How to Find Guids of Entity Records in Dynamics 365 CRM Online

Once upon a time we all had on-premise Dynamics CRM and we all were querying SQL Database in order to get the guid of a record. Now its more challenging as we don't access to CRM Database directly in the Online version. 

We had scenarios like a user is missing some privilege. But the error messsage would say something like Principal user with a guid is missing some privilege. So how do we identify which user this guid belongs to?

The easiest option I found so far was to do an advanced find and the select the entity ( In this case system user) and then run the results. Export the records using 'Dynamic worksheet' . In the exported excel file, there will be coloumn A as hidden which would have the guids.

Daylight savings Time zone one hour issue in Dynamics 365 CRM Online

We had a time zone issue in Dyanamics 365 CRM online recently. Somehow our LINQ query from an API which queries CRM was picking up tomorrow's date instead of today's date. After some investiagation and resarch I had the below findings.

Did analysis on the LINQ query. The part which queries CRM was bringing date something like 
For instance if I query today 22/04/2019, The query returned 21/04/2019 11.00.00 PM instead of 22/04/2019 00:00:00 AM
It was found that Dynamics 365 CRM online organisation service was running under the service account.
The service account was under UTC / GMT time zone instead of GMT+London time zone ( We are based on London. So in your case your time zone applies here ) The difference is that GMT stays same all year around. 

As soon as I changed the time zone of this service user, everything worked like a charm.

Please see the highlighted below.

Now if you want to alter the time zone , XRM toolbox has got a plugin called User Settings Utility. You could check  the service account time zone easily instead of logging in as that user.
 

How to find Inactive users in Dynamics 365 Online

I had to do a lot of research to find out inactive users in Dynamics 365 Online based on the login date. Thought to share it as it might save a lot of time and license cost as well.

Download this specific version of XRM toolbox.

https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/releases/xrmtoolbox-v1.2018.6.24/

This versoin has got something called User Audit Viewer. Kudos to the author. He did a great effort. This is a very useful functionality

Downloaded folder would have an exe called XrmToolBox. Just double click on it to open.

Please note the search box and the install button highlighted. Click on the install button after searching for audit viewer and selecting the same. Screen shot is given below.



After installation, you could see a tab called 'Plugins' . Search for User audit Viewer and click on it.

A pop up appears. So click yes button here.



And then click on the New connection.

Now mine was a Dynamics 365 CRM online version. So the normal connection ( organisation url) stirng didnt work. So I had to choose the connection string option highlighed below.

 The format I had used is given below.

AuthType=Office365;Url=https://youronlinecrmurl.com; Username=yourcrmonlineusername; Password=yourpassword;RequireNewInstance=True;

Once connected, its easy peasy lemon squeesy. Please note the Inactive users button. Just click on this button and the tool would retrieve inactive users.
 



A pop up appears and we get the option to choose the inactive from time period as well. Please note the Export to Excel button. If you click on it , it would export the inactive users.
For instance, Inactive users from the past 1 Month.

Sample Report is given below.