So, I installed CRM 4.0 yesterday.  I've been working with it for a long time, but yesterday I installed the released version on laptop and desktop.

I did my initial offline sync on my laptop.

With me so far?  Sounds pretty boring?

So, I neglected to go back online when the sync finished.  No biggie until I tried to reply to an email that was tracked to a case of another user on my network.  I got this message:

It would seem that the default setting for downloading content for offlien neglect several things most users would want.  So to solve this problem, go here, it's on the top menu within Outlook:

Select Modify Local Data Groups.  It wlaks you right thru it.  Go slow and pay attention, first one is a bit rough but once you understnad how to do it once, rest is easy.

One more thing, if your dropdown does not look like mine here, you're probably offline, go online again, then try this.

Don't get me wrong, the new CRM from Microsoft is great.  However, not perfect.

Today I needed to remove formatting from an integer on display.  I have an custom attribute on a custom entity, an order number.  Let's say order number is 123456.  We all know this is not an out of the ordinary thing, an order number that would not need/want a comma.  If I want to use it as an integer, it adds a comma.  I can't remove the comma.  So my order number is now 123,456.  Ugh.  THAT'S NOT RIGHT.  Since this comma isn't in the database, one would think you could remove it on display.  Right?  Wrong.

This comma is actually a big deal to this particular iteration fo CRM customizations.  Thinking caps on.

The solution for today was to add a new custom attribute, that is text, so as to not have the darn comma.  Then to ditch the original, integer one.  Now, re-import the data.  Forget about using numbers for anything.  Oh and then there's the code changes to the other cool stuff we've been doing that reference that number (that can't remain a number, talk about identity issues, geesh!).

Suggestion successfully submitted to CRM team.  (thankyouverymuch Dave)