Thursday 19 January 2012

CRM 2011: How to use Visual Ribbon Editor Tool?

Recently, I was assigned a task of ribbon customization in Dynamics CRM. The requirement was like configure a custom ribbon button on custom entity to call some JavaScript methods. I’ve used the Visual Ribbon Editor Tool. This tool is quite handy and intuitive for ribbon customization. I would like to share my experience here in below post.

Before to start with a Ribbon Editor Tool, let’s first configure the web resources (Images and JavaScript file).

The images will be used as an icon on a button. Below are 3 different types that CRM supports. Image formats can be PNG, JPG, GIF or ICO.
  1. Small: 16 x 16 pixels
  2. Medium: 32 x 32 pixels
  3. Large: 66 x 48 pixels
Following are the steps to add image to web resource
1. Click Web Resources on left navigation pane in your solution.

image

2. Click New to add web resource record.
3. Specify the name and the display name.
4. Select Format of the image.
5. Click browse to select an image path to upload image.
6. Save and publish the newly created web resource record.

image

Follow the same process to add 32x32 Image.
 
Let’s add a JavaScript function which will be called on custom button click
These are the steps to add new Library as web resource

1. Repeat steps 1-3 as above
2. Select Script(JScript) as Type of web resource.

image

3. Click on Text Editor.
4. Insert below function in Text editor window 
   1: function TestRibbon()
   2: {
   3:    alert("Test Ribbon Customization using Visual Ribbon Editor.");
   4: }
image

5. Click ok.
6. Save and publish a web resource

 
Now it’s time to play with Visual Ribbon Editor Tool. Use below link to download it. http://crmvisualribbonedit.codeplex.com/releases/view/75530

Extract the files and Run “VisualRibbonEditor.exe”

image

1. Click imageon top – left of the screen named as “Connection Info..” ,

image

2. Specify the connection details

image

3. Once connected, click on image button.


image


4. Select the required entity for ribbon customization.

image


5. By default, It Loads the ribbon type as Form

image

6. If you want to create a new Group then click on “New Group” button.

image


7. Specify the ID
image


Instead of creating new group, you could also add the button on existing group.For that you just need to select any existing group.

image

In this example I have created a new group. It will be added at the last position on ribbon toolbar.
image

8. Click on New Button to insert a button on above group.

image

9. Specify the button name.

image

10. Specify the following details for the newly created button on Details tab.
a. Id: Defines button id. 
b. Label: Defines caption or display text for button.
c. Tooltip: Defines tooltip text for the button.
d. Template Alias: Defines how button will be displayed on ribbon with Large, medium, small icon and it also vary depending on the selected Template of group.(step-7)
    • 01(Large) : Defines large image (32x32).
    • 02(Medium): Defines small image (16x16).
    • isv(Medium): Defines small image (16x16).
                 image









e. Sequence: Use arrow buttons to setup a sequence of custom button.
f. 16x16 Image: Name of button image from web resource (16x16).(Created as a web resource earlier)
g. 32x32 Image: Name of button image from web resource (32x32). (Created as a web resource earlier)
image

11. Now, click on Action tab shown as below.
12. Click on Add link for specifying the “Function name” and “Library”

image

You can also use “Display Rules” and “Enable Rules” via this tool which will allow us to configure many criteria for enabling/disabling a custom button.

13. Click on Save button that will import the solution in CRM

image

image

14. Now you can verify the button on your entity’s form ribbon.

image

15. On click of this button you’ll get the JavaScript alert Message.

image

4 comments:

  1. very nice , thank you :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello i'm trying to connect with visual ribbon editor to crm2011 online

    I use

    CRM server URL: https://herkablebv.crm4.dynamics.com
    CRM organization name herkablebv
    Login: henk@herkableBV.onmicrosoft.com
    Password: XXXXX

    But I get the error "Failed to connect crm". What is wrong?
    This is the link to connect to the crm2011 online system.

    kind regards
    henk

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry for the late response.

    Two possibilities,
    1. Use Disco URL instead of CRM online URL. Like,
    http://disco.crm4.dynamics.com
    2. Instead of Organisation name use the Organisation unique id. you could validate the same from from Settings - Customisation - Developer Resource.

    ReplyDelete
  4. it helped me.. Thanks

    ReplyDelete