{Quick Tip} collapse or expand form sections without code

The trick is in form design mode the way we left sections, save and publish will be the state of form when they load. We can choose to collapse or expand all sections or go for a combination. I have not tested in previous versions but it works in 365 🙂

Enjoy your 365 day 🙂

#exand-or-collapse-crm-form, #how-to-expand-or-collapse-crm-form

How to find Business Rule, Form, View, Chart, Process and Message associated with a field

Sometimes we need to know which Form, View or Chart are using a field. Similarly we may need to check which Process and Plugin message are attached to a field. All these details can be viewed easily from field’s “Show Dependencies” functionality.

Generally navigation for “Show Dependencies” will be:
(Settings > Customizations > Customize the System > Components > Entites > Entity (Select your entity)  > Field (select your field) > Show Dependencies).

This window shows useful details about some other dependent components as well like Field, Entity Relationship, Email Template, Report etc. Business Rule is exception though, to see business rules we will need to click “Business Rules” button in same window.

Hope this tip will be helpful if you were not using it.

Please like/ follow my blog for more useful posts. Please feel free to leave a message, suggestion or question if I can help.

Enjoy 🙂

 

Parent child lookup fields in Dynamic CRM

Showing parent-child records in drop-down lists is a common requirement of business applications.

Some examples:

  1. Manager > Employees
  2. Country > State or Province > City
  3. Account category > Account sub-category > Account number

In Dynamics CRM same behaviour can be implemented by using multiple lookup fields with “Related Records Filtering” which is an out of box CRM feature. For this demo consider an entity “Car Finance Application”, which needs some related details like car brand, model and variant.

a

 

 

Steps:

  • Create the following entities and their relationship as described below:
    • Brand
    • Model, it has N:1 relationship with Brand
    • Variant, it has N:1 relationship with Model
  • Add brand, model and variant lookup fields in consumer entity which in this case is CarFinanceApplication:
  • Add brand, model and variant fields in the form
  • Double click on Model lookup field, and do the “Related Records Filtering”  configurations as shown below:  
  • Double click on Variant lookup field, and do the “Related Records Filtering”  configurations as below:

 

  • Save changes + build customizations + test working of lookup field

Form and lookup fields have been configured and selecting brand will show relevant models. As user selects a model, variant look up will list relevant records but there is a catch. If user changes brand or model after selecting variant, values in three lookup fields will not be in sync. Saving record in such scenarios will basically save  incorrect data  and you will agree many times even user will not realise this. An easy approach to fix this issue can be to reset model and variant look up fields when brand field changes and reset variant lookup field when model field changes.

  • From same form window add the following JS as a code library:
function ClearLookUp() {
for (var counter = 0; counter < arguments.length; counter++) {
if (typeof(arguments[counter]) === "string") {
var field = Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get(arguments[counter]);
if (field != null && field.getValue() != null)
field.setValue(null);
}
}
}
  • Double click on “Brand” lookup field and add “ClearLookUp” javascript function on its “onChange” event. Pass execution context and name of lookup field(s) as comma-separated arguments which will need to reset.

 

  • Double click on “Model” lookup field and call “ClearLookUp” function on its “onChange” event. Pass execution context and name of lookup field(s) as a comma-separated argument.
  • That’s it, test your work and go enjoy a coffee if you like 🙂

Considerations:

  • Any number of lookup fields can be configured with this approach
  • Javascript function is a sort of generic, it can be configured with any lookup field without modification. Also just by calling once it can reset any number of lookup fields, the only requirement will be to pass the name of lookup fields as comma-separated arguments.

Credit:

Before this post, I found a similar implementation by Rashan which I have improved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turbo forms with new form rendering engine

For faster and efficient form loading CRM Online 2015 Update 1 (v7.1) introduced a new form rendering engine. New engine renders forms up to 8 times faster than legacy form.

New form rendering uses cache and an improved process for form loading which results in better performance for end user but for CRM techies it is more than that. With new process unsupported APIs and direct DOM manipulation may not work and it requires careful testing in sandbox particularly if it is an upgrade. A  dialogue reports such errors:

error

 

CRM team has provided the following examples that may be unsupported:

  • Any attempt to access DOM in the content iframe using JS, jQuery or other 3rd party libraries (document.getElementById() or jQuery selectors)
  • Creating a new HTML content in the parent window for persistent content (and assumed that the parent window was the main CRM iframe.
  • Window.load, parsing iframe/form URL
  • Attempting to use unsupported (non-XRM) APIs, especially undocumented ones that may have been shipped with CRM for internal usage only
  • Accessing window.parent() from a web resource that may assume for example there’s a variable set in the current window context.

Some other examples:

  • Form freeze
  • Cannot select or type in a field
  • Java Script do not perform intended functionality
  • Any thing else unexpected that happens in form

Strategies to identify Potential issues:

  • Use CRM 2015 custom code validator to validate deprecated and unsupported APIs
  • Switched off new rendering engine from below setting and test unsupported code

Settings -> Administration -> System Settings -> General -> Use legacy form rendering

Form rendering engine settings

  • If a third party solution is used, check with vendor if the solution is verified with new rendering engine
  • Analyse client side code, a simple test can be removing client side code segments
  • Try different browsers and their development tools
  • Try removing effected fields from form, test and drill down

Form rendering engine effects whole CRM instance it is not per entity or form. Legacy form rendering is still supported and rendering engine can be switched but CRM team’s plan is to remove it in future.