How to Set Up a Test Environment for 2020 Release Wave 1 Update (8 Steps)

Before you enable the update in production, we highly recommend testing the changes first in a test environment. If you are not sure if you have a test environment, as an online customer you get one. Go to the Power Platform Admin Center, if needed, create your sandbox environment and then copy your production environment to your new sandbox environment.

Installing Microsoft OneNote 2013 On Your Mac Or PC

When it comes to effectively taking notes, OneNote leaves Word in the dust. Don’t get me wrong, Microsoft Word is an excellent program and is very useful for specific tasks, but note-taking isn’t one of them. OneNote allows users to take notes the way that works best for them. In this blog entry, I will walk you through the installation process for your computer, step-by-step.

How to Delete a Service Application Database that is Not Responding

On a recent project, I hit an issue with databases that was interesting. We were restoring a lot of databases over to a development environment from production, as well as the managed metadata database. I had gone through the whole deal, backed up the database in the old server, restored it to the development SQL server, etc. There was an issue with the Managed Metadata service that required to have service application re-created. This lead to a situation where the service application database was unprovisioned, but not deleted.

Quickly Find the SharePoint 2010 Configuration Database with PowerShell

I wanted to share this quick tip with PowerShell. Many times, we need to have an easy way to find the configuration database, and like a good SharePoint administrator, you want to try and use PowerShell. I have come across other blogs here and others that mention finding this with the registry, so this is just another way to do it.

Quick Tip: Use CRM Email Templates Without Tracking in CRM

E-mail templates are a great feature available in Dynamics CRM.  When Microsoft introduced the ability to access them directly from within Outlook in CRM 2011, it became even more efficient to quickly grab a template for any outgoing email.  In order to use an email template, you first have to track the email in CRM.  So the process works something like this: create an Outlook email | click the Track in CRM or Set Regarding button | select a template | send the email.

Adding a Twitter Feed to CRM Leads

When reviewing a lead, account or contact prior to a sales call, it is always helpful to have as much context about a company prior to making the call.  Putting a Twitter feed on the CRM record for a lead can put this information in a place where it is easy for a sales person to quickly see it.  By passing in the name of the company dynamically, the feed can show relevant information about the specific company.

Twitter makes it pretty easy to generate the “base” code for integrating with CRM (or any website) as a widget.  You can find their tools for generating widgets here.  Even if you use my code, below, as a starting point, you’ll likely find this link helpful as you start to fine-tune your code a bit.

Tip: How to Rename a SharePoint 2010 Server

Even if you’ve planned your SharePoint project properly, or it might be years later, you need to rename your SharePoint 2010 server. This quick tip covers this on SharePoint 2010 which is a much cleaner experience than it was in 2007. There is an STSADM switch that can handle it, but for 2010, there is a certain procedure to yield best results. I was able to do this on a single SharePoint server earlier and it worked great! This was a single SharePoint server with SQL on another server.

For 2010, there’s a new PowerShell cmdlet for this very thing, Rename-SPServer. This is this article on TechNet covering the procedure. It has you renaming the server itself first, then fixing up SharePoint. However I’ve heard of issues with that, and I had better results by doing it in reverse. That is, running the PowerShell to fix up SharePoint then renaming the server. Here is what I did:

1. Tell SharePoint about the new server name via PowerShell. This is done via the Rename-Server cmdlet. Of course get-help is your friend to get details and examples, however the context help of the cmd (and the technet article for that matter) IS WRONG! It’s funny, because the example is right, but the explanation isn’t. Go figure, nobody’s perfect. Anyway, you give the command the old and new server names. TechNet says the old server name is in the form of a URL. That throws an error. It should just be . So the whole command would be like:

      1: Rename-SPServer –identity “old_server_name” –name “new_server_name”