Few people like to key in passwords all the time.

Once you've logged into your local Active Directory (AD) you probably dont want to provide another set of credentials for your Microsoft Online Service (Windows Azure Active Directory - WAAD) to access eg. your CRM Online data

If you dont want to implement full Directory Synchronization, you can use the password sync to sync passwords between your AD and the WAAD.

When password sync is enabled on your directory sync computer, you will be able to sign into Microsoft cloud services, such as Office 365, Dynamics CRM, and Windows InTune, using the same password as you use when you log into your on-premises network. When you change your password in your corporate network, the change is synchronized to the cloud.

If you run in to trouble setting up password sync between your AD and WAAD, you can check this article outlining common issues that you may encounter when you use the WAAD Sync tool together with password synchronization.
It covers the following topics:

• Before you start troubleshooting
• Troubleshoot password synchronization
• User can't sign in to Office 365, Windows Azure, or Windows Intune
• Directory synchronization is running but passwords aren't synced
• You're changing from a single sign-on (SSO) solution to password synchronization
• Event ID messages in Event Viewer

Read more here: "How to troubleshoot password synchronization when using the Windows Azure Active Directory Sync tool" - link

With Dynamics CRM Online 2013, you start out with one production instance and 5 GB of storage.

We offer a free non-production instance if your CRM subscription includes 25 or more professional USLs (User Subscription Licenses). A non-production instance is an add-on instance that is separate from your production instance. All users in your production instances are also users in all your non-production instances, unless you want to restrict the access using a security group.

You can always buy non-production instances. Non-production instances are roughly 70% cheaper than production instances. For the most up to date pricing and licensing information, please refer to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online pricing and licensing guide here

We also offer free storage. For every increment of 20 professional USLs, you will be granted 2.5 GB of free storage until your storage capacity reaches 50 GB. You can always buy extra storage at roughly $10 GB/month.

So how do you know if you been granted a free non production instance, free storage and how to buy more? All these questions and more are answered in this blog post from the CRM Team

CRM for tablets is a great app for working with you CRM data on your tablet.

You can download CRM for tablets from Microsoft or Apple store. Read more here.

Most of us do have access to the internet most of the time, be it on our own network, on a guest network, using our phone etc. Even certain airlines offers wifi on board. But occasionally you are disconnected. 

To enable you to work with your CRM data on your tablet when occasionally disconnected, CRM for tablets caches the records and lists that you have recently accessed within the app.

The next time you open a record it will retrieve the data from cache if it is available. A background request to the server will retrieve and render the changes and update the cache.

It is not possible to control exactly which records are cached.

• The CRM for tablets app uses internal logic to determine which records to maintain in the cache.
• There is not a background synchronization process like the Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Office Outlook application or the ability to define filters that control which records will be available when disconnected.

The records displayed on the Dashboard are prioritized for caching.

• This includes the lists of records on the Dashboard as well as any records pinned to the Dashboard.
• The data that is cached are the columns necessary to display the lists and tiles.

Data from recently accessed grids and forms take second priority.

• The first page of data for lists (25 records) are cached.
• The cache includes the priority and the timestamp of when the data was last retrieved.

CRM for tablets will cache pages until there is an error message when storing data.

• The actual limit is not controlled by the CRM for tablets application and is different based on the browser cache limit of the operating system (see later).
• When the cache limit has been encountered, CRM for tablets will remove lower priority data starting with the oldest data based on timestamp.
• The records that are cached are based on what you have accessed in the CRM for tablets application. It does not cache based on record you have accessed in the web application.

When CRM for tablets cannot connect to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server, you can still access cached data. The data that is cached on your device is read only and you cannot create any new records until you reconnect to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server.

To notify you that you are working in a disconnected state an alert will appear to the very left to indicate you are offline (and the time the data was last retrieved is shown in the lower left corner). Charts will not be rendered. Instead a placeholder will be shown. This is because only some records are cached and available while you are disconnected

When a record is opened in an online state the form is shown with white background color

When the same record is opened in offline mode, the forms will appear with a grey background color, an offline inicator is shown to the very left of the form, a lock and a time stamp for when the record was last cached is shown in the lower left corner

When the connection to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server is available again, you can tap the Offline indicator and then tap the Reconnect link.

If the application is unable to reconnect, the following error will display: “The system couldn’t reconnect with your Dynamics CRM server.” The app does not attempt to reconnect automatically.

It is important to understand that the cached data may not reflect the latest changes available on the server. If a record is cached from a list but the data to render the form is not cached, you will receive the following error: “This record isn’t available while you’re offline. Reconnect and try again.”

Notes

• The data is cached in the HTML 5 local store which is different for each operating system (Windows 8 = IndexedDB, iPad = Web SQL)
• This cached data is not encrypted. You can use BitLocker to encrypt the entire hard drive on a Windows 8 device.
• This release does not include a feature to remotely wipe the data from a device. 3rd party products that provide the ability to wipe all data from a device can be used.
• Images are cached in the browser cache so they might not be available when offline.

In Office 365 for Small Businesses (P-plan), Microsoft offers the ability to configure your vanity domains for full DNS redelegation, which means Microsoft will host your DNS records for you on Microsoft public name servers.

When adding a new vanity domain to Office 365, you must first prove ownership of the domain name by creating a TXT or MX proof record at your domain registrar. Once that is complete, the vanity domain is shown as "Verified".

After verification is complete, there are more steps the domain registration wizard will walk you through, and one of those steps includes configuring full DNS redelegation. This is the step where Microsoft asks you to visit your domain registrar and point your vanity domain to use the Microsoft name servers for DNS.

In order for Microsoft to complete the redelegation of DNS, we must be able to verify that the name servers change has occurred. Once confirmation is complete, the vanity domain is stamped with a Capabilities value named "FullRedelegation".

If you are not sure whether some or all of your vanity domains have completed the setup process and are set for FullRegelegation, you can utilize some simple PowerShell to verify the status of each vanity domain in your Office 365 for Small Businesses tenant.

Get the script and read more here.