'prvShareUserQuery',
     'prvWriteUserQuery',
     'prvDeleteUserQuery',
     'prvCreateUserQuery'
    )
    AND rb.Name = 'System Administrator'
)

The code for reassigning objects is really straight forward, it uses sql to get the lists, then uses the sdk to assign the items to other users. It doesn’t fail because of the sql modification above.

ASP.Net Code

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="reassign.aspx.cs" Inherits="mst_Support.userquery.reassign" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
    <link href="../css/support.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div align="center">
        <asp:ScriptManager ID="smgr" runat="server">
        </asp:ScriptManager>
        <br />
        <b>Source User:</b>
        <asp:DropDownList ID="User_Src" runat="server" DataSourceID="crm_SystemUsers" DataTextField="FullName"
            DataValueField="SystemUserId" AutoPostBack="True" OnSelectedIndexChanged="User_Src_SelectedIndexChanged">
        </asp:DropDownList>
        <br />
        <asp:UpdatePanel ID="upnQueries" runat="server" UpdateMode="Conditional">
            <ContentTemplate>
                <br />
                <b>Saved Advanced Finds:<br />
                </b>
                <asp:ListBox ID="QueueList" runat="server" SelectionMode="Multiple" Rows="15"></asp:ListBox>
            </ContentTemplate>
            <Triggers>
                <asp:AsyncPostBackTrigger ControlID="User_Src" EventName="SelectedIndexChanged" />
            </Triggers>
        </asp:UpdatePanel>
        <br />
        <b>Target User:</b>
        <asp:DropDownList ID="User_Target" runat="server"
            DataSourceID="crm_SystemUsers" DataTextField="FullName"
            DataValueField="SystemUserId">
        </asp:DropDownList>
        <br />
        <br />
        <asp:Button ID="Assign" runat="server" onclick="Assign_Click" Text="Assign" />
        <br />
        <br />
        <asp:Label ID="lblResponse" runat="server"></asp:Label>
        <br />
        <br />
        <asp:SqlDataSource ID="crm_SystemUsers" runat="server" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:crm_db %>"
            SelectCommand="SELECT [SystemUserId], [FullName] FROM [SystemUserBase] WHERE ([IsDisabled] = @IsDisabled) ORDER BY [FullName]"
            ProviderName="<%$ ConnectionStrings:crm_db.ProviderName %>">
            <SelectParameters>
                <asp:Parameter DefaultValue="false" Name="IsDisabled" Type="Boolean" />
            </SelectParameters>
        </asp:SqlDataSource>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

C-Sharp code

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using mst_Support.crmsdk;
using System.Web.Services.Protocols;
using System.Web.Configuration;

namespace mst_Support.userquery
{
    public partial class reassign : System.Web.UI.Page
    {
        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {

        }

        public void AssignUserQuery(string queryid, string userid)
        {
            try
            {
                    CrmAuthenticationToken token = new CrmAuthenticationToken();
                    token.AuthenticationType = 0; //AD
                    token.OrganizationName = "Your Organization"; //Could retrieve it.

                    CrmService crmService = new CrmService();
                    crmService.CrmAuthenticationTokenValue = token;
                    crmService.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

                    //crmService.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

                    SecurityPrincipal newowner = new SecurityPrincipal();
                    newowner.Type = SecurityPrincipalType.User;
                    newowner.PrincipalId = new Guid(userid);

                    TargetOwnedUserQuery query = new TargetOwnedUserQuery();
                    query.EntityId = new Guid(queryid);

                    // Create the request object.
                    AssignRequest assign = new AssignRequest();

                    // Set the properties of the request object.
                    assign.Assignee = newowner;
                    assign.Target = query;

                    AssignResponse assignResponse = (AssignResponse)crmService.Execute(assign);
            }
            catch (SoapException ex)
            {
                lblResponse.Text += "<b>Error: </b>" +ex.ToString() +
                                    "<br /><br />\r\n";
                lblResponse.Text += "<b>Inner Detail: </b>" + ex.Detail.InnerText +
                                    "<br /><br />\r\n";
                lblResponse.Text += "<b>InnerException: </b>" + ex.InnerException.ToString() +
                                    "<br /><br />\r\n";
                lblResponse.Text += "<b>StackTrace: </b>" + ex.StackTrace.ToString() +
                                    "<br /><br />\r\n";
            }
        }

        protected void User_Src_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            string query = "SELECT [Name], [UserQueryId] FROM [UserQueryBase] WHERE ([OwningUser] = '"+
                           User_Src.SelectedValue+"') ORDER BY [Name]";

            // Pull the crm_db connection string for the webconfig. (you could just replace this with
            // your connection string.

            SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter(query,
			   WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["crm_db"].ToString());

            DataSet ds = new DataSet();
            da.Fill(ds);

            QueueList.DataSource = ds.Tables[0].DefaultView;
            QueueList.DataTextField = "Name";
            QueueList.DataValueField = "UserQueryId";
            QueueList.DataBind();
            upnQueries.Update();
        }

        protected void Assign_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            try
            {
                foreach (ListItem li in QueueList.Items)
                {
                    if (li.Selected)
                    {
                        lblResponse.Text += "Item: " + li.Value + " to: ";
                        lblResponse.Text += User_Target.SelectedValue + "<br />";
                        AssignUserQuery(li.Value, User_Target.SelectedValue);
                    }
                }
                lblResponse.Text += "<br />Moved Successfully";
                User_Src_SelectedIndexChanged(sender, e);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                lblResponse.Text += ex.ToString() + "< br/>";
                lblResponse.Text += "Please report this error to internal systems.<br />";
            }
        }

    }
}