I had a genius idea today to try and create a website that would access our CRM database and will report on support cases.
The idea would be to have a page that would be visible in the office and members of the support team can view the current status of support cases.
I've downloaded the CRM SDK and I've read a couple of manuals, but I can't seem to find a decent starting point for a complete rookie..
Are there are good tutorials out there on how to create a website that will communicate with CRM's database, preferrably for a VB.NET application.
There are several products that implement your idea.
The most famous one is the Adxstudio, you can find a community edition (also for CRM 4.0) at this address:
http://community.adxstudio.com/products/adxstudio-portals/
After you can check the source code, but they use C#
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I'm starting a new project where we are expecting to migrate desktop based Access 2016 applications (with a lot of backend VBA and relationships between the tables) into SharePoint 2016 on-premise and very soon, SharePoint Online. From what I've been told, we'll be given site permission to a SharePoint site that we can do whatever we want with. I am hoping that with SharePoint 2016 on-premise and eventually SharePoint online means that there is a SQL Server and eventually Azure SQL Database that I can migrate the Access backend tables and queries, as I know SharePoint lists will be inadequate for this, despite the false notion that SharePoint lists are an equivalent substitute for database tables.
My concern is how to build the custom forms, perform the needed business logic, perform CRUD operations, and upload data in the form of Excel files from the SharePoint site to the backend.
I'm new to SharePoint and given that it does not support VBA, that Microsoft cut out Access Web Apps earlier this year, and they are phasing out SharePoint Designer 2013 and InfoPath, some research over the past week indicates my best options are building custom web application using ASP.NET Core and somehow deploying that to the SharePoint site and subsites that we have control over, or developing a lot of HTML, CSS, and JS to create the front-end interface. I had read about the Business Connectivity Service to get and post data to / from the SharePoint site front end and the DB backend, as well as using Javascript and AJAX calls to do CRUD operations between the database and the frontend. I looked into PowerApps and those seem insufficient, and I'm still trying to distinguish between SharePoint web parts and SharePoint add-ins.
Is any of the above even a feasible option? Could someone chime in on a better path to go about this? What technologies would I need to best go about this?
Support for moving tables from Access to SharePoint remains a choice and option.
So all of your VBA code etc. will work as before. The only real question is if you want to move your data to SharePoint tables in place of using SQL server.
SQL server tables are far faster than SharePoint tables.
However, you can certainly consider moving your tables to SharePoint. When you move your tables to SharePoint (or SQL server), then Access code, forms, reports etc. and EVEN your VBA code will work as before. What this means is that you continue to deploy the Access application to each desktop. The only difference is now your tables are on SharePoint, or SQL server.
The above choice does not result in a web based application.
So you can move the data, but your application will remain a desktop application.
If you looking to build a web based application, then Access is the wrong tool – you need to adopt something like Visual Studio.
So you can continue to use Access, and put the data tables into the cloud, or on-site SharePoint - but the application will be still desktop based.
I have used the following extensively over the last couple of years and I am happy with the experience:
Azure SQL Database as a back-end
Flow for automation and as an interface to the DB
PowerApps for forms, desktop apps and mobile apps
Excel for reporting (Get & Transform aka PowerQuery and DAX), especially for printing reports
Power BI for dashboards (limited use)
Yes, PowerApps has drawbacks, but there are a lot of realistic workarounds out there and new features/improvements are being added regularly.
I have also used SharePoint lists as data sources, but almost always then migrated to Azure SQL Database.
I'm looking at taking a possible contract role as an MS Dynamics developer. In the interim, I'd like to play around with x++. Am I right in thinking that the only code editor available is the one that ships with AX?
I'd really like a freebie alternative to use for now, but I haven't come across one.
Not sure that you can get something for free, but you can create a dynamics ax instance accessible from the web, with microsoft lifecycle services.
https://lcs.dynamics.com/
you can also ask your new Company to download a demo VM for you. It's available on the Customer and on the Partner Source.
https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/northamerica/AX/downloads/service-packs/AX2012DemoToolsMaterials
Unfortunately, besides MorphX, the native IDE in MS Dynamics, and Visual Studio(for C# dev), you don't have much of a choice.
However, there a portal called 365 Talent portal, where you can register as a freelance MS Dynamics Developer and request for an access to the Dynamics Learning Portal (DLP).
Finally , after your access to the DLP is granted, you can play around with some VMs(with AX installed), read documentation, etc.
I'm trying to establish whether its possible to connect lists to external SQL tables with SharePoint 2013 Foundation.
I know that is possible in the paid versions through Business Connectivity Services. However, most places I look, BCS is shown as not included in Foundation.
The one thing that contradicts this is page here. Whilst admittedly its titled Office 365, it does include a list for On Premise solutions which suggests that BCS External List IS included in SharePoint Foundation. However, the link takes you to a page entitled “Deploy a Business Connectivity Services cloud-only solution in SharePoint 2013”.
If it is possible, then it seems that we will need to setup a Secure Store to holds ID and passwords for external sources.
Has anyone managed to link Lists to external tables in SharePoint 2013 Foundation (it needs to be 2013 as I understand Microsoft withdrew BCS for that release)? Any pointers would be very welcome to stop us going round in circles.
Thanks,
Chris.
If you have visual studio 2012 installed in the SharePoint server, you can create a "SharePoint 2013 - Empty Project", and then in the project, add a new item called "Business Data Connectivity Model".
You can search for many tutorials for "Business Data Connectivity Model", such as the example link below (note the video is about sharepoint 2010, but you can use it for sharepoint 2013):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ff623022.aspx
This solution will work for SharePoint 2013 Foundation as I have done that myself.
regards Taz
http://cmsreport.com/content/2010/03/ten-content-migration-tools-sharepoint-platform is a link that shows many software that exist migrating "content" from a 2007 to 2010 platform.
Barring web farm / sql server 32 - 64 bit issues, what is that which will NOT be migrated (assuming that I do a Attach / detach database upgrade method. In place upgrade is not an option in my farm.
I have a web farm with one app server and one sql server box.
Thanks in advance
Note: I did look at other similar posts but they did not have the kind of information that I was looking for.
Have a look at the following Technet article which should give you a starting point for planning your upgrade:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303429.aspx
The article should give you an idea of what to plan ahead for and what the pros and cons for each method would be.
I'm working with Visual Studio 2010 and Sharepoint 2010. I would like to know if there's a way to have a web part that crawls all the data within a SharePoint site so I can save it into a custom db.
You can certainly create a custom web part that will do this. I do not know of an out of the box web part that will work. I began writing something like this when I found SharePoint List Source and Destination. It's a CodePlex project for an SSIS SharePoint adapter. We did not need a user interface for the extract, so we used it successfully last year for transferring data between SQL Server and SharePoint.
Sounds like all you need to do is use the API, OOB web services, or the Client OM to write some code and access the lists directly. Which approach you take depends mostly on where the code will run.
Well I found this article - Document Library Tree View Web Part for SharePoint - it is a Web Part that shows all the info of any of the document libraries within a site. At least I know how to crawl that kind of library.