http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660You think MS CRM is a nightmare platform? We are currently migrating a Sharepoint 2007 development project from developer machines to a "build" machine. Ulcer you say? I'd be happy to slip into a coma to avoid the problems we are facing. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment14http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment14Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:18:03 GMT@J.P. I have a feeling Ayende wouldn't accept that position for a $million a year. =) (actually, maybe he would...) http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment13http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment13Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:24:57 GMTYou know it's only a matter of time before the MS CRM team tries to hire you. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment12http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment12Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:21:03 GMTDwain, The problem wasn't how to diff things, the problem is that it should NOT happen, and such things are all too common in this flustermess that is called the CRM. Sure, I can do workarounds, but when I find out that most of my time goes on the workarounds... http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment11http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment11Sun, 18 Nov 2007 02:48:10 GMTWhy do you not diff the customizations XML from both environments to see what the problem is? This usually happens to us when a data type changes on a custom attribute. No, CRM doesn't do it natively but it should take about 2 minutes to do using your favorite diff tool. Honestly, we've written hundreds of thousands of lines of code across three-four developers using CRM3 as our platform for the past 11 months, and while we occasionally have a hiccup we have managed to release a pretty stable, well-liked CRM application for our mobile sales force. 3rd party plugins from other companies are our biggest challenge, unfortunately. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment10http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment10Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:17:38 GMTI understand what you feel. I have worked with another piece of the Microsoft Business Platform (Navision or Dynamics Nav) and I felt exactly like you. I don't know CRM but knowing Navision your post not surprise me. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment9http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment9Sat, 17 Nov 2007 22:54:43 GMTMark, MS CRM doesn't let me work with the DB directly, I can work with that. All the changes are made internally, and there is no way to get the stuff out in a diff format. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment8http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment8Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:55:10 GMTThere's no excuse for bad error messages. You found the SQL logs, right? (in Enterprise Manager, or MSSQL\LOG\ERRORLOG.*). Haven't worked with MS CRM, but I'm surprised by the comment that "there is no way to diff things." Are you working directly in the test database? I started my last big DB project working that way. Things got much simpler when I started using ApexSQL Edit with version control. All changes are made to text files (one file per stored proc, trigger, etc.). Each file includes a DROP and CREATE statement. These files are run against whichever database needs to be changed. ApexSQL Edit includes a deployment module, but I just write little batch files with osql commands to patch about 15 databases at once. The text files are stored in SourceSafe so I can do dfff's, versions, rollbacks, etc. Changing schemas while maintaining live data gets a little tricky but can still be accomplished with custom TSQL scripts. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment7http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment7Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:53:26 GMTMaybe it's a kind of game a 'quest' for programmers. You know those kind of it where you need to take this, pull that, push here, then stand there, jump exactly 3 times etc http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment6http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment6Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:32:13 GMTI could... Or I could never touch this piece of useless bits ever again. If I have to pull out the big guns, then the application is not worth using at all. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment5http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment5Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:59:26 GMTthose who have played with asp 3.0 will remember the funny "unspecified error" thing. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment4http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment4Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:54:50 GMTI would add ESRI's ArcGIS Server ADF (a GIS platform). Weird errors, minimal documentation, zero flexbility for anything not done with a designer. And also... http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/dorony/archive/2007/02/09/No-Excuse.aspx http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment3http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment3Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:36:36 GMTYou could do a SQL trace on the SQL server while the install is running. That would probably get you more information. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment2http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment2Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:00:21 GMTOh, how I love those kind of errors: Something bad happened. Good bye. http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment1http://ayende.com/2954/dont-use-ms-crm-it-is-not-worth-the-ulcer-you-will-get#comment1Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:56:00 GMT