Tip #469: Sorting lookup field quick preview

Most of the time Joel is very helpful but sometimes he’s just plain grumpy:

I’m finding that the lookup field quick preview list does not honor sort order. In this example I have a “sequence” field that sorts the list in the desired order:

Screenshot 2015-09-02 21.09.07

If you go to the lookup dialog, it honors the sort order in the lookup view:

Screenshot 2015-09-02 21.09.22

Is there any way to make the quick lookup preview honor the sort order?

And I kind of appreciate his grumpiness on this one because the reply from authoritative sources came thick and fast:

This is not possible today, quick preview list sorts it based on the “primary attribute” of the entity. But if this is something which blocks your scenario, I will be happy to add it into the backlog for lookup enhancements. Can you please open a connect bug for this and send me the ID.

Relentless man that he is, Joel indeed used Microsoft Connect to press on with the issue (and under the similar circumstances you, our readers, should do the same!):

Here is an existing Connect item with 15 votes. I would say this is high priority. The only way to make it work is currently to append numbers to the lookup list to make it sort correctly in preview.

Screenshot 2015-09-02 21.13.13

Tip #468: Tipster guide to Unified Service Desk installation

It’s Friday and this week the video subject is on something closely related to and built on top of the Dynamics CRM. USD, which stands for United States Dollars Unified Service Desk.

In the first video in our USD series, we walk you installing Dynamics CRM’s USD desktop client as well using package deployer to import USD Sample data into a CRM Online instance.

YouTube player

Give us your feedback, all of it: good, bad, and ugly, I’m sure we can take it. Suggest new topics either in comments or by sending your ideas to jar@crmtipoftheday.com.

Tip #467: Bulk unblock the XRM Toolbox

If you have ever downloaded the fantastic XRM Toolbox, you will know that the .dll files need to be unblocked before you can use the application.

Donna Edwards referred me to a PowerShell command suggested by Andre Margono that will bulk unblock all the files in the XRM Toolbox folder.

The syntax goes like this:
gci <your XrmToolBox folder> | Unblock-File
eg:
gci c:\XrmToolBox | Unblock-File

This is similar to our recommendation about the Package Deployer. Alternatively, when you download the xrm toolbox zip file, you can unblock the entire zip file before you extract it. if you are like me, you regularly forget to do that, and then Andre’s PowerShell is very helpful.

A third approach is to download the xrm toolbox using Firefox. Files downloaded via Firefox are not blocked by Windows, so you generally do not need to unblock them before running them.

Tip #466: It’s not a privilege

Way back in Tip 226, we talked about the sitemap privilege tag that can be used to hide sitemap subarea links for users that don’t have a specific entity permission. One thing that you should know is that the privilege tag is not honored by Dynamics CRM mobile apps.

The rule of thumb is that if a user has permission to read an entity, the entity is enabled for mobile, and a link to that entity is displayed in the sitemap, the user will see that entity listed in the menu of CRM mobile apps.

As a practical consequence, if your users use CRM mobile apps on their smartphones or tablets, you may want to avoid putting every back-end custom entity in the settings area of the sitemap. For entities that are used for purposes like lookup lists, you want the entity to be available on mobile, but you probably don’t want the link to appear in the menu of the mobile apps. My recommendation is to not display the entity in the settings menu. Users who need to add records to these entities or manage the records in them can do so by running an Advanced Find query.

Tip #465: Learn how Outlook and Exchange synchronization works

In Tip 435 we mentioned the old CRM 4.0 synchronization whitepaper as an “oldie” but still valuable whitepaper. Great news! This whitepaper has been updated. the all new “how it works” whitepaper. The CRM team has done a great job of documenting the way that synchronization works, including clarification on how deletes are handled, and documentation of new features, such as synchronization field mapping. This is a must have for CRM administrators and people supporting users who synchronize with CRM.

Download the whitepaper here

Tip #464: Connecting PowerBI to CRM Online

Don’t be a literal as me and make this same mistake when setting up a connection to CRM Online for PowerBI. Read the fine print!

See how in the example there is no trailing space to include in the oData service endpoint!

oData Service Endpoint

oData Service Endpoint

You will get an error when you copy and paste the URL from the developer resources window from CRM. PowerBI doesn’t like the trailing space at all. It will say it can’t find the endpoint. Remove the slash before or after pasting it in and clicking on OK.

CRM Developer Resources

CRM Developer Resources

Tip #463: Tipster guide to Immersive Excel

It’s Friday and it feels like Excel week so far. Firstly, watch Derik walking you though Dynamics CRM’s immersive Excel feature that was released as part of the Spring 2015 update.

YouTube player

Then listen to the Dynamics CRM Podcast where Matthew Anderson joins us to tell us some things we didn’t know about the 2015 update 1 immersive Excel functionality.

Give us your feedback, all of it: good, bad, and ugly, I’m sure we can take it. Suggest new topics either in comments or by sending your ideas to jar@crmtipoftheday.com.

Tip #462: Waiting for developer toolkit

CRM developers have been patiently waiting for Godo CRM Developer Toolkit that works with something better than Visual Studio 2012. Now being two version behind, it does not look like it’s coming any time soon.

The good news is that, acknowledging both the demand and the delay, the team has been releasing the most important part of the toolkit, the templates, as a separate download from Visual Studio Extension Gallery for quite some time. The even gooder news is that the templates are being regularly updated, with the latest drop less than a fortnight ago including support for Visual Studio 2015 and freshly minted Plugin Class template.

Spießrutenlaufen was not forgotten either – all templates are now using Nuget to manage the references.

Tip #461: Getting started with that mysterious USD development

Kamaji - the perfect call center employeeNot United States Dollars, I’m afraid. Unified Service Desk, the quite achiever in the Dynamics family, and the secret sauce to any successful call center implementation.

In addition to having CRM (any version from 2013 SP1 up to CRM Online 2015 Update 1 will do), USD initial setup even for the development is very trivial:

Still feeling uneasy and would like to have some guidance? If you’re a Microsoft partner with access to the Dynamics Learning Portal, register and attend virtual USD course, this one or that one, depending on your location and sleeping patterns. It won’t turn you into a USD ninja but it will surely get you started.