I announced a while ago that we will be offering some public developer training classes for SalesLogix Web. We will be making some changes to the class outline I posted earlier. Read more

I added a new utility to the Customer FX Labs tonight, the SalesLogix Group Explorer. This utility allows you to dig deeper into the definition of SalesLogix groups than you ever thought possible. You can see the group's layout, included columns, conditions, sort order, and way more. Not only that, but you can also see the SQL query behind the group and view the data that makes up the group, all from outside of SalesLogix. The Group Explorer also gives you the ability to quickly export group data, exporting 100,000 records in a fraction of a second. Read more

There might be times when you need to do some custom formatting in SalesLogix DataGrids that goes way beyond just simple formatting. A perfect example of this is taking a simple value, such as an indentifier from another external system where you want the value in the DataGrid to be a part of a hyperlink to this other system. In this scenario, you might have a value like "12345", which identifies a matching record in another system and you want this to become <a href="http://theothersystem.com/something?id=12345">12345</a> in the grid. This is where the CustomFormatColumn column type comes in. The problem is that this column type can be a little confusing and not well documented. Read more

Ever since the new SalesLogix 7.2 Web client and platform was released, I've had numerous requests for development training. Until now, I've done that on a very individualized basis, providing web training to single companies at a time. I've decided that it is time to make my web development training classes public, and I'd like your feedback. Read more

When you're developing for SalesLogix Web in the Application Architect, there are three actions that a developer must use during the process: building interfaces, building the web platform, and deployment. For someone starting out with the Application Architect, the reasons behind each of these actions can be confusing. Even more confusing can be when one is used vs another. This post will attempt to explain these three actions and when/why they are used. Read more

I posted this a while back in the SalesLogix Business Partner newsgroups, but it has recently just helped a few others who came across it there, so I thought it would be a worthwhile public post. Not everyone will get the error mentioned in this post, but if you are then this should help. This post also describes my troubleshooting process to locate this issue and determine the fix for it. Read more

The beta tesing for SalesLogix 7.5 has begun! Completely exciting. This is THE release for SalesLogix web, and one that IMO puts SalesLogix in the front of all other web-based CRM applications. If you're using SalesLogix Web and not yet planning on moving to 7.5 it's time to start planning that upgrade. There will be plenty of things coming to show all the new features of 7.5, but I wanted to point out a few small and less talked about things that I've liked so far in this release. Read more

I blogged a while back about using Vista for developing for SalesLogix 7.2 Web without using IIS but instead using the ASP.NET Dev Server. I wanted to outline some additional tweaks you can make to get the SalesLogix portals running on full-blown IIS7 on Vista as well. Read more

It's much easier than many might think to fully integrate the SalesLogix 7.2 Lead Capture portal into an existing website. For a sample of this, I grabbed a free online website template and put it up as a website and within 5 minutes (seriously, 5 minutes) I had the Lead Capture portal fully integrated into the site. Brain-dead easy. Best of all, no frames. Read more

There are many ways to get the "current" account in SalesLogix Web. For those coming from developing for the SalesLogix Windows client, you'll likely want the same capabilities that the BasicFunctions CurrentAccountID provides. In the web platform, however, there is all of that, plus more. Read more

I last posted about creating a business rule to return a list of objects. Today, I will take that a step further and bind the List to a DataGrid using the built-in GetByMethod for binding the list. Read more

One of the best things about working with the SalesLogix 7.2 Web application is how great the entity model is. You have this single place to put all your rules and logic, the UI is really just an afterthought. Something that I do quite often is create business rules to return data specific to an entity instance. For example, a rule to return the primary contact for an account. Let's take that a step further and return a list of objects from an business rule. For this scenario, we'll create a business rule that will return a list of child accounts for the current account instance. Read more

In my last post, I shared some code in VBScript to PING a remote server to check for availability before attempting to use a resource on that remote server. This wouldn't be my blog if I didn't also share this code in C# as well. IMO, this sort of thing is a far better suited for a .NET Extension if for the SalesLogix Windows client. Read more

At times you might build a customization in the SalesLogix LAN client that relies on networked resources. For example, you might consume a web service or other resource that is available to LAN users and remote users via VPN. In this scenario, and many others like it, you have the potential to have remote users that do not currently have access to this networked resource. Even worse, you might have remote users that may not even be online at the time. A quick PING can check for availability. Read more

An introduction to the RESTful web services layer coming in the SalesLogix 7.5 "Sahara" release, discussing the SData protocol for URL addressable resources and result format types. Read more

I've released a free addon for SalesLogix 7.2 Web for account relationships. The account hierarchy screens that exist in the SalesLogix Windows client is missing for the SalesLogix 7.2 Web Client. This bundle will bring this functionality into the web client. The addon works exactly the same as this functionality in the windows client. Full source included. Read more

I've been using the following C# class for creating SalesLogix table ID values lately and I just love the elegant syntax it provides. It's really been growing on me. Here is the class: using System; using System.Data.OleDb; namespace SalesLogix... Read more

IIS7 is not yet officially supported for hosting SalesLogix 7.2 Web, but this post will outline a new find that will make it possible to develop and test a SalesLogix Web deployment on Vista (and Windows Server 2008) Read more

Many people who customize SalesLogix have become accustomed to using the built in "SLX Database Support" script to provide things like the quick and easy GetField function to return a single database value. If you've ventured into the .NET Extensions realm, you might want an easy equivalent. The following is a repost of something I posted around a year ago in the Sage Business Partner newsgroups Read more

A common thing that any developer will do when creating a form for an application is to create sections for controls to group similar controls in a panel or other container, making it easy for the user to see that the values are related. There isn't exactly support for creating these "sections" in the SalesLogix Web QuickForms. With a quick bit of tweaks we can easily accomplish this result. Read more

A look at creating a Lookup on the Account Details form in the SalesLogix Web Client for a parent account. Read more

A change was introduced in 7.2.2 regarding custom properties. This post looks at this change and revisits the earlier topic of placing a link to an account's primary contact on the account details form. Read more

Over the past several years I've maintained a SalesLogix related weblog at SalesLogixBlog.com. This blog has now moved to a new URL and a new perspective. SalesLogixBlog.com can now be located on the new Customer FX 3.0 website at http://customerfx.com/crmdeveloper. Read more

SalesLogix Web comes with it's own set of controls to be used on QuickForms. These controls are still in their infancy and will likely grow over time, but for now, there are some things missing that might be perceived as limitations. It's helpful to know more about what is under the hood of these OOTB QuickForm controls so you can easily work around limitations and push the controls to behave the way you want them to work. Read more

If you're using SalesLogix 7.2 Web along with ActiveMail (the Outlook integration for the SalesLogix Web client - you'll see the option on the login screen), then chances are you've seen an error about “THTTPRequestThread”. This is a particularly annoying error that will display each time you move to a new page. So, every time you do....anything, you'll see the error dialog. A real pain. This post offers some help to solve this annoying issue. Read more