Chapter 22. Customizing Entities

One of the most powerful features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM is that you can customize (or configure) almost all entities, such as Account, Contact, and Opportunity entities, as well as add new custom entities to suit your needs.

Navigate to the main entity customization screen by going to Settings > Customizations, and you see that you can customize entities in several ways (see Figure 22.1).

The customization screen presents the following options, which are all covered in this chapter:

Customize the System

Publishers

Solutions

Developer Resources

Themes

You can customize existing entities or create new entities. In CRM 2016, you can customize an entity without going to the Settings area; instead, you can just go to any entity and click ... > Customize Entity, as shown in Figure 22.2.

Alternatively, you can open a form for an entity and click ... > Form, as shown in Figure 22.3, to start making changes.

Refer to the section “Solution Concepts,” later in this chapter, to review some basic principles related to customizations.

Customization can be characterized in two ways in Microsoft Dynamics CRM: supported and unsupported. This chapter covers only supported customizations that follow Microsoft best practices and that generally do not fail when the product is upgraded. Unsupported customizations might perform any function, but they fall outside the range of Microsoft’s testing when considering upgrades, database schema changes, and support rollups. The following results can occur with unsupported customizations:

Service packs might fail, break, or not install.

Upgrades to the product might cause unexpected results or fail.

The application or database might become unstable and fail to work.

Single line of text (nvarchar type)—This type is used for small texts or strings. It can have a maximum of 4,000 characters.

Option set (picklist type)—This type is used for drop-downs or combo boxes, with a limited set of fixed options. Option sets were called picklists in earlier versions of Dynamics CRM.

Two options (bit type)—This type is used for Boolean values such as yes or no.

Image (image type)—This type is used to store an image (maximum 5120KB size). You can have a maximum of one image type field per entity, and you cannot add a field of this type to system entities.

Whole number (int type)—This type is used for numbers that can be any of these formats:

None—Sets the min and maximum values.

Duration—Presents a drop-down list so the user can select X Minutes, X Hours, or X Days. Hours and days can also be entered using decimals—for example, x.x hours or x.x days.

Time Zone—Shows a drop-down list with the different time zones the user can select, such as (GMT -08:00) Pacific time.

Language—Shows a drop-down with the different languages installed by the system. The data will be stored using the language code; for example, English in United States is1033. For a complete table of language codes, visit https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms912047(WinEmbedded.10).aspx.

Floating-point number (float type)—This type is used for floating-point decimal numbers.

Decimal number (decimal type)—This type is used for numbers with decimals.

Currency (money type)—This type is used for amounts.

Multiple lines of text (ntext type)—This type is used for large texts or strings with a maximum length of 1,048,576.

Date and time (datetime type)—This type is used for dates and times, which can have the following behaviors:

User Local—This option, used by all the previous version of Dynamics CRM, shows the value of the date and time in the user’s local time zone.

Date Only—This option, which is new to Dynamics CRM 2016, shows only the date, regardless of the user time zone configuration.

Time Zone Independent—This option, which is new to Dynamics CRM 2016, shows the date and time field without doing any time zone conversion, so if the original user entered a date with the time 7:00 AM any user, regardless of location or configured time zone, will see 7:00 AM. This is a great new addition. You can use it, for example, for an entity called Course when you want to enter the value for the course start time in New York; then if you have a customer rep in California, he will be able to see that date and time in New York time and not converted to the California time zone, as used to happen in older versions of Dynamics CRM.

Lookup (lookup type)—This type is used to look up other entities’ relationships.

Entities are associated with other entities via a customization referred to as a relationship.

Single line of text

Option set

Single

Two options

Whole number

Decimal number

Currency

Date and time

When you select Calculated from the Field Type drop-down, a new Edit button appears, as shown in Figure 22.5.

When the field is created, you see the calculated field editor (see Figure 22.6), in which you can configure conditions and actions.

The calculated field editor has IntelliSense, so it is very easy to find the fields. For example, for a single line of text you can use the CONCAT function to concatenate fields with fixed text.

You can then use your calculated fields in forms and views. When you use calculated fields on forms, they are always displayed as read only, and the calculation happens as soon as you save the record.

These are the functions you can use in the calculated field editor:

ADDHOURS

ADDDAYS

ADDWEEKS

ADDMONTHS

ADDYEARS

SUBTRACTHOURS

SUBTRACTDAYS

SUBTRACTWEEKS

SUBTRACTMONTHS

SUBTRACTYEARS

DIFFINDAYS

DIFFINHOURS

DIFFINMINUTES

DIFFINMONTHS

DIFFINWEEKS

DIFFINYEARS

CONCAT

TRIMLEFT

TRIMRIGHT

Whole number

Decimal number

Currency

Date and time

With a rollup field, you could, for example, show the count of contacts related to an account, using a whole number field.

When you select Rollup from the Field Type drop-down, a new Edit button appears, as shown in Figure 22.7.

When the field is created, you see the rollup field editor (see Figure 22.8), which you can use to configure the source entity, the related entity, the filters with conditions, and the aggregation method, which can be any of the following:

SUM

MAX

MIN

COUNT

AVG

For each rollup field you create, three fields are created in CRM: one with the calculated value, another with the date of the last update, and another to see the state of the field (see Figure 22.9).

Like calculated fields, rollup fields are displayed as read-only in forms, so users can’t change the calculated value. However, a rollup field has a calculator icon the user can use to force the calculation if the system job didn’t execute yet.

By clicking the refresh button inside a rollup field, you can force the evaluation of the data. Then, after you save the record, you see the other two related fields updated.

You can then use the alternate keys you create in the update and upsert operations. Alternate keys are used for integration jobs, providing a key reference that allows for updates to occur. See the Dynamics CRM software development kit (SDK) for more information about how to work with alternate keys.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM supports the following relationships:

1:N relationships (one to many)

N:1 relationships (many to one)

N:N relationships (many to many)

You can add as many relationships as you want, and you can also add more than one relationship to the same entity. For example, you can have a custom entity called Customer and add two fields called Primary Contact and Secondary Contact, both related to the entity Contact.

Finally, another feature to relationships is the ability to relate an entity to itself, which is referred as self-referential. Using this type of relationship, you can use any type of relationship (1:N, N:1, or N:N) to relate an entity to itself.

Assign

Share

Unshare

Reparent

Delete

Merge

The Type of Behavior drop-down in the relationship cascading rules contains four options:

Parental

Referential

Referential, Restrict Delete

Configurable Cascading

The first three options are templates, and the last option, Configurable Cascading, allows you to configure the cascading manually for each operation.

The first four operations—Assign, Share, Unshare, and Reparent—all have the same cascading types:

Cascade All—This option affects the current entity record and its related entity records. So the operation is performed on both entities.

Cascade Active—This option affects the current entity record and its related entity records that have a status of Active.

Cascade User-Owned—This option affects the current entity record and its related entity records that are owned by the user who is performing the operation only.

Cascade None—This option affects only the current entity and not the related entity records.

The Delete operation has different cascading options, as follows:

Cascade All—This option is the same as explained above except that if you have a 1:N relationship between Account and Contact and you have 1 account record with 10 contacts related, when you delete the account, all 10 contacts are also deleted.

Remove Link—With this option, you can remove a link. Using the preceding example, if you delete the account record, the contacts aren’t deleted, but the link between the contacts and the account are removed.

Restrict—With this option, only when the account doesn’t have any related records can it be deleted. Using the earlier example, you won’t be able to delete the account until you delete all the related contacts manually first.

The Merge operation changes between Cascade None and Cascade All, depending on the primary entity selected, and you can’t modified it.

To make this type of customization, go to the entity you want to customize and go to the Forms or Views node in the left navigation area, as shown in Figure 22.12. The following sections describe the particular form customizations and view customizations that are possible.

Main

Mobile - Express

Quick View

Quick Create

Card

Main-interactive Experience

You can create new form designs and layouts, as well as Quick Create and Quick View forms. Quick Create forms allow you to create records quickly and with fewer fields on the form—without leaving the entity with which you’re working. Quick View forms show the data of the parent record on a child record form but in read-only mode.

Every time you add a new tab, you also get at least one new section inside the new tab.

You can choose whether a label displays the section name, and you can also specify the width of the field area (refer to Figure 22.15). You also have some layout options such as the number of columns to display data as shown in Figure 22.16.

You can also select the section where you want to place a field and then go to the Field Explorer and double-click the field you want; it is then added to the selected section.

For example, say that you want to enter Website in the Name field and www.microsoft.com/silverlight/iis-smooth-streaming/demo/ in the URL field. When adding the IFRAME with these settings and the default values, you then see the IFRAME inserted in the form.

Most of the time, you want an IFRAME to expand vertically to fill the entire form. To make that happen, select the IFRAME, click Change Properties, and then, on the Formatting tab, in the Row Layout section, check the Automatically Expand to Use Available Space check box.

In the Scrolling section, you can choose whether you want to have the IFRAME show the scrollbars (vertical and horizontal) as necessary (which is the default value), always, or never. Finally, you can specify whether you want to show a border around the IFRAME by clicking the Display Border property in the Border section.

Click the OK button when you’re ready to accept your changes. You do not see the IFRAME expand on the form in design mode, but you will see it expanded when you run the application.

In the URL used in this example, there are Silverlight controls in the page contents to be displayed in an IFRAME, and you won’t see the page render properly inside the IFRAME.

Click OK to close the dialog and test it by opening an Account record form. You now see the page load properly, without any warnings (see Figure 22.19).

This example uses a web page URL that shows the same content regardless of when and where in CRM it is shown. Most of the time, however, you will want to use an IFRAME to show different content depending on the entity and record instance being displayed. For instance, you might want to show the company web page in an IFRAME when working with accounts and then show an individual’s picture in the IFRAME when working with contacts. In that case, you need to create either a web resource (type HTML) or a custom ASP.NET application and read the globally unique identifier (GUID) of the record that will be passed to the web application. This is accomplished by checking the Pass Record Object-Type Code and Unique Identifier as Parameters check box.

Account

Contact

Lead

User

Quote

Order

Invoice

Competitor

You need to sign in to the Bing Maps portal and create an API key to use for On-Premises deployment, but you do not need to do any additional configuration to use it in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. When you put a Bing Maps component on a form, select the address that will be displayed.

You can create multiple forms for an entity in CRM 2016. To do so, you can open an existing form and click Save As to create a copy or you can click New and select the type of form you want to create. You can assign security roles to a form to control access to it; to do so, click the Enable Security Roles button at the top of the command bar.

You can use a Quick View form to view parent account details or primary contact details on the Main form. If you select Insert > Quick View Form, you can select for which lookup field you want to see the Quick View form and then select the Quick View form (see Figure 22.20).

There is a special Quick View form in the system that you can customize, the Hierarchy Tile form. This form is available for the following entities:

Account

Position

Product

User

You can use the Hierarchy Tile form to customize the tiles shown in the hierarchy view of these entities.

When you click + on the top navigation bar, you see a list of entities. If you select the Account entity, you are then presented with a Quick Create form, as shown in Figure 22.21.

For more information about the interactive service hub, refer to CHAPTER 11, “The Interactive Service Hub”.

After you complete your customizations to a form, you can easily preview them by clicking the Preview button and choosing either Desktop Client or Mobile Client and then selecting a form mode option.

For the desktop client you can select Create Form, Update Form, or Read-Only Form.

For the mobile client you can select Tablet or Phone, as shown in Figure 22.22.

Selecting one of the mobile options takes you to the mobile preview screen, which first downloads the metadata changes. Once the metadata is loaded, which might take a few minutes, you get an emulator screen, as shown in Figure 22.23.

You can easily switch from Phone to Table without leaving the emulator screen by using the icons next to Platform in the top-right corner of the emulator. Notice that this is not a full phone or tablet emulator where you can run other apps; this emulator has limited interaction, and its only purpose is to help you preview the forms in mobile devices.

Refer to CHAPTER 18, “Mobility,” for more information about mobile client features and visual controls.

When you are done with the customizations, you can click Save and Close to save your work.

Several different types of views are created by default for each entity, and you can easily create new views. For each view, you can customize the fields to be displayed by adding, removing, or changing the display position of the columns. You can also set the desired width, in pixels, for each column. By default, the columns have a fixed width of 100 pixels, and the options available for column width are fixed at 25px, 50px, 75px, 100px, 125px, 150px, 200px, and 300px.

The command bar still uses the RibbonDiffXML structure, but it is rendered differently in the user interface.

You can customize the navigation bar and controls in three ways:

Site Map

ISV Config

Command bars

All three of these methods require a little knowledge about managing XML files. When working with XML files, remember the following rules:

XML files are case sensitive, so be sure to respect the case of each node name to avoid problems. For example, the node name <root> is not the same as <ROOT>.

Each node needs to be closed. For example, if you open a node with <root>, you need to later close it with </root>. If the node doesn’t contain child nodes, you can open and close it in the same line (for example, <root />).

The Site Map is an XML file that needs to be exported first to be edited, and then it needs to be reimported to be updated. It is recommended that you create a new custom solution with only the Site Map extension to update the Site Map quickly. Go to Settings > Solutions > New, enter the display name for your solution, press Tab to quickly populate the Name field, select the publisher and enter the Version number, and click Save. Then select the view Client Extensions, as shown in Figure 22.24.

For more information about exporting the Site Map, SEE the “Exporting and Importing Entity Customizations” section, later in this chapter.

The following code illustrates the Site Map node structure:

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<Site Map>
        <Site Map>
            <Area>
                <Group>
                     <SubArea>

Sales

Service

Marketing

Settings

Help Center

The following code illustrates the Area node with its default attributes for the Sales area:

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<Area Id="SFA" ResourceId="Area_Sales" DescriptionResourceId="Sales_Description"
Icon="/_imgs/sales_24x24.gif" ShowGroups="true" IntroducedVersion="7.0.0.0">

These are the attributes of the Sales area node:

Id—This is the unique identifier for each area.

ResourceId—This is the resource identifier.

ShowGroups—This attribute is necessary only if the area has more than one group child node.

Icon—This is the URL for the icon to be displayed near the area title.

DescriptionResourceId—This is for internal use only.

IntroducedVersion—This gives the version where this area was introduced; 7.0.0.0 means CRM 2015, and 8.0.0.0 means CRM 2016.

Suppose, for example, that you want to add a new area to the Site Map called Webfortis to be used as a collection of links related to the organization and external application. You could edit the Site Map by adding the code in Listing 22.1 to the Site Map file right after the last </Area> node and before the </SiteMap>.

LISTING 22.1 Adding a New Area to a Site Map

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<Area Id="WebfortisArea" Title="Webfortis" ShowGroups="true"
Icon="/_imgs/resourcecenter_24x24.gif" >
       <Group Id="Group1" Title="External">
              <SubArea Id="nav_SubArea1" Title="Website"
Icon="/_imgs/ico_18_129.gif" Url="http://www.webfortis.com" />
              <SubArea Id="nav_SubArea2"  Title="Microsoft"
Icon="/_imgs/ico_16_sales.gif" Url="http://www.microsoft.com"
AvailableOffline="false" />
       </Group>
       <Group Id="Group2" Title="Internal">
              <SubArea Id="nav_SubArea11" Title="Intranet"
Icon="/_imgs/ico_18_129.gif" Url="http://www.webfortis.com/Internal"
AvailableOffline="false" />
              <SubArea Id="nav_SubArea12" Title="Cost Control"
Icon="/_imgs/ico_16_sales.gif" Url="http://www.webfortis.com/CC"
AvailableOffline="false" />
       </Group>
</Area>

Next, you save the changes and import the solution that contains the Site Map. To import the Site Map customizations, go to Settings > Solutions > Import. Then upload the customizations you edited and click the Import Selected Customizations button.

For detailed instructions on how to import Site Map customizations, SEE the “Exporting and Importing Entity Customizations” section, later in this chapter.

To be able to work with the ISV Config XML, you need to explicitly specify it when importing the solution by selecting the ISV Config option, as shown in Figure 22.25.

Notice that because ISV Config is considered a system setting, any customization made here is not removed when you remove the solution. Listing 22.2 illustrates the main node structure in the ISV Config XML.

LISTING 22.2 Main Node Structure for the ISV Config XML

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<IsvConfig>
    <configuration version="3.0.0000.0">
      <Root />
      <ServiceManagement>
        <AppointmentBook>
          <SmoothScrollLimit>2000</SmoothScrollLimit>
          <TimeBlocks>
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="1"
CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus1" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="2"
CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus2" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="3"
CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus3" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="4"
CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus4" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="6"
CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus6" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="7"
CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus7" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="8"
CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus8" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="9"
CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus9" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="10"
CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus10" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4201" StatusCode="1"
CssClass="ganttBlockAppointmentStatus1" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4201" StatusCode="2"
CssClass="ganttBlockAppointmentStatus2" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4201" StatusCode="3"
CssClass="ganttBlockAppointmentStatus3" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4201" StatusCode="4"
CssClass="ganttBlockAppointmentStatus4" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4201" StatusCode="5"
CssClass="ganttBlockAppointmentStatus5" />
            <TimeBlock EntityType="4201" StatusCode="6"
CssClass="ganttBlockAppointmentStatus6" />
          </TimeBlocks>
        </AppointmentBook>
      </ServiceManagement>
    </configuration>
  </IsvConfig>

SmoothScrollLimit—This option sets the maximum number of blocks to be displayed by a service activity before autoscrolling the appointment when it is selected or displayed.

ValidationChunkSize—This option is used to configure the number of activities to be validated simultaneously by the server. The validation occurs in cases where more than one activity requires the same resources or materials.

TimeBlocks—This is the reserved time during which a service can start.

Refer to CHAPTER 10, “Working with Service,” for more information about the ServiceManagement node.

With each TimeBlock element, you can apply a different style to each status code of a service activity. Consider this example:

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<ServiceManagement>
   <AppointmentBook>
     <SmoothScrollLimit>2000</SmoothScrollLimit>
     <TimeBlocks>
       <!-- All CSS Class mapping for Service activities -->
       <TimeBlock EntityType="4214" StatusCode="1"
[ccc]CssClass="ganttBlockServiceActivityStatus1" />
     </TimeBlocks>
   </AppointmentBook>
</ServiceManagement>

The EntityType attribute can be one of the following values:

4214—Service activity

4201—Appointment

Grid (Mscrm.HomepageGrid)—HomepageGrid is located in the home page of any entity where the main grid is located.

Subgrid (Mscrm.SubGrid)—The command bar for subgrids located on forms.

Form (Mscrm.Form)—The entity record shows the command bar located on the top of the form.

Adding a simple button to a command bar involves editing the customization file to include nodes in the RibbonDiffXml node, adding web resources for the images to be displayed in the button, and adding a web resource for the JavaScript method to be used when clicking the button.

Based on form state—The Create, Existing, Read Only, Disabled, and Bulk Edit buttons are enabled or disabled based on form state.

Configure custom rules—You can write custom rules by using JavaScript functions with the following parameters:

CrmClientTypeRule—Detects whether running in the Outlook client or web client.

CommandClientTypeRule—Detects whether running in the Outlook client, the CRM for tablets client, or the web client.

CrmOfflineAccessStateRule—Detects whether Outlook is running in offline or online mode.

CrmOutlookClientTypeRule—Types CrmForOutlook or CrmForOutlookOfflineAccess.

OrRule—Contains a collection of rules so that this rule evaluates as true if any of the rules in the collection evaluates as true.

OutlookItemTrackingRule—Detects whether the item is enabled for items tracked in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to enable a ribbon element.

OutlookVersionRule—Detects the version of the Microsoft Office Outlook client.

PageRule—Evaluates the address of the current page.

RecordPrivilegeRule—Detects a user’s privileges for a specific record in order to enable a ribbon element.

SkuRule—Detects the Microsoft Dynamics CRM edition.

ValueRule—Detects the value of a specific field.

ReferencingAttributeRequiredRule—Detects whether the referencing attribute for an entity is required.

RelationshipTypeRule—Detects whether a specific type of formal entity relationship exists between two entities.

EntityPrivilegeRule—Detects the current user’s privileges for a specific entity.

EntityPropertyRule—Detects specific Boolean entity properties.

FormEntityContextRule—Detects whether a form ribbon is displayed in the context of a specific entity.

HideForTabletExperienceRule—Specifies when the web application is viewed in a mobile browser on a tablet device.

MiscellaneousPrivilegeRule—Detects whether the user possesses a specific Microsoft Dynamics CRM privilege.

OrganizationSettingRule—Detects two specific organization settings within a DisplayRule: IsSharepointEnabled and IsSOPIntegrationEnabled.

OutlookRenderTypeRule—Detects whether a form or list item is rendered as a web page or natively in Outlook in order to determine whether a ribbon element should be displayed.

SelectionCountRule—Detects how many items in a grid are selected.

The display rule named CommandClientTypeRule shows buttons on the command bar if they do not have any CommandClientTypeRule associated with them, and if associated, they should have Type="Refresh". The Type property can have the following values:

Modern—The button is visible in tablets.

Refresh—The button is presented using an updated interface (that is, the command bar).

Legacy—The button is visible on nonrefreshed entities such as Connection and in the list view of Microsoft Outlook.

The SDK comes with samples that help you easily add custom buttons to an existing group for all entities or add custom buttons to an existing group for specific entities. In addition, you can add custom groups to an existing tab for a specific entity, add a custom tab to a specific entity, add custom groups to the Developer tab for all entities in a form, and hide ribbon elements. The SDK includes all the XML files for the system entity ribbons, in the SDKResourcesExportedRibbonXml folder.

Click here to view code image

<RibbonDiffXml>
        <CustomActions />
        <Templates>
          <RibbonTemplates Id="Mscrm.Templates"></RibbonTemplates>
        </Templates>
        <CommandDefinitions />
        <RuleDefinitions>
          <TabDisplayRules />
          <DisplayRules />
          <EnableRules />
        </RuleDefinitions>
        <LocLabels />
</RibbonDiffXml>

The CustomActions node defines the tabs, groups, and buttons and contains the following child nodes:

<CustomActions>
  <CustomAction >
    <CommandUIDefinition>
        <Controls>
          <Button />
        </Controls>
    </CommandUIDefinition>
  </CustomAction>
</CustomActions>

The Button node contains the following attributes:

Id—The unique identifier for the button.

Command—The ID of the command that will be defined in the CommandDefinitions node of the RibbonDiffXml root node. Each command definition is defined as follows:

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    <CommandDefinitions>
      <CommandDefinition Id="Solution.all.HomepageGrid.MyGroup.Help.Command">
        <EnableRules />
        <DisplayRules />
        <Actions>
          <JavaScriptFunction FunctionName="ShowHelp"
Library="$webresource:webforti_Script.js" />
        </Actions>
      </CommandDefinition>
    </CommandDefinitions>

Inside the command definitions, you can include the rules for enabling or disabling the buttons (inside the EnableRules node), and you can show or hide the buttons (in the DisplayRules node) and the actions to be performed when the button is clicked:

Sequence—The integer number of the sequence to define the position of the button related to the other buttons in the same group.

LabelText—The ID of the localized label that is defined inside the LocLabels node. Here is an example:

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<RibbonDiffXml>
    ...................
    <LocLabels>
      <LocLabel Id="Solution.all.HomepageGrid.MyGroup.Help.ToolTip">
        <Titles>
          <Title languagecode="1033" description="Help" />
        </Titles>
      </LocLabel>
   </LocLabels>
</RibbonDiffXml>

Inside the Titles node, you can enter as many Titles node languages as you want. In this example, languagecode="1033" refers to the English language.

ToolTipTitle—The ID of the localized label that is defined inside the LocLabels node, similar to the LabelText node.

ToolTipDescription—The ID of the localized label that is defined inside the LocLabels node, similar to the LabelText node.

TemplateAlias—The alias of the template to be used; this affects the way the button will be displayed; o1 displays the button big, and o2 displays the button small.

Image16by16—The ID of the web resource used for the 16-by-16-pixel image. This is the image used for small buttons. If you use a web resource, you need to enter a value as follows: $webresource:name of the web resource.png.

Image32by32—The ID of the web resource used for the 32-by-32-pixel image. This is the image used for big buttons. If you use a web resource, you need to enter a value as follows: $webresource:name of the web resource.png.

The list of JavaScript events is as follows:

OnLoad event—Occurs every time the window of an entity is open, either when you edit an existing record or when you create a new one.

OnSave event—Occurs every time the save icon or the Save and Close button is pressed.

OnChange event—Fires every time the value of the field is changed and after it loses the focus.

TabStateChange event—Occurs every time the user switches from one tab to the other.

OnReadyStateComplete event—Fires when the content of the IFRAME has been loaded.

To start adding script to this event, you need to create a web resource of type JavaScript that you can use as a library where you can have a common repository for the event scripts you will handle. This allows you to reuse the JavaScript function on different forms and entities.

It used to be possible to easily access the DOM in JavaScript. This is not recommended now, though, because these scripts might work on one browser and not on another. As a result, you should not try to access DOM objects in your scripts. Instead, you can attach functions to the onChange event or field through form customization, or you can simply do the same thing by using the addOnChange method. Suppose that you have a custom entity called House to which you have added the following custom fields: Width, Height, and Area. In this case, you want to have the field area automatically change based on the width and height of the fields displayed. You could add the Listing 22.3 code in the OnLoad event to attach an onChange event to the field control.

LISTING 22.3 Attaching the onChange Event to a Field Control

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function setupEvents()
{
 Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_height").addOnChange(doCalc);
 Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_width").addOnChange(doCalc);
}
function doCalc()
{
var area= Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_height").getValue() * Xrm.Page.
getAttribute("webforti_width").getValue();
 Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_area").setValue(area);
}

To see this example at work, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Customizations > Solutions.

2. Create a new solution and go to Entities.

3. Click New to create a new entity.

4. Enter House in the Display Name field and Houses in the Plural Name field.

5. Click the Save button but do not close the window.

6. Click Fields from the Common section in left-side navigation.

7. Click the New button to add the custom field.

8. Enter Height in Display Name and select Whole Number in the Type field.

9. Click Save and Close to save the field.

10. Repeat steps 7 through 9, but this time enter Width as the Display Name.

11. Repeat steps 7 through 9, but this time enter Area as the Display Name.

12. Click Fields from the Common section in left-side navigation.

13. Double-click the Information Main type form record to edit it.

14. Drag and drop the new attributes you created: Height, Width, and Area.

15. Click Form Properties on the Home tab of the ribbon. The Form Properties dialog appears (see Figure 22.27).

16. Click Add in the Form Libraries section. The Look Up Record dialog appears (see Figure 22.28).

17. Click New to create a new JavaScript file.

18. Enter mainlib.js in the Name and Display Name fields and select the Script (JScript) type, as shown in Figure 22.29.

19. Click Text Editor and enter the code in Listing 22.4, as shown in Figure 22.30.

LISTING 22.4 Code for the JavaScript Web Resource Event

Click here to view code image

function setupEvents()
{
 Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_height").addOnChange(doCalc);
 Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_width").addOnChange(doCalc);
}
function doCalc()
{
var area= Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_height").getValue() * Xrm.Page.
getAttribute("webforti_width").getValue();
 Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_area").setValue(area);
}

20. Click the OK button to close the text editor.

21. Click Save, click Publish, and then close the Web Resource dialog.

22. Select the new web resource you created and click Add.

23. In the form library you added, go to the event handlers and set Control to Form and Event to OnLoad. Click Add.

24. Type setupEvents in the Function field (see Figure 22.31).

25. Click OK to close the Handler Properties dialog. Click OK to close the Form Properties dialog.

26. To test the code, select Preview > Create Form. Alternatively, you can publish all the customization and view the entity directly.

27. Enter a value on the Height field (for example, 10) and enter a value to the Width field (for example, 10). The Area field is set automatically with the calculated result, 100.

When working with JavaScript code, it is important to publish the JavaScript web resource every time you make a change to it so that you can preview your changes.

The interface lacks IntelliSense.

The JavaScript code is not colored for better understanding and manipulation.

It is tedious to debug and correct errors in some situations when you can’t use the preview feature to simulate your changes. Instead, you need to manipulate the code, save the changes, publish the updates, and then see whether it works as expected.

To avoid all these disadvantages, you can use a richer JavaScript editor, such as Visual Studio. When working with JavaScript in Visual Studio, having the script located in a separate web resource enables you to easily copy and paste the script from CRM to Visual Studio. That way you can get access to IntelliSense and colored code. A good technique for debugging scripts is to enable the Internet Explorer debugger. You can do this by going to Tools > Internet Options and selecting the Advanced tab. Be sure that you have unchecked the Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer) and Disable Script Debugging (Other) options.

When you have script debugging enabled, you can put the sentence debugger on your code to start the debugger. Here’s an example:

Click here to view code image

function setupEvents()
{
debugger;
 Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_height").addOnChange(doCalc);
 Xrm.Page.getAttribute("webforti_width").addOnChange(doCalc);
}

When you run this code on the OnLoad event, the dialog shown in Figure 22.32 opens, enabling you to select the debugger you want—in case you have Visual Studio installed on your machine.

This is a good technique for debugging JavaScript code because normal users will have the script debugger disabled by default and won’t get rich error messages that tell them exactly what broke.

Go to Fields and create a new calculated field with the name Calculated Area, with the Data Type field set to Whole Number, as shown in Figure 22.33.

Click Edit button, then under Action, Click Add Action and enter “webforti_height * webforti_width” and click on the checkmark icon (see Figure 22.34).

Click Save and Close.

Add the new field to the form and try it. You see the calculated Area field updated as soon as you save the record. The field is read-only, preventing other users from manually entering values there.

You can access to the business rules in different ways. One way is to open a solution and expand Entities and then a specific entity, as shown in Figure 22.35.

Another way to access the business rules is to open a form and click the Business Rules button on the Home tab of the ribbon.

If you click the New Business Rule button in the bottom-right corner of a form, you can create a business rule for that form. Later, you can change the scope, which can be any of the following.

Entity (server and client)

All forms (client only)

Specific form (client only)

A business rule must have a name, and it must be activated in order to be used by users. When you create a new business rule, it starts in a draft state, where you can add conditions and actions. Activating the business rule makes the business rule read-only so no changes can be made while the rule is active. Remember to publish all customizations after activating a business rule.

The conditions used by business rules are similar to the conditions you find in the Advanced Find tool with the exception that you can compare fields with other field values.

You can use business rules to do the following actions:

Show error messages.

Set a field value.

Set a rule as required.

Set visibility. You can show or hide a field based on a condition.

Set default values. You can set a default value based on a condition.

Lock or unlock a field.

Once the business rule is activated, the user sees the error shown in Figure 22.37.

The error and logic validation are shown before and/or after the form is saved, preventing invalid data from being inserted or updated to the CRM system.

Using the same example used earlier for JavaScript and the calculated field, you can now calculate the area of a house by using a business rule, as shown in Figure 22.38.

You may wonder why there are two similar actions—Set Field Value and Set Default Value—and when to use each one. The answer is simple: You use Set Default Value to initialize fields that then can be replaced by values entered by the user; using Set Field Value may overwrite users’ entries when evaluating the business logic every time a record is loaded on a form. This was a common issue users faced in older versions of Dynamics CRM, such as CRM 2013, which don’t include the Set Default Value action.

Refer to the section “Solution Concepts,” later in this chapter, for more details about how to work with solutions, as well as how to export and import customizations as part of solutions.

When importing customizations for the Site Map, you might accidentally delete the Settings area or import an error file that breaks the web application. If that happens, you can use the following link to directly access the Import Customization interface to restore a backup and take the application to a good state, as shown in Figure 22.41: http://servername:port/organizationname/tools/systemcustomization/systemcustomization.aspx.

For example, the link for an On-Premises deployment might be as follows: http://crm2016/webfortis/tools/systemcustomization/systemcustomization.aspx. And the link for an Online deployment might be the following: https://webfortis2016.crm.dynamics.com/tools/systemcustomization/systemCustomization.aspx.

Many of the solutions that currently exist in CRM and xRM environments involve other pieces of software, such as plug-ins, reports, custom static/dynamic pages, images, scripts, Silverlight applications, templates, and web services, just to name a few.

Solutions help you in the deployment, support, upgrade, sale, and distribution of all the customizations you can think of. Each solution is compiled into a single zip file that contains the following components:

Entities

Option sets

Client extensions

Web resources

Processes

Plug-in assemblies

SDK message processing steps

Service endpoints

Dashboards

Reports

Connection roles

Article templates

Contract templates

Email templates

Mail merge templates

Security roles

Field security profiles

Routing rule sets

Record creation and update rules

SLAs

By default, each CRM organization has a base solution, known as the default solution, which cannot be deleted. To work with the default solution, go to Settings > Customizations and then click Customize the System, as shown in Figure 22.42.

To create a new solution, following these steps:

1. Click New. You see a screen similar to the one shown in Figure 22.44.

2. To create a new publisher, select Look Up More Records, select New, and complete the information on the form. (If this is the first time you have created a solution, you need to create a publisher for it or use the default publisher for the organization. For this example, I’ve created a new publisher, CRMPMG, but I still have the default one as an option.)

3. In the Look Up Record dialog, because the new publisher you created in the previous step is selected by default, click OK.

4. Enter a display name, a name, and a version for your solution. Note that you can press the Tab key after entering the display name to autopopulate the Name field, but you can change this if desired.

5. Click Save to enable all the items in the left-side navigation area.

Each solution can contain a configuration page, which is a web resource that can be used to provide general settings as well as license keys configured for independent software vendor (ISV) providers. Those license keys can be managed and verified using custom plug-ins.

To create a configuration page, create an HTML file and add it as a web resource to the solution. To do this, click Web Resources > New, enter a name and a display name for the configuration page, select Webpage (HTML) as the type in the Content area, and then select the language and upload the HTML file you created (see Figure 22.45).

Then click Save and Close, and you can click the Information link to assign the configuration page to your solution.

Click Save, and you see that the configuration page can now be accessed from a new link that appears in left-side navigation area, with the name Configuration.

Solution components share some functions, and some others depend on the component type. The functions shared by all components are discussed in the following subsections.

The same happens with reports and processes. If you have a workflow that needs to create a record of any of the system entities, the Add Required Components feature adds that entity to the entity’s component.

This option is also available when you are in the form editor. If you click the Show Dependencies button there, you see any web resource you may have referenced that the forms depends on.

Each component on an unmanaged solution has some properties, called managed properties, that depend on the component type selected. These properties enable you to specify the ability you want to give to the end users when the solution is exported as managed and then imported to another organization.

Figure 22.47 shows the managed properties you can set on a custom entity when the Managed Properties button is clicked.

If you set the first option, Can Be Customized, to False, all the other options are disabled. Notice that by default any customization you make will have this option set to True, which means any person who implements your solution can make further customization, so it is a good idea to change these values if you want to protect your customization.

For each solution component, you can perform some functions that depend on the component type. For example, you can create new entities from the solution form, new option sets, new security roles, new processes, new reports, new templates, new dashboards, new web resources, new connection roles, and new field security profiles. But you cannot create new client extensions, plug-ins, SDK message processing steps, or service endpoints.

Refer to CHAPTER 25, “Plug-ins,” for details on working with plug-ins.

After you successfully register a plug-in, you can go to the solution form, click the Plug-in Assemblies node, and click the Add Existing button to include the plug-in on your solution (see Figure 22.48).

Keep in mind that plug-ins don’t support managed properties, and with managed properties, the Add Required Components button doesn’t work. If a plug-in refers to any entity that is missing from the solution, you have to add it manually.

When you add a plug-in to a solution, you don’t necessarily add all the steps you registered. If you only add the plug-in, export the solution, and implement your package on another CRM 2016 organization, the plug-in won’t work as expected because there wasn’t a step registered for the plug-in. This means you have to also include the steps you want to include on your solution right after adding the plug-in to the solution. To add the steps, you need to go to the solution form, click the Sdk Message Processing Step node, and then click the Add Existing button. Then select the steps you want to register, as shown in Figure 22.49.

When adding the steps, you are also asked to include the required components associated with the steps. For example, if you have a step created for the Create event of the Account entity, you should include the Account entity in your solution.

To customize a system, follow these steps:

1. Open your custom solution and ensure that the Components node is selected in the left navigation area (see Figure 22.50).

2. Click the Add Existing button and select Entity (see Figure 22.51).

3. Select the entity you want to add—in this case, Account (see Figure 22.52).

4. Click OK to add the entity assets (see Figure 22.53).

For more information on the entity assets, SEE the section of “Solution Enhancements,” later in this chapter.

5. Check the Add All Assets check box and click Finish to add the entity. If prompted, and add any required/missing components. You see the entity with all the assets added to the solution.

You can now customize the Account entity by working with it directly from this solution. When you install this solution in another instance of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016, the customizations made will be affected on the new instance.

With Dynamics CRM 2016, you can now select what entity assets you want to include in a solution. You can select from the following asset types:

Forms

Views

Charts

Fields

Keys

1:N relationships

N:1 relationships

N:N relationships

Messages

Business rules

Hierarchy settings

Dashboards

So when you add an existing system entity to a solution, you are asked to select the entity assets you want to include on your solution, as shown in Figure 22.54 for the Lead entity.

With this solution enhancement, you can now include a custom form you created on the Lead entity without having to add all the other relationships, forms, fields, or any other asset detailed before. This produces smaller solutions, which is especially important when you export them. (You will see how to export solutions in the next section.) It also prevents errors when you import a solution along with third-party solutions that might involve the same system entities.

If you include a system entity on a solution and include only a few assets, and then later you need to add another asset, you can do so without having to remove the system entity. You can do this by selecting the entity and clicking the Add Subcomponents button.

Unmanaged—The unmanaged option enables developers to maintain backups of the customizations; it is possible to modify unmanaged packages when applying them to another environment. Note that when you remove unmanaged solutions, the new customizations are not removed; to remove customizations, you must remove them manually by going to the default solution.

Managed—If you would like to distribute a solution, you should export the solution as managed so that people can’t make any customizations to the package. This gives you to control over your customizations, which is important for troubleshooting as well as control of intellectual property (IP).

Follow these steps to export your solution:

1. Open the solution you want to export and click the Export Solution button. The Export Solution Wizard opens, suggesting that you publish all customizations before continuing (see Figure 22.55).

2. Click the Publish All Customizations button if necessary and then click Next. If prompted, include any missing required components that your solution might require and then click Next.

3. In the next screen, select the settings you want to export. The available settings are Auto-numbering, Calendar, Customization, Email Tracking, General, Marketing, Outlook Synchronization, Relationship Roles, ISV Config, and Sales (see Figure 22.56). Click Next when you’re finished making selections.

4. Set the package type to either Unmanaged or Managed (see Figure 22.57). Click Export button, and you are asked to download the exported solution. Notice that by default the name includes the solution name, the version, and the suffix managed, if you selected a managed package type.

If you expand the compressed file you downloaded, after the import you see that it contains the following files and folders (see Figure 22.58), assuming you have exported a solution that has all these components:

WebResources folder

Workflows folder

Reports

PluginAssemblies

[Content_Types] XML file

Customizations XML file

Solution XML file

The number of folders depends on the type of components you added to the solution. If you added reports, you see them inside the Reports folder. If your solution doesn’t include any reports, however, this folder doesn’t exist.

It is important to maintain the solution version properly because this number is not automatically incremented every time you export the solution. You are responsible for incrementing this number on each export before publishing a new version to the public.

One consideration regarding versioning is that versions have four numbers, separated by dots, in the format A.B.C.D:

A—Major version number

B—Minor version number

C—Build number

D—Revision number

Use the first two numbers when you add new features to a solution and the last two numbers when you fix bugs or make improvements on existing features.

1. Go to Settings > Customization > Solutions.

2. Click Import. You see the dialog shown in Figure 22.59.

3. Click Browse, locate the package zip file on your local hard drive, and then click Next. You now see the screen shown in Figure 22.60.

4. Optionally, you can check the solution package details by clicking the View Solution Package Details button. You can then see the detailed contents of the package, as shown in Figure 22.61.

5. Click Close to close the Solution Details dialog and then click Import. You see the import options from which you can activate the processes and plug-in SDK messages (see Figure 22.62).

6. Click Import to import the solution. This process might take some time, depending on the customizations and assemblies included in the package. When the import finishes, you are presented with a screen showing the details (see Figure 22.63).

7. Publish the solution by clicking Publish All Customizations.

After importing the solution, you can download the log file, which is an XML file that can be viewed easily in Microsoft Excel. In case of any error, a user should send this file to the solution provider.

If you imported a solution that contains plug-ins and SDK message processing steps and you didn’t check the Activate Any Processes check box and the Enable Any SDK Message Processing Steps Included in the Solution check box, you can activate them later, but you will have to do that in the solution, so activate them at this point in time. When you open the solution and go to the Sdk Message Processing Step node, you can then activate or deactivate any step you want to register on the plug-in assemblies installed by the managed solutions (see Figure 22.64).

All the functions that are on the solution’s user interface (UI) are also available on the API and the SDK, so you can automate the creation of solutions dynamically as well as manage the solutions from an external application. This can be useful, for example, for automating the deployment of testing environments.

It is a good practice to add jQuery scripts as a web resource on a solution if you are going to use jQuery on your form events. To add jQuery on your solution, download the most current version from http://jquery.com/download, go to Web Resources, and click New. Then enter the name and display name, select the type to script (JScript), and locate the jQuery file you downloaded (see Figure 22.65).

You can add the backslash character (/) in the Name field to simulate virtual directories. For example, Figure 22.66 shows the Scripts folder being used.

Once you create this web resource, you can use jQuery on any form event.

It is always recommended that you make a backup of the SQL Server database (if you’re working with an On-Premises version of CRM) or export the custom entities’ records to an Excel file before deleting a solution. Deleting the solution cleans the CRM database by removing all the tables and views that were created by the managed solution entities. It is important to understand this, especially if you are going to try a third-party solution on a production environment because after playing with it you may want to remove it from the CRM system.

However, if you remove a custom unmanaged solution, the SQL tables and data of the custom entities are not removed from the database.

When you click the Clone to Patch button, you are asked to change the build and/or revision numbers of the version of the solution (see Figure 22.68).

This dialog automatically suggests the next recommended version number, so if your solution is version number 1.0.0.0, the dialog suggests that you use the version number 1.0.1.0. If this is what you want to do, just click Save.

A new clean solution is created for the patch, and you can add the updated components there. You can then export the patch and import it to the target organization, as shown in Figure 22.69.

After you have cloned a patch for a solution, you can no longer export the original solution as long as solution patches exist. If you try to export the original solution, you get the warning message shown in Figure 22.70.

This dialog automatically suggests the next recommended version number, so if your solution is version number 1.0.0.0, the dialog suggests that you use the version number 1.1.0.0. If this is what you want to do, just click Save. This action merges the patches with the original solution, producing a new single release of your solution.

After you import the new solution, you are asked to apply the solution upgrades in the last step of the Import Solution Wizard, as shown in Figure 22.72.

All the existing previous solutions and patches are combined on the new installed/imported solution, and you end up with a single reference to the latest version of the solution in the target organization.

When importing solutions, you should consider some things related to the predefined system entities. If you import a solution that includes a customized form of any system entity—for example, the Contact entity—this solution could be applied (or “layered”) by removing some fields and tabs on the existing Contact entity. These customizations will take precedence over any other solution that includes the same Contact entity without any customization. So, if you need to include the system Contact entity in a solution, you need to make at least one customization to the form so that you can be sure all the needed fields will not be overwritten by another solution.

To configure security roles, open a solution and complete the following steps:

1. Navigate to Components > Entities > your custom entity > Forms and select the form (see Figure 22.73).

2. Click Enable Security Roles from the command bar, and the Assign Security Roles dialog appears (see Figure 22.74).

3. Click the role you want to configure (in this example, the Customer Service Representative role) to open the Security Role editor page.

4. Go to the Custom Entities tab. You will see that all the solution custom entities are there, with no permissions set, as shown for the Project row in Figure 22.75.

5. Grant the permissions to the operations you want to have them by clicking the circles. Notice that if you click the entity name, you configure all the operations in the entire row at the same time (see Figure 22.76).

Because CRM 2016 allows you to have different forms for each security role, you can create new forms with different fields and assign them to different roles. For example, you might have sensitive fields on an entity that you would like to hide to a lower role, such as the Customer Service Representative role. You can easily do this by creating a new form and designing it to show only the fields this user role should see.

Figure 22.77 shows an entity with more than one main form created to be used by different roles.

If you have a user who has more than one role assigned and there is one form created for each role, you need to be sure to set the order in which these forms are displayed for such cases (see Figure 22.78). You can do this by selecting Form Order > Main Form Set.

Because the first form on this list is displayed on the first role match, you might consider reordering the forms so that the more detailed form is displayed first.

The tool focuses primarily on custom JavaScript, and it gives output that allows you to address scripts that don’t work in CRM 2016 prior to running an upgrade.

The AppSource is brand new and will replace the Dynamics Marketplace by the end of 2016, however its functionality and purpose are the same.

If you are an ISV and want to have your solution in the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, you first have to be listed in Microsoft Pinpoint. To do that, your company needs to be a Microsoft partner. Microsoft partners can list software solutions using the Solution Profiler tool and can also be listed in the Microsoft Pinpoint website.

There are two types of product registrations: For Microsoft CRM applications, go to the Microsoft Platform Ready website and test the application using free tools, and for Microsoft ERP applications, get the solution tested and certified with the CfMD (Certified for Microsoft Dynamics) certification.

The Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace helps you find the right customers by exposing your application to Microsoft Dynamics users from around the world, who will be able to download your application from this site and also connect with your company.

If you click the Developer Resources link, you are directed to a page that contains all the information necessary for development with Dynamics CRM 2016, as shown in Figure 22.81.

The Getting Started Section provides several links:

Developer Center—This takes you to https://msdn.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/crmdevelopercenter.aspx.

Developer Forums—This takes you to https://community.dynamics.com/crm/f/117?pi51520=0&category=Development%20%2F%20Customization%20%2F%20SDK.

SDK NuGet Packages—This takes you to www.nuget.org/profiles/crmsdk.

SDK Download—This takes you to www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50032.

Sample Code—This takes you to https://msdn.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/samplecode.

Developer Overview—This takes you to https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/gg334635.aspx (for Dynamics CRM On-Premises, the link takes you to https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309589.aspx).

When you run this tool by executing the DataMigrationUtility.exe file, you see Figure 22.82.

With this tool you can choose any of these options:

Create Schema

Export Data

Import Data

The following sections explain these operations in detail.

When you select a solution and an entity, the tool filters only the entities included in the selected solution.

Select the fields of the entity selected and click the Add Fields button to include them in your schema. You can then change the entity and select fields for that entity. You can repeat this as many times as needed. For this example, select the account name and account number of the Account entity and first and last names and Account ID of the Contact entity, as shown in see Figure 22.84.

When you are done adding fields, click the Save and Export button. Select the file location where you want to store the schema and click OK. After the schema is saved, you are prompted about exporting the data (see Figure 22.85).

If you click Yes, you are directed to the Export Data Wizard.

Click the Export Data button to continue. When the export data process is completed, you see the results in the lower part of the screen, as shown in Figure 22.87.

Click Exit to go back to the main startup screen.

Click Import Data to continue. When the import data process is complete, you will see the results in the lower part of the screen.

Click Exit to go back to the main startup screen.

Sometimes installing a solution by importing it is not enough. For your product to work properly, you need to create some records that the solution relies on. This is where you use the Package Deployer tool.

You run this tool by executing the PackageDeployer.exe file. When you click Continue on the welcome screen, if you don’t have any package created, you see the error shown in Figure 22.89, and the tool exits.

Each CRM package contains the following components:

CRM solution files, which you export from the CRM web interface, as explained earlier in this chapter

Compressed data files, which you can create using the Configuration Migration tool, as explained earlier in this chapter

Custom code you can write to be fired on events during the package installation process

HTML content you can display when the package is deployed

Edit the ImportConfig.xml file to include the CRM solutions you want to be imported by the package and include the data files you want to be imported.

Here is an example of the ImportConfig.xml file:

Click here to view code image

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<configdatastorage xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
                   installsampledata="true"
                   waitforsampledatatoinstall="true"
                   agentdesktopzipfile=""
                               agentdesktopexename=""
                   crmmigdataimportfile="data.zip">
  <solutions>
    <configsolutionfile solutionpackagefilename="solutionFile_1_0_0_0.zip" />
  </solutions>
</configdatastorage>

Put the data.zip file and solutionFile_1_0_0_0.zip in the PkgFolder. Change Build Action to Content and set Copy to Output Directory to Copy Always (see Figure 22.91).

Build the solution and copy all the files generated by the output under the bin debug folder to the folder where you have the Package Deployer (SDKToolsPackageDeployer). Do not replace any existing file; just copy the new ones.

When the start page appears, click Continue, enter your CRM connection details, and click Login. You see the first custom welcome screen (the one that you can customize in your package that is located in the PkgFolderContenten-usWelcomeHtmlHTMLDefault.htm folder), as shown in Figure 22.92.

Click Next, and the next screen asks you to confirm details before starting the deployment (see Figure 22.93).

Click Next to continue, and a first initial validation occurs before the deployment starts (see Figure 22.94).

Click Next, and the deployment process starts. It might take some time, depending on the solutions and data you included in the package.

If any error occurs during the deployment process, you can click the View Log link to open the log file, where you can see more details about the error.

Click Next again, and you see the custom installation complete screen (which you can customize by editing the PkgFolderContenten-usEndHtmlHTMLDefault.htm file).

Click Finish to close the Package Deployer tool.

To access the themes configuration, select Settings > Customizations. There, when you click the Themes option, you will see the list of available themes.

To create a new theme, click New. As shown in Figure 22.95, enter a name for the new theme.

As you can see, there are a lot of empty fields here. This is why it’s better to copy the default theme than to try to create a theme from scratch. To do that, go back to the list of themes, select the default theme, and click the Clone button.

Open the copy of the theme you cloned and make your edits. These are the styles you can change:

Logo

Logo Tooltip

Navigation Bar Color

Navigation Bar Shelf Color

Header Color

Global Link Color

Selected Link Effect

Hover Link Effect

Process Control Color

Default Entity Color

Default Custom Entity Color

Control Shade

Control Border

The logo size must be 400px (width) by 50px (height).

To add a logo for your company, you must create a web resource, so you click the lookup icon at the end of the Logo field and click +New, as shown in Figure 22.96.

You now see a Web Resource window. In it, enter the name for your web resource and a display name and select PNG, GIF, or JPG from the Type drop-down. Then browse to a logo file on your local computer, as shown in Figure 22.97.

Click Save and then click Publish. Close the Web Resource dialog and find the logo you just created. Click the Preview button to preview your changes before publishing the logo to the rest of the users.

If you like how it looks, then go back to Settings > Customizations > Themes, select the theme, and click Publish Theme in the top command bar. If you don’t like how it looks, click the Exit Preview button and make any additional changes prior to publishing.

Advanced customizations can include the following:

Server programming

Advanced workflow development

For details about workflow development, SEE CHAPTER 26, “Process Development.”

Plug-in development

Client programming

Report development

Advanced report development with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)

For details about report development, SEE CHAPTER 16, “Reporting and Dashboards.”

This chapter describes how to customize Microsoft Dynamics CRM for deployment, support, and distribution by using solution packages. It reviews the differences between managed and unmanaged solutions and looks at the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, where ISVs can promote their solutions and customers can find solutions.

This chapter also reviews some of the SDK tools you can use, such as the Configuration Migration to manage import data and the Package Deployer tool to create packages you can distribute. The chapter wraps up by quickly covering the SDK and its uses.