The purpose of the ConnectIT Resellers Group is to provide an additional support forum for ConnectIT application links, to keep members up to date with the latest news in the ConnectIT range of products and for members to share thoughts and experiences of implementing ConnectIT in various vertical industry sectors.
The group will never replace us preferring you to pick up the phone and speak to us, but we're aiming to make this a useful additional way to keep in touch with each other.
The URL to join the group is: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1416457
Please pass this on to your colleagues who you feel may also benefit from membership.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
QUOTEWERKS: new reseller group on LinkedIn
The purpose of this group is for members to keep each other up-to-date on QuoteWerks-related product news, provide an additional support / discussion forum for resellers only, and to share tips, tricks and experiences in implementing QuoteWerks-based solutions in different vertical industry sectors.
Group members are actively encourage to contribute news on QuoteWerks, tips and tricks they have learnt when implementing QuoteWerks-based solutions, "how do I..." and "has anyone ever tried..." questions to challenge the group and help resellers find solutions, plus provide information on their own products which enhance QuoteWerks.
The URL to join is here: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1416347
Please pass this on to your colleagues who you feel may also benefit from membership. After all - the more members, the more sources for contributions, the more informed we'll be on QuoteWerks-related issues and innovations.
In other similar groups (specifically ACT! Fanatics recently) some concern was raised when the Group Manager proposed members provide information on their own products. We think that as long as members keep the information relevant and new, then we can provide each other with a useful source of information. As long as products are QuoteWerks related, then we should be able to make this a success. For example: we will be adding posts when we release significant new builds and products in the ConnectIT range, but we will not be advertising our website development services. While our website development services might be of interest to members, the QuoteWerks Resellers Group is not the right forum to be advertising. Any questions or if anyone has issues with things other members might be posting, then please just contact Steve through the LinkedIn messaging or contact Hilltops IT direct here.
Group members are actively encourage to contribute news on QuoteWerks, tips and tricks they have learnt when implementing QuoteWerks-based solutions, "how do I..." and "has anyone ever tried..." questions to challenge the group and help resellers find solutions, plus provide information on their own products which enhance QuoteWerks.
The URL to join is here: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1416347
Please pass this on to your colleagues who you feel may also benefit from membership. After all - the more members, the more sources for contributions, the more informed we'll be on QuoteWerks-related issues and innovations.
In other similar groups (specifically ACT! Fanatics recently) some concern was raised when the Group Manager proposed members provide information on their own products. We think that as long as members keep the information relevant and new, then we can provide each other with a useful source of information. As long as products are QuoteWerks related, then we should be able to make this a success. For example: we will be adding posts when we release significant new builds and products in the ConnectIT range, but we will not be advertising our website development services. While our website development services might be of interest to members, the QuoteWerks Resellers Group is not the right forum to be advertising. Any questions or if anyone has issues with things other members might be posting, then please just contact Steve through the LinkedIn messaging or contact Hilltops IT direct here.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
DEVELOPMENT: skills developers will need in the next five years
Tech Republic software development commentator Justin James released a paper today with his thoughts on skills developers will need in the next five years: http://i.techrepublic.com.com/downloads/dl_10_skills_dev.pdf
Clearly we can always improve, but we were really pleased to read that we already "tick the boxes" in all but one category!
The technical aspects aside - we have always considered it imperative to work with the business to understand their pain points, to be flexible in delivering the requirements which will evolve with the business and communicate effectively in a way that everyone understands.
The one box we can't tick right now if the mobile development, which to date hasn't been necessary for the type of applications and solutions we deliver. Clearly as the power of mobile technology improves and workers increasingly do business on the move, then we will need to address this. But it's encouraging to know that (at least within Justin James criteria) hilltops IT's development team are already off to a very good start!
For more information on our software development and website design and development services, please see our website or contact us direct on +44(0)1782 564252.
Clearly we can always improve, but we were really pleased to read that we already "tick the boxes" in all but one category!
The technical aspects aside - we have always considered it imperative to work with the business to understand their pain points, to be flexible in delivering the requirements which will evolve with the business and communicate effectively in a way that everyone understands.
The one box we can't tick right now if the mobile development, which to date hasn't been necessary for the type of applications and solutions we deliver. Clearly as the power of mobile technology improves and workers increasingly do business on the move, then we will need to address this. But it's encouraging to know that (at least within Justin James criteria) hilltops IT's development team are already off to a very good start!
For more information on our software development and website design and development services, please see our website or contact us direct on +44(0)1782 564252.
DEVELOPMENT: SQL Server 2008 SP1 released
SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available. You can use these packages to upgrade any SQL Server 2008 edition.
Note: [Microsoft] remain committed to our plans to keep service packs contained, focusing on essential updates only, primarily a Roll-up of Cumulative Update 1 to 3, Quick Fix Engineering (QFE) updates, as well as fixes to issues reported through the SQL Server community. While keeping product changes contained, [Microsoft] have made significant investments to ease deployment and management of Service Packs:
Note: [Microsoft] remain committed to our plans to keep service packs contained, focusing on essential updates only, primarily a Roll-up of Cumulative Update 1 to 3, Quick Fix Engineering (QFE) updates, as well as fixes to issues reported through the SQL Server community. While keeping product changes contained, [Microsoft] have made significant investments to ease deployment and management of Service Packs:
- Slipstream – You are now able to integrate the base installation with service packs (or Hotfixes) and install in a single step.
- Service Pack Uninstall – You are now able to uninstall only the Service Pack (without removing the whole instance)
- Report Builder 2.0 Click Once capability
For more information about SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1, please review the Release Notes.
For more information about Hilltops IT's software development services, please see our website or contact us direct on +44(0) 1782 564252.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
BLOG: Hilltops IT gets a mention in Focus Magazine
Focussing on Vistage chief executives organisation and how membership has helped Hilltops IT (and other businesses in the Staffordshire) move their business' forward, Stephen Siggs is quoted: "Vistage has helped me to power my company to new heights. I joined in 2008 after hearing about the powerful results that members derive from Vistage groups. In less than a year I am already seeing key developments such as better projection and positioning of Hilltops IT in the marketplace, a better focus upon strategic growth and improved management of staff, customers and suppliers."
We also managed to get in a cheeky box shot of QuoteWerks sales quotation tool!
View the full article by clicking the link here: http://www.hilltopsit.co.uk/resources/business/200904%20-%20Focus%20Magazine,%20Vistage.pdf
We also managed to get in a cheeky box shot of QuoteWerks sales quotation tool!
View the full article by clicking the link here: http://www.hilltopsit.co.uk/resources/business/200904%20-%20Focus%20Magazine,%20Vistage.pdf
Friday, April 3, 2009
CONNECTIT: ConnectIT-Workflow v1.0.0 released
Product Overview
ConnectIT-Workflow manages entries on a QuoteWerks document to ensure that the QuoteWerks user has entered all the required information at each step of document creation (Quote, Order and Invoice).
ConnectIT-Workflow validates that the QuoteWerks user has entered required values into particular fields before the user is allowed to print, save, convert or email a document.
When an error is detected, then depending on the level of that error, the user is either prompted and asked to correct the problem before they are allowed to continue, or they are just warned about the problem(s).
Key Benefits
Key Features
ConnectIT-Workflow manages entries on a QuoteWerks document to ensure that the QuoteWerks user has entered all the required information at each step of document creation (Quote, Order and Invoice).
ConnectIT-Workflow validates that the QuoteWerks user has entered required values into particular fields before the user is allowed to print, save, convert or email a document.
When an error is detected, then depending on the level of that error, the user is either prompted and asked to correct the problem before they are allowed to continue, or they are just warned about the problem(s).
Key Benefits
- Quick to install and easy to configure to the fields you use which means your company’s quoting and sales order processing functions become instantly more accurate and more productive.
- Ensures that your customers and suppliers get complete and consistent information on the documents you send them thus improving your business relationships with them by avoiding time wasted checking, correcting and resending documents.
- Maintains integrity of input to maximise the power and accuracy of QuoteWerks reporting which means more informed business decision making.
Key Features
- When an error is detected, then depending on the level of that error, the user is either prompted and asked to correct the problem before they are allowed to continue, or they are just warned about the problem(s).
- Validates fields based on the particular document type and document status.
- Contains many different rule expressions – that a field is not blank, that a fields value is in a particular range, that a fields value is one of a particular list of options, etc.
- Contains many different rule targets – Document Header fields, Document Item fields, first Document Item row, all Optional Document Item rows, etc.
ConnectIT-Workflow pricing is very cost-effective and is currently being sold with free installation and configuration - get your copy and start taking advantage of ConnectIT-Workflow's cost and time saving benefits now!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
MSCRM: Microsoft CRM Authentication Error 0x80040204
It's been a challenging afternoon today, following one of our clients introducing a new server to their network domain. Users trying to log into the Microsoft CRM system (hosted on another server) got the error: "Authentication Failed" with code 0x80040204.
The introduction of the new Microsoft Windows Server 2008 machine somehow affected the existing Microsoft Windows SBS 2003 domain controller, and changed (or recreated) the Active Directory groups which Microsoft CRM relies on: PrivUserGroup, ReportingGroup, SQLAccessGroup and UserGroup.
In the Application Event Log, errors were reported from the SCRMDeploymentManagerSnapin: "IsCRMSysAdmin : WhoAmI failed".
Checking the Microsoft CRM database, we could see that all System Users and Roles were still there, so the problem seemed to point towards Windows security and / or Active Directory.
We've found in the past that the best way to tackle these types of issue is to roll your sleeves up and get straight into the Microsoft CRM error tracing feature. Details of how to set this up are here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907490
Setting TraceCategories to "*:Verbose" will give you absolutely everything that's going on to understand the problem, but we strongly recommend only enabling this temporarily.
The Trace output file showed the SQL statements for the login; copy/pasting these into a query editor showed record being returned, so no problem there. the problem was found about 20 lines down in the Trace: "Invalid code for CRM error", "ADsGetObject() failed". Looking more and more like Active Directory.
Microsoft CRM relies on the PrivUserGroup, ReportingGroup, SQLAccessGroup and UserGroup Security Groups, so we checked the details of the GUIDs in Active Directory against those registered in the Microsoft CRM database.
Viewing the Microsoft CRM values can be done by running the following in a query editor:
SELECT UserGroupID , PrivilegeUserGroupID, ReportingGroupID, SQLAccessGroupID
FROM OrganisationBase
To view those in Active Directory, you'll need to use adsiedit.msc (part of the Windows Support Tools on the Windows Server installation CD-ROM or download it from http://download.microsoft.com, search for "adsiedit.msc") and view the objectGUID value for each of these groups in hex.
The values from Active Directory need to be manipulated slightly, but they should match those in the Microsoft CRM database: first reverse the first four groups of characters, reverse the next two groups of characters, reverse the third group of two and copy and paste the fourth group of two and the final group of six (the last two groups are not reversed). Note that you do not reverse each pair of characters individually, but treat each pair as a group and reverse the groups as shown below.
So, for example:
objectGUID=0x 1x 2x 3x 4x 5x 6x 7x 8x 9x Ax Bx Cx Dx Ex Fx
Becomes:
GUID in database={3x2x1x0x-5x4x-7x6x-8x9x-AxBxCxDxExFx}
The values we found didn't match, so it was just a simple SQL UPDATE statement to set them right:
UPDATE OrganizationBase
SET UserGroupID='GUID', PrivilegeUserGroupID='GUID', ReportingGroupID='GUID', SQLAccessGroupID='GUID'
Where 'GUID' is the appropriate manipulated Active Directory objectGUID.
As an example, the specific values we had in Active Directory for the four groups were:
A7 7D FB B8 8B 85 8C 47 81 F0 36 D6 F0 89 8A F7
CB F5 E6 71 58 B6 19 4A BA 56 CC 49 67 0C 58 FF
C5 CC DE B9 8A 72 DD 48 A6 4E 5E 4D D4 64 DD 0E
18 F7 97 EF 41 B9 C8 4E AA F8 3B 2D CE 02 EC A2
So manipulated as above they became:
B8FB7DA7-858B-478C-81F0-36D6F0898AF7
71E6F5CB-B658-4A19-BA56-CC49670C58FF
B9DECCC5-728A-48DD-A64E-5E4DD464DD0E
EF97F718-B941-4EC8-AAF8-3B2DCE02ECA2
Our SQL statement looked like this:
UPDATE OrganizationBase
SET UserGroupID = 'B8FB7DA7-858B-478C-81F0-36D6F0898AF7'
, PrivilegeUserGroupID = '71E6F5CB-B658-4A19-BA56-CC49670C58FF'
, ReportingGroupID = 'B9DECCC5-728A-48DD-A64E-5E4DD464DD0E'
, SQLAccessGroupID = 'EF97F718-B941-4EC8-AAF8-3B2DCE02ECA2'
Many thanks to Brian Reid for his blog post here - http://www.c7solutions.com/blog/2008/04/crm-30-disaster-recovery.aspx which was really helpful in getting us through this issue.
The introduction of the new Microsoft Windows Server 2008 machine somehow affected the existing Microsoft Windows SBS 2003 domain controller, and changed (or recreated) the Active Directory groups which Microsoft CRM relies on: PrivUserGroup, ReportingGroup, SQLAccessGroup and UserGroup.
In the Application Event Log, errors were reported from the SCRMDeploymentManagerSnapin: "IsCRMSysAdmin : WhoAmI failed".
Checking the Microsoft CRM database, we could see that all System Users and Roles were still there, so the problem seemed to point towards Windows security and / or Active Directory.
We've found in the past that the best way to tackle these types of issue is to roll your sleeves up and get straight into the Microsoft CRM error tracing feature. Details of how to set this up are here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907490
Setting TraceCategories to "*:Verbose" will give you absolutely everything that's going on to understand the problem, but we strongly recommend only enabling this temporarily.
The Trace output file showed the SQL statements for the login; copy/pasting these into a query editor showed record being returned, so no problem there. the problem was found about 20 lines down in the Trace: "Invalid code for CRM error", "ADsGetObject() failed". Looking more and more like Active Directory.
Microsoft CRM relies on the PrivUserGroup, ReportingGroup, SQLAccessGroup and UserGroup Security Groups, so we checked the details of the GUIDs in Active Directory against those registered in the Microsoft CRM database.
Viewing the Microsoft CRM values can be done by running the following in a query editor:
SELECT UserGroupID , PrivilegeUserGroupID, ReportingGroupID, SQLAccessGroupID
FROM OrganisationBase
To view those in Active Directory, you'll need to use adsiedit.msc (part of the Windows Support Tools on the Windows Server installation CD-ROM or download it from http://download.microsoft.com, search for "adsiedit.msc") and view the objectGUID value for each of these groups in hex.
The values from Active Directory need to be manipulated slightly, but they should match those in the Microsoft CRM database: first reverse the first four groups of characters, reverse the next two groups of characters, reverse the third group of two and copy and paste the fourth group of two and the final group of six (the last two groups are not reversed). Note that you do not reverse each pair of characters individually, but treat each pair as a group and reverse the groups as shown below.
So, for example:
objectGUID=0x 1x 2x 3x 4x 5x 6x 7x 8x 9x Ax Bx Cx Dx Ex Fx
Becomes:
GUID in database={3x2x1x0x-5x4x-7x6x-8x9x-AxBxCxDxExFx}
The values we found didn't match, so it was just a simple SQL UPDATE statement to set them right:
UPDATE OrganizationBase
SET UserGroupID='GUID', PrivilegeUserGroupID='GUID', ReportingGroupID='GUID', SQLAccessGroupID='GUID'
Where 'GUID' is the appropriate manipulated Active Directory objectGUID.
As an example, the specific values we had in Active Directory for the four groups were:
A7 7D FB B8 8B 85 8C 47 81 F0 36 D6 F0 89 8A F7
CB F5 E6 71 58 B6 19 4A BA 56 CC 49 67 0C 58 FF
C5 CC DE B9 8A 72 DD 48 A6 4E 5E 4D D4 64 DD 0E
18 F7 97 EF 41 B9 C8 4E AA F8 3B 2D CE 02 EC A2
So manipulated as above they became:
B8FB7DA7-858B-478C-81F0-36D6F0898AF7
71E6F5CB-B658-4A19-BA56-CC49670C58FF
B9DECCC5-728A-48DD-A64E-5E4DD464DD0E
EF97F718-B941-4EC8-AAF8-3B2DCE02ECA2
Our SQL statement looked like this:
UPDATE OrganizationBase
SET UserGroupID = 'B8FB7DA7-858B-478C-81F0-36D6F0898AF7'
, PrivilegeUserGroupID = '71E6F5CB-B658-4A19-BA56-CC49670C58FF'
, ReportingGroupID = 'B9DECCC5-728A-48DD-A64E-5E4DD464DD0E'
, SQLAccessGroupID = 'EF97F718-B941-4EC8-AAF8-3B2DCE02ECA2'
Many thanks to Brian Reid for his blog post here - http://www.c7solutions.com/blog/2008/04/crm-30-disaster-recovery.aspx which was really helpful in getting us through this issue.
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