Metadata contains a reference that cannot be resolved: 'http://Server:port/Org/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc?wsdl'.

I've been connecting my CRM Development Server for last few months and today I installed CRM Outlook Client to my Local PC. Once I installed the CRM Outlook Client, I couldn't connect to CRM. My PC is 64 bit and I have 32 bit MS Office(and Outlook). I think that might be a reason that the CRM Outlook Client did not work. ( I got some errors when installing but was manged to install by manually installing "Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistance")

Since it did not work properly, I uninstalled the CRM Outlook Client. But just after that, and start my usual work I got following error

Metadata contains a reference that cannot be resolved: 'http://Server:port/Org/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc?wsdl'.

After doing some research, I found that my machine.config file has been modified today.

I compared the "machine.config" file with one of colleague's PC and found the additional tag.

<system.net>
    <defaultproxy enabled="true" usedefaultcredentials="true">
        <proxy bypassonlocal="True" proxyaddress="###.com.sg">
        </proxy>
</defaultproxy>
</system.net>

I then removed the whole "<system.net>" tag from the "machine.config" file. Everything is working fine now!

If you found the same error, remember to get a backup of the "machine.config" file before proceeding!

CRM Developers have more time to learn cross browser supporting Javascripts!

Microsoft earlier announced that they will include cross-browser support with CRM 2011 - Q2 2012 Service Update, and what that means is end-users will be able to login to CRM using browsers like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Users can login to CRM 2011 from their mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone devices.

In most of CRM systems, we see developers include custom web pages to extend basic CRM features. We should try to minimize using custom web pages, and we should only implement such if the in-built Process Dialogs cannot full fill the customer requirements. We see Microsoft adding more features to Process Dialogs in rollups and sometimes we face customers, who really need some web pages like typical web pages! That’s when we have to implement custom web pages that we embedded to CRM Ribbon menu or CRM pages through IFrames. As CRM developers, we always checked our custom web page in Internet Explorer and if it works fine in IE, we just stop testing as we know uses cannot navigate to our pages using other browsers.

Microsoft just recently communicated that they are not including cross browser feature in the Q2 Service Update! They are planning to include the feature with the Q4 release. What is means to CRM developers? We have some more time to learn cross browser supporting Javascripts in our customer web pages. Because, once the end user start the CRM application from browsers not internet explorer browsers, we have to make sure our custom web pages also displays the content correctly and Javascripts work correctly.

So let’s utilize the additional time we got to learn more Javascripts and HTML that supports cross browser. And let’s make sure any web page we implement in future supports cross browser.

Some useful resources,
Microsoft delays Dynamics CRM mobile support for iPad, Android until Q4 2012
Q2 2012 Service Update – New delivery schedule