if you have recently changed the ownership of workflows, they might still be referencing their old owners.
We recently had a situation where we changed ownership of a workflow and disabled the old owner, everything looked fine until the workflow was triggered. it failed with an error message having to do with user rights and privileges
How did we resolve the issue? well we found that all you have to do is deactivate the workflow and reactivate it gain, that seemed to clear any references to the old owner and the error messages went away.
Two
if you find that you all the tiles at the top of the screen are suddenly now showing again click on the button below (see image below), the tiles will suddenly appear.
This is quite a simple one but caused some confusion as we initially thought the page was not loading correctly.
If your dynamics 365 forms are loading forever after the upgrade to Dynamics 365, try clearing the cache on the browser, the pages should start to load fine after that.
We had the above issue at a clients, and the solution above fixed it.
My theory is that its cookies left behind by the previous version of CRM confusing the application and clearing the cache loads new and updated cookies that are compatible with the new version.
There has been a lot of confusion about the changes Microsoft has made to its Dynamics crm odata crm 2011 end point, the are even rumors that the endpoint has been removed completely!!
As far as I can tell from check here and here, its not so bad, these are the following things to note.
Microsoft is trying to make the Dynamics CRM API more interoperable to allow for more access by mobile devices and other non Microsoft service consumers.
In order to achieve the above, a new endpoint has been created called the WEB API end point, it appears in Dynamics 365 in place of the old ODATA end point
The new web API end point still uses the ODATA format but with slight modifications to the syntax.
The crm 2011 end point has been deprecated, meaning its advised to NOT be used anymore, however is still available to consumers.
The old endpoint will be available for while, probably to give consumers time to make any necessary updates.
The end game by Microsoft is for the retirement of the other endpoints (CRM 2011 SOAP and REST) endpoints in favour of the new WEB API endpoint.
so what should you do?
If you are using the SDK or some other Library for REST or SOAP calls to CRM then getting the latest version of the library should solve the problem.
However it is important to confirm that the library above has been updated to use the WEB API end point and your code also has any necessary changes recommended by the library author.
if you made direct calls to the CRM 2011 REST or SOAP endpoints then you should update them asap.
CCHUB is doing an event christened the diaspora challenge which is designed to start the process of the exploitation of the vast economic potential that the Nigerian diaspora (me and my ilk) have to offer the country.
Its happening on may the 5th 2017 at Facebook London, 10 Brock street, Kings Cross, London, NW13FG, it promises to be fun.
I expect to be there so I may put some of my thoughts in a blog post, probably the part 2 of this post.
Amazing news, Microsoft just announced the general availability of some awesome APIs, its called microsoft cognitive services.
Its essentially a service that can be passed queries on the content of images, it can recognize land marks, celebrity faces, emotion on faces and even understand hand writing and convert to text.
Its scary easy to use (see code examples here) and kinda worrying that such power is now available to the masses.
The above just points to the ever speedier move towards full A.I, scary but awesome at the same time..
I struggled with figuring out what Unified Service Desk was, this blog post cleared it all up for me.
Turns out its actually an iteration of customer service accelerator (CCA) and customer care desktop (CCD), a set of tools I sparred with a few years ago on a project which took me to Krakow in Poland and Frankfurt in Germany.
Anyways it was nice to see it again and be reminded of the (kind of Frankenstein's monster) product we created from CCA and CCD and the good times I had in Poland and Germany.
Anyway was just thinking this morning and thought I'd share my thoughts on what I think a lot of people might be struggling with; the best time to quit your job and run your start-up.
The way I see it there are 2 optimal points in life to try
your hand at full time or full income start-up entrepreneurship (a large percentage of
your earnings or time devoted to the venture).
The points below are by no means scientific and make major
assumptions about what I feel someone a certain age may or may not have
achieved.
Undergraduate or fresh graduate (16 – 26 or till you get
married or have kids)
Pros
No dependents
lots of time
No major commitments.
Lots of energy, zeal, passion and drive.
Youth
If your business fails no bother, you can always try another
venture or become an employee and try again later.
Cons
Lack of professional experience
Lack of strong professional networks
Lack of access to customer base
Lack of business management experience
Lack of access to capital
Possibly small idea mind-set simply because of lack of
exposure to your own potentials
35 to 45 years
Pros
Fully developed professional experience
Strong professional networks
Possibly good understanding of business management
Greatly improved access to capital, perhaps from savings or
business associates
Big idea mind-set
Likely leadership experience
Less risky if there is financial buffer saved over the years
If you have been continuing formal education, then more
education form degrees, certifications etc.
If you have been running business gradually, business might
be fully developed and self-sustaining or even very successful by this time
Possibly decent family life during the build-up to the switch
to full time entrepreneurship, of course depending on how much time and money
is devoted to business idea or business on the side.
Likely have created a decent life for family and set things
on motion for a decent life through the initially risky entrepreneurship cut-over
period
If your venture fails you can always go back to being an
employee, you have the work experience to get you another job
Cons
Dependents
No time
Major commitments to family, friends, work etc.
Might watch several big opportunities go by
Very risky because failure will might adverse effect on
family life.
After reading this excellent article written by Bill Gurley about Google, I am officially scared and in awe of the company. I’ll give a brief rundown of the article.
The article starts by quoting a famous saying by Warren Buffet, it goes “In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable ‘moats’.”.
Bill goes on to define an “economic castle” as a great business and the “unbreachable moat” as the “strategy or market dynamic that heightens the barriers-to-entry and makes it difficult or ideally impossible to compete with, or gain access to, the economic castle".
Now everybody knows that Google is making seemingly random forays and causing disruptions (with various levels of success) in business sectors that are not traditionally associated with it.
I mean search and ads is Google’s forte right? So why the expansion into other businesses i.e. android with regards to mobile devices, wave/buzz with regards to social media, chrome OS with regards to computer operation systems and chrome browser with regards to web browsers.
Well the article above has an answer, its explains that search is Google’s castle and as such it will strive to remove any barrier (the barrier being competitors) between it and its customers (you and I).
So what’s the best way to prevent other competitors preventing Google's unfettered access to us than to build a moat to its search business, a moat so deep and so wide that no other company on earth can breach it. That moat is android, Google Chrome, Wave, buzz and some of its other business forays.
Consider it, if all our access to the internet is funnelled through Google via its website or some service, device or operating system then there is nothing between us and the warm embrace of Google.
What of the competition? the answer is simple, Bing or yahoo search simply can’t compete on that level.
An even more awesome thought is that Google is not even on the offensive, the by-products of Google’s defensive strategy are so strong that they are causing massive disruptions in various other business sectors. This is both scary and impressive, scary because it means eventually everything we do online will somehow originate via a Google service (if competitors can’t compete a monopoly is inevitable) and impressive because the strategy is so deep and far reaching.
Yep, I'm back and it feels good to be writing once again. I have been very busy with work, preparing for an exam (ISEB Business analysis practitioner) and getting married. Yeah you read right, I just got married. So yours truly is no longer single, yay!!
Marriage is wonderful, and though I've been married only about a month, I strongly recommend it.
Anyway like I said feels good to be back, should have a proper tech oriented post out shortly.
Having worked in several I.T companies where I managed and was managed by good, bad and ugly managers. I just thought I would put together a short list of pointers to remind myself a few do's and don't s of I.T management.
This list is by no means exhaustive and I will add to it as I remember more.
While the title refers to I.T, I believe the pointers below can apply to any creative sector.
I.T professionals are a resource not slaves or students
Endeavor to encourage rather than instruct. It is better for a person to decide himself that he wants to do a certain thing rather than be instructed to do it, he does it with gusto
Team effort all the way, "we" rather then "you", "us" rather than "I"
Staff should be responsible for thier performance, while being given periodic reviews to judge how they are doing.
A sense of belonging, of being part of something great helps build staff moral, good staff moral in turn encourages staff loyalty, productivity and descipline
Staff trainings are good, they show you are concerned about building staff career.
Encourage attempts, praise good attempts, Reward excellence
Discourage a bad and unprofessional attitude to work, unprofessional in this case refers to lateness, low productivity, bad social skills, lack of team team work and spirit, reluctance to self improve.
Good language, a good attitude, staff loyalty should be imbibed in staff and office culture
Carry staff along with key decisions that affect them and get feedback on what they think.
What’s a mountain climber mentality in the first place?
when climbing a mountain you first have to decide on what mountain you have to climb, carefully plan the climb and then begin the task, when climbing you have to stay lean, carry less luggage, invest in physical and mental health rather than material possessions, needs rather than wants.
At milestones its ok for you to celebrate how far you have come, have a rest and get yourself a treat but it’s important to be careful not to get complacent and settle there, the climb has to continue! You have to keep your eyes on the prize which is to get to the top, because when you get to the top it will be totally worth it.
After the climb what next? Well, find another mountain, if you keep at it long enough you will one day look back and find that you have become a great man, an achiever.
In real life this means..?
Setting life goal(s), planning how to achieve them and then striving to achieve it, it means constantly investing in your health, education, business and career, keeping a lean budget, few important luxuries but many more targeted and well planned expenditures, investments for needs now and in the future.
Keep at it over and over again and then one day you will look back and find that you have achieved so much over the years, you have amassed wealth, kept good health, have truly become great and achieved more than you could ever have dreamed you would achieve.
Advantages of a mountain climber mentality
A mountain climber mentality helps you to be disciplined in your spending, because you are forced to think carefully of the benefits of any expenditure before making it.
A mountain climber mentality helps gives your a direction, a focus
A mountain climber mentality helps you to get richer because as you achieve more, you earn more.
A mountain climber mentality helps rise above your peers because your focus is not to compete with your peers but to achieve goals you have set for yourself.
A mountain climber mentality helps you to become wealthier because the returns from investments will always be giving back.
A mountain climber mentality helps you to be wise because when your others are wasting time and money extravagantly you are focused on achieving more and more
A mountain climber mentality helps you to stay sharp and make good use of your time, because you need to constantly think of ways to achieve your goals
Yeah, yeah I know my writing above is not exactly technical, but I believe a more focused, physically and mentally healthy pro is a better I.T pro.
It’s now cool to be a geek. Don’t believe me? Well, ask Mark Zuckerburg, Steve jobs and the Google guys.
You get to work with the latest and best tech out there. Well most of the time, if you are unfortunate enough to get stuck maintaining legacy software (been there), then this point does not apply to you.
You can work anywhere. Because these days pretty much every company uses the internet and computers, and where there’s internet and computers, there’s software, and where there’s software there are.....? Yep, you guessed it, software developers.
The pay is not bad, could actually be really really good depending on your experience and smarts, don’t believe me? Well, ask Mark Zuckerburg, Ste.....
Low entry barrier. Anybody can do it, though the more qualifications you get, the more your pay is likely to increase
ts fun and challenging. Or should I say, it CAN be fun and challenging, can get pretty dull and unchallenging at times (testing and debugging)
All the resources you need are easy to get and cheap as dirt (it rhymes). You don’t need an expensive stethoscope or defibrillator to work (what’s a defibrillator you say? those things doctors use in movies to bring people that just died back to life, you know the electric voltage things..no? just Google the word) , all you need is a computer, an internet connection and you are in business.
People will think you are clever. For real think about it, what (apart from women) is more complicated than computers, if you can understand computers you can understand anything.
Potentially relaxed hours. In most software development houses, it’s not how many hours you put it, but how much you get done that really matters, so it’s quite normal to work on something late into the night, send it to the office in the morning via email and come into work later.
Not physically tasking. You get paid to sit down in front of a computer on comfortable chair typing on the keyboard, now isn’t that just paradise on earth
Pressure – A major client needs an update installed, they can’t conduct any business without it, your technical director is close to tears, you are the only developer around, you need to churn out code which you know absolutely nothing about, and asap! OMG OMG OMG! Welcome to the wonderful world of software dev.
Stress – Imagine the scenario painted above happening every week, I dare you not to be stressed out
Your social life, relationship, sex life might suffer – why? Because you are busy trying to debug the damned code that you broke and finish off what you were working on in the first place before you broke the damned code.
Its not a job, its way a life – ever seen a doctor stare lustily at a new ultra powerful high tech stethoscope? Nope. Seen a plumber saying sweet nothings into the holes of a new super strength carbon fibre pipe? Nope. Seen a software developer professing his love for his computer? Yep! Why? Software developers live for tech.
Work hours are not fixed - software developers only rest when the client is happy, and everybody know clients are never happy. Do the maths
Pay is.. not so good – with all I’ve mentioned above you‘d think the pay is super, WRONG!!! Because software developers come a dime a dozen these days, the pay is terrible.
You become everybody’s tech support –when dad can’t print his document because the paper is jammed in the printer, guess who they’ll call from wherever the hell he is on the country? Yep you guessed it, the guy who practically lives with computers, the software developer.
You might get a bad back – if you r unlucky enough to get a bad chair then the long sitting hours will almost inevitably mean a bad back.
You might get fat - forget the might, you will get fat, it’s simple, sit on your ass for 8 hours a day, get home and do the same, what do u get? A very rotund, socially dead, sexually inept, lifeless, soulless individual sitting in front of computers.
.............................................. Ok ok, it’s not all bad, there are some perks to a life dedicated to software dev, in my next blog post I will highlight some of the VERY FEW advantages.
I have noticed a trend in I.T, the need to develop and release well tested products very quickly, call it “the smart phone app state of mind” or simply “the App state of mind”.
Why call it this? I’ll explain; according to Apple Uk, the app store currently has over 200,000 apps, this means massive competition, more importantly it means for any app to succeed i.e. achieve significant sales, it has to be really good (in the first place), fully tested, marketed and released very quickly, the same applies to the larger I.T world, in the today’s fast paced, highly networked, innovation driven environment companies have found that in order to survive they need to speed up their product dev and sale process or risk facing a bottom up disruptive overtake in the market place, Nokia readily comes to mind.
This App mentality can be clearly seen in the software dev world as well, as more and more companies are shifting from traditional software dev methodologies e.g Watefall, EUP etc, to more agile ones e.g. Agile Scrum/XP, DSDM Atern, Agile unified process (AUP) etc. In response to this more coding methods (TDD, MVC), platforms (Azure) and tools (nunit, mbunit) are being developed to cope with the challenge.
In the same vein, any software developer intending to stay competitive in the software dev world needs to adopt the App state of mind, it’s no longer enough to be a good coder, they must be able to develop fully tested and functional software very quickly, for instance they need to be able to use TDD in concert with Agile methodologies to develop production ready code within the shortest of times. The ability to switch to more traditional approaches when needed would be is a major plus.
Its been a while I know, but its good to be back writing again, anyways its 2.26am I am siting on my bed, my vision is blured ( I actually have to squint to see the letters I have typed) and I'm thinking to myself I really need to get to sleep, but alas, before I retire for the night morning. I will write a little on the tittle of this post.
These are awesome and super interesting times for I.T in general and certain areas in I.T in particular, driven by the success of smartphones ( Iphone, Iphone and the Iphone...did I mention the Iphone?) and arguably social media (which mobile devices make readily available) mobile technologies have exploded unto the scene and platforms have being created by the big players in the software and mobile device markets. This has set the stage for a showdown of epic proportions!! The next few years will be very interesting and it will be very interesting to see who will forge alliances with who and which platforms will eventually be widely accepted by all.. or at least most mobile device manufacturers and consumers.
The next set of posts will examine mobile platforms which in my opinion are/will be the biggest and influential in the next couple of years and will attempt to postulate on the shape of things to come in the land of mobile applications and OS'es.
It should be fun... I start tomorrow, right now I need rest....
I found this awesome tool created by DevExpress, it was created to help developers be more productive by offering a range of Visual studio I.D.E developer tools e.g ability to navigate from instance to instance of a keyword, simply by tapping the tab key (thats actually a tip of an ice berg of functionality it offers)
I won't be going into much detail because everything that needs to be said about code rush is said here and blogged on here, I strongly recommend reading the blog.
Needless to say every .net developer should have it hooked up on their visual studio and here are five reasons why
The following is a summary of my masters degree dissertation which is a study of Nigerian attitudes with respect to E-commerce in Nigeria, It is mainly focused on trust. The full text can be read here or in the scribd window right at the end of the writeup, enjoy...
Abstract
E-commerce has been largely very successful and participation requires one to engage with whom they have little or no prior interaction, this requires trust.
The role of trust in E-commerce has been researched and written about extensively, however, most of the literature has focused mainly on developed economies and as such data and survey samples have been taken mostly from these economies. This study intends to contribute to filling that gap by researching key institutional safeguards that encourage initial trust formation between online consumers and vendors and testing them within the Nigerian online environment.
Drawing from Institution based trust literature an integrated model of institutional trust was developed. Nine institutional mechanisms influencing customer trust in e-commerce relationships were identified. They are perceived feedback, perceptions of credit card guarantees, perceptions of security, perceptions of monitoring, perceptions of legal bonds, perceptions of insurance, perceptions of accreditation, perceptions of escrow services and perceptions of third party payment services.
Nine Hypotheses were drawn based on the institutional mechanisms identified and their validity in the Nigerian online environment and an empirical study was carried out to test them. Two Nigerian banks were selected as case study debit Card issuers and data for the study was collected in Nigeria by means of survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews of the a senior banking officers in each of the case study Debit card issuers (Nigerian Banks).
All hypotheses were confirmed. It was found that all the institutional mechanisms identified by the study influence Nigerian online users' decisions to trust in an e-commerce relationship.
Summary of results
As can be seen in Table 2.0 below, based on the results of the survey conducted in the study, all the hypotheses stated in the abstract were confirmed within the Nigerian context but to varying degrees.
Recommendations
The results of this study suggest that Nigerian internet users are influenced to trust web vendors based on their perceptions of protections even if in reality such protection does not exist. This has strong implications for e-commerce in Nigeria, it means e-commerce web third parties have to work extra hard to make customers aware of their presence and how they protect the online customer, for e-commerce business management it implies that they need to sensitize customers and make them aware of the measures in place to assure their safety, for the Nigerian Government it implies a need for laws that are more protective of customers in cyber space and massive sensitization of these to encourage e-commerce growth.
Research Limitations
Although the data generally supports the model that has been proposed by this study it is necessary to highlight the limitations of this study.
The two main limitations are that the sample size is smaller than has been recommended for the size of the population that is being studied and the statistical methods used were very simple. However, it is important to note that this study is primarily aimed at offering a snapshot of institutional mechanisms within the Nigerian context and as a first study is meant to open up the area for further research and with regards to that it succeeds.
Suggestions for future research
This study draws from existing literature on trust and seeks to prove that trust mechanisms exist within the Nigerian context and influence Nigerian online users to transact online. The aim of this study is to open up the study of trust in e-commerce within the context of Nigeria specifically and developing economies generally. Therefore there is need for better and more accurate research with a larger sample size, more variables and better statistical analysis.
Conclusion
This study was able to answer the research questions posited at the first chapter in this study as it has been able to prove that theories on the role of institution-based trust in initial trust formation between buyers and sellers hold true for Nigeria. The study was also able to identify key institutional mechanisms that influence customers to transact online with Nigerian web vendors.
It was able to raise some interesting points with regards to how the perceptions of protection are stronger than the reality of the protection actually offered by institutional mechanism within the Nigerian context.
The study has made recommendations that are very useful for common web users, e-commerce management and government agencies.
The toolkit is comprised of the following core assemblies:
Facebook.dll: This is the main assembly that will be used by all applications. This has all the logic to handle communication with the Facebook application. This assembly also has specific support of XAML applications (Silverlight and WPF) to enhance the Facebook platform to make databinding and data caching easier.
Facebook.Silverlight.dll: This is the Silverlight version of the main assembly that will be used by all Silverlight applications. This has all the logic to handle communication with the Facebook application. This assembly also has specific support of XAML applications to enhance the Facebook platform to make databinding and data caching easier. The REST API in this assembly is Asynchronous only.
Facebook.Web.dll: This assembly should be used by Canvas applications. The main functionality supported in this assembly is to encapsulate the handshake between the Facebook application and a canvas application (both FBML and IFrame)
Facebook.Web.Mvc.dll: Provide a support building canvas applications using ASP.NET MVC. Separated from Facebook.Web.dll to avoid all developers from needing to install the MVC bits.
Facebook.Winforms.dll: This assembly provides support for writing Facebook applications using Winform technology. This provides a Component that wraps the API to make it easier to use from Winforms. This also contains some user controls to help display Facebook data easily.
Will have a look at it soon and post my findings plus (possibly) a link to a Facebook app developed by me. :-)
