File or assembly name Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService, or one of its dependencies, was not found

Imagine.. You're writing a wonderful MS CRM 3.0 addon. After writing lines and lines of code, the time is there to run and test the addon. Instead of seeing your fantasic, state-of-the-art, rocket-science, cutting-edge addon, it is this message that arises:

Parser Error Message: File or assembly name Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService, or one of its dependencies, was not found.

Great.

Now how to solve this?

Well, Jonathan Randall has answered that question already in one of the newsgroups. Here's his posting:

The issue is caused because when you place your under application under the Microsoft CRM 3.0 web site, your application inherits the settings from the parent web site. Since the Microsoft CRM application has the two assemblies located in its own \bin folder, Microsoft CRM functions
correctly. However, your application does not have these assemblies in its \bin folder so as a result, the application fails to load. Here is some information that will correct the issue:

Symptoms: When a user attempts to access an ASP.NET web application that has its virtual directory located under the Microsoft CRM v3.0 Web Site in Internet Information Services (IIS), the following error will be displayed:

Server Error in '/' Application.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Further detail on the error includes the following:

Configuration Error
Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: File or assembly name Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService, or one of its dependencies, was not found.

Source Error:

Line 11: <add assembly="Microsoft.Crm.ManagedInterop, Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
Line 12: <add assembly="Microsoft.Crm.MetadataHelper, Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
Line 13: <add assembly="Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService, Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
Line 14: <add assembly="Microsoft.Crm.NativeInteropProxy,
Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
Line 15: <add assembly="Microsoft.Crm.ObjectModel, Version=3.0.5300.0,
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>

Source File: C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM\CRMWeb\web.config
Line: 13

Assembly Load Trace: The following information can be helpful to determine why the assembly 'Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService' could not be loaded.

=== Pre-bind state information ===
LOG: DisplayName = Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService, Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35
(Fully-specified)
LOG: Appbase = file:///C:/Program Files/Microsoft CRM/CRMWeb/KBTest
LOG: Initial PrivatePath = bin
Calling assembly : (Unknown).
===

LOG: Publisher policy file is not found.
LOG: No redirect found in host configuration file (C:\WINNT\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\aspnet.config).
LOG: Using machine configuration file from C:\WINNT\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\config\machine.config.
LOG: Post-policy reference: Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService, Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/WINNT/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v1.1.4322/Temporary ASP.NET Files/kbtest/e724dea7/f72fefd/Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.DLL.
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/WINNT/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v1.1.4322/Temporary ASP.NET Files/kbtest/e724dea7/ f72fefd/ Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService/ Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.DLL.
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/Program Files/Microsoft CRM/CRMWeb/KBTest/bin/Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.DLL.
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/Program Files/Microsoft CRM/CRMWeb/KBTest/bin/Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService/ Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.DLL.
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/WINNT/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v1.1.4322/Temporary ASP.NET Files/kbtest/e724dea7/ f72fefd/Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.EXE.
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/WINNT/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v1.1.4322/Temporary ASP.NET Files/kbtest/ e724dea7/ f72fefd/ Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService/ Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.EXE.
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/Program Files/Microsoft CRM/CRMWeb/KBTest/bin/Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.EXE.
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/Program Files/Microsoft CRM/CRMWeb/KBTest/ bin/Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService/ Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.EXE.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2300;
ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2300

Cause: Since the ASP.NET web application is located under the Microsoft CRM v3.0 web site, the application is inheriting settings that are part of the Microsoft CRM web site's web.config file. The Web.config file for a specific ASP.NET application is located in the root directory of the application and contains settings that apply to the Web application and inherit downward through all of the subdirectories in its branch. In this case, the Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.dll and the Microsoft.Crm.Tools.ImportExportPublish.dll assemblies are being loaded by the Microsoft CRM web site. These two assemblies are located in the Microsoft CRM web application's \bin directory. Since these two assemblies are not part of the custom ASP.NET application, the Common Language Runtime begins a probing operation to locate the two assemblies. Since the assemblies are not installed into the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) or in the custom ASP.NET application's \bin folder, the exception is thrown.

Resolution:

There are four solutions to resolve the error. Each solution is detailed below.

Solution 1: Remove <add assemblies> entries in Microsoft CRM v3.0 web site's web config file.

In the <system.web> element of the web.config file, locate the <assemblies> node and remove the following entries:
<add assembly="Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService, Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
<add assembly="Microsoft.Crm.Tools.ImportExportPublish, Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>

Solution 2: Install the Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService.dll and the Microsoft.Crm.Tools.ImportExportPublish.dll into the Global Assembly Cache (GAC).

The two assemblies that can be added to the Global Assembly Cache are located in the \bin directory under the Microsoft CRM web site's installation folder. A typical location would be C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM\CRMWeb\bin.

Solution 3: Edit the ASP.NET web application's web config to remove the two Microsoft CRM assemblies.

Edit the ASP.NET application's web.config by adding the following entries to the <compilation> element that is nested in the <system.web> element of the file:

<system.web>
<compilation defaultLanguage="C#" debug="true">
<assemblies>
<remove assembly="Microsoft.Crm.MetadataService, Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
<remove assembly="Microsoft.Crm.Tools.ImportExportPublish, Version=3.0.5300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
</assemblies>
</compilation>
</system.web>

Solution 4: Locate the ASP.NET web application in a separate web site from the Microsoft CRM v3.0 web site.

Using this approach ensures that the application does not inherit any of the settings from the Microsoft CRM web site.

Jonathan Randall
Microsoft Online Support Engineer - MBS CRM Developer Support

Reporting Server not on MSCRM webserver?

If you have Reporting Server installed on a different server, then you should definately read this document:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=51bf9f20-bd00-4759-8378-b38eefda7b99&DisplayLang=en

This will help you to get Reporting to work again.

Happy reporting!

Callout debug: Access is Denied

I'm not sure if more people are experiencing the same thing, but at least I'd like to share this information with you.

After creating a debug build of a callout, I do copy the dll and pdb files to the \Microsoft CRM\Server\bin\assembly folder. Now I can normally debug the callout. But after modifying the code and copying the files again, then I cannot step into the code. CRM just steps over the whole callout.

When searching for a reason for this behaviour, I found a message in the event viewer. The message says:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSCRMCallout
Event Category: None
Event ID: 16912
Date: 6/22/2006
Time: 11:53:00 AM
User: N/A
Computer: CRMTest
Description:
Error: ISV code threw exception: assembly:
Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.FullSample.CalloutSample.dll; class:
Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.FullSample.Callouts.CalloutSample; entity: account,
event: precreate, exception: System.IO.FileLoadException: Access is
denied: 'Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.FullSample.CalloutSample.dll'.
File name: "Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.FullSample.CalloutSample.dll"
at System.Reflection.Assembly.nLoad(AssemblyName fileName, String
codeBase, Boolean isStringized, Evidence assemblySecurity, Boolean
throwOnFileNotFound, Assembly locationHint, StackCrawlMark& stackMark)
at System.Reflection.Assembly.InternalLoad(AssemblyName assemblyRef,
Boolean stringized, Evidence assemblySecurity, StackCrawlMark&
stackMark)
at System.Reflection.Assembly.LoadFrom(String assemblyFile, Evidence
securityEvidence, Byte[] hashValue, AssemblyHashAlgorithm
hashAlgorithm)
at System.Activator.CreateInstanceFrom(String assemblyFile, String
typeName, Boolean ignoreCase, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder,
Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes,
Evidence securityInfo)
at Microsoft.Crm.Callout.CalloutHost.PreCreate(CalloutUserContext
userContext, CalloutEntityContext entityContext, String& entityXml,
String& errorMessage)


=== Pre-bind state information ===
LOG: Where-ref bind. Location = C:\Program Files\Microsoft
CRM\server\bin\assembly\ Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.FullSample.CalloutSample.dll
LOG: Appbase = c:\windows\system32\inetsrvLOG: Initial PrivatePath = NULL
Calling assembly : (Unknown).
===


LOG: Policy not being applied to reference at this time (private,
custom, partial, or location-based assembly bind).
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/Program Files/Microsoft
CRM /server/bin/assembly/ Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.FullSample.CalloutSample.dll.


For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now how to solve this?
The resolution is quite simple. After copying the files to the assembly folder, you should give the user "Network Service" full permissions. The callout will work now and you will be able to debug the code.

Good luck!

Update: Ofcourse you can also give the user "Network Service" full rights on the bin folder of your project. You will not have to modify the file then again and again.

Add descriptions to relationship view

When working with relationships, you will find out that it would be useful to add the fields "Description 1" and "Description 2" to the associated view. This means that when you're in the account detail page and you view the associated relationships, that you will not only see "Party 1", "Role 1", "Role 2" and "Party 2". The description fields are useful to store additional information, but it would be really useful if you can show this data without the need of a double click on the record.

So Ronald. How do we do this?

Usually I'd say: "go to the settings, customization, relationships, forms and views and then modify the associated view. Now there's only one small problem. There is no forms and views for the relationships entities. There are 2 entities for relationships: Customer Relationship and Opportunity Relationship. In this article I'm using only the Customer Relationship.

Well, if the link is not there, then why not create a link to that specific page? This is the solution to this problem. The link to any view modification page is:
http://localhost:5555/tools/vieweditor/viewManager.aspx?id={guid}. We only need the guid of the view which is used for the associated relationship view. We can find this id by following the next steps:

- find out the guid of any account (open an account and press CTRL+N)
- go to this url (replace the guid with your account guid):
http://localhost:5555/sfa/accts/areas.aspx?oId={60548D20-B7F5-DA11-AAE6-0003FF2689B7}&oType=1&security=4294500000&tabSet=areaRelationships
- view the source of the page
- search for "viewid"

The value of this attribute is the view guid which you should use in the url http://localhost:5555/tools/vieweditor/viewManager.aspx?id={guid}. Ofcourse you'll need to modify the port number if you have used another port.

Now you can modify the view as desired, for instance add the fields "description 1" and "description 2" to the view. After saving the modifications, you will need to publish the entity "Customer Relationship". And you're done!

Update September 4th 2007:
The article describes how to do this for the customerrelationship. If you need to do this for the opportunity relationship, then follow this url:
http://localhost:5555/sfa/opps/areas.aspx?oId={60548D20-B7F5-DA11-AAE6-0003FF2689B7}&oType=3&security=852407&tabSet=areaRelationship

10.000 Visitors

After 10.5 months of blogging, 50 posts after the "hello world" posting, this blog has been grown to what I hoped it would be. A place to find interesting information regarding MS CRM with a personal touch. Obviously this is being appreciated by the CRM community because as of this day I have had over 10.000 visitors!

Thanks to all of you!

Finally there: Show and hide fields based on the users role!

Hi all,

I've been posting around showing and hiding fields more often. I won't be talking about that now, instead I'll be discussing the ability to perform JavaScript coding based on the users role.

This solution is very neat and very clean, though unsupported!!! Now... Let's get started and dig into this.

MS CRM has a lot of Javascript codes delivered with the product. One of these codes is located here: "/_controls/RemoteCommands/RemoteCommand.js". This file is being included into every page. One of the functions in this file is RemoteCommand(sObject, sCommand, sUrlBase). You can use this function to connect to CRM webservices.

Via Javascript you can get the userid of the currently logged in user via this RemoteCommand. This is done using this code:

var command = new RemoteCommand("SystemUser", "WhoAmI", "/MSCRMServices/");
var oResult = command.Execute();

Another webservice which is interesting is the UserManager webservice. By using this function, you can get all roles of the system. The roles to which the user is assigned are marked with "checked='true'". Here's the code to get this list

var command = new RemoteCommand("UserManager", "GetUserRoles");
command.SetParameter("userIds", "<guid>" + userId + "</guid>");
var oResult = command.Execute();

Now if we add this functionality to functions and add some try catches, then you'll end up with this code:

function getUserId()
{
try
{
var command = new RemoteCommand("SystemUser", "WhoAmI", "/MSCRMServices/");
var oResult = command.Execute();

if (oResult.Success)
{
return oResult.ReturnValue.UserId;
}
}
catch(e)
{
alert("Error while retrieving userid.");
}
return null;
}

function getUserRoles(userId)
{
try
{
var command = new RemoteCommand("UserManager", "GetUserRoles");
command.SetParameter("userIds", "<guid>" + userId + "</guid>");

var oResult = command.Execute();

if (oResult.Success)
{
return oResult.ReturnValue;
}
}
catch(e)
{
alert("Error while retrieving roles.");
}
return null;
}

Now we only have to add functions which checks if the user has a specific role. The final code is:

function getUserId()
{
try
{
var command = new RemoteCommand("SystemUser", "WhoAmI", "/MSCRMServices/");
var oResult = command.Execute();

if (oResult.Success)
{
return oResult.ReturnValue.UserId;
}
}
catch(e)
{
alert("Error while retrieving userid.");
}
return null;
}

function getUserRoles(userId)
{
try
{
var command = new RemoteCommand("UserManager", "GetUserRoles");
command.SetParameter("userIds", "<guid>" + userId + "</guid>");

var oResult = command.Execute();

if (oResult.Success)
{
return oResult.ReturnValue;
}
}
catch(e)
{
alert("Error while retrieving roles.");
}
return null;
}

function userHasRole(userId, roleName)
{
result = getUserRoles(userId);
if (result != null)
{
var oXml = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
oXml.resolveExternals = false;
oXml.async = false;
oXml.loadXML(result);

roleNode = oXml.selectSingleNode("/roles/role[name='" + roleName + "']");
if (roleNode != null)
{
if (roleNode.selectSingleNode("roleid[@checked='true']") != null)
return true;
}
}

return false;
}

function currentUserHasRole(roleName)
{
userId = getUserId();
return userHasRole(userId, roleName);
}

Now you can check for roles by using the code listed down here:

if(currentUserHasRole('Salesperson')){
alert('true');
}else{
alert('false');
}

You can copy and paste the functions as well as the last code in the form onload event. This is not really user friendly / readable though. If you copy and paste the functions to the global.js script instead, then you can use the last code snippet in the form onload.

Now. To get back to the subject "show and hide fields based on the users role"... If you modify the last code snippet to contain the showing and hiding fields as discussed in this article, instead of alert('true') and alert('false'), then you've got a very good customized system.

Thanks go out to Steven Brom (Qurius Advanced Solutions - NL) for supplying the codes!

Update 1: Thanks to Josh Painter who pointed me to the fact that I forgot to replace the < sign with <> in the codes.

Update 2: I mentioned that this solution was supported, but since we're using webservices from MS CRM other then the regular webservice, this is unsupported anyway... But still it's cool ;)

Update 3: This code doens't work on the outlook client. I'm still thinking about a solution to that.

Update 4: The code above is created for CRM 3.0. For CRM 4.0 look at the following blogs:
http://www.crowehorwath.com/cs/blogs/crm/archive/2008/05/08/hide-show-fields-in-crm-4-0-based-on-security-role.aspx
http://jianwang.blogspot.com/2008/01/crm-40-check-current-users-security.html

Hide and show fields based on the logged in user

There have been a lot of requests on how to hide and show fields since my earlier postings regarding hiding and showing fields and rows. John Straumann has written an article about this before. A working solution, but not too nice though.

Here's another solution which is unsupported (ofcourse ;) ), but it gives you a lot more freedom.

So how to tackle this problem. We already know how to hide and show fields. Now wouldn't it be great if we know what user is logged in? We would then be able to say (ofcourse modify the loggedInUser id with the guid of the user you need):

if (loggedInUser == '{123456789-1234-5678-9012-123456789012}'{
crmForm.all.name_c.style.display = 'none';
crmForm.all.name_d.style.display = 'none';
} else{
crmForm.all.name_c.style.display = 'block';
crmForm.all.name_d.style.display = 'block';
}

Now... how do we get that loggedInUser?
This is where it gets quite tricky. You can open the aspx page where you want to use this code. So why not add a little bit of asp coding in there? Lets say you want to use the code on the contact page. Then go to the server and open the "/SFA/conts/edit.aspx" page. Add this piece of code just before another script starts:

<script language="javascript">
var loggedInUser = '<%=Microsoft.Crm.Security.User.Current.UserAuth.UserId%>';
</script>

And now we have the loggedInUser! Save the file, store the javascript in the page onload and publish the contact. You will now have a page special for one user.
You can extend the codes as much as you like. You con for instance change the

Microsoft.Crm.Security.User.Current.UserAuth.UserId

with

Microsoft.Crm.Security.User.Current.IsSysAdmin

.
This all is undocumented and unsupported. Therefore you should only try these kind of modifications if you feel comfortable with this.

Good luck!