Composite Fields In MSCRM 2013 - dynamics-crm

I have a question on the subject of composite attributes that I would be grateful if you could help me with.
I posted this before on other question blogs but got no response I am satisfied with.
I am writing JavaScript that will update the fields (i.e. address1_line1, address1_line2, address1_line3, address1_city, address1_stateorprovince, address1_postalcode, address1_country) in the composite (address1_composite). When the fields are updated the composite does not seem to update. I have to open the composite and close it again. Is there a way of doing this automatically in JavaScript?
I have tried the following ideas:
Idea 1:
Xrm.Page.data.entity.save();
This is recomended at http://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/magnetismsolutionscrmblog/archive/2013/10/22/working-with-dynamics-crm-2013-composite-fields-fly-out-menu.aspx
This is not any good as my customers want to view the composite before saving the page. Also I would not want to save the page for my customers as they do not want this. They would like to decide when to do this themselves.
Idea 2:
Xrm.Page.data.refresh();
This is not really what I wanted as I do not want to refresh the whole page. I just want to refresh the composite. Also it bring up a popup that warns you about not having saved the page which will be annoying for my customers.
Idea 3:
Writing the address from the address lines to the composite.
This feels like a nasty hack.
There is probably more than one way of doing this. I used the function
Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_composite")._attribute.setValueForCompositeField();
I do not like this for the following reasons:
This is a hack as it is not using the system functionality of the done button to write the data.
You do not get the system formatting you get with the done button although this will get done when the form is saved so it is not so bad.
In the future if customers are allowed to add their own composite fields it could cause problems as the field names could be different.
It requires me to write extra code for each form that has a composite which has fields with different schema names. E.g. I have to write different code for forms with ShipTo and BillTo addresses as the code for the account form will not work.
Another idea was to set the focus to the composite field after a change has been made to any of the fields inside the composite.
Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get("address1_composite").controls.get(0).setFocus();
This is the best idea so for but it is far from perfect. This forces the user to press the done button and hence the fields will be written. I was hoping for something more automated.
My Question:
What would be great is if there was a way to click the composite done button in JavaScript. This would give me the formatting of the done button and the automation I need.
Update - 14/04/2014
Since posting this question I have been in contact with Microsoft and they say there is no supported way of clicking the done button via a program.

If the field is locked down CRM JavaScript does not send the data back to the server for updating. Another approach would be:
perform the update using JavaScript (so the user sees the change); and
use a server side plugin on the Update event so the value is persisted.

Related

Dynamic content display

when I select (say customer) using Dropdown I would want to show users all the properties on a side table or division. Essentially, displaying the selected customer's fields on the same page for the users to verify/read.
I am using laravel-backpack for development and finding it difficult to implement. Any help is greatly appreciated.
I'm afraid there's no existing way to achieve that, you'd have to code it.
But you don't have to start from scratch, you can use the code for the select2 field (or whatever field you prefer) and create a new field type, say select2_and_preview by tweaking the Javascript inside that one file.
There's recently been a Feature Request for a similar feature (see here), you might want to pitch in with your opinion if you want it created by the team, and included in the official build.

Which resources method should handle this view?

I'm currently using Laravel but i assume this question could also be asked with any framework in any language.
If i have a simple form to create an user, with the most basic fields (firstname, lastname, email...), the resource method i'll use will be create to display the view and store to handle the post logic.
After that, the edit form will be displayed in the edit method and the update managed by the update method.
Eventually, the user sheet will use the show method.
Now, imagine i have a view that combine both the edit and show purposes, i mean like a page with multiple tabs, where each tab display information about the user, some charts, some tables, a lot of stuff... but also an edit form in one of these tabs.
Which method should be used to display this view ? edit or show ? Since it acts like a show but also have a form to edit the user... i'm always asking myself and sometimes i have a hard time to figure out which method i should use.
This case often happens in back offices, where some edit pages looks like a dashboard more than a simple form, i'm sure you see what i mean ;)
Is there a convention about this ? Something like "if there is a form it's an edit, even if it mainly show information" ?

JSONObject["caption"] not found

We are using form designer of servicenow to change elements on a form.
The table used to create the form is extended by the task table and contains a workflow with approvals and various stages.
When we try to change something within form designer, it does not matter what it is, renaming a field from summary to summarys for instance and clicking save.
The action gives this error:
JSONObject["caption"] not found
Only some forms are affected by this issue, for instance incident forms, change forms all open and can be changed and saved.
I have a feeling that this error is related to a known issue but i just wondered if anyone on here has seen it.
NB: It is not possible to share my JSON response because it's all done behind the scenes by servicenow. I am in a form design view and I am simply clicking save on a form change
Thank you for your time
This has now been resolved.
Turned out a title on a form header had more than 40 characters and this was causing the error on form save.
Max limit on a title

CRM 2013/2015/2016 subgrid popout, retain fetchxml query

I have a subgrid on my form which I assign a dynamically generated fetchxml query using javascript. When the user clicks on the subgrid's "pop out" button, the query is lost and it displays the default view for that entity.
The user needs to be able to perform multi selection and bulk editing. As far as I know this is not possible for subgrids in CRM 2013 upwards. Is there a way to retain the query when it is popped out?
There's no supported way to interact with a popped out grid. If you started digging into the client side application code, you might be able to find a hook to the new window, but doing so would be unsupported, liable to break, and I wouldn't recommend it.
I was going to suggest hiding that pop-out button on your entity's sub-grid altogether before re-reading that your users need to use the popped out grid for bulk edit.
In that case your best option will be to do ditch the JS and move to a RetrieveMultiple plugin against the sub-entity. RetrieveMultiple plugins should be generally avoided, but from what it sounds like in your case, it's your only option.
And, just to be thorough, are you positive you need dynamic fetch for the sub-grid? Is there any way you could come up with a view that would get close enough to your requirement, even if it's not perfect?
Update:
Based on the additional information you provided in your comment, I can only think of two options:
Implement a custom grid--or modify one of the free ones out there--that allows multi-select and bulk edit
Your custom web app takes the user's criteria, creates a personal view (entity: userquery) for the user and saves it to the database, then your JS on the form sets the grid to that view.
You can do that liks this:
document.getElementById("someGridId").control.SetParameter("viewtype", "4230"); // 4230 is the objecttypecode for userquery
document.getElementById("someGridId").control.SetParameter("viewid", "{11310965-0306-E611-80E5-3863BB36DD08}");
Doing this actually does make the popped out grid load the personal view, but in my tests just now the grid gets upset if you try to refresh it.
This approach has obvious downsides: 1) You have to come up with a way to clean up the personal views that get generated 2) the grid might break on refresh 3) it's unsupported and liable to break on an update.
Still worth considering, I suppose.
A more supported way instead of using unsupported getElementById is to hook a plugin to multiple retrieve of the entity and amend the query in there
Chris

People Picker for MVC3

I am looking for People Picker Control similar to SharePoint one for MVC3 applications.
Can you please suggest if there are any such controls available?
What is the best approach to pick the people from AD in MVC3?
Requirement: On one of the Views, I need to select a user from AD.
I was thinking about People Picker kind of control.
Thanks
Arun
I know this is quite old so I doubt you still need this answered but perhaps it will be useful to someone else.
Just last week I had to build a control like does this for us. It's basically two main parts, a JSON service that accepts partial text and returns a list of suggestions and the HTML/CSS/jQuery+UI control.
The service is pretty straightforward so we'll skip over that here.
I'm in the process of doing a write-up on the web side but basically we wrapped the jQuery autocomplete with some custom CSS to make an input that is similar to the address line in GMail. This was done by styling a container div to look like a long input field. The actual input field is within that container and styled to be essentially invisible. Clicking in the container moves focus to the input box. Upon selecting a suggested name, I create a new container to insert before the 'cloaked' autocomplete input which contains the user name and a hidden input with our desired value to send along when the form is submitted. I had to do some other overloads on the autocomplete to get it to act consistently but essentially this is all there was to it.
The control looks at the container for a data-input-name attribute to figure out what 'name' to set the hidden inputs to when they are created with each user pick. When the form is submitted the default model binder rolls all the users of a particular picker (since you can have multiple on a page) into string arrays of the values - assuming your model has string array properties with the same name as used by the input controls - which we can then process on the server side.
By far the hardest part was figuring out the right HTML + CSS to get the look and feel right. I'm not a very strong UI person so this took me forever and still falls down in Chrome which seems to add an accent around input boxes even with (or because of?) styles which make it blend into the parent control.
For our purposes it's been working great over the last week.
UPDATE: It's now on GitHub with a Demo.

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