Dynamics CRM 2011 – Limitations of Report Wizard (OOB)

 

Feature List	Report Wizard (OOB)	Custom SSRS Report - BIDS	Remarks
Grouping	Yes	Yes	-
Adding extra rows and columns	No	Yes	-
Expressions Based Values	No	Yes	-
Design, Font, Colour Change	No	Yes	No option available while creating report through wizard. Is possible after exporting and changing the report.
Context specific	Yes (By Default)	Yes	-
Group Summary	Yes (With limited functions)	Yes	Average, Maximum, Minimum, Percentage of total, Sum are the summary types that can be used in report wizard for a field.
Lookup Functionality	No	Yes	-
Hyperlink	No	Yes	-
Use of Sub Reports	No	Yes	-
Charts	Yes (Limited Type)	Yes	Only vertical bar chart, horizontal bar chart, line chart, pie chart are supported in report wizard.
Tools like line, list, image, sub report, gauge, map, indicator, sparkline	No	Yes
Custom Code	No	Yes
Functions Available in Expressions	No	Yes
Hide Show based on expressions	No	Yes
Report filters	No	Yes
Parameters	No	Yes	There is no way to add new parameter to the report through report wizard.
Header - Body - Footer	No	Yes
Page Nos. in footer	No	Yes
Accessing Current Date Time	No	Yes
Entities could be involved in generating a report	One primary entity and it's first level related entity	No such limitation

I hope this would be helpful. Please feel free to comment on this post with more limitations.

Dynamics CRM - Trigger a workflow from JavaScript

 

Updated on – 24th Sep 2015

 

Recently I had a requirement to trigger a workflow on click of ribbon button when it meets certain criteria. Refer below link for calling JavaScript function from custom ribbon button.

http://ankit.inkeysolutions.com/2012/01/crm-2011-how-to-use-visual-ribbon.html

The criteria values are checked using JavaScript and if all criteria are satisfied then the workflow is to be triggered. The function below will take two inputs where entityId is the id of the record for which the workflow will execute and workflowProcessId is the id of the workflow which we want to execute.

function startWorkflow(entityId, workflowProcessId) {

  var request = "<s:Envelope xmlns:s=\"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/\">" +

   "<s:Body>" +

     "<Execute xmlns=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts/Services\" xmlns:i=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\">" +

       "<request i:type=\"b:ExecuteWorkflowRequest\" xmlns:a=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts\" xmlns:b=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/crm/2011/Contracts\">" +

         "<a:Parameters xmlns:c=\"http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/System.Collections.Generic\">" +

           "<a:KeyValuePairOfstringanyType>" +

             "<c:key>EntityId</c:key>" +

             "<c:value i:type=\"d:guid\" xmlns:d=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/\">" + entityId + "</c:value>" +

           "</a:KeyValuePairOfstringanyType>" +

           "<a:KeyValuePairOfstringanyType>" +

             "<c:key>WorkflowId</c:key>" +

             "<c:value i:type=\"d:guid\" xmlns:d=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/\">" + workflowProcessId + "</c:value>" +

           "</a:KeyValuePairOfstringanyType>" +

         "</a:Parameters>" +

         "<a:RequestId i:nil=\"true\" />" +

         "<a:RequestName>ExecuteWorkflow</a:RequestName>" +

       "</request>" +

     "</Execute>" +

   "</s:Body>" +

 "</s:Envelope>";

  var requestURL = Xrm.Page.context.getClientUrl() + "/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc/web";

  var xmlHttpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();

  xmlHttpRequest.open("POST", requestURL, false)

  xmlHttpRequest.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/xml, text/xml, */*");

  xmlHttpRequest.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "text/xml; charset=utf-8");

  xmlHttpRequest.setRequestHeader("SOAPAction", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts/Services/IOrganizationService/Execute");

  xmlHttpRequest.send(request);

}

That’s it. The above common method can be used to trigger workflow from JavaScript.

I hope this would be helpful.

Dynamics CRM 4.0 to 2011 upgrade - ISV tab dilemma

Currently, I am working on one of my projects where in I was told to develop an upgrade plan, to upgrade an organization from CRM 4.0 to 2011. The customer uses couple of third party add-ons and these add-ons have applied some changes in ISV.config file in CRM 4.0. I have prepared my lists for upgrade and started with test runs, during this time I found some unwanted ISV tab(highlighted in below screen shot) on some of the in-built and custom entities.

After some binging, I came to know that this is by design. All Custom Menu and Grid Buttons of CRM 4.0 would be upgraded as new tab besides Customize tab in CRM 2011. To know more about this symptom, you can refer below link.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2501761

There are couple of solutions which could be applied to get rid of this ISV tab as explained below,

1. You can remove these buttons from CRM 4.0 via updating ISV.config file before upgrade.

2. You can change the RibbonDiffXml part of customization xml file, as described in above link after upgrading an organization.

If you want to apply second solution then you can use Ribbon Workbench tool for CRM 2011. You can download & import this add-on with the help of below URL.

http://www.develop1.net/public/page/Ribbon-Workbench-for-Dynamics-CRM-2011.aspx

And then,

1. Create a solution with just the application ribbon in it.

2. Find the ISV tab

3. Right click on it and select 'Un-customise Tab'

4. Publish your solution.

According to my knowledge the Visual Ribbon Editor tool does not support this feature as of now.

I hope this would be helpful.