Multiple owners on CRM 4.0 entities

CRM 4.0 entities record only is owned by one user only and this is really big limitation in CRM 4.0.

I was wondering for the possibility to have multiple owners per entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
While searching the solution over net I have come across potential solution as below.

As per this blog article,

There are many instances where businesses want multiple “owners” of something within CRM. Having multiple users own something comes in many different forms when related to CRM. Examples include team selling using CRM Opportunity records, team support using Cases, and Tasks assigned to a group. Microsoft CRM is constructed such that one user is the “owner” of each record within CRM. Can we alter the system to modify this ownership?

Depending on the functionality you are looking to support, assigning multiple owners to a record can be accomplished many different ways in CRM. The question to start with is what functionality your business needs to support with multiple “owners” of something within in CRM.

Solution is based on the possibility to have multiple owners per entity identified as multi-owners using the sharing capability and deep customizations.

The multi-ownership currently will be automatically created and managed for leads, accounts and contacts entity.

Source Link

Cheers,
MayankP:)

Changing CRM Active/Invoice Contract to Draft

Sometime back I posted on how to change/delete read only records in Dynamics CRM but this does not work for contract.

Contract record once becomes active/invoice there is no supported way to change the contract back to draft. So I created custom workflow activity which allows users to change contract back to draft.
Once contract is in draft state, user can change any fields or delete the contract from the system.
I have shared this utility on CodePlex at Here

This application also contains some other contract utility. Following are the details steps regarding usage of this application

Step 1: Download the application files and register this assembly using plug in registration tool

Step 2 : Once assembly is registered successfully, go to setting and create new workflow against contract, make sure contract is owner by admin user who have access to modify the database tables.

Step 3: Call this workflow “Change Status to Draft” and add step from Contract utilities -> Change Status to Draft. (As per following screen print).

Step 4: provide input parameters (i.e. database connection to string)

Step 5: Now publish the workflow.

Step 6: go to contract screen and run this workflow against relevant active/invoiced contract record and this workflow will make contract draft. Now user can change any field on this contract or delete the contract now

Note: This is unsupported customization, Please unit test this module on your development/test environment before applying it to Live Environment..

Perform Action for 1:N and N:N Relationship in CRM 4.0 workflow editor

currently CRM 4.0 workflow editor allow you to update relevant record with N:1 relationship only, for example if you are in case screen then you can update related Account/Contact record only but if you want to update all tasks related to Case then you cannot able do it currently in Out of the box system.

Just came across this new project on codeplex which provides custom workflow which you can just register and this will extend (or add new action sub menu) in workflow editor screen to allow performing action for 1:N and N:N Relationship.

Following is the details from the CodePlex Site

Project Description
This plug-n allows to execute a workflow for each entity that has a 1:N or N:N relationship to a given entity.
For example: execute a workflow for each case related to an account (1:N), or for each competitor related to an opportunity (N:N), etc.

Summary
With CRM 4.0 out-of-the-box it is possible to perform actions on entities that have a N:1 relationship to a given entity, For example from an opportunity it is possible to update or run a workflow on the parent customer.

This plug-in allows to extend this to the other two possible relationships: 1:N and N:N. With the aid of this plugin it is possible to perform an action on each opportunity given the parent customer (1:N) or on each competitor given the opportunity (N:N) or on each opportunity given the competitor (other way of the same N:N).

Installation
Copy the .dll to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM\Server\bin\assembly folder
Run the Plug-in Registration tool and register the .dll
If the plug-in was registered successfully, a new action sub-menu (Utilities) will be available when selecting a workflow action.

Download Project documentation and files : http://crm40distributewf.codeplex.com/