Archive for August 2013

MS Dynamics CRM and Supporting Customer Processes - Disabling The Save Button On Duplicate Detection Window

Hi All,

Recently our customers have been looking into additional ways to customize Dynamics CRM 2011 to support the processes of their teams. For certain customers, those who have exhausted all the options of "supported customization's", this requires some creative thinking.


Its interesting as this desire for more quirky changes to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is really a product of its own flexibility. CRM 4, while great, was fairly static when it came to processes. A lot of companies used it as a CRM solution in the more classic sense. Then came the big moon step forward that was CRM 2011. This gave organisations so much more flexibility in integrating systems and supporting processes. Trouble is, you give a customer a slice and they want the whole cake! For customers who have now been working with and adapting Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for the last 2-3 years, the desire for configuring Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to support the ever changing and unique processes of their business sometimes goes beyond what is possible under the heading of "supported customisations". The answer? Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 of course!!


In the meantime, when it comes to these sort of requests, we have to get creative! In line with this we had a customer recently who wanted us to remove the Save Record button on the duplicate detection window. The inbuilt duplicate detection, whilst it has its limitations, nicely gives you the opportunity to not save your newly entered record if a duplicate is found. However, you are also given the option to save the record even if a duplicate is found. This causes a problem when you have a large team of users who, to be frank, you don't trust to allow the to create duplicates. Thanks to a very helpful blog post from MS Dynamics CRM 2011 Tips we were able to disable the Save Record button fairly simply by taking the following steps:


  1. Navigate to your CRM instance on your app server.
  2. Navigate to \CRMWeb\Tools\DuplicateDetection\ViewDuplicates\
  3. Edit this file in Visual Studio or Notepad.
  4. Add this line to the ShowPage() javascript member or any member that is called by onLoad(): document.getElementById("btn_id_Ok").disabled="true";
  5. Save your change.


This will disable the button. If you would like to get clever (like we did) you can add some further script to disable this button for users with a certain security role.

Nice little bit of code that can help with the usability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 in certain scenarios.

Thanks

xRM Consultant

Saturday 31 August 2013
Posted by Unknown

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 – The Next Step

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 – The Next Step

Microsoft love their "Codenames"....

However with "Orion", or what has now been revealed to be Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, we can understand the secrecy.



Dynamics CRM has come a long way since the days of version 3.0 and even version 4.0 with version 2011 being a huge step forward.  It brought us dashboards, JavaScript and resource management as well as dialogues (We wont mention solution files).



However, in the last 2 years a lot has changed in the world of Dynamics CRM. Cloud based solutions have become a huge focus for Microsoft (step forward Office 365) and this has had an impact on CRM. In addition, Dynamics CRM 2011 achieved what so many other CRM packages had tried to do and failed.....it took CRM, or even xRM, as a concept to a much wider audience.

To have an industry leading line of business applications, completely customised to your business processes, you no longer needed to have an office in central London. Anyone, from an international banking group to a small animal charity, could easily and quickly have these solutions at their fingertips. 

This however presented some challenges. With a wider audience came a wider demographic of users and with that some resistance to the way a standard user would navigate through the system. In response, Dynamics CRM 2013 takes this to another level. The UI has been completely redesigned and is focused firmly on empowering users to follow the business processes built within the system. 

Using the new Process Bar adminstrators can enter custom steps that match the business process of the organisation and as such guide users through this process in a much clearer fashion. Dependencies can be setup so that users will be unable to progress without completing certain tasks. Your system will still provide a 360-degree view of your business, but for users who need to be focused on the road ahead, it will achieve this simply and clearly.

In addition, Microsoft is pushing the mobile market. Free custom apps for Windows 8 and the iPad will be released providing both beautiful and functional methods of using CRM on the go.



This barely scratches the surface of the changes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and we will discuss these in future posts here, but one thing is clear: Microsoft Dynamics CRM isn't just here to stay...it is here to dominate the marketplace. Microsoft are already releasing details of the Q1 service update ("Mira"...another codename!) and what it includes so watch this space. 

xRM Consultant

This blog was orignally published on the Chorus Solutions website. If you have a Dynamics CRM project to discuss please feel free to get in touch on 01275 398901
Thursday 29 August 2013
Posted by Unknown

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Having worked with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 in a sales & development environment, my focus now is on customising this awesome solution and showing its true potential.
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