Dynamo with Dynamics CRM » Customizations

A Custom Entity Icons solution for CRM 2011, free to download and use

Christian — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:13:05 +0000

In your quest for CRM customization glory, there are times when you need the perfect icon graphic for your brand new custom entity. The normal procedure for custom entity icons is time consuming, and requires some graphic editing skill.

Browse open source icon galleries online for the appropriate icon (preferably in PNG or GIF format)
Edit the icon in an image editor to resize it in 3 separate files:

For image editing I recommend the free Paint .NET software
Small: 16 x 16 pixels
Medium: 32 x 32 pixels
Large: 66 x 48 pixels

Upload the 3 files to a new or existing solution in CRM 2011 as a web resource
Open the custom entity in the Settings > Customizations section (or solution)
Click on the “Update Icons” button
Apply your icon web resources to the custom entity
Publish your customizations
Clear your browser cache and refresh CRM to see the new icons

I’ve been there and felt your pain. Rather than using precious consulting time on image editing, I decided to group 22 of my custom open sourced icons in a solution file and share it with you. Feel free to download it below!

ESCustomIconGallery_1_0_managed.zip

Please note this is an managed solution file, meaning that you can’t modify it. If you want to add your own custom icons, I suggest you create a new unmanaged solution.

The included icons are in PNG format, and were procured from free and open source websites. I included a variety that will hopefully address different industries and needs.

With this solution file, the new procedure is easier!

Upload the managed solution file to CRM 2011
Open the custom entity in the Settings > Customizations section (or solution)
Click on the “Update Icons” button
Select and apply your icon web resources to the custom entity
Publish your customizations
Clear your browser cache and refresh CRM to see the new icons

I hope this free custom icons solution proves valuable to you in the future. Be sure to drop a comment if you have some feedback.

Disabling Users in Dynamics CRM can cause Workflow troubles

Christian — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 20:43:12 +0000

I recently got a call from a company that was having issues running their workflows on Dynamics CRM 4.0. Despite being configured correctly, their workflows hadn’t processed for more than 4 months! After a quick remote session, we quickly determined the source of the issue.

Earlier in the year, this company had restructured their staff. During this process they had disabled the user account of a key former employee that was the owner of all the workflows.

What was the lesson learned? Disabling the Owner user account of a workflow will disable the workflow jobs as well. Workflows require an active user account to process the jobs. When developing workflows for an organization, make sure all of the published workflows are owned by an administrative account, and not an employee.

Dynamics CRM 4.0 does warn you of this fact while disabling a user (see screenshot below).

Disabling a User in Dynamics CRM 4.0

Unfortunately for my client, all of their workflow activity during the downtime could not be recovered, despite having finally re-enabled the workflows. Again, as a Dynamics CRM Consultant, be sure to educate your clients of this fact.

In Dynamics CRM 2011, Dashboards bring eye candy BI to the masses

Christian — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 22:04:03 +0000

"Data, looks like resistance to the Borg is futile to maximizing our sales pipeline."

Arguably, the most noticeable feature in the Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta is the new Dashboard functionality. It brings to the table such a new level of easy and powerful customization that one could say Microsoft has truly “brought BI to the masses.”

What makes the Dynamics CRM 2011 Dashboards so special? Let me count the ways:

Easily create a custom Dashboard on the fly by clicking the New button on the Outlook ribbon or from the web client.
Keep your custom dashboard for yourself, or share your creation with other colleagues on your team (similar in functionality to Views).
Easily add CRM Views to the Dashboard.
Drag in your own bar charts and line charts, add a sales funnel, or add a connected Bing Map so you can see the locations of the customers you’re visiting today.
Drill-down capability, so you can view individual records.
Use iFrames to provide a window to other Portals or internal/external websites.
Use the advanced tools in Dashboard customization to incorporate custom SSRS reports that display data from other systems.

These tools provide all the fodder that the imaginative user and developer will need to design useful Dashboards on-the-fly.

Dashboard Help Section

For those new to managing Dashboards, Microsoft provided a help section that is available upon your first login to Dynamics CRM 2011. This section can be hidden permanently as soon as you feel you’re familiar with the tools.

Dynamics CRM 2011: Dashboards Help section

Creating a New Dashboard in CRM 2011

Upon creation of a new Dashboard, CRM asks for your preferred layout format. So far so good…

Dynamics CRM 2011: Dashboards Layout

In the next Dashboard customization screen, we can add the following resource types:

Chart
List
Web Resource, which can consist of:
- Web Page (HTML)
- Style Sheet (CSS)
- Script (JScript)
- Data (XML)
- Images (JPG, PNG, GIF, ICO)
- Silverlight (XAP)
- Style Sheet (XSL)
iFrame

Dynamics CRM 2011: Dashboards Toolbar

In less than five minutes, I instantly built my sample Dashboard by:

Adding a bar graph of Activities by Priority
Adding a Grid View of My Accounts
Adding a JPG image
Adding the mobile website of Twitter Search for #MSDYNCRM

See the screenshot of my creative (albeit questionably productive) Dashboard below.

Dynamics CRM 2011: My Sample Dashboard

While my sample Dashboard won’t win any productivity awards, it’s my own Dashboard to view, tweak and share with my colleagues. My next step would be to try and incorporate Bing Maps imaginatively.

As always, the most important step is to take that initial dive, and imagine the possibilities!

How to add a button to an entity form that automatically creates a new related CRM record

Christian — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:18:39 +0000

You know your users want to push your buttons.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is already user friendly and intuitive. However, there will be times where you want to nudge the CRM users along the road to productivity by providing a nice shiny button that does what they want. In this case I want to add a button to a custom entity form, where upon clicking would automatically pop open a new related record.

A couple potential case examples off the top of my head:

Button to create a new Phone Call activity, related to an open custom entity record.
Button to create a new Contact record, related to an open Account record.

Since the button can run JavaScript on demand, you can think outside the box and consider other unique scenarios and possibilities.

See below for the general procedure to get this published. I’ll try to make it quick and painless.

Customize your ISV.config file

All Dynamics CRM deployments include a default ISV Config file. However, this default file is typically riddled with developer test examples that can clutter your CRM if you’re not mindful. On the other hand, it may serve as a useful reference to see some customization possbilities.

If you want a clean ISV Config file with the button I’m creating, I’ve provided a copy here to download. It’s up to you!

ISV-button-template.zip

To export or back up your current ISV Config file:

Navigate to Settings > Customization > Export Customizations.
Export the ISV file to your desktop or local drive.

Exporting your ISV Config file

Use your favorite XML or text editor program to view and edit your ISV customization file. I particularly like the free Microsoft XML Notepad 2007 and Notepad ++. The code you want to add will look something like the below, nested in the Entities section.