Business Rules not firing CRM2013

Recently,  i was facing a bizarre issue of Business Rules not firing for Customer Records even though the rule was active for the entity. This was because one of the fields being validated, was not present on the form. Once i added that, the business rule started working again :)

Create Feeds for Custom Entities

Many a times we will come across the scenario where in the clientwould like to see the feeds for custom entities.

Unfortunately, MS prevents us from creating an Activity Feed rule for custom entities. So we cannot configure this directly.

But, there is a perfectly safe workaround for this.

1.       Create a Workflow. i.e. if you want the feeds for creation of a custom entity then create a workflow to fire on create of the record.

2.       The workflow should create a post. Set the attributes as desired.

 

That is all there is to creating a post for a custom entity :)

Create New Business Processes / Modify existing processes

There are 3 steps involved in creating or modifying the existing business process flows.

In this case, I’ll be adding a sample process flow to the contact entity.

1. First step in the process is Adding the sales stage category values you need. i.e. the stage names. In the default solution, you will find an option set “processstage_category”. Add necessary values in the option set.
   
2. Creating a Business Process Flow. Go to SettingsàProcessesàBusiness Process Flows. Create New. 
   
   
3. Add the necessary stages and checks required for them.

The same can be done for OTB entities like Opportunity, Account etc. These Process flows can be controlled through security roles just like Forms.

Enable Proxy Types in Plugins

If you need to use Linq Queries in plugins/workflows, you have to enable proxy types before instantiating the service object from service provider.

factory.GetType().GetProperty("ProxyTypesAssembly").SetValue(factory,typeof(YourCrmContext).Assembly, null);

Ajax request from HTML to CRM2011/ CRM2013

var requestmain = fetchxml;

 $.ajax(
            {
                type: "POST",
                contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
                datatype: "json",
                url: serverurl + "/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc/web",
                async: false,
                data: requestMain,
                headers: { "Accept": "application/xml, text/xml, */*", "Content-Type": "text/xml; charset=utf-8", "SOAPAction": "http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts/Services/IOrganizationService/RetrieveMultiple" }

            })
            .done(function (XMLHttpRequest) {
                var strResponse = GetXmlValue(XMLHttpRequest.childNodes[0]);
                xmlDoc = $.parseXML(strResponse);
            })
            .fail(function (XMLHttpRequest) {
                alert("Error retrieving accounts using fetch xml");
            })
            .always(function (XMLHttpRequest) {
            });

function GetXmlValue(value) {
    if (value.xml == undefined) {
        return (new XMLSerializer()).serializeToString(value);
    }
    return value.xml;
}
 

FormEntityContextRule Example

 CustomActions:

        <CustomActions>

          <CustomAction Id="Mscrm.SubGrid.new_test.AddExistingAssocCustom" Location="Mscrm.SubGrid.new_test.AddExistingStandard" Sequence="30" >

            <CommandUIDefinition>

              <Button Id="Mscrm.SubGrid.new_test.AddExistingStandard" Command="Mscrm.AddExistingRecordFromSubGridStandardCustom" Sequence="30" LabelText="CustomAddExistingStd" Alt="$Resources(EntityDisplayName):Ribbon.SubGrid.AddExisting" Image16by16="/_imgs/ribbon/AddExistingStandard_16.png" Image32by32="/_imgs/ribbon/AddExistingStandard_32.png" TemplateAlias="o1" ToolTipTitle="$Resources(EntityDisplayName):Mscrm_SubGrid_EntityLogicalName_MainTab_Management_AddExistingStandard_ToolTipTitle" ToolTipDescription="$Resources(EntityDisplayName):Mscrm_SubGrid_EntityLogicalName_MainTab_Management_AddExistingStandard_ToolTipDescription" />

            </CommandUIDefinition>

          </CustomAction>

          <CustomAction Id="Mscrm.SubGrid.new_test.AddNewStandardCustom" Location="Mscrm.SubGrid.new_test.AddNewStandard" Sequence="20" >

            <CommandUIDefinition>

              <Button Id="Mscrm.SubGrid.new_test.AddNewStandard" Command="Mscrm.AddNewRecordFromSubGridStandardCustom" Sequence="20" LabelText="CustomAddNewStd" Alt="$Resources(EntityDisplayName):Ribbon.SubGrid.AddNew" Image16by16="/_imgs/ribbon/NewRecord_16.png" Image32by32="/_imgs/ribbon/newrecord32.png" TemplateAlias="o1" ToolTipTitle="$Resources(EntityDisplayName):Mscrm_SubGrid_EntityLogicalName_MainTab_Management_AddNewStandard_ToolTipTitle" ToolTipDescription="$Resources(EntityDisplayName):Mscrm_SubGrid_EntityLogicalName_MainTab_Management_AddNewStandard_ToolTipDescription" />

            </CommandUIDefinition>

          </CustomAction>

        </CustomActions>

CommandDefinitions:

        <CommandDefinitions>

          <CommandDefinition Id="Mscrm.AddExistingRecordFromSubGridStandardCustom">

            <EnableRules>

              <EnableRule Id="Mscrm.AppendToPrimary" />

              <EnableRule Id="Mscrm.EntityFormIsEnabled" />

            </EnableRules>

            <DisplayRules>

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.AddExisting" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.ShowForOneToManyGrids" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.AppendToPrimary" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.AppendSelected" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.CanWriteSelected" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.CustomShow" />

            </DisplayRules>

            <Actions>

              <JavaScriptFunction FunctionName="Mscrm.GridRibbonActions.addExistingFromSubGridStandard" Library="/_static/_common/scripts/RibbonActions.js">

                <CrmParameter Value="SelectedEntityTypeCode" />

                <CrmParameter Value="SelectedControl" />

              </JavaScriptFunction>

            </Actions>

          </CommandDefinition>

          <CommandDefinition Id="Mscrm.AddNewRecordFromSubGridStandardCustom">

            <EnableRules>

              <EnableRule Id="Mscrm.AppendToPrimary" />

              <EnableRule Id="Mscrm.EntityFormIsEnabled" />

            </EnableRules>

            <DisplayRules>

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.ShowForOneToManyGrids" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.AppendToPrimary" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.CreateSelectedEntityPermission" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.AppendSelected" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.HideAddNewForChildEntities" />

              <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.CustomShow" />

            </DisplayRules>

            <Actions>

              <JavaScriptFunction FunctionName="Mscrm.GridRibbonActions.addNewFromSubGridStandard" Library="/_static/_common/scripts/RibbonActions.js">

                <CrmParameter Value="SelectedEntityTypeCode" />

                <CrmParameter Value="PrimaryEntityTypeCode" />

                <CrmParameter Value="FirstPrimaryItemId" />

                <CrmParameter Value="PrimaryControl" />

              </JavaScriptFunction>

            </Actions>

          </CommandDefinition>

        </CommandDefinitions>

RuleDefinition:

        <RuleDefinitions>

          <TabDisplayRules />

          <DisplayRules>

            <DisplayRule Id="Mscrm.CustomShow" >

              <FormEntityContextRule EntityName="account" InvertResult="true" />

            </DisplayRule>

          </DisplayRules>

          <EnableRules />

        </RuleDefinitions>

open link url inside a div/iframe

<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript">

function  showPage (which) {
    document.getElementById('xrmforms').innerHTML = '<' + 'iframe id="crmpage" src="' + which + '"width="100%" height="600px;" scrolling="auto"></iframe>';

}

</script>

</head>
<body>
<a href="http://www.google.com" onclick="showPage(this.href);return false;">Click here</a>


<div id="xforms">
</div>

</body>
</html>

Replace certain character JavaScript

To replace certain characters in javascript:

In this example, i'm replacing '&' with '&amp;' in the entire string.


function formatTexts(linkText) {
    var patt1 = /&/g;
    var patt1replStr = "&amp;";

    var matchPatt = linkText.match(patt1);

    var pattformat = /&amp;/g;
    var matchformatted = "";
    if (matchPatt != null && matchPatt.length > 0) {
        while (matchformatted.length < matchPatt.length) {
            linkText = linkText.replace(linkText.match(patt1)[0], patt1replStr);
            matchformatted = linkText.match(pattformat);
        }
    }
    return linkText;
}

HtmlEncoding in Javascript

Often when executing fetchxml in javascript or when creating tables throught javascript, you would face the error because the values are not htmlencoded.


function htmlEncode(value) {
    return $('<div/>').text(value).html();
}
function htmlDecode(value) {
    return $('<div/>').html(value).text();
}


This encodes the default characters that have to be encoded.
For more details:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316063

Hide CrmNavBar and CrmRibbon through javascript

//This toggles ribbon visibility, but doesnt move the form area up
window.top.document.getElementById("minimizeribbon").fireEvent("onclick");


// Hide the Ribbon toolbar and move the form Content area to the top of the window.
window.top.document.getElementById("crmTopBar").style.display = "none";
window.top.document.getElementById("crmContentPanel").style.top = "0px"; //

//default values for showing ribbon and moving content area below ribbon

window.top.document.getElementById("crmTopBar").style.display = "";
window.top.document.getElementById("crmContentPanel").style.top = "135px"; //



// Hide Left Hand Nav bar / pane
document.getElementById("crmNavBar").parentElement.style.display = "none";
document.getElementById("tdAreas").parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.colSpan = 2;



// Hide the Breadcrumb and Record Set Toolbar
document.getElementById("recordSetToolBar").parentElement.style.display = "none";

// Hide the Form Footer Bar
document.getElementById("crmFormFooter").parentElement.style.display = "none";