Thursday 30 October 2014

Change Default View and Access Other Views in CRM for Tablet or Windows 8

If you notice in CRM 2013 for tablet or for Windows 8 Apps, one entity, it seems like only has default view to show and it seems cannot be changed (there is no selector).

There is a question what if the users want to see other views.

For example, in Case entity (I renamed to Case/Job Sheet), when you open Case entity on the CRM for Tablet, the default view is ‘My Active Cases’.

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If you notice, there is no selector, different from CRM Web Views, that you can change the view from the selector.

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What if I want to see other views?
For example, Active Cases, All Cases, or another custom view.

I am interested to find out more about this.
Often we have this requirement, of course My Active Cases is a great view for some users that only care about their own records, but what if I am a Manager that might be I don’t have any my own Case, but I want to see my Team’s Cases or I am GM of Service Center Company that I want to see all of the Active Cases for the whole Company Active Cases. What should I do?

How to Change the Entity View in CRM 2013 for Tablet?

Some of the users can miss this setting…

Yes, actually CRM for Tablet has a way to change the view, not from the selector.

Steps:

1. Click the ‘Right Click’ on your Mouse

2. Now, focus in the right bottom corner in the screen there is a something like Menu will come out

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3. Click the ‘Select View’ imageand the list of the view will come to you to be selected.


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4. Change to 'All Cases'.

Result:

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5. Even, you can select the 'Custom View'.
For example: 'All Cases (External)'

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Is there any other way to Access?

Yes, you can include the Views that you want into to the Dashboard.

Remember in this post:

Utilize Dashboard to Access Information (for example View) in CRM for Tablet

I was explaining about a Dashboard that you can customize only for CRM for Tablet: ‘Sales Dashboard’

Yes, you can either rename (it has been renamed to Case Management Dashboard) it or modify it to show Lists or Charts from the entity that are enable to show in Tablet.

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Put the Charts & Views that you want to show…

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Result:

The Charts from Active Cases View…

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And the ‘Active Cases’ View.

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How to Modify the Default View shown in CRM for Tablet?

Have you known, you can actually change the default view that will appear in the CRM for Tablet or CRM for Windows 8 using the standard CRM View Settings:

Set the View that you want to set as Default:

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Result:

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After you open the Case entity, by default it will show the default view you set on previous steps.
That is 'Active Cases' view.

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*You should download the metadata for getting the changes..

To know more about CRM for Tablet, I have posted another post here:


I hope it can be helpful.
Thanks!

ERD Generator Tool for CRM 2013

Hi All,in some projects, for the technical documentation, some customers want us to provide ERD in the Technical or Design Document. Creating entities and their relationships in CRM is very easy and sometimes, we did not have time to draw the ERD first, we created the entities and plus the mockup or prototype then present to the users, for key users, seeing the System directly or using Power Point Presentation Slides, it is a better way to them to understand in high-level, but in term of documentation as good consultant, we need to give them proper documentation and ERD can be your best answer.
“Visual Represents more than thousand words.”
In Standard CRM you can download the OOB Logical Entity Relationship Diagram:
In CRM SDK, you can have generate ERD by using Metadata and you select which entities you want to generate.
See this topic:
But you need to use command to run the tool
MetadataDiagramConsole.exe new_bankaccount new_safedepositbox

There is no User Interface.
But, don’t worry. Now, to generate the complete ERD, you can try to use this tool with an UI, of course, created by my friend.
To download the tool, CLICK HERE
(Later you need to rename the .doc to .zip extension)

To see the detail, click here.

Screenshot provided by me:

1. Extract the .zip file and run the ERD Generator.

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2. You are not connected at the first run, you need to connect first.

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3. First Connection (as usual you need to connect to which CRM Server, OnPremise or Online and use what authentication)

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4. After connected

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5. And you just focus on these settings:
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Entity Name: Select your Entity that you want to generate.

File Path: will get auto-filled after you run the tool

Checkbox Include CSV: If you tick then it will also generate .CSV file beside generating the .VSD file opened using Visio.

Then you just finish by click this icon:

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Then it will auto-fill the path value and generate it.

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Just wait it..

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The system is trying to generate the ERD Document.

Now….finally you see this window.

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Then, you just go to the folder and you see the generated ERD..

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Wow..Congratulation you have created an ERD + CSV (if you ticked) with the help of this tool.

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*If you found weird font, then you better change the Font to Calibri because it can be your PC does not have the expected font.

An excellent tool, good job, worth to try!

Hope this helps you.
Thanks.

Thursday 23 October 2014

Handle Page Header Data in CRM Custom Report/SSRS with Multiple Split Pages

In my previous post, I was talking about how to design CRM Report for Multiple Records appearing in Multiple Split Pages for each record. 

Now, how to make the header follow record for each page?

If you are using Pre-Filtering report, you can filter the data you want to display in to the report, but how to handle the Page Header (if you use Page Header instead of using Tablix Row Header).

As we know, in SSRS we have 3 parts: Report Header, Body, and Report Footer.

So let’s say you have pre-filtering report, you only display the report by record through record Form, it means that the record that you want to display is only one record.

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Then, you notice the Page Header, Body, and Page Footer will display correctly.

*You have Quote Id + Revision in the Header.

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Now, what if you select multiple record as filter?

For example you edit the Filter to show all Quotes from this Potential Customer

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Or you select multiple Quote records.

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Result:

Using my explanation in my previous post, you can have multiple separated page for each Quote record (not 1 report for all Quote records) as per your requirement.

First Page:

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*You notice the Quote ID that will appears in the Report Header.

Second Page:

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Last Page:

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If you notice, the Page Header will display the same thing even though the records are in split page and in fact, in body it shows different record.

So what to do?

Basically, in the page header if you just use the field from DataSet and drag it to the field, it will give you only the first one.

This is the expression:

="Proposal Ref: " & 
First(Fields!quotenumber.Value, "DataSet1") & "-" &
First(Fields!revisionnumber.Value, "DataSet1") &

The problems are:

1. You cannot use DataSet1 anymore as your scope because as mentioned in my previous post, you need a Page Break set by Group. So that if you use DataSet as your scope, it will get the wrong data since your purpose is to break the multiple records to multiple page using Page Break by each Quote Id.

2. SSRS does not allow you to set the tablix group name as your scope, you can only use DataSet.

Using the pre-filtering record, your dataset can be grown if you select many records not a single record.
It is similar to IN Clause in SQL if you are familiar.

So example your Quote record is 23 records with multiple Quote ID:

NoQuote IDRevision NumberPotential Customer
1QUO-01104-H1R4G30A. Datum Corporation (sample)
2QUO-01105-A1S5U50A. Datum Corporation (sample)
23QUO-01135-C1B7U70A. Datum Corporation (sample)

If you use first’ in syntax expression in the header it will give you the first record only (QUO-01104-H1R4G3-0)

It will be safe if you only show report in the each record Form, but it won’t if you show the report in Report Area or List Area.

So, how to make the Header to show correct Quote ID for each record same as shown in the body?

You can do these following tips and tricks based on my experience.

1. You can use Tablix Header instead of using Page Header

Tablix Header has each Row Header that you can repeat, but sometimes you found it is not easy, because maintaining page header is easier and you can have 3 different parts of layout that will not affect each other if got any changes.

2. You can use Report Parameter

If you know the parameter sent from the CRM Report that you can use it, but you need to Query with Where Clause to your data set, which if you are using pre-filtering report (standard one), you cannot control the parameter sent by CRM, so this is cannot be used, unless you pass a custom parameter to the report or you use javascript to open the report or you use Report Parameter and let the users to choose when run the SSRS.

3. You can use a hidden textbox.

You can use a hidden textbox, placing it into the Report Body.

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And use the Expression (but don’t use ‘FIRST’)

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And Make sure your scope is not DataSet, but you should use the Group Name as scope, see this.

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*Now, you notice the group name can be the scope, different from PageHeader’s textbox.

Please refer to my previous post to get more detail info about this.

Then, set this expression into your page header textbox.

=ReportItems!textBoxQuoteNumberBu.Value

Change to your textbox Name.

*But, this tip got weakness, if your data is too long shown in report body into one page each Quote record (if you convert to PDF or Word, etc), it will not give you the value in next page because in second page and so on, the hidden textbox does not exist to the second page of each Quote record, etc.

Example:

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*First Page only fits until 10 lines for example:

Second Page:

(To show next item number 11 and 12)

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*Because your hidden text only occupied one page each group, then in the second page if your data having more than 1 page, it will show blank value.

4. You can utilize the Page Name.

Go to your Row Group and go to Page Properties that you set the Group to have page break for each record.

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Then use your PageName, set the expression for example:

=First(Fields!quotenumber.Value, "list1_quote") & "-" &
First(Fields!revisionnumber.Value, "list1_quote") 

*Now, you notice the group name can be the scope, different from PageHeader’s textbox.

Now, change your textbox in the Page Header and set this expression:

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Set to:

=Globals!PageName

And see the result after you do those mentioned ways.

Page 1

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Page 11

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And so on…

I think it is the best idea, beside you can have your expected header, you can also have advantage once you converted the report to excel file, it will give you the different sheet name:

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Hope this helps!

My blog is not only talking about CRM and its UI or features, you can see my other posts about SSRS here:

http://missdynamicscrm.blogspot.com/search/label/SSRS


Thanks.

Monday 13 October 2014

CRM 2013 Modify the Columns Shown in The Inline Lookup

A post to explain how to modify the columns shown in the inline lookup in CRM 2013 Refreshed Entity User Interface and what can be done and what cannot be done.

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In the example (lookup to Contact), it shows only Name, Company Name, and Email Address.

You found that Email Address is not important, you want to show Name, City, and Company Name.

Explanation:

1. Go to Form Editor

2. Go to the field and check the lookup that is used, in this case is Contact view (lookup view) and get the Default View of the Lookup field

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*You can also use custom view as default view.

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3. Go to the Contact Lookup View and then you add can re-order the position

Previously:

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Change to:

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*You cannot modify the Full Name position nor remove it.

4. Test the Result:

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*The supported total column shown in the inline lookup is 3 only (including Name as the primary field that is not replaceable)

It shows Name, City, and Company Name as per your expectation.

5. You can also use a Composite field, for example, Address

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Result:

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And you can get the tooltip.

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6. But, you cannot use to show field from related entity.

Example:

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Order: Name, City, Industry of the Account, Company Name

Result:

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You should ‘Look Up More Records’

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In my previous post, I mentioned about using the addCustomFilter instead of using addCustomView, using addCustomFilter will not affect the lookup view you set in the Customization, so that I highly recommend you to use addCustomFilter().

Hope this helps you!

Thank you.