Mobile Options for Dynamics 365/CRM

Often in CRM implementation project, there is a need to have CRM data available on mobile devices. When using the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform, there are a few options available and it is sometimes unclear how to decide which is the best fit for an organization. In this article, I start by giving common scenarios in which mobile access is required before describing some of the available solutions and corresponding use case.

Common Requirements for CRM Mobile Access

Sales people are often on the road, meeting with customers and prospects, attending conferences or trade shows. When they use a platform like Dynamics 365/CRM to support their activities, having access to their sales tools can be extremely beneficial: they can check out customers history on the spot prior to meetings, add notes after a visit. They can also lookup, create or update CRM contact information while away from the office and computers.

For Field Service professionals (e.g. internet cable installation agents), they need to have plenty of information to work efficiently: where to go, what to do when they get there, who they are supposed to meet, where they are supposed to go next based on their current location etc. For these types of uses, the level of interaction with the CRM data is higher than for typical sales individual, and it is more critical to their work (i.e. they could hardly do their job without it).

Another use case that I have often seen is the timekeeping requirement. We see this regularly in various Professional Services scenarios (consulting, legal, contracting etc.). Professional Services’ firm employees that are often moving from one task to another, one meeting to another, one client site to another, having the ability to enter the time spent on various tasks could add great added value.

While there are plenty of other mobile CRM requirement scenarios, I think these three are a good fit to illustrate several types of usage and need for people on the move. Now Let’s see what our options are and tag them to the scenarios they apply to.

Dynamics 365 for Phones and Tablets

Commonly referred to as MoCA for Mobile Client Application, this is the application provided at no additional cost by Microsoft as part of the Dynamics 365 offering.

• Supported CRM Source
  
  • D365/CRM Online
    
  • D365/CRM On Premises with Claim-based + IFD
    
• Installation Process
  
  • Download the platform application store on Windows, Android and Apple devices (tablets and phones, compatibility varies based on your Dyn 365 version – more details here)
    
  • Once the application is downloaded, connect to one CRM Organization using its access URL and your credentials
    
• Configuration & Extensibility
  
  • Uses the out of the box CRM web configuration (as long as the components are enabled for mobile, example for Dashboards here)
    
  • The application can be extended the same way as the web forms. Most JavaScript API will work but not all – see details. You can write or skip some JavaScript code execution based on the current experience.
    
  • You can view your web custom resources on mobile (this of course has design / build implication to make sure the content renders nicely on mobile)
    
  • The application can function in Offline mode.
    
• Access to Phone
  
  • When connected to Dyn365 Online Organization – access to GPS and Camera
    
• Cost
  
  • No additional cost. It is included with your Microsoft Dynamics 365 licences
    

The OOB mobile application works nicely, providing us with facing visuals such as dashboards and tiles to access various areas. It does lack the look and feel of a native phone application in my opinion, and feels very much like a fancy/very well-built web page displayed through a mobile app. It is a major area of investment for Microsoft so expect it to get better over time.

I usually recommended using it in low application usage type scenarios that includes data consultations, charts visualization and quick updates (add, update contacts, accounts, notes etc.). This fits the Sales People scenario above nicely. It is free of charge which is a big plus when mobile access is not considered critical but a nice to have for your organization.

Power Apps

PowerApps is Microsoft’s new platform to rapidly build custom business applications for Mobile devices. Because it is part of the Office 365 suite, it can connect to most of the services and applications available in the Microsoft Cloud, including Dynamics 365/CRM.

• Supported CRM Source
  
  • D365/CRM Online
    
• Installation Process
  
  • Download the PowerApps application from the store on Windows, Android and Apple devices, connect to your Office 365 account and you will see the list of all Apps deployed within your organization and made available to you
    
  • There is no need to add additional credentials to connect to CRM (unless specified by the App Builder)
    
• Configuration & Extensibility
  
  • PowerApps are build by a Power user or an expert, typically using the PowerApps Studio application, or using the app configuration tool on the web.
    
  • The configurators will let you start from a template or start from scratch, and connect to existing cloud services such as Dynamics 365 and other Microsoft and non-Microsoft sources. The documentation to get started is great.
    
  • There is a large set of configuration options (types of controls available, business rules formulas).
    
• Access to Phone
  
  • PowerApps has commands to use the phone’s GPS and Camera. However, the interaction between the GPS and Camera and Dynamics 365 have to be customized (i.e. when the position is taken, you have to configure your app to consume and perhaps save the information in a Dynamics 365 record)
    
• Cost
  
  • It is included in select Dynamics 365 and Office 365 plans. It is usually the best way to get it as you will connect to applications related to these services. The regular price is $7 USD per user per month, and $40 USD for app makers.
    

Aside from the application installation and access model that is uncommon (starting PowerApps which will display your list of available apps in your org), the app themselves look and feel much like native phone applications.

It takes more effort to get a PowerApps based-application to provide fancy graphics such as charts or customer web pages but it usually meets requirements for simple, targeted functions on-the-go, such as doing time entry. We give the user a few lists (their projects, the time entries etc.), we give them a screen to view project summary, a page to create, update time entries and link them to a project, and we are done. Again, simple, targeted function, which matches the Professional Services scenario described above.

In you are using Dynamics 365 and have Plan 1 licenses, then there is no additional cost. The effort to build PowerApps can be very low depending on the complexity of your business needs. This has potential to provide enormous value at a very reasonable cost.

Resco Mobile CRM

This is, by far, the Cadillac of mobile applications for Dynamics 365. Resco Mobile CRM is a completely configurable mobile application that can connect to Dynamics 365 and competitor Salesforce. It allows for simple configuration such as Mobile forms, views, as well as more complex business rules and custom behaviors.

• Supported CRM Source
  
  • D365/CRM Online
    
  • D365/CRM On Premises with Claim-based + IFD
    
• Installation Process
  
  • Download the platform application store on Windows, Android and Apple devices
    
  • Once the application is downloaded, connect to one CRM Organization using its access URL and your credentials
    
• Configuration & Extensibility
  
  • Configure home screens, forms, views and additional custom behaviors through the Woodford configurator. It is a Silverlight-based application that connects to your CRM and allows you to configure the Mobile application to meet your need (don’t panic, they are rolling out an HTML5 based app to replace the Silverlight configurator).
    
  • All the client side configuration (forms, views, form scripts, client side business rules) are not available. New views, forms and business rules must be recreated in Woodford
    
  • There are a lot of advanced features such as Map or Calendar View of selected record types, Dashboards Routing and Route optimization ($)
    
  • There is also the possibility of extending the Mobile application using JavaScript-like code to perform all sorts of operations (hiding, showing fields, custom web pages etc.).
    
  • The application can function in online or offline mode.
    
• Access to Phone
  
  • Access to GPS, Camera, phone storage to upload pictures of other types of files
    
• Cost
  
  • Licenses are per user per month, the Professional License cost US$25 while the Enterprise License is US$40.
    

The thing that I really liked when we started to use Resco Mobile was that it just felt like a native phone application. The controls are the same as what you are used to in other apps, it is very responsive and just does not feel like a web page made available through a Mobile App. For use cases where users must use their phone as a main part of their job, such as a Field Service professional, who goes from one place to another, checks cases and customer information, takes pictures, gets customer signatures etc., using Resco to interact with Dynamics 365/CRM seems like a no-brainer. This is in part justified by the fact that Microsoft uses Resco Mobile as its mobile application for the Dynamics 365 for Field Services application.

Keep in mind that outside of the licenses, there is a large configuration effort that has to go into configuring and sometimes customizing the mobile experience which can take time and cost money.

If you have a large user base, you have to factor in the license price per user / month over time and see if this still makes sense for your scenario.

Recurring Jobs Strategies for Dynamics CRM/365

With the rise of the cloud, I have seen lots of small businesses building their technology strategy with a very little amount of local infrastructure. Similarly, I also see larger enterprises migrating to the cloud and trying to remove most of their local infrastructure. In Dynamics CRM/365 implementations, we often need to run recurring jobs that executes business logic (data integration or synchronization, complex calculated field etc.). This article talks about the different places where you can have these Dynamics 365/CRM connected jobs running periodically.

Windows Executable or SSIS Packages

Windows Executable are a simple and very common approach. The principle is to write an Console Application and use CRM SDK to connect to CRM and C#/.NET and other APIs to connect to various systems as required to do all sorts of data processing. After the console app is coded and tested, it is typically deployed on a Windows Server machine as a Scheduled Task. Using a Window Services is a similar approach, the main difference is that the recurrence of the execution needs to be managed at the application level (in the Window Service code) instead of leveraging the Task Scheduler built-in feature. This strategy gives a lot of flexibility:

• no constrains on how long the process can run for
  
• you provide the hardware required to handle your activities
  
• you leverage internal resources if they have .NET/C#/CRM SDK knowledge
  
• no need to build a UI which saves a lot of time on the development side
  

If your business operates mostly in the cloud and you don’t have available servers to install and run you application(s), you can create a Virtual Machine in the cloud and deploy your executables on it (as long as your CRM/Dyn365 organizations and other integrated systems are accessible from the VM).

Using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Packages is pretty much identical to the Windows Executable approach. The difference is that you use SSIS, combined with a third-party tool for your CRUD operations with CRM/Dyn365 such as KingswaySoft, to contain your business logic and manipulate your systems data. You can then schedule SQL Jobs to run SSIS packages on a recurring basis. This technique is used when there is stronger knowledge on the SQL/SSIS side within an enterprise. Again, if you do not have a local infrastructure, you will have to create a Virtual Machine in the cloud with the required SQL Server components to create SQL Jobs and execute SSIS packages.

Recurring CRM Workflow(s)

While Dynamics CRM/365 does not have true task scheduler functionality, out of the box processes (workflows) can be used to achieve similar type of functionality. This is done by using the “Process Timeout” operation within a CRM Workflow. Check this article from PowerObjects on exactly how to setup recurring workflows in CRM 2016.

In order to run custom business logic, data integration or calculation, you can create Custom Workflow Activities and call them from within the recurring workflow. The custom activity is native C#/.NET Code so you can do all sorts of operations from there. I love this approach because it allows you to keep your recurring processes mechanism inside the CRM solution. It makes the deployment lighter and simpler, you don’t have to deploy a package on a SQL Server, you don’t need to deploy an application on a server and configure it. That being said, this approach has quite a few limitations:

1. It is not simple to reference libraries other than .NET and CRM libraries, fellow MVP Gonzalo Ruiz has a good article on how to achieve this here. If your custom business logic makes references to many external assemblies, it will be a bit more challenging to integration in a Custom Workflow activity (it’s a good idea to target web services instead).
   
2. When your custom workflow activity as running is isolation mode or Sandboxed (this is always the case in cloud-base Dynamics CRM/365 Online tenants), there are limitations on what you can in the custom workflow activity (e.g. how to call external web applications, no IO operations, cannot access registry etc.). There is also a 2-minute timeout limit for any process running in Sandbox.
   

If your business logic is long to execute (more than 2 minutes), this is not a viable option.

Using Microsoft Flow

Flow is relatively new to the Microsoft Cloud. It is a configurable workflow engine that allows to automated operations related to a large variety of cloud applications. The workflows have triggers that originate from cloud applications (e.g. email received from a specific sender, document created in OneDrive, or Contact created in Dynamics 365) or timer based.

Flow offers a connector to Dynamics 365 in the cloud with a few trigger operations (record created, updated, deleted) and basic actions on Dynamics 365 such as creating, retrieving, updating or deleting a record or retrieving a list of records. This is a detailed article from Wayne Walton that perfectly summarized what Flow is and how it can be used, you can read it here.

While Flows can run on a schedule (every x seconds, minutes, days, hours), there is a limit to the systems you can connect to from flow (last time I checked, there was integration built with just over 80 SaaS apps). If you want flow to execute custom business logic, you can develop and expose a Web API to the web and configure Flow to call it with contextual parameters. Custom operations can then be processed from within the Web API.

The biggest advantage of using Flow is the ease of configuration. Power users with enough knowledge of Flow and Dynamics 365 can easily configure workflows. However, depending on the complexity of the operations that need to be executed, you might find yourself limited with the basic operations available. This could force you to write a custom Web API for additional processing. Overkill if you ask me, but there are situations in which this could make sense.

Other facts to take into consideration:

• Flow can only connect to Dynamics 365/CRM organization in the Microsoft Cloud. If you are running on-premises with IFD, it will not work.
  
• The License for flow is based on a number of runs per month (4500 with Plan 1 and 15000 with Plan 2).
  

Azure Functions

If you are not familiar with Azure Functions, you really should do that soon: “Azure Functions is a solution for easily running small pieces of code, or “functions,” in the cloud. You can write just the code you need for the problem at hand, without worrying about a whole application or the infrastructure to run it” (reference here).

You can write functions in the development language of your choice (C#, F#, Node.js, PHP or Python) that connect to various external services or systems, including Dynamics 365. See this walkthrough if interested in knowing what’s involved. Azure Functions support events based on a configurable timer.

What I particularly like about Azure Functions is that it is a pure serverless architecture to run custom code. If you had a small console application deployed as a scheduled task, you can easily bring your code into Azure Functions and do the same operations.

If you are a company that does not want to deal with the overhead of having and maintaining servers internally to run your recurring processes, this is definitely the way to go. The billing calculation is complicated, but in short you only pay for the resources your code consumes when it runs. That means if you don’t run anything for a period of time, you have nothing to pay. Another positive about Azure Functions is that we can reference the CRM SDK which means should be able to connect to IFD-configured on premise installations (I haven’t tried this but I am pretty confident).

One of the downside of using Azure Functions is the development experience. While this is changing, at the beginning you could only write your code in the Azure Functions code editor which makes you lose the magic of Visual Studio.

 

Of course, these are a few existing options for recurring processes as it relates to Dynamics 365/CRM. Ultimately, the decision for each enterprise comes from its strategy, its people and its willingness to make investment.

Hope this helps !

Dealing with Multi-Language Lookups

Very often, CRM entities are used as reference data tables, for example to keep a list of countries, states or provinces or other business/industry specific data. For some businesses I have seen entities to keep a list of distributors, list of business roles, regions to only name a few. When used that way, CRM entities provide a lot of great features that cannot easily be met with option sets such as the ability to manage large reference tables, lookup search, lookup filtering, ease of adding/editing/modifying data by power users without a deployment.

One of the issues with using CRM entities for reference data is that they is no concept of multi-language lookup in the Dynamics 365 / CRM platform. Lookups will always display the value of the primary field by default. This can cause an issue in places where you must have a fully multilingual application. In this article, I provide a few possible solutions to solve this issue.

As an example, we’ll use the context of a task for which we need to track its type. The list of the available task activity types is stored as records in an entity called “Task Activity“. The Task entity has a lookup to the Task Activity entity. The information needs to be stored in English and French

1 – Task Form with Lookup to Task Activity

2 – List of Task Activities

Resolution Option 1 – Concatenate multiple languages in one field with a separator

You will be disappointed, this is not a fancy solution. In the Task Activity entity, we have one field for the name in both languages and use concatenate both field values in the primary field using a workflow or plugin.

• Name English (Single line of text – 100)
  
• Name French (Single line of text – 100)
  
• Name (Single line of text – 203) – read only for users, populated with “Name English | French Name”
  

3 – Task Activity Form

This is the most common approach that I have seen when the number of languages is small (2 languages). This has a disadvantage of sometimes creating long name values that are not fully visible in the views and on the forms, but it’s cheap and you keep the ability to search using lookup, and display the columns in French or English the views if you need to.

Resolution Option 2 – Plugins on Retrieve & Retrieve Multiple

This solution is a little more interesting, but risky. In the Task Activity, we still have one field for the name in both languages and we still concatenate both field values in the primary field.

• Name English (Single line of text – 100)
  
• Name French (Single line of text – 100)
  
• Name (Single line of text – 203) – read only for users, populated with “Name English | French Name”
  

The principle is to write plugins on the Retrieve and Retrieve Multiple events of the Task Activity. In both of these plugins, you need to retrieve the connected user’s language (query the user settings table), and then replace the text being returned in the Name field by the value in the user’s language. This value can be obtained by querying the task activity record and retrieving the name in French or English, or simply splitting the Name field (primary field) with the separator and return the part in the desired user’s language. One plugin will handle the lookup column in list views (Retrieve Multiple), and the other will handle the form views (Retrieve).

Generally, it is not recommended to write plugins on the Retrieve and Retrieve Multiple events for performance reason. If the operations executed in those plugins are simple and optimized, it might be a viable solution. This is a solution that can scale well if you are dealing with more than 2 languages because in all cases, users see only the value in their selected language and the multiple values are transparent to them.

Stay tuned, I have an upcoming post where I provide some metrics about the impact of a plugin on Retrieve and Retrieve Multiple on performance.

Resolution Option 3 – Automated mapping of Option Set with Reference Entity Records

This is a bit of a complex solution, by far the fanciest. The idea is to use an option set instead of a lookup to reference the task activities, but the option set values will be “controlled” with records from the Task Activity CRM entity. It goes like this:

1. Create a global option set named Task Activity
   
2. Create your Task Activity entity with a primary “Name” field. Put the name of task activities in the primary language (language of the CRM org)
   
3. When a record is created in the Task Activity entity, use a plugin to create an option set value in the global option set
   
4. When a record is updated in the Task Activity entity, use a plugin to update the corresponding option set value in the global option set
   
5. When a Task Activity record is deleted/deactivated, use a plugin to update the corresponding global option set value by putting brackets around the name for example, and also pushing the value to the bottom of the option set list
   
6. You can then get the CRM Translation file and get the Task Activities values translated as part of the global solution.
   

4 – Records to Option Set Value mapping

The outcome is that for entities that need to capture the task activity information, there will be an option set field as opposed to the lookup field:

5 – Task Form with Option Set

While this has low impact on performance and leverages the out of the box language-aware option sets, it requires a serious time investment to define the development framework for each entity that required this mechanism to be implemented. It also requires a translator to update the CRM translation on a regular basis (every time there is a deployment). This is a fancy solution that requires a lot of coding and maintenance. In addition to that, you lose the ability to search and filter the content easily like you would do with lookups. You should make sure yours lists are not very long if you don’t want to end up with Option Set lists that are very long which will result in poor user experience.

I have rarely seen companies making such large investments to circumvent the lack of multi-language lookup in CRM. This is usually seen when there are laws that force you to have a system running fully in multiple languages.

Resolution Option 4 – Custom Screen for Lookup views & search

This is another fancy one for which I unfortunately don’t have any screenshot. We want to leverage option sets to “overwrite” lookup values and selection process with the following steps:

1. Create a set of standardized Web Resources for Lookup Display and lookup value selection
   
2. Display the web resources on the CRM Forms and hide the lookup controls
   
3. The web resources will have built-in logic to display the value in the language of the current user, as well as a mechanism to allow searches (could be auto-complete based)
   

Writing a standard web resource control for that purpose is relatively simple. However, you might have additional work to do if you want to take advantage of filtering based on other fields, or custom filters. Also, this solves the issue on the form in the sense that you will see the values in the right language on the form, but for list views, reports etc. the problem will still exist so you’ll need to find another solution there.

Closing Thoughts

As you can see there is no perfect solution. Each organization has to decide the level of investment and risk they want to take to make sure they have multi-language option sets. Living in Canada where we have two official languages, this is a challenge that we often see in public sector implementations because having fully bilingual system is mandated by law. There are very few countries where this is the case (which is probably why Microsoft has not made investments in this area). Most private sector companies will usually impose a primary language for the entire organization.

Hope this helps!

Where to store configuration data in Dynamics 365/CRM?

In almost all the complex systems that I’ve worked with, there has always been a need to store some configuration information. It could be URLs to external APIs or web sites, connection strings to a database for integration purposes, application specific parameters that drive business logic such as Security Roles, Accounts or Contacts. In Dynamics CRM/365, there is often a need to store the same type of information so that plugins, workflow and other integrated applications read them and perform business operation accordingly. In this article, I share the most common options and share some pros and cons associated to each of them.

Key Value Pair Entity

IF you’ve done some application design, you know what the concept of a key value pair table is. In the Dynamics CRM/365 context, it is an entity that contains two required text fields: one for the key and the other for the value. The key represents the name of your configuration variable and the value is, well, the value for the key. For each configuration element that needs to be stored in your system, you create a new row with a key and its value. The images below provide an example of a Key Value Pair entity in CRM in which we stored information to connect to an external web service and the ID of a Security Role, all as text values.

1 – List of Key Value Pairs in Dynamics CRM/365

2 – Key Value Pair Entity for Example

Pros

• Very simple data structure
• Easy to add/remove configuration values
• Code to read and use the variables does not change over time
• Retrieving a config element is a fast operation (one row with two columns)

Cons

• Data type for the value is a text field (not practical for lookups or other data types as you may have to store GUIDs for example)
• Inability to set default values
• Inability to use FLS on specific config elements
• The Keys must be hard-coded in code and/or documented and maintained somewhere

If you are planning to use a Key Value pair type of configuration table, my recommendation is to have one key field as text, and configuration value type field (option set with the type of field – example text, two options) and multiple value columns of different types (e.g. Value (lookup 1), Value (lookup 2), Value (text), Value (two option)). As a bonus, you can add some business rules to prevent the selection of the wrong data type based on the selected configuration value type.

Configuration Entity

Here, the idea is to have an entity in CRM with one field for each configuration element that needs to be stored. In the example below, we have a table that contains information to connect to an ERP web service as well as credentials, and a lookup to a System Admin role (similar information as above). It in this case, there should only one row in the configuration table.

3 – System Configuration List View (only one row available)

4 – System Configuration Entity form (shows all the configuration fields)

Pros

• No need to have a list of configuration key names (use the field names enforced at the database level)
• Each configuration element has the appropriate type (e.g Lookup, text field, two option, option set etc.)
• Ability to enable Field Level Security on specific parameters
• Allows for default values for certain data types
• Easier to setup by an end user (create one row, set values as opposed to create multiple rows with key and value)

Cons

• Schema change + Code update required anytime a new configuration element is needed
• You need to ensure there is only one record for the entity (plugin validation on create)
• Configuration table grows horizontally and not vertically over time

Wrap up

I have used both models extensively and they both work well. For a stable system with not a lot of moving piece, I tend to like the Configuration entity better. For system where things change all the time and new config items need to be added on a regular basis, using the key value pair entity is often more cost-effective. There is also the possibility to use an XML web resource for parameters or the plugin secure and unsecure configuration fields.

Regardless of the method you use, consider caching the configuration data when possible to increase your system’s performance. On the Client side with JavaScript, you can use a few different mechanisms for caching (local storage, cookie). On the server side for plugins, I often use a static cache but this only works for plugins executed in full trust mode (in other words, if you are in CRM Online, no caching on the server side).

Cheers!

 

CRM Plugin Code Structure – By functionality or by event?

When we work on CRM plugins, there is a key decision at the beginning of the development cycle when it comes to structuring your plugin code. There are two main ways of writing your plugins :  by events or by functionality. In this post, I will describe the two approaches and discuss some of their pros and cons.

Plugins can be described as handlers for events fired by Microsoft Dynamics CRM (source). There can be multiple handlers for single events.  Let’s use an example for the purpose of this post.

For the event, we’ll use the creation of a case (pre operation). We will consider that when  the case is created, there are two actions that need to be performed : generate and assign a unique case number and validate that required fields have authorized values in them.

Plugin structured based on Events

For the plugin structure based on event, it means we’ll have a single plugin registered on the Case Pre create event, and inside the plugin class we’ll have two business logic blocks of code to execute (one to generate the unique number, the validate the required fields).

    

Plugin structured based on Functionality

In this case, we’ll have two plugin classes registered on the same event (again, one plugin for unique number generation and another to validate the required fields) – Sorry, no screen shot here but you get the idea .

Pros and Cons

Functionality Based Plugins

• Pros
  • Ease to see what plugins does what when looking at Plugin Registration tool (or similar tools) because of more descriptive feature name in plugin name
  • Ability to disable specific features for various scenario (e.g. disable system integration or auto calculation plugins during data migration)
  • Unit Tests can be written against a plugin class to test one functionality
  • Provides the ability to easily write generic plugins and register on multiple events by any power user
• Cons
  • Large amount of plugin classes
  • Large amount of registered plugin steps; can become big and hard to read/maintain

Event Based Plugins

• Pros
  • Plugin registration is straight forward and easy to maintain
  • Ease to easily the operations performed at each event when looking at the code
  • Plugin classes are standardized : always tied to an event and single point of entry for all developer to see actions executed on the event
  • Unit tests can be written against specific Business logic methods and/or classes (even independently from the plugin execution context depending on how they are written)
• Cons
  • Must use alternate mechanism to disable specific features if needed (e.g. configuration data element)
  • Possible timeout if executing multiple large business logic blocs (mind you, if you have a timeout in a plugin – which happens after two minutes, you probably have a design issue)
  • General  dependency to having a developer around
    • Generic business logic code blocks can be written but a developer is required to insert the business logic on additional events
    • To view the all operations performed for an event, a developer needs to look at the code

So which model should you use?

I have used both models heavily on various occasions. For me personally, the decision on which one to use comes down to a project’s needs and a coding style preference. As an example, if you know you’ll have a lot of generic features and want to have reusable plugins, you are better off using the functionality based model. The same applies if you know there are processes that require to disable specific functionality on a regular basic. On the other hand, if you project is relatively small and includes simple business logic on a few events, the event based approach can be a good choice. Feel free to add feedback in the comment section if you see other pros and cons for each of these models or want to share experience in the area.

Exchanging data between CRM Forms and IFRAMEs

One of the most common requirements when we add content in IFRAMEs or Web Resourses in CRM is to have the ability to communicate with the calling or source CRM form to perform all sorts of operation. This article explains how this can be achieved using the postMessage JavaScript messaging mechanism.

What does postMessage do?

It’s a JavaScript method which was initially created to facilitate cross-origin communication between web pages. There are often valid scenario in which we need to display a page from another website in a new window or in an IFRAME. That’s the easy part. The more complicated part is when there is a requirement to perform some operations on the source page based on a action that occurs on the external page in the new window or IFRAME.

In the example below, consider we have a contact form that displays an external page in an IFRAME. When a button in clicked in the IFRAME, information (example, a lookup value) is passed to the CRM form, the value is set on the screen and the form is saved.

Step 1 – Write methods for the CRM Form: Register Listener, Message Handler  

The code below contains two methods, the first one (RegisterListener) sets a method that will be called if the postMessage is invoked (UpdateContactLookup). 

SADAX.Contact =
{
   RegisterListener: function () {

     if (window.addEventListener) {
       window.addEventListener('message', SADAX.Contact.UpdateContactLookup, false);
     }
     else { // IE8 or earlier
       window.attachEvent('onmessage', SADAX.Contact.UpdateContactLookup);
     }
   },

   UpdateContactLookup: function (event) {

     var origin = "";
     if (event.domain) origin = event.domain; // IE
     else if (event.origin) origin = event.origin; // FireFox - Chrome

     if ("https://source" == origin) {

       if (event.data != null) {

         var entity = SadaxJSON.parse(event.data);
         if (entity) {

           var value = new Array();
           value[0] = new Object();
           value[0].id = entity.Id;
           value[0].entityType = entity.LogicalName;

           var lookup = Xrm.Page.getAttribute("sadax_referencecontactid");
           lookup.setValue(value);
Xrm.Page.data.save();
}
}
else
{
alert("This message has been posted by an unknown source ('" + origin + "', expected 'https://source').");
return;
}
} 
}

Step 2 – Register the listener on Form’s OnLoad event

Step 3 – Write Code for the IFRAME to post the Message from the IFRAME

After the business logic execution, the postMessage method is called on the parent CRM form as follows:

function SetContactLookup(entityReference)
{
   var entity = {};
   entity.Id = entityReference.id;
   entity.LogicalName = entityReference.entityType;

   window.parent.postMessage(SadaxJSON.stringify(entity), "https://source");
}

Comments / Wrap up

At step 3, using the postMessage on the window.parent will cause the SADAX.Contact.UpdateContactLookup method to be fired on the parent CRM form. Notice that the method receives an event object as a parameter. The content of the object slightly differs based on the browser being used (IE vs rest of the world). Mostly, you should pay attention to the event.domain or event.origin attributes. This is used to validate the website that posted the message is safe (i.e. the one you are expecting).

There is also an event.data attribute that contains parameters that are sent from one page to another. In this case, we are using a renamed JSON library to stringify our custom object types. Passing an object without stringifying it would work, but we found it didn’t work well in all browsers/version. The reason for the renamed JSON library is again browser compatibility reasons. If IE8 is out of scope for you, you probably do not need this.

Notes:

• This also work for web resources opened in a different window using window.open or Xrm.Utility.openWebResource
• IE8 doesn’t allow to postMessage to other windows, only to iframes.
• I haven’t tried this in CRM Online so you can try it by yourself if need be.

Dynamics CRM Archiving Solutions Revisited

I wrote about Archiving solutions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM about 2 years ago. I still get a lot of questions from the article and from customers in the field about what they should do when it comes to archiving their Dynamics CRM data. While there is no obvious answer, my generic approach is to make sure my clients understand that they shouldn’t try to build an archiving solution before their system has become slower. They should see it more as an opportunity to perform a thorough review of their implementation and isolate the bottleneck(s) and pain point(s) and see if those can be fixed.

A few months ago, I gave a presentation on the topic that you can see below. I go from the reasons to archive data to recommendations. Hope this helps!

Dynamics CRM Solution Architecture

Hello readers!

I just completed a series of very animated presentations on Solution Architecture for Dynamics CRM in a few different cities in the east of Canada. I thought I would share the slide deck.

As a summary, I complied a few thoughts about the CRM Solution Architect’s role and typical design consideration. Enjoy the content and feel free to reach out to me with questions and comments.