Tip #10: Use mouse wheel to navigate the sitemap

Sitemap navigation has dramatically changed in CRM 2013 with horizontal layout replacing classical sitemap tree of CRM 2011. If group contains large number of subareas, horizontal scrolling is added. Large and shiny 24″+ monitors with high resolutions just compound the issue if you need to get to the rightmost item in a large group. Mouse pointer all the way to the right, then click on a tiny horizontal scroll arrow, then all the way back to the required item that managed to scroll past the pointer.

I trust that your mouse does have a scrolling wheel that you’ve been using to scroll web pages and documents. Turns out, the very same wheel will scroll the sitemap group right and left as you rotate the wheel down and up. Move mouse over the group name (e.g. Sales), group will expand (no click required), move the mouse pointer just few pixels down so that it’s within the group boundaries and when rotate the wheel. See?

But wait, there is more!

Tip #9: Make the user record form a user adoption dashboard

By default, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM user form does not display all related owned or created record relations, because the user entity is related to virtually every entity multiple times. However, you can add subgrids to the user form to display records filtered by any created by or owning user relationship. This can make the user form very useful for monitoring user activity in CRM and verify that users are really using CRM.

Once you define what types of records most accurately represent usage, add subgrids for those entities to the user form. For example, if I want to make sure that a customer service representative is creating cases, I would add a subgrid of cases to the user form, selecting to show related records and selecting the related Case created by user relationship.

Tip #8: Make a subgrid “+” button launch a new record form

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM, to add a record to a subgrid on a form, you hit the + button in the upper right hand corner. You will notice that for some subgrids you will get a lookup field, while others will give you a new record form.

The reason for this different behavior is that the new button (+) can either function as “add new” or “add existing.” For example, when you are adding an opportunity, you probably will want to have the new button create a new opportunity, while when adding a contact to an account, you may want to have the user select from an existing list of contacts (or search existing first, then add a new one).

To control the behavior of the new record button on subgrids, look at the child entity being selected in the subgrid..If the lookup field for the parent is required, the user will get a “new record” form when clicking the + button. If the lookup field for the parent entity is not required on the child entity, the user will get the lookup field to “add existing.”

Tip #7: Use In-Private Internet Explorer sessions to work in multiple CRM Online environments

Sometimes you need to work in multiple CRM environments simultaneously. For example, if you are moving customization from a development environment to a production environment. This can be somewhat difficult if you have environments that are both CRM Online, but use different Office 365 accounts. If you just open your browser and log on to the second environment while logged in to your primary environment, it will tell you that you are not a user in the second environment, and if you hit log out and log back in, it will kick you out of the first environment.

Find out how to solve this challenge

Tip #6: Bring Back Save & New

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 has been redesigned to simplify the user interface. As a result, several ribbon buttons were removed from the form. One of the buttons that you may miss is the “Save and New” button, which saves the current record then opens a new blank form. When creating multiple records, this is a very useful timesaver.

You can still use save & new via a keyboard shortcut. CTRL + S will save the record, Alt + S will save and close the record, and CTRL + Shift + S will save the record and open a new blank form.

Once users get familiar with the keyboard shortcuts, they can frequently create records significantly faster than clicking the save button with their mouse.

Tip #4: The Application Metadata security privilege

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, to use CRM for Tablets, the user’s security role must have the “CRM for Tablets” permission, but there is also another new permission needed to use the tablet apps. On the Customization tab of CRM security roles, there is a new privilege called “Application Metadata.” The user requires read access to application metadata to connect to CRM in CRM for Tablets. For new deployments, the standard roles will have this permission; however, if you are upgrading from CRM 2011 and you use custom roles, your users will not automatically get this permission. You must edit their roles and grant this permission.

There are two privileges required: users need read permission on System Application Metadata and read and write permission on User Application Metadata.

application metadata

Tip #3: Give users read access to mailbox entity

When you upgrade from CRM 2011 to 2013, you will need to grant your users security permission to read the “Mailbox” entity. This is because in CRM 2013, the user’s mail preferences for incoming/outgoing mail are set on the mailbox entity and not on the user record (like they were in earlier versions). If you don’t grant read permission to mailbox entity, they won’t be able to configure CRM for Outlook.