Chapter 18. Mobility

Microsoft started supporting multiple browsers with the release of CRM 2011 Update Release (UR) 12 in December 2012. With the release of Dynamics CRM 2016, however, Microsoft launched new Dynamics CRM mobile apps that work in tablets and phones and that offer a consistent interface and multiple-device support.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 mobile apps are available for iPhone, Windows, and Android phones. Mobile app access is available with all Essential, Basic, and Professional licenses, at no additional cost.

Document integration—You can now access the SharePoint/OneDrive documents in mobile apps. You must have SharePoint or OneDrive integration enabled in System Settings for this new feature to work.

For more information about SharePoint integration, SEE CHAPTER 27, “SharePoint.”

Exporting data to Excel—You can now export data to Excel on mobile devices.

Emailing links to pages—You can send links to records by email to share with other CRM users. These links can open the CRM records either directly in the mobile interface or the browser interface.

New mobile OS support—This includes support for Windows 10 and iOS 9.

Support for web resources and IFRAMEs—You can now use web resources like HTML and JavaScript as well as IFRAMEs in your mobile forms and dashboards. You cannot use Silverlight web resources as that technology has been deprecated and replaced by HTML5/CSS3. Make sure the web resource has the Enabled for Tablets check box checked in the web resource as well as in the web resource properties window that is in the form where you insert it. Even though the check box says Enabled for Tablets, it works for phones as well as tablets.

New visual controls—A set of very cool visual controls has been designed to be used specially in mobile devices. You’ll learn about them later in this chapter, in the section “Visual Controls.”

Knowledge base—You can now search the knowledge base and view the articles in mobile devices.

For more information about IFD, SEE CHAPTER 28 “Forms Authentication.”

1. Go to www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9wzdncrfjbcm, or search for “Dynamics CRM” in the Windows Store. Figure 18.1 shows the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app in the Windows Store.

2. Install the App from the Store.

3. When the app is installed, launch it from your list of apps by clicking it or by typing Dynamics CRM.

4. Click the app tile (see Figure 18.2), and a window opens, asking for your company CRM web address (see Figure 18.3). Enter it and then click the big right-pointing arrow.

5. On the Connecting to a Service screen that appears, provide your credentials to connect to the CRM organization (see Figure 18.4).

After successful authentication (which may take a few minutes), you see some tips on how to use the app (see Figure 18.5).

After you close the tips screen, the next screen shown is the Sales Dashboard (see Figure 18.6).

CEO-Business Manager

Sales Manager

Salesperson

System Administrator

System Customizer

Vice President of Sales

You can also add or remove this privilege from security roles as necessary. You can do so under the Privacy Related Privileges section on the Business Management tab for any security role (see Figure 18.7).

The following items are always available (see Figure 18.8):

Navigation bar—This is the first button in the top-left corner of the screen. It displays the navigation links to all the entities that are have CRM for Mobile and are available on the site map of the CRM web application.

Home—This button, which is next to the navigation bar, takes you to the Sales Dashboard of the tablet. This new version now supports more than one dashboard that you can access by clicking the navigation bar then the Dashboards option.

Search—This button, in the top-right corner of the screen, takes you to the multi-entity search.

Process bar—If enabled for the entity, the process bar is located just to the left of the search icon.

Command bar—The command bar is available at the bottom of the screen. If you swipe up from the bottom (or, when working on a desktop computer with a mouse, right-click), the command bar appears. Some of the commands that are available when using the full web or Outlook client are not available on the tablet. Also, the command bar is context sensitive, which means it displays commands based on what is currently viewed or selected.

The Dynamics CRM for Tablets app uses the main form definition for each entity, so the same fields are configured in the web application and in the app. However, you cannot switch between forms on a tablet.

If you add or remove a field from a form, the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app reflects the changes. If you have multiple main forms for an entity, the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app form displays on the basis of the form order set and security roles assigned to the form.

The example shown in Figure 18.9 shows the first few letters of a name typed (in this case, Re). As a result, the New option appears in the lower-right corner, so you can create a new record (see Figure 18.9).

Phone number and email fields are clickable in the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app, and you can start a Skype call and send an email using your default email application on the tablet directly.

When you tap the main section of the communication card, the corresponding record form opens, and you can quickly send an email or make a call with Skype.

The second panel shows the name of the first tab on the main form. It has header fields in bold and then other fields from the first tab.

The next panel displays the current business process stage fields, if enabled for the entity, as shown in Figure 18.11.

The rest of the panels display any subgrids on the form and other content available (see Figures 18.11 and 18.12).

The Dynamics CRM for Tablets app can show up to 5 tabs, 75 fields (including hidden fields), and 10 subgrids. Except for some of the methods, JavaScript web resources are supported in the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app. (They do not throw any errors but also do not return any values.)

You can use the following conditional code to separate code that will not work with tablets:

Click here to view code image

if (Xrm.Page.context.client.getClient() != "Mobile")
{
       //Code that should not run in Dynamics CRM for Tablets app can be included here
}

Yammer

Activity feeds

Bing Maps integration

SQL Server reports

Account

Activity

Appointment

Case

Competitor

Connection

Contact

Lead

Note

Opportunity

Opportunity Product

Phone Call

Queue Item

Social Activity

Social Profile

Task

The following entities are available for read-only operations in the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app:

Attachment

Email

Entitlement

Knowledge Base Record

Product

Queue

SLA KPI Instance

Team

User

Web Resource

The entities that are not enabled out of the box cannot be enabled for the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app, but you can enable custom entities to be available and used for the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app by setting the Enable for Mobile privilege, as shown in Figure 18.13. If you want the entity to be read-only, check the Read-Only in Mobile check box.

To view the command bar on a Windows 10 device, you swipe up from the bottom of the tablet. (There is a bottom tab in the iPad for the command bar.) You can toggle what the command bar shows. To do this on a regular computer, select the ... in the bottom-right corner and hold the mouse key on a selected record. To do this on a tablet, press your finger on a record for 2 seconds.

You can perform a few actions on simple lists:

Tap the header of a list to open the full list for the current view.

Tap and hold a record in the list to display the command bar.

Tap on the record in the list to open that record.

Tap the + button at the top of a list to create a new record. This button is available for entities that are enabled for tablets. It opens a quick create form if quick create forms are enabled (and otherwise it opens the main entity form).

You can check a check box next to an activity to mark it as completed. In the My Activities list, activities that are due today (and that are past due) appear in a darker color, and activities that are not yet due appear in a lighter color. An activity for which a due date and time are set displays the date and time in the icon.

You can create new activities by clicking the + at the top of the Activities simple list.

You can resize the width of columns in a view by selecting Resize Columns from the command bar: Just tap it and then drag the column to resize it as necessary. You can also sort the records by tapping on a column header in this view.

The stage chart (shown in the upper right)

The stage requirements

Just as with the web/Outlook application, with the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app, you can tap a section of a chart to drill through and see the records that represent that portion of the chart. When you do this, you see a border along the section that you tapped on the chart (see Figure 18.23).

You can change the current view by selecting Select View from the command bar. You can then see all the personal and system views for the selected entity.

If you change the view, the chart refreshes to show the selected view. You can change the chart by using the Select Chart command on the command bar, as shown in Figure 18.23.

Multi-entity search uses quick search views of entities as the underlying search criteria, which means it searches in columns that are specified in the quick find columns of the entities.

In addition, you can always select the entity you want to search by selecting the Filter option located next to the search when you start a Quick Search from the dashboard. Change that filter to select the entity from the drop-down (see Figure 18.25). If you do a search from a list or a form, the Filter With condition has that entity selected by default.

The following entities are enabled by default for multi-entity quick find:

Account

Case

Contact

Lead

Opportunity

User

Competitor

Activities

However, you can configure the search across other entities easily enough, as explained in the next section.

Follow these steps to configure the search:

1. Go to the CRM web application and click Settings > Administration. The window shown in Figure 18.26 appears.

2. Click System Settings, and a pop-up window appears (see Figure 18.27).

3. On the General tab, in the Set Up Search section, click the Select button to the right of Select Entities for Search. A pop-up window opens, showing a list of entities that are enabled for search on the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app (see Figure 18.28).

4. Add or remove up to 10 entities by using the Add and Remove buttons. When you’re finished with this, click OK.

5. Click OK in the next window and then close and restart the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app.

When you’re working with the app and you connect to the server, you do not automatically reconnect. Instead, you get an alert, and you have to click Reconnect to connect to the server again (see Figure 18.29).

When you’re offline, you cannot use the search feature, and if you try to use it, you get an error (see Figure 18.30).

In addition, when you open in offline mode a record that was cached, the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app shows a lock sign at the bottom, and all fields are noneditable because this is a read-only record (see Figure 18.31).

If you open a record that was not cached, the app shows you an error message (see Figure 18.32).

1. Dashboard lists and data for tiles—The records displayed on lists in the dashboard and any records pinned to Sales Dashboard are prioritized for caching.

2. Entity pages—The records that are opened from lists and the dashboard get second priority. The records that are cached are based on what you accessed in the Dynamics CRM for Tablets app previously, not what you accessed in the web application.

Attachments and charts are not available in offline mode, and images like contact photos are cached in browser mode, so they might not be available when you are offline.

Dynamics CRM for Phones app

Dynamics CRM Mobile Express app

Dynamics CRM on a phone’s web browser

The following steps guide you through creating a new form and customizing it:

1. Log in to the CRM web application and go to Settings > Customizations > Customize the System. The default solution opens. Expand the Entities node and select the Account entity or another entity for which you want to create a mobile form (see Figure 18.35).

2. Click Forms and then open the existing mobile form. From the menu, click Save As and provide a new name and description for the form, and then click OK.

3. Add or remove existing fields on the form by using the Add or Remove buttons (see Figure 18.36). All required fields are included in the form by default and cannot be removed.

4. Select a field and then click or tap the Read Only button to make that field read-only. In Figure 18.36, No. of Employees is a read-only field.

5. Click Enable Security Roles and then, in the Assign Security Roles dialog, select the security roles for which you want this form to be available (see Figure 18.37). Then click OK.

6. Click Save and Close to close the Form Designer for the new Mobile Express form. Click Form Order and select Mobile Express Form Set, and you see two mobile forms with green arrow buttons. Select the new form and then use the arrow buttons to move the new form to the top.

7. Publish the customizations when you are done, and the new form is the one shown when users access the Mobile Express app.

1. Go to the App Store and search for “Microsoft Dynamics CRM.” Select and download the Dynamics CRM for Phones app (see Figure 18.38).

2. Once the app is installed on your phone, tap the app icon to open it, provide your company’s CRM web address, and then click the right-arrow button.

3. Provide your login credentials to log in to CRM (see Figure 18.39). After authentication, the application takes some time to download the customizations, which might be seconds or minutes, depending on the number of customizations and business rules on your CRM organization.

4. When the update process finishes, swipe to the right, and you see the Sales Dashboard. You should see four buttons on the top bar. The left-arrow button takes you back to the previous screen. The home button takes you to the home page, the third button is for search functionality, and the last button shows the icons available for sitemap navigation.

5. Click the last icon, and you are presented with a list of icons including Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, and so on (see Figure 18.40).

6. Click an icon, such as Accounts, to see a list of records for that entity type (see Figure 18.41).

7. To search for a specific account, click the third icon at the top of the screen and enter some text to search, as shown in Figure 18.42. Then tap the search icon on the mobile form to see the results (see Figure 18.43). If you didn’t select a filter, you might have more results than you can see on one screen, in which case you can simply swipe from right to left.

8. Tap the + icon near the view name (which is also available when you tap the ... at the bottom-right corner of the screen) to create records for the selected entity type. A new mobile form for the entity appears (see Figure 18.44). Complete the form and click the Save icon at the bottom to save the record or tap the Cancel icon to cancel and close the form.

9. To add values in a lookup field, select the field, and you see a list of records (see Figure 18.45).

Enter a few characters and tap Done, then Find at the bottom (see Figure 18.46).

Select the record from the displayed results and tap the Done button (see Figure 18.47).

10. When you open a record, you see only the fields that contain data. You also see links to related entities under the list of fields on the form on iPhone or Android phones, as shown in Figure 18.48. On Windows phones, you have to swipe to view related entities.

You see more actions when you are viewing a record if you click the ... in the bottom-right corner of the screen (see Figure 18.49):

New—This takes you to the new record form.

Deactivate—Tap this icon to deactivate the record.

Assign—Tap this icon to assign this record to another user or team.

Delete—Tap this icon to delete the record.

Switch Process—Tap this option to change the process flow of this record.

SEE CHAPTER 26, “Process Development,” to learn more about the process flow usage.

Pin to Home—Tap this option to add a shortcut to this record on the home screen, where the Sales Dashboard will be displayed, along with the records you pinned.

Share Link—This opens a new email containing a URL that links to the selected record so you can share with a user who has access to CRM.

Word Templates—Tap this option to create a Word document using the Word templates available in the system.

SEE CHAPTER 21, “Office Integration,” to learn more about Word templates.

You can tap a phone number in the application to start a call and tap an email address to send an email message. In addition, you can mark activities as completed from your Dynamics CRM for Phones app. Open any Activity record and then tap the Mark Complete icon to mark it as complete, as shown in Figure 18.50.

Activity feeds—If activity feeds are enabled in your Dynamics CRM organization, you can view user or auto posts in CRM by using the Dynamics CRM for Phones app.

Offline access—You can view recently accessed records while you are disconnected from the network. However, you cannot update or create new records while you’re offline.

Local cache clearing—If you have modified some organizational settings or customizations, you can force those changes to appear on your phone by clearing the cache. Tap the gear icon on the home page and then tap Clear Local Cache.

For whole numbers, decimals, and currency fields, you can use the following visual controls:

Arc Knob—This control has Edit and Read modes, and the property values you must set are Min, Max, and Step.

Bullet Graph—This control has Read-Only mode, and the property values you must set are Min, Max, Good, Bad, and Target.

Linear Gauge—This control has Edit and Read modes, and the property values you must set are Min, Max, and Step.

Linear Slider—This control has Edit and Read modes, and the property values you must set are Min, Max, and Step.

Number Input—This control has Edit and Read modes, and the property value you must set is Step.

Radio Knob—This control has Edit and Read modes, and the property values you must set are Min, Max, and Step.

For single-line strings fields, you can use the following visual controls:

Input Mask—This control has Edit and Read modes, and the property value you must set is the Mask.

Auto-Complete—This control has Edit mode, and the property value you must set is Source, which can be either View or Option Set. This control is useful for letting the user start typing a state name, for example, and presenting a list of the predefined states from which the use can choose that can be stored in either a custom entity or option set.

For single-line strings fields with URL formats, you can also use the following visual controls:

Multimedia Control—This control has Read-Only mode, and it doesn’t have any additional property. It is useful for showing URLs such as YouTube-embedded controls so the user can play a video without leaving the record.

Website Preview—This control has Read-Only mode, and it doesn’t have any additional property. It is useful for showing a preview of a URL without leaving the record.

For option set fields, you can use the following visual control:

Option Set—This control has Edit and Read modes, and it doesn’t have any additional property.

For two options fields, you can use the following visual control:

Flip–Switch—This control has Edit and Read modes, and it doesn’t have any additional property.

For text fields with multiple lines, you can use the following visual control:

Pen Control—This control has Edit and Read modes, and it doesn’t have any additional property. This control is useful for capturing signatures, for example.

For subgrids, you can use the following visual control:

Calendar Control—This control has Edit and Read modes, and the property values you must set are Start Date and Description; optionally you can also set End Date and Duration.

Note that, as previously mentioned, the data caching option is really handy for users who are not connected to network, but it is limited with regard to usage (for example, it requires users to be connected to perform updates).