Looking for more real estate on Dynamics CRM page

This articles shows various ways in which you can increase the space on Microsoft Dynamics CRM home page. 

Hide the Get Started Pane from the home page

We always see Get started pane above each view as shown below.

If user wishes to disable/hide this pane by default then it can be done, follow below steps.

Click on options as shown below

Under General Tab, uncheck the option “show Get started panes on all lists” as shown below

If you are system administrator and you want to hide or remove this get started pane for all users then it can also be done, please follow below steps for this.

Go to Settings -- Administration -- System Settings

Under General tab, set the “Show Get started pane on all lists for all users” option to NO as shown below. After this you can see all the views without Get Started pane for all users

Collapse the Ribbon bar

In order to collapse the Ribbon bar in CRM follow the outlined steps below:

In CRM we can see arrow at top right corner as shown in below image.

         

Click on that arrow so that ribbon bar get collapsed and we can see full screen records as shown below. In below image, as you can see, only menu is visible without the Ribbon bar.

To see ribbon bar again click on the same arrow at top right corner or else you can click on menu options like view, charts, customize etc. to see the menu items

Reduce the width of the CRM Wonderbar

Reducing the width of the sitemap area in CRM is also very simple so you have more space for your CRM page

In CRM we can see resize option on the sitemap as shown in below image

Click on that resize option and resize sitemap as per your needs, you can drag it to left or right side

After resizing the sitemap you can see it as shown in below image

If you want to increase the size of sitemap again drag the resize option as shown below

Show different Header/Footer on different pages of SSRS report

Sometimes, there are requirements to show different Header/ Footer on different pages of the report.

Like say, on the first page, header/ footer of report should be some text and on the second page it should be some different text. Please refer below screenshots.

First Page Footer

Second Page Footer

This can be achieved using the solution as described below:

You need to write a simple expression on the textbox control which is placed on the footer. Here you can utilize expression “Globals!PageNumber” which is used to show page numbers. This expression returns the page number, and we can alter this to show different footer on different pages.

You need to write following expression on the textbox control.

=IIf(cstr(Globals!PageNumber)="1","1111-XYZ (2012/12)      © ABC Sol, 2012","1111-XYZ (2012/12)")

If the report page is the first page, then this expression would set the specified text else it would display alternate text.

General Syntax

=IIF(cstr(Globals!PageNumber)=”<Page Number>”,” <Text to display on the specified Page number> ” , ” <Text to display on other page>”)

Similarly, you can use this expression to show different header on different pages as well.

Hope this article helps!

iPad Sales Experience for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online

Now we can access Dynamic CRM online on an iPad in a supported manner. This means that iPad experience only supports the new look & feel of the updated Polaris forms. Now existing CRM online user turns this on by installing product updates. For new customers in CRM Online, this functionality will be enabled by default.

After installation you’ll be able to see iPad Sales Experience on your iPad by simply hitting the CRM URL on your Safari browser.

 

Things that you must have for using CRM 2011 on your iPad

• You must have iOS6 installed to use CRM online in your iPad
• You can only access this from Safari on an iPad
• For Safari, Dynamics CRM will work with:  Mac OS-X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), Mac OS-X 10.7 (Lion), Mac OS-X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) will offer full support.

Things those are available on the iPad and Functionality in the iPad

• COLA(Contact, Opportunity, Lead & Account) entities will open up in the new process based forms of Polaris. (screen shots for lead & account are attached at the end of blog)

• Other Entities in Dashboards & Sub Grids can’t be accessed through Sitemap & while opening other entities they’ll open up in either Mobile Express UI or Read Optimized format. (If you disable the new UI through any security role then the mobile express form is displayed.)

• Customized forms will always open in Mobile Express. The Home and Most Recently Used buttons are removed, and the navigation pane is collapsed by default when in portrait mode.

• Whenever the task is created/ updated for the customer you will see the feeds posted on your as well as your followers’ wall in CRM as shown below.

 

 

With what’s new feature you can delete, like and, reply in a comment for the post which is similar to well known social networking site, Facebook. You can also follow Entities like opportunities, Leads so the team will have an update regarding the progress on each customer task; whose functionality is similar to another popular social networking site, twitter.

• Polaris is designed to load quicker

• All fields can be easily modified on the iPad including lookup fields. Lookup fields are now available in a dropdown fashion. However, when you click Lookup More Records you get a lookup dialog that’ll appear overlaid on the CRM window.

 

 

 

• You can work with the Charts and Dashboards like you did within CRM. When on a grid, you can expand the Charts pane to click on a section of the chart, the data in the grid automatically refresh’s for those records that section applies to, and even selects a new field and chart type to report on different data.

The updated Polaris forms have few limitations which if handled correctly are quite manageable. Few limitations which are quite observable I’m listing out as follows.

·         You won’t see any ribbon extensions.

·         You can only add a phone call & task with a record. If you want to add appointment, Email or a Fax you have to switch to classic or add via a sub grid.

·         Unlike the ribbon, the command bar is not customizable.

·         You can see related records but you can’t add new ones. Though this can be achieved using sub-grid or switching back to classic.

·         On Load, on change or On Save event handlers don’t support JavaScript.

·         You cannot create dashboards for the new UI.

·         Customized forms will show up only in a very basic layout. If you have added client scripts to any of the forms listed above, you’ll still be able to access them normally on other devices, but your customizations will not be present on the iPad.

·         You won’t be able to access the process editor for sales (or service) forms.

·         You won’t be able to share records.

·         You won’t be able to access the form editor.

·         Most of the commands that were available in the ribbon at the top of the screen have been moved to the command bar at the bottom of the screen.

·         You will be able to edit records individually, but you won’t be able to edit them in bulk.

·         You can’t re-size a chart, but you can maximize and minimize it.

·         Entities like Quote, Product, Goal, Marketing List, Rollup Query, Rollup Field, & Article do not open on the iPad.

 

[Screen Shots]

 

1.  Dashboard

 

 

2.  Account

 

 

 

 

3. Lead

 

 

 

 

 

 

Change the URL of Dynamics CRM provisioned under Office 365

One can now change the URL of Dynamics CRM provisioned under Office 365. This can be done from the login portal under “Admin” section where “manage” option was not previously available.

As shown in the screen below, under Microsoft Dynamics → Click on Manage & a new window will open. Here you can change your URL & save the changes. The old url will be in-effective after 24 hours & you won’t be able to access your CRM using old URL. So you need to update your outlook synchronizations, bookmarks or any other related settings.
 

Now you can launch the CRM with the changed URL.

 

 

Hope this article Helps!

Aggregate and Grouping functions using LINQ in CRM

As you know, QueryExpression are built as an Object Model. They support all the features of FetchXML except for grouping & aggregates.

FetchXML supports all the features of QueryExpression including grouping & aggregates. Queries here are built as XML statements.

LINQ queries are built using standard language similar to SQL, but internally it uses QueryExpression and hence it is limited to the features of QueryExppression

The QueryExpression class supports complex queries.

The QueryByAttribute class is a simple means to search for entities where attributes matches specified values.

When using LINQ, it returns IQueryable<Entity> which is not a collection & hence we can’t do group-by or aggregate.

IQueryable<Entity> queryDemo = from a in orgServiceContext.AccountSet

                                                              where a.Address1_City.Contains("a")

                   select a; 

 

However, LINQ supports group by in following way.
 

Write a simple LINQ Query

var lnqQuery = from o in orgServiceContext.OpportunitySet

where o.EstimatedValue.Value >= 10000

select new

   {

OpportunityTopic = o.Name,

PotentialCustomer = o.CustomerId,

Rating = o.OpportunityRatingCode

};
 

In another query pass your created query as a list. You can either do a ToList() or you can make your own List like List<Groups> estList = new List<Groups>() where Groups is your custom class with set & get.

Here, we are using ToList() & grouping the collection by Rating.
 

var lnqQuery2 = (from f in lnqQuery.ToList()
 

//Pass the lnqQuery as a list using ToList() & then group by
 

group f by f.Rating into queryGrp
 

let first = queryGrp.First()
 

//selecting only the first record of all grouped record
 

select new

{

Name = first.OpportunityTopic,
 

Rating = first.Rating.Value

});
 

Now if we want to retrieve all the records from the Query Group, then we can simply create a list of query Group using ToList() & iterate through it as shown in below example

var lnqQuery2 = (from f in lnqQuery.ToList()
 

//Pass the lnqQuery as a list using ToList() & then group by
 

group f by f.Rating into queryGrp
 

//Make a list of queryGrp using ToList()
 

select queryGrp.ToList());
 

//Create a DataTable
 

DataTable table = new DataTable();
 

//Add some columns
 

table.Columns.Add("Topic");
 

table.Columns.Add("Cust");
 

table.Columns.Add("Rating");
 

foreach (var e1 in lnqQuery2)
 

{

//iterate through each record grouped with rating
 

foreach (var e2 in e1)

{

//iterate through each individual record that belongs in a rating
 

DataRow dataRow = table.NewRow();
 

dataRow["Topic"] = e2.OpportunityTopic;
 

dataRow["Cust"] = e2.PotentialCustomer.Name;
 

dataRow["Rating"] = e2.Rating;
 

table.Rows.Add(dataRow);

 }

}

//here you have your list in your dataGridView
 

dataGridView1.DataSource = table;

 

Note- Here we are just showing the rating value. You can get the rating by using FormattedValues["opportunityratingcode"]

For more details you can visit here

Hope this article helps!