Editable Grids in Dynamics CRM

What is it

To enrich the CRM user interface for a touch friendly interaction across all mobile clients, we introduced a new set of embedded controls for the CRM Mobile Client Application (aka MoCA) with the Custom Control Infrastructure feature in the last release.

These controls offer both a more intuitive experience for users with mobile platforms (sliders, spinners, etc.) and address certain business needs (Calendar, Youtube player, website preview , etc). See this blog post for more.

The set of these controls are now installed via a CRM Solution during the CRM installation process, and the infrastructure was changed – allowing you to configure these alternative visualizations to your existing fields and subgrids on the Forms, Homepage Grid, and Dashboard as desired.

The Editable Grid control coming with the Dynamics CRM 2016 Fall Release will utilize this capability to extend the functionalities currently available you in the Homepage Grid and subgrid contexts.

Editable grids, one of the most highly requested features for Microsoft Dynamics 365, provide rich inline editing in main grids and sub-grids so you can update the information you need with fewer clicks.

Editable grids support:

• In-grid editing of records at the entity or sub-grid level
• Web and mobile clients
• Navigation using a keyboard or mouse
• Grouping and Sorting (Able to group by/sort by any column on current view)
• Filtering
• Moving and resizing columns
• Pagination
• Lookup configuration
• Calculated fields and Rollup fields
• Business rules
• Hierarchical view
• Enabling or disabling of cells based on security role

The Editable Grids control is available for Dynamics CRM Online Dynamics CRM On Premises

How to enable

As mentioned above the Editable Grid is built on CCF (Custom Control Framework), and configuration is per each entity. One configuration applies all form factors (Web, Tablet, Mobile).

Please note – to follow along with the below example you’ll need a Dynamics 365 instance (either preview, trial, or production)

To enable the Editable Grid control for the CRM Web Client, you navigate to the Customization area under Settings and add the Editable Grid control to the entities of your choice.

Steps:

Navigate to Settings > Customizations > Customize the System 

Click the entity for which you want inline editing (eg. Account), click the Controls tab, and then click Add Controls to display the “Add Control” dialog

In the “Add Control” dialog click Editable Grid

Click Add to add an instance of the Editable Grid.

In the newly added row for the  Editable Grid control select the Web option

If you’d like to see a how you can work with LookUps in the grid to, click Add Lookup under Property to display the “Configure Property Add Lookup” dialog

In the “Configure Property Add Lookup” dialog, in the Available Views drop-down, select which view to add the lookup to (eg My Active Accounts) and the lookup column you want added (eg Primary Contact) in the Available Columns drop-down.

Click OK to return to the Controls tab

Finally click Save…

…and Publish to save and publish the changes to the entity

Example

To test the changes above navigate to Sales > Accounts and select the view My Active Accounts

Make edits in the grid, eg. change the Main Phone number for one of the records in the grid

We can also apply grouping, eg group the grid by the field “Address 1: City”

Finally we can change the Primary Contact for one of the records in the grid using the Lookup we added to the control.

Supported

• Editable Grid supports most of data types except:
  • State
  • Customer type field
  • Composite field
  • Partylist
  • Lookup entity related fields
• Editable Grid respect read-only grid metadata and configurations
• Editable Grid support the below JavaScript events for home grid and sub-grids:
  • OnRecordSelect
  • OnSave
  • OnChange
• Editable Grid support the below entity level Business Rules:
  • Show error message
  • Set field value
  • Set business required
  • Set default value
  • Lock or unlock field

I hope you will enjoy this long awaited feature.