Topic: ‘Dynamics CRM’

Having recently completed an upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, we discovered that certain buttons and tabs were missing from the CRM Web Client. It was observed that this issue occurred when the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Outlook is running on the computer, and you start the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web Client. A common example of this is the missing Calendar in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web Client ‘Workplace’ Navigation tab, located under ‘My Work’.

When Outlook is not running, the Calendar appears:

When Outlook is open, the Calendar does not appear in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web Client:

Additional examples include missing the Delete button in the Quotes dialog box and the Settings tab in the navigation pane.

The cause of these missing buttons and tabs is a result of cookies from the Outlook Client being present when you start the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web Client. Cookies are created when you start the Outlook Client. If this cookie is present, the Web Client uses the Web pages of the Outlook Client, resulting in missing tabs and buttons. As pictured above, when the Outlook client is closed, the cookie disappears and the buttons are available.

If you find yourself in this situation, here are a few solutions and workarounds that could be used.

(1) Clear the Internet Explorer Cache. To do this, close Outlook and open IE. In IE, go to Tools, Internet Options, Delete Cookies/Delete Files, OK. To prevent this issue from occurring, exit Outlook before using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web Client.

(2) If you want to use the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web Client and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Office Outlook at the same time, here is an alternative method:

This solution involves making changes to the registry. It is not suggested that changes made to the registry be used as a first option. If possible, alternatives such as a MS Hotfix or MS rollup should be used to try to solve the issue before modifying the registry. If you do decide to modify the registry, it is suggested that the modifications are rolled out through a group policy in active directory, by an IT Director, Technical Specialist or MIS department. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. Be sure to backup the registry before making changes in the registry editor. Any problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. I.B.I.S,. Inc. cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

Registry Backup

Go to Start – Run – and type ‘Regedit’

a. Make a backup of the registry (in the Registry Editor) by right clicking on My Computer and select Export.

b. Select a location for the export file and name it “C“. Click Save.

Registry Edit

1.  Log on to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Outlook.

2.  Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

3.  In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftMSCRMClient

4.  Double-click WebAppUrl.

5.  In the Edit String dialog box, change the value that is in the Value data field. The original value is the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server name and port number. Change this value to an IP address. For example, the IP address may be “http://192.169.1.1:5555.”

6.  Double-click PlatformRoot.

7.  In the Edit String dialog box, change the value that is in the Value data field. The original value is the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server name and port number. Change this value to a value that includes an IP address. For example, the new value may be “http://192.169.1.1:5555/MSCRMServices.”

8.  Double-click ServerUrl.

9.  In the Edit String dialog box, change the value in the Value data field. The original value is the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server name and port number. Change this value to an IP address. For example, the IP address may be “http://192.169.1.1:5555.”

Hope this helps!

Have you dumped some data out to a dynamic pivot table in Excel and gotten an error?  We had a customer that was having an issue receiving the following message:

At first we thought it could be an Excel issue.  But after looking into the log files it was generating, we found a duplicate Display Name was causing the issue. 

There is nothing in CRM to prevent you from creating an identical display name on a form.  So be sure when making modifications to think about what the field is for and if you should create a new attribute to capture the information.

One of the great features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is the ability to import data from a CSV file. However, some clients have expressed to me the need to create a data map and load a sample file for each import job is a bit laborious. This is when I show them the ease of the auto mapping function. Not only does the auto mapping feature expedite the import process, it will still allow users to map lookup and picklist values. For a lookup value, the user may identify the display name of the attribute, or its GUID, and for picklists, one may utilize the display value, or its designated integer.

Here are some important points to bear in mind when attempting to utilize the auto map functionality:

1. In order to have CRM automatically map the data for your import, make sure your import columns match EXACTLY to the attribute display name. An easy way to do this is to do a blank export from a view, or an advanced find, to create an Excel template for your source file. This will ensure you have column headings matched exactly to the attribute display names.

2. Make certain the related lookup records or picklist values exist in CRM prior to import. The import functionality in CRM will not create associated records.

3. You can use the display value or the actual value of the lookup or picklist record. For lookup relationships, the display name will be the primary attribute and the record GUID will be its value. For picklist attributes, the display name will be the name shown to users in the picklist, and its value will be an integer.

4. Make certain you have all required fields in your source data file.

5. Save your source data file in the CSV format.

6. If the display name (for either the lookup or the picklist) has duplicates, the record will not be imported. You will receive an error similar to A duplicate lookup reference was found. You can avoid this however by specifying the GUID of the related record, or the integer of the picklist value. Fortunately, only the record with the duplicate name will fail, not the entire import.

Here is a quick example of importing contacts via auto map that are associated to 2 different parent account records. Let’s say that the following two accounts, Fabrikam and I.B.I.S. Inc., already exist in your Dynamics CRM system. Fabrikam’s record id is D94D44AD-36D0-DC11-AA32-0003FF33509E, and conversely, the I.B.I.S. Inc. record id is 40A45765-8C77-DD11-AD80-0003FFFDFFFF. You now want to import the following 4 contact records into CRM, and each belongs to one of those two accounts. The Excel file is shown below. This file will show you that you can use either the Parent account’s name or identifier and the import will still be successful. Note that the file was created from an export of the ‘My Active Contacts’ view to ensure I have the correct attribute names.

Save your file as a CSV. Now, back in CRM, click Tools > Import Data. Select the saved CSV file and then click Next. Select the record type (contact in this case) and you should see “Automatic” dynamically listed for the Data Map. If you do not see this, then one of your columns does not exactly match an attribute for that record type. You will then need to go back and correct your source data file.

By default, all records are automatically assigned to the user conducting the import. However, the importing user may select a different record owner, via the Import Data Wizard, for all records in the source file.

Finish the import wizard steps. When complete, navigate to Workplace and click Imports. Here you can monitor your import status. The image below shows the actual import record from the example above. This record tracks your settings from the Import wizard, as well as what records failed and those created successfully in the ‘Results’ section.

Once complete, you will see your new records in the contact grid.

Keep in mind, the native Import functionality isn’t meant to solve all import challenges, even when creating a detailed Data Map. If you find that you have stretched its capabilities, consider the free Microsoft Dynamics CRM Data Migration Manager (DMM) tool, or a third party tool such as Scribe.

Modifying the CRM Sitemap can be very helpful in molding CRM for an organization.  The SDK has some examples but we have found if you copy paste the code you will get an error.  Below we have outlined the process.  This can have a very helpful impact on end user adoption.

Step 1: Export the SiteMap

Action

1. Open CRM and Navigate to the Settings Area by Clicking Settings.

2. Navigate to the Customization Area by Clicking Customization.

3.The Customization Area will load.

4.Click the Export Customizations link to load Export Screen.

5.Locate the Site Map Entity in the list and Select it.

6.With Site Map entity highlighted, Click the Export Selected Customization Button.

7.When prompted with screen below, Click Save and Save the customizations.zip file to your computer.

8.After saving the file, extract the customization.xml file from the .Zip file.

9.Make a backup copy of the customization.xml file before continuing.

Step 2: Make the Adjustments Inside the XML File  Edit the Site Map Customization File

Action

1.Right click on your customizations.xml file and Open it with Application of your choice. The file can be edited with Visual Studio, NotePad, WordPad, etc.

2.The file will look similar to this.

Note: The Application Areas in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 include Workplace, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Settings and Resource Center.

3.After opening the file determine where you want to add the Custom Area. I want my Custom Area to display between the Service and Settings Areas, so I scroll down to the Service Area.

Build Custom Area and Sub Area

Locate the </Area> tag for the Service Area and hit enter. Utilizing the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 SDK which can be downloaded here, I construct the XML for my custom area.

<Area Id=”CustomArea” Icon=”/_imgs/sales_24x24.gif”>
    <Titles>
        <Title LCID=”1033″ Title=”Custom Area”/>
    </Titles>
    <Descriptions>
        <Description LCID=”1033″ Description=”This is my custom area”/>
    </Descriptions>
    <Group Id=”CustomArea”>
        <SubArea Id=”new_customentity” Entity=”new_customentity” Icon=”/_imgs/ico_18_126.gif”/>
    </Group>
</Area>

Field/Value Notes:

ID – Can Only Contain a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and underscore (_)

LCID – Represents the Language (1033 = English)

Make Sub Area Available to all Microsoft Dynamics CRM Clients

Add the statement, Client=”All”, to the <SubArea> definition.

<SubArea Id=”new_customentity” Entity=”new_customentity” Icon=”/_imgs/ico_18_126.gif” Client=”All”/>

Make Sub Area Display when Microsoft Dynamics CRM is Offline

Add the statement, AvailableOffline=”true”, to the <SubArea> definition.

<SubArea Id=”new_customentity” Entity=”new_customentity” Icon=”/_imgs/ico_18_126.gif” Client=”All” AvailableOffline=”true”/>

Field/Value Notes:

Client – Possible Values are All, Outlook,OutlookLaptopClient,OutlookWorkstationClient,Web

AvailableOffline – Possible are true or false

Add Sub Area to Link to another Web Site

Add a new Sub Area inside your Custom Area. This time the Sub Area will point to another web site instead of an Entity in CRM. The Sub Area definition does not need the Entity parameter; instead a URL parameter is added to the definition.

<SubArea Id=”nav_dynamics” Icon=”/_imgs/area/ico_18_126.gif” Title=”Microsoft Dynamics” Url=”http://microsoft.com/dynamics” AvailableOffline=”false” Client=”Web”/>

Field/Value Notes:

URL – Defines the web site URL you are linking inside CRM

Add Custom Group to Workplace Area

1.Locate the definition for the Workplace Area in the customizations.xml file. It will resemble this.

2.Find the location you want the Custom Group to display inside the Workplace Area definition and add the XML defining the Custom Group.

<Group Id=”CustomGroup”>
    <Titles>
        <Title LCID=”1033″ Title=”Custom Group”/>
    </Titles>
    <Descriptions>
        <Description LCID=”1033″ Description=”This is my custom group”/>
    </Descriptions>
    <SubArea Id=”new_customentity” Entity=”new_customentity” Icon=”/_imgs/ico_18_126.gif” AvailableOffline=”true” Client=”All”/>
    <SubArea Id=”nav_dynamics” Icon=”/_imgs/area/ico_18_126.gif” Title=”Microsoft Dynamics” Url=”http://microsoft.com/dynamics” AvailableOffline=”false” Client=”Web”/>
</Group>

Provide User the Flexibility to Show/Hide Custom Group in Workplace

Locate your Custom Group within the Service Area XML. Inside the <Group> tag add the statement, IsProfile=”true”.

<Group Id=”CustomGroup” IsProfile=”true”>

Step 3: Import the SiteMapImport Site Map Customizations to Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Action

1.Navigate to Customizations Area inside CRM as describe above.

2. Click the Import Customizations Link to load the Import Customizations Screen.

3.Click the Browse Button to find your customization.xml file and click Open.

4.Click the Upload Button to Upload your XML file.

5.Assuming the XML is Valid, the file is ready for Import.

6.Click Import Selected Customizations. After successful import, the following screen will appear.

Step 4. Verify Site Map Changes

Action

1.Reload CRM (CTRL F5)

2. The Custom Area will appear in the Navigation menu between Service and Settings.

3.Click the Custom Area link to display Custom Sub Areas.

4.Click the Personalize Workspace link, select Custom Group, and click OK.

5.The Custom Group now displays in the Workplace Area.

MS has released a great document for end users.  I would not recommend printing this document as someone on our team did.  Its 480 pages plus in Word.

Follow this link to go to the Microsoft Download Center and download the User Guide:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0DB4D487-1BAA-4619-9BC5-074D73C3997D&displaylang=en

MS has released an updated version of the SDK.  There are some great new examples on jscript and webservice dev.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82e632a7-faf9-41e0-8ec1-a2662aae9dfb&DisplayLang=en

Enjoy!

Great info from MS:  Developer Ramp up Kit for Dynamics CRM 4.0. Any .NET based developer can use this kit to easily ramp up on the CRM platform and start building line of business applications well within a week’s time.

How your organization decides to manage your lead flow is unique to each business. Below is just an example on how this process can work. We are not trying to say this is the best way – or the only way – but just an example. We LOVE the new workflow in v4 and our good friend Ben Vollmer and IBIS had some fun building out some other cool things. You can read about that on his blog here.

So your organization just imported a bunch of leads. Those leads cost money. The people that screamed for those leads will definitely follow up in a timely manner, right? I’ll say sometimes.

While people have the best intentions, they are busy. How can the organization keep track as to whether or not the leads are being pursued? The answer is WORKFLOW.

Here is a little background for this scenario. The leads come in and are imported by marketing and assigned to the marketing person. The leads are then reassigned manually to various reps. Due to this process, our workflow will fire on Record Assigned. Once a lead is assigned, we would like to notify certain CRM users if the modified date does not change in the next two days.

This looks simple enough, especially since we can have the workflow sit in timeout for an allotted period of time.

When creating this workflow, there was one thing that had me hung up. That was how to compare any time values to the current time to determine elapsed time. The secret turned out to be the Workflow: Execution value. Workflow: Execution value represents the time that part of the workflow is running which is fairly close to right now.

Here are the step by step instructions.

1. Open the CRM web client, click Settings in the lower left hand corner, and select Workflow in the top left hand side of the screen.

2. Click New. Give your Workflow a descriptive name, select the Entity it will run against, and leave the radio button set to New Workflow. Then, click OK.

3. On the workflow page, change the scope to Organization so the workflow will run against all leads and set the “Start when” value to “Record is assigned”.

4. Select the row with the label “Select this row and click Add Step” and click the “Add Step” button. From the list, select “Wait Condition”.

5. Enter a Description for the step and click <condition> (click to configure).

6. In the first picklist, select “Workflow”. Click “Select” and pick “Timeout”. Click the next “Select” and pick “Equals”. To enter a value, we will be using the Form Assistant pane to the right. We would like to wait 2 days from assignment so we will select “2” for days, “After” instead of Before, “Workflow” from the Look For picklist, and then click on “Execution Time”. Once you click on Execution Time, you will see the value populated for you. Click Save and Close. Your workflow should now look like this.

7. Select the next row, click “Add Step”, and choose “Check Condition”. We will now check if the Lead has not been Qualified or Disqualified. To make this easier we will check that the Lead Status does not equal “Open”.

8. In the first picklist, select “Lead”. Click “Select” and pick “Status”. Click the next “Select” and pick “Does not Equal”. Click the […] button and choose “Open”. Click Save and Close. Your workflow should now look like this.

9. If the lead is not open we want to stop the workflow. Click the line below the If statement and click Add Step. Select Stop Workflow and select “Canceled” from the picklist.

10. Select the If statement line, click the Add Step button and select Conditional Branch.

11. Now we need to set the condition on the “Otherwise, if” line. Click the <condition> field.

12. In the first picklist, select “Lead”. Click “Select” and pick “Modified On”. Click the next “Select” and pick “Is Less Than”. To enter a value, we will be using the Form Assistant pane to the right. Since the Modified On date got changed when the lead was reassigned, we can check if the Modified On date is less than 1 day 23 hours and 59 minutes. Select “1” for days, “23” for hours, “59” for minutes, “Before”, “Workflow” from the Look For picklist, and then click on “Execution Time”. Once you click on Execution Time, you will see the value populated for you. Click Save and Close. Your workflow should now look like this.

13. Select the next row, click “Add Step”, and choose “Send E-mail”.

14. Click the “Set Properties” button to fill in the appropriate fields on the email that will be sent out. The Regarding field already has a link to the related lead. I typically have the email sent from an administrator account. The recipient can be the rep, the rep’s manager, CRM users, etc. I don’t want to go into details on how to use Dynamic Values but they are pretty useful.

15. Please note that you need not fill in every field. Once you are done, click “Save and Close”. You workflow should now look like this.

16. Now all that is left to do is to save it and publish it. You will notice on the toolbar that you can publish from here. I made it a habit to save the workflow first, then I publish it.

17. Click “Save and Close” and then with your new workflow selected, click “Publish”.

18. Your workflow is now active and will fire whenever a Lead is assigned to another user.

Some Additional Notes:

When checking the lead modified on field against the workflow execution time, I chose not to use Less Than or Equal To 2 days because I wanted to leave a little wiggle room for latency in the workflow process running. It is possible that it would work but I figured that the odds on a rep getting the reassigned lead, calling the lead, and saving changes to the record in under 1 minute was slim to none.

The Outlook client can potentially create some annoying features for your end users.  The good news around this is Microsoft has released a hotfix to address the issue.  There is a workaround that you may already be using for a user that has encountered this problem.  Here is a blog posting on the workaround.

http://blogs.msdn.com/benlec/archive/2008/04/11/outlook-inbox-folders-stuck-on-loading-message-in-crm-4-0.aspx

The KB for the hotfix is 950175, this may not be public yet but keep checking the MS site for the release.

Creating a dashboard using SharePoint, Excel Pivot Charts and Microsoft CRM data is nothing new. Perform a Google search and you will receive thousands of results. However, finding information on how to create a live dashboard using the latest components of MOSS 2007, Excel Web Services, Excel 2007 and Microsoft CRM data is a bit more difficult.

1) Using the old method available in SharePoint 2003 of inserting the Office Pivot Chart web part and connecting to your CRM data source to retrieve the data does not work in MOSS 2007. The Office Pivot Chart web part is not available in this version using MOSS 2007 and Excel 2007.

2) Setting up Excel Web Services authentication methods (Windows Authentication, Single Sign On, or none) to allow the automatic refresh of the data in the spreadsheets on your dashboard page can be a bit confusing. I will discuss this in more detail later in this post.

3) Certain items used in Excel spreadsheets are not supported in Excel Web Services.

4) There is not one document that explains it all from start to finish, with all of the pitfalls highlighted. That is what I am hoping to accomplish with this post. My initial hurdles in getting this to work were all centered on getting the data to refresh with live data every time the page is opened. I kept receiving a data retrieval error saying the connection was unavailable. This was mainly the combination of the following:

a. Data Authentication

b. Creating the Excel Report based on a Query table, instead of a Pivot Table and Chart

c. Publishing the Excel Chart as a Report instead of a dashboard

This post is written based on the assumption that you have knowledge of MOSS 2007, creating a dashboard page in SharePoint and that the environment has been configured to use Excel Web Services. If not, below are some links that go into detail about how to do this and some other helpful links:

1) Plan external data connections for Excel Services – This article contain full instructions on how to configure MOSS to use Excel Web Services. Note: All of the steps in this article should be completed before moving on to building your reports and your dashboard.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262899.aspx#section7

2) Using Analysis Services data in Excel Services – This article goes into depth on configuring your servers to use Kerberos Authentication. This is required if you are using Windows authentication as your method of authenticating your spreadsheets to the data source.

http://www.tonstegeman.com/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=70640fe5%2D28d9%2D464f%2Db1c9%2D91e07c8f7e47&ID=43

3) Excel Services part 12: Unsupported features

http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2005/12/01/499206.aspx

Before moving on with the rest of this post, a word on authentication; when creating your Excel spreadsheet and connecting to your CRM database to retrieve data, you have to select a method of authentication. There are three options:

1) Windows Authentication

2) Single Sign On

3) None

All three have their caveats, but the third option of “None” is the easiest to configure and is the one I have chosen to use in this example. The other two options require a much deeper understanding of Kerberos authentication and this will not be addressed in this post. Read the section entitled “Authentication to external data” in the “Plan external data connections for Excel Services” article listed above for a complete explanation on the configuration of each.

As I noted above, you need to configure your MOSS environment prior to actually creating your spreadsheet and building your page. A synopsis of the steps is listed below and is explained in detail in the “Plan external data connections for Excel Services” article:

1) Enable MOSS to use Excel Web Services

2) Add a trusted file location

3) Enable external data access for a trusted file location

4) Configure the unattended account settings – This is required if your authentication method is “None.” In this step, you will want the unattended account to be a domain user that is also a user in CRM. In my case, I just used the administrator login used when we installed CRM.

5) Create a data connection library

6) Add a data connection library to trusted list

7) Set a registry key to surface a data connection library in the client – This step is not required, but if you would like the data connection library to show up as a location to select data connections from when building your spreadsheet and creating a connection, you will have to do this. Otherwise, you can still access the location by typing in the path to the URL when browsing for your data connections.

Once you have completed these steps, you are ready to create your worksheet and integrate it into your website.

1) Create a new connection within a new Excel spreadsheet.

· Open Microsoft Excel 2007.

· Go to the Data tab.

· Select “From Other Sources.”

· Select “From Data Connection Wizard.”

· Select Microsoft SQL Server. Click Next.

· Enter your server name. It is ok to use Windows Authentication here. Click Next.

· Select your CRM database and the view in which to use. In this example, I am going to create a simple graph using the Opportunity View. Click Next.

· Select a file name for your data source that will be saved. We will need to modify the location so that the data connection is stored to the Data Connection Library on the SharePoint site. To do this, click Browse. If you do not have a link to your SharePoint Data Connection Library, you can find this by browsing to your SharePoint site using Internet Explorer and selecting the Data Connection Library link. Copy the location from the Address Bar in IE (All the way through the DataConnections only. Do not include the .aspx ending. Ex. – http://intranet/Department%20Sites/Sales%20%20Marketing/sales_dash/Data%20Connections/) and paste this before the file name you have selected.

· Select the “Always attempt to use this file to refresh data check box.”

· Click on the Authentication Settings button.

· Select your authentication method. In my case, I select “None.” This will trigger the Excel Web Services to use the Unattended Account we set up earlier.

· Select OK on this dialog and then Finish on the previous dialog.

· When you are prompted with the Web File Properties dialog, select SharePointLibrary as your Connection Type and ReadWrite as your UDC Purpose.

· On the Import Data dialog, select PivotChart and PivotTable Report. Note: Selecting Table will not work. It is called a Query Table and is not an option that is supported in Excel Web Services.

· Build your Pivot Chart. Here I am performing a simple summation of the Estimated Value of my opportunities in a particular category.

· Click on any area within the Pivot Table, click Data from the top menu bar, then Connection Properties.

· Under the usage tab, select all three of the Data Refresh options.

· Under the definition tab, select the “Always use the connection file” checkbox.

· Since we have changed the connection information, we will have to re-save it to the Data Connection Library on the SharePoint site. To do this, click on the Export Connection File button. If your location did not default to the Data Connection Library, browse to it as described in step (h). Click Save to update the Data Connection file.

· Click OK to close the Connection Properties dialog.

· We are now ready to publish the spreadsheet to the Reports Library on the SharePoint site. Click on the Office Button in the top left corner, select Publish, then select Excel Services.

· Before saving the file, make sure you are publishing it to the Reports Library on the SharePoint. As in step (h), if you do not have a link to the Reports Library, you can find it by navigating to the Reports Library on your SharePoint site using Internet Explorer. Copy the address and paste it before the file name. (Ex. http://intranet/Department%20Sites/Sales%20%20Marketing/sales_dash/ReportsLibrary/)

· The next dialog will prompt you with choices of the items you would like to publish. In my case, I only want to display the chart, so from the Show tab, I select Items in the Workbook and Chart 1. You can choose to show any item in the spreadsheet that is support by Excel Web Services. Select OK.

· The next dialog is important as well. Be sure to select Dashboard Page. If you select Report, whatever you intend to publish is only published as a snapshot and the data will not refresh when revisiting the web page containing your data and charts.

· Your published report will be rendered in Internet Explorer. The next step will be to add the report from your Reports Library to your SharePoint Dashboard page.

Assuming that your base dashboard page has already been built in SharePoint, I am jumping ahead a few steps to actually adding the new Excel Chart to the page.

· From your dashboard page, select Add a Web Part.

· From the dialog box, select the Excel Web Access part.

· After the part is added click on the “Click here to open the tool pane” link.

· In the “Workbook Display” section of the Properties, select the ellipsis to browse your SharePoint Report Library. Select the Excel file that you uploaded earlier.

· Go through all of the Properties areas for the web part, adjusting what is displayed and what is not. Once you are done with the Properties, select OK to add your web part to the dashboard page.

There you have it! To build more reports and data connections, simply follow the steps listed above and then add them to your dashboard page. In this example I used the CRM database as my data source, but in reality this will work for any external data source.