Modify Opportunity Product inline grid

If you worked with Opportunity Product inline editable grid, you have noticed that this grid cannot be customized.

If the given in-line grid does not serve the business needs of your organisation, it is possible to revert to CRM 2011 style where the opportunity product form opens on click of add.

 

You can create a new sub-grid for opportunity product and select the relevant view for the grid. This opens the opportunity product when + sign is clicked. Please note you should hide the other grid and not delete it just in case you want to revert back to it any point of time. This is because as it is inline editable grid, the behaviour of this grid is different than other grids.

Unknown in the sitemap

If you see label like Unknown234 in the sitemap, here is how to fix this.

1) Export the CRM solution as unmanaged solution with sitemap.
2) Unzip the solution file.
3) Open customizations.xml file.
4) Navigate to Sitemap area.
5) Look for GroupId tags without ResourceId. These are the cause of Unknown in the sitemap.

6) Add relevant ResourceId and then package the solution again.
7) Import the solution.

Hope it helps.

How to change the size of label for CRM 2013

In CRM 2013 there are various ways to lay the panel but if the text in the label is larger than the allowed area, the remainder of the text goes blurry. The default setting is 115 pixels.

The way to resolve it is to change the label area for the section.

Hope it helps.

Connecting CRM 2013 instance from CRM 2011 outlook client

I was asked an interesting question today regarding CRM 2013 upgrade. Will CRM 2013 client work with existing 2011 outlook client or we need to roll out CRM 2013 client?

The answer is CRM 2013 can be used on CRM 2011 outlook client if data is not required in offline mode. Users do not need to roll out CRM 2013 outlook client in a huge rush. It would be a good idea to roll out 2013 outlook client in a near future though but can be planned out when it best suits each organisation.

Here is the link for both the outlook clients:

CRM 2011 Outlook Client
http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=27821

CRM 2013 Outlook Client
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40344

So how does it look inside outlook? From within outlook the page has got 2011 view but when you double click and open the form it is CRM 2013 screen.

Here is how it looks from within outlook which is standard CRM 2011 outlook client look and feel.

Role Based Dashboard

Another existing feature of CRM 2013. Role based Dashboard. In CRM 2013, you can now define role based Dashboard just like forms.

To define the Role Based Dashboard, select Enable Security Roles button and select the roles just like Role Based Forms. It also has the same feature as Set as default.

 

This is a good enhancement and was a limitation before. Great little addition.

No Extension table!!!

I am very excited about the new CRM 2013 release. There are a lot of new functionality coming out with the new release.

There are couple of obvious ones like better look and feed and flatter UI as mentioned in the posts below:

http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2013/09/06/top-10-new-features-of-crm-2013/

http://www.preact.co.uk/preact_blog/whats-new-in-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2013

From technical point of view there are few features that will help performance for sure.

There is no more extension tables. Till CRM 2011 each entity had extension table and data was retrieved using filtered view which would fetch data from 2 base tables. With CRM 2013, extension tables are merged with the base table. Hence there is only one table / entity. This is a huge gain from performance point of view for sure.

CRM 2013 loving it.

CRM 2011 online on Outlook

It has taken some effort to get Microsoft Online office 365 client working with Outlook client. To save the same troubles for anyone else here is the steps that worked like a charm :)

1. Install the recent outlook client from the outlook client download site

2. On Configure Organization window, for the Server URL enter following URL:

https://disco.crm5.dynamics.com/

Please note that crm5 is valid for APAC region. Refer to following article for your valid extension.

Discovery URL / Region

3. Click on Test Connection. At this point mention your office 365 Log in credentials. This will update the organization and display name for you.

4. If this is the default organization you want to use with outlook, click the Synchronize with this Organization.

This is it and you are good to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM Outlook client with Microsoft Online Office 365 account.

If you chose Cancel for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook, that is alright. You can still complete these steps.  Simply search for Configuration Wizard which shall bring up Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for Outlook Configuration Wizard. On this window select 'Add' button.

This will popup the same window as of step 1.