How to customize the ribbon on Form to hide button in CRM 2011.

Problem:  Came across the situation in which I want to hide a button on Form.

Solution:

To solve this issue either you can write javascript to hide button or customize the ribbon. I realized the good way to achieve this task was to customize the ribbon.

a) If we want to hide the button on the MainTab of entity then the process is simple as follows:

1.     Create the empty solution and add the entity from which you want to remove the button (for eg. Accounts)
2.     Export the solution, unzip and open Customization.xml.
3.     Locate “RibbonDiffXml”. Write the following code inside the node.

            <RibbonDiffXml>

                     <CustomActions>

                            <HideCustomAction Location="Mscrm.Form.account.Assign"       

                                                            HideActionId="form.HideAction" />

                    </CustomActions>

          Here location indicates the button that you want to hide. We have taken an example to hide “Assign” button on MainTab.

       4.  Save the file.

       5.  Zip the solution, Import and Publish the changes.

b)  But what If we want to hide button on the subgrid section. Say we have “TestEntity” related to Accounts and I want to hide the buttons which says “Add new TestEntity”.

       1. Create empty solution and export “TestEntity”.

       2. Open Customization.xml and locate “RibbonDiffXml”.

       3. Include the following code inside the node.

             <RibbonDiffXml>

                      <CustomActions>

                              <HideCustomAction Location="Mscrm.SubGrid.TestEntity.AddNewStandard"

                                                              HideActionId="Subgrid.HideAction" />

                      </CustomActions>

        So this action will hide the button from subgrid of all entities related with “TestEntity”.

       4. Save the file.

       5. Zip the solution, Import and Publish the changes.

Thanks,

Adding a custom tooltip to CRM 2011 entity field

Problem: I had requirement from user to add custom tooltip to drop down list (OptionSet) field on Entity form in CRM 2011.

Solution:

I knew that we have default tooltip for each option with in the OptionSet but here user wanted to have custom tooltip. So I had to write JavaScript to achieve this task.

On form load event you need to write following code to add the custom tooltip

crmForm.all.dropdownlistName.childNodes[0].title = 'Text to be displayed in tooltip';

So above code will display tooltip for the first option in OptionSet. Similarly you can add tooltip to any field on Entity form in CRM 2011.

This method works fine for me on CRM 2011 Rollup 13.

Thanks,

Using SqlBulkcopy Object to insert large data into database.

Problem:  I had a situation in which we want to copy the data from log files to database. So first challenge was to parse the log files and second to insert them in database.

Solution:

The solution, I choose was to first parse the files and insert the data into a DataTable and then send the datatable to SqlBulkcopy object which inserts the whole datatable into database Table. SqlBulkCopy is more efficient compared to executing multiple insert statements to database when volume of data to insert is large.

1.      So First step is to create a DataTable and define columns for it. However, it is not mandatory to define the column name and size.

DataTable dTable = new DataTable();

       DataColumn dc;

       dc = new DataColumn("FilePath");

       dc.DataType = System.Type.GetType("System.String");

       dc.MaxLength = 250;

dTable.Columns.Add(dc);

      dc = new DataColumn("DateTime");

      dc.DataType = System.Type.GetType("System.String");

      dTable.Columns.Add(dc);

      dc = new DataColumn("UserName");

      dc.DataType = System.Type.GetType("System.String");

      dc.MaxLength = 50;

      dTable.Columns.Add(dc);

     

2.       Next Step is to add the rows into the datatable that contains the data you want to insert into database.

DataRow newRow = dTable.NewRow();

       newRow[0] = file.Name;

       newRow[1] = file.createdDate;

       newRow[2] = userloggedin;

      

       dTable.Rows.Add(newRow);

3.      Once the data is populated in datatable you can define your SqlBulkcopy object.

//Get the connection string to connect to database

 String ConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["DataBaseConnString"];

//create connection object

        using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(ConnectionString)) 

        {

          SqlBulkCopy bulkCpy = new SqlBulkCopy(

                                                  conn,

                                                  SqlBulkCopyOptions.TableLock |

                                                  SqlBulkCopyOptions.FireTriggers |

                                                  SqlBulkCopyOptions.UseInternalTransaction,

                                                  null

                                               );

   bulkCpy.DestinationTableName = "databaseTableName"; //Table in which you need to insert data

          //Not mandatory. Required only if you want to divide the insert operation into batches.

   bulkCpy.BatchSize = 1000;

          bulkCpy.ColumnMappings.Add(new SqlBulkCopyColumnMapping("FilePath", "FilePath"));

          bulkCpy.ColumnMappings.Add(new SqlBulkCopyColumnMapping("DateTime", "DateTime"));

          bulkCpy.ColumnMappings.Add(new SqlBulkCopyColumnMapping("UserName", "UserName"));

          conn.Open(); //open  database connection

          bulkCpy.WriteToServer(dTable); //Statement writes the contents of datatable to database.

          dTable.Clear();

          conn.Close();         

      }

              

·         To sqlBulkcopy we pass connection object and set of SqlBulkCopyOptions – this are flags that indicates different setting sql server will use while inserting data into database. (you can refer msdn for more details on this options)

                                                 i.            SqlBulkCopyOptions.TableLock - indicates to lock table during operation.

                                               ii.            SqlBulkCopyOptions.FireTriggers – fires triggers when row is inserted.

                                             iii.            SqlBulkCopyOptions.UseInternalTransaction – indicate that each batch will perform as transaction.

·         Last parameter takes SqlTransaction object which we set to null.

·         You can avoid SqlBulkCopyColumnMapping. It is needed only when the number of columns you are passing into datatable is less than number of columns in database Table.

Thanks,

How assigning Activate/Deactivate permissions to user in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Problem:  I had a situation in which we wanted to prevent any random user to activate or deactivate record on certain entity. We wanted only people with specific roles to have permission to activate or deactivate the record.

Solution:

After doing my research I realized that you don’t have direct way to give permission in CRM 2011 for activation/deactivation of record. So you can do this by either by writing a javascript or by writing a plugin. There might be other ways to achieve this task as well but according to me the best method will be to write a plugin.

We can write a plugin that fries up when user tries to activate/deactivate the record and at this time we can check the role associated with user. If user is not from the role we want throw exception.

Following steps can be performed to achieve the result:

1.      Write a plugin that contains code to access role and systemuser

     QueryExpression query = new QueryExpression()

     {

       LinkEntities =

                    {                         

                      new LinkEntity

                      {

                           LinkFromEntityName = "role",

                           LinkFromAttributeName = "roleid",

                           LinkToEntityName = "systemuserroles",

                           LinkToAttributeName = "roleid",

                           LinkCriteria = new FilterExpression

                           {

                                FilterOperator = LogicalOperator.And,

                                Conditions =

                                {

                                   new ConditionExpression

                                   {

                                      AttributeName = "systemuserid",

                                      Operator = ConditionOperator.Equal,

                                      Values = { context.InitiatingUserId }

                                   }

                                }

                           }

                        }

                     },

          Criteria = new FilterExpression

                     {

                       Conditions =

                       {

                          new ConditionExpression(

                                                   "name",

                                                   ConditionOperator.In,

                                                   new string[]

                                                   {

                                                     "sc test Role",

                                                     "System Administrator"

                                                   }

                                                 )

                        }

                      }

            };

            query.EntityName = "role";

            query.ColumnSet = new ColumnSet("roleid");

            EntityCollection userRoles = service.RetrieveMultiple(query);

            if (userRoles.Entities.Count==0)

            {

                throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException

                         (

                           OperationStatus.Canceled,

                           "You are not allowed to deactivate record"                      

                         );

            }

So the plugin will throw error if the user is not from the two roles mention.

2.      Next step is to register plugin on Pre-operation of “SetStateDynamicEntity”. Set Primary entity value as the entity for which you want to perform this operation.

Thanks,