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Going On-Premise: A CRM Post-Upgrade Checklist for SSRS

Post Author: Joe D365 |

Upgrading CRM On-Premise has become an almost routine procedure over the past few years. Despite well-managed compatibility both forward and backwards, sometimes On-Premise's uncommonly used entities fall through the cracks during the process, causing potential for significant problems in production environments. To save you from searching through multiple help pages, we've complied a checklist of common issues and fixes in today's blog!

Let's go through an example. Say you just upgraded and a report is scheduled to run on the first day of the next month and then be left alone. All is good and well but then for some reason the scheduled report snapshots are not generated. What's going on?

Further investigation leads to the discovery of three issues that could be considered residual of the systems upgrade. Solutions are found by sifting through similar cases and exceptions posted on different help sites on the internet. This blog combines a few of these issues into a check-list that can supplement every CRM upgrade and configuration procedure.

Permission to the SSRS Execution Account

The first exception we needed to tackle was related to permissions. Specifically, the SSRS execution account must be able to execute MSCRM_CONFIG.dbo.p_GetCrmUserId stored procedure. It does not matter how you grant this permission, but it is worth checking to make sure it is in place. If it is not, you will see some deceiving reports behavior and inconclusive diagnostics in the SSRS logs.

Note: Check if the SSRS execution account is granted 'Execute' permission on MSCRM_CONFIG.dbo.p_GetCrmUserId and grant it as needed.

Snapshot Isolation Mode of SSRS Database

The next exception was even more deceiving because it was generic and showed only on a few scheduled report executions. No direct correlation was found, but it cleared after the following patch was run on the SSRS database:

ALTER DATABASE reportserver$crm

SET ALLOW_SNAPSHOT_ISOLATION OFF;

ALTER DATABASE reportserver$crmtempdb

SET ALLOW_SNAPSHOT_ISOLATION OFF;

ALTER DATABASE reportserver$crm

SET READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT OFF;

ALTER DATABASE reportserver$crmtempdb

SET READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT OFF;

Essentially, after the SQL upgrade, the new SSRS database had the snapshot isolation mode turned on. If you know the specific reasons for keeping it this way then you probably do not need to read this post. Otherwise, this patch allowed me to proceed to the next exception.

Note: Switch your SSRS server snapshot isolation mode OFF.

ReportingServicesService.exe.config

The last exception was related to a simple incompatibility of the .NET binding. SSRS web service has configuration stored in web.config while the Reporting Service stores it in a different file named ReportingServicesService.exe.config. Both configurations must have the following part in runtime.assemblyBinding section:







This will ensure compatibility of the reports compiled with the previous versions of RdlHelper with the latest one installed with the update.*

*This assumes the correct target version of the installed DLL which increments along with the version of CRM and SSRS.

Note: Check the proper binding redirects for RdlHelper in service and web application configs.

Overall, applying and verifying these suggested changes can help you avoid some common misconfigurations. These fixes do not replace the diligent testing needed for each report in the system, but they may help you substantially decrease the time it takes to investigate unknown issues you may have while performing CRM upgrades.

To learn more, tune in for our upcoming webinar series on CRM of Dynamics 365:

CRM for Dynamics 365: What's New Overview 
Thursday, January 5, 1:00-1:30 pm

Service CRM for Dynamics 365: What's New in Field Service
Tuesday, January 10, 1:00-1:30 pm

CRM for Dynamics 365: App for Outlook 
Thursday, January 12, 1:00-1:30 pm

CRM for Dynamics 365: Relationship Insights
Tuesday, January 17, 1:00-1:30 pm

CRM for Dynamics 365: Mobile Features
Thursday, January 19, 1:00-1:30 pm

CRM for Dynamics 365: What's New in Portals
Tuesday, January 24, 1:00-1:30 pm

CRM for Dynamics 365: Designing the User Experience
Thursday, January 26, 1:00-1:30 pm

CRM for Dynamics 365: Learning Paths
Tuesday, January 31, 1:00-1:30 pm

CRM for Dynamics 365: What's New in Project Service
Thursday, February 2, 1:00-1:30 pm

Happy CRM'ing!

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

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