Edit command bar / ribbon in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

As Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 came out the ribbon was excluded with couple exceptions. Instead of ribbon we now have something that's called "command bar", well, because it is a command bar. However, you could think it as a "ribbon in disguise" because all modifications are still to be done through RibbonDiffXml. You can modify your RibbonDiffXml by hand or you can make your life much easier and use Ribbon Workbench software / solution. It will allow you to modify both your command bar and the ribbon. Some few entities / forms in Crm 2013 still use ribbons. Outlook client use ribbons in a certain depth as well so it's definitely something to keep in mind. I also recommend to take a look at the CRM 2013 SDK as it can help you to understand this whole concept.

Example

In this example I'm adding a simple button to my custom entity's command bar

RibbonDiffXml:

And here is what it looks like. Notice my custom webresource icon. You can find tons of icons in CRM SDK.




And this is how Ribbon Workbench looks like. I definitely recommend using it but of course it's always good to know what happens under the hood!

Resources:

MSDN: RibbonDiffXml

4 things you need to know about the Command Bar, Scott Durow

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 SDK

Business rules in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

Business rules in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 has been released a little time ago with a lot of new features and changes.

Business rules are one of the new features in CRM 2013. Business rules are relatively easy, well, business rules, that you can create through the user interface. Let's say you want to show or hide a certain field depending on another field's value. That would have take some javascript coding with CRM 2011 but with CRM 2013 you can actually achieve this by using only UI. So no programming needed, which is of course always welcome - especially for programmers.

So what can you do with business rules? Below lies a short list of different possibilities

• Show error message
• Set field value
• Set business required
• Set visibility
• Lock or unlock field

So very basic but indeed very helpful stuff. Let's take a look at how to actually implement a business rule.

Show or hide a field using business rules

Example:

I have created an xRM system which I use to keep track of my sport activities. I have created a custom entity type named "Sport activity". In the sport activity form I have a drop down list of different sport activity types (including running, cycling, badminton, football). I also have a "Distance" field in the form (hidden by default) and I want to show it only when I've selected a certain sport activity type (such as running or cycling).

So what I need to do is to create a new business rule that'll set distance field visible when the sport activity type equals running or cycling. I can start this by opening a form designer and double clicking the sport activity type -field. There I see Business Rules tab with the "New" button. Refer the picture below.

Click "New" and fill the form. My business rule looks like this

Notice the Scope option on a top right hand side corner. It means that this business rule applies for Information form by default. You can change the value to be "All forms" for example or if you've created a custom form you can set it as a scope.

When you're ready simply Activate your business rule and you're on the go.

Note that you have to create another business rule to hide the distance field in relevant cases. Otherwise it would never go away after the first time it is set visible.

How to display a loading gif until a javascript function has been completed

The day may come when you come across the situation where you have so heavy javascript function that it actually takes some time to finish. While the code is running it freezes the UI which is not very user friendly but what can we do? Well, I'd say we have three options.

1. The first thing I'd do is to check the logic of the code. If something is slow (speaking of javascript) there's probably better way to do it. But in some cases that's not an option. You may have actually written pretty decent code or you just don't have enough time to fix the whole past two years of someone's poor coding. Then I'd move to option two.
2. Option two is Web Workers.
   
   "A web worker is a JavaScript that runs in the background, independently of other scripts, without affecting the performance of the page. You can continue to do whatever you want: clicking, selecting things, etc., while the web worker runs in the background." 
   
   Sounds ideal. And it is. But remember that Web Workers are not supported by IE 8 or other slightly older browser that are still in heavy use. So what do we do now?
3. My third option would be to add a loading gif / loading text to the screen so that a user at least can tell there's something happening even if he's not be able to use the page while the script is running. And this is the topic of this post. 

How to show loading gif on the screen until the function has completed

So I created very simplified solution for this not-a-real-world example. See my solution in action. My code is below. I tried to comment the code so that you could have a sense what's happening there. But in a nutshell what I did.

A recursive function that waits one millisecond every time it's been called. You could think this as a home-made FOR-loop since we're keeping track of the quantity of function calls. Anyways, you could have this without a counter so that It would run till the end of the world. It would not freeze the browser because the timeout.

I hope this will help you in a way or another.

How to copy an entity using C# plugin and early bound classes

Hello,

In this post I'm going to explain you how to copy an entity by using plugin written in C#. I'm also demonstrating you the power of CrmSvcUtil which "generates early-bound .NET Framework classes that represent the entity data model used by Microsoft Dynamics CRM" for your Visual Studio project. I'm not going through how to use CrmSvcUtil. If you need help getting started with it please refer Create Early Bound Entity Classes with the Code Generation Tool (CrmSvcUtil.exe).

As an example I'm going to use Contact entity. I'm going to attach my plugin in Delete event / message so that when ever the user deletes the contact my plugin will run and copy that contact.

Some prerequisites are

• You have Visual Studio and know how to create a solution and a project.
• You have plugin registration tool and know how to register a plugin
• You have CrmSvcUtil and know how to generate classes and import them as part of your Visual Studio project.
• You have Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK (which actually includes plugin registration tool and CrmSvcUtil)

So let's get started. I'm writing this post as I'm doing this task so you may want to do some things in different order maybe.

Step 1

Create a new solution (or use existing one) and add new project into it. There are some assemblies you have to add.

• Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk (this can be found inside the SDK)
• Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Client
• System.ServiceModel
• System.Runtime.Serialization

Step 2

Generate classes by running CrmSvcUtil.exe from console. You may want to check all available attributes from the link I provided in a beginning. As a reference this is how my command looks like

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 SDK\bin>CrmSvcUtil.exe /url:https://antaumus601.crm4.dynamics.com/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc /out:EarlyBoundClasses.cs /username:"myUsername" /password:"myPassword" /namespace:AntaumusCRMSolution

When the .cs file is ready add it to your Visual Studio project.

Step 3

Write the core plugin components (implement IPlugin interface etc.). If you need help with writing plugin please refer Plug-in Development for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Step 4

Now let's write the actual logic.Very important part when using early bound types is OrganizationServiceContext class. Please refer Use the Organization Service Context Class. In this case it will help us to add our new contact easily to CRM but it has a lot of good benefits (for example LINQ providing).

"To instantiate the context class, you must pass the class constructor an object that implements the IOrganizationService interface."

Fortunately we can create IOrganizationService indirectly from IServiceProvider that is passed for Execute method by writing following lines

IOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory = (IOrganizationServiceFactory)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IOrganizationServiceFactory));

IOrganizationService service = serviceFactory.CreateOrganizationService(executionContext.UserId);

OrganizationServiceContext orgServiceContext = new OrganizationServiceContext(service);  

So in shortly what happens here is we take IOrganizationServiceFactory from service provider and then use the factory for creating a service. If you want to know more about factories this might be good place to start: Exploring the Factory Design Pattern

Now when everything is settled you can create new entities like this

Contact newContact = new Contact();

And access its properties like this

newContact.FirstName

You can add entity / entities for set OrganizationServiceContext is tracking by using AddObject method. When running SaveChanges() function all changes are  performed for entities that are in the set.

Very simple. I'm not going to explain my whole code here but instead I'll paste it to the end so you can take a look at it by yourself. To keep it very simple I did not copy whole contact in my code, only first name and last name. The approach I'm using in this example may not be the best. If I should really copy the whole contact (and related entities) I might think about using LINQ for sure.

Step 5

Register your plugin in a way you want. I registered it in Post-operation Delete message synchronously and created Pre Entity image. You may have to sign you Visual Studio project first.

Final result

Developing Windows 8 apps using modern web technologies

Hello, this is clearly not Microsoft Dynamics CRM related post but I wanted to share this with you anyway. It's amazing what we can do with modern web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript nowadays. Not that I have much experience... yet, but this lady has. Take a look at her video in which she's talking about possibilities of the modern web techs. We are talking about native, desktop-a-like applications here that are made by using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. No internet connection needed, crazy isn't it.

Import data from Excel to MS Dynamics CRM

Hello, let's take a quick look at how to import data from excel spreadsheet into the Microsoft Dynamics CRM. There are two things you have to do (apart from collecting all data you want to import of course).

1. Download a template

First, you need to download the excel template from Microsoft Dynamics CRM. By doing this you ensure that after you have populated it with your data you are still able to import it back without any problems. Go to the entity's page you want to import (leads, opportunities, accounts, etc.). Then click "Import Data" from the data tab inside the top ribbon and select "Download Template for Import". Please refer the picture below.

Save the template in any place you find suitable. Note that the template is actually XML file, so you don't necessarily need Microsoft Excel in order to populate it.

2. Import the populated template

Now once you have filled all data you are ready to import your file back. To do this go back to the entity's page you want to import and at this time select "Import data" from the same button as earlier. The rest should be self explanatory. Just follow the import wizard.