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Editing PowerPack Add-on PowerGrid’s Entity View

Post Author: Joe D365 |

PowerGrid is one of the latest PowerPack solutions to come out of our think tank here at PowerObjects. This PowerPack gives Microsoft Dynamics CRM users the ability to inline edit record fields on the fly right from within a grid; eliminating the need to open new windows for every record that needs to be edited, making this add-on a must-have solution for increased productivity! Out of the box, PowerGrid is placed within the PowerPack section of CRM – this is super useful and easy to find within your CRM system. However, if you want to take your productivity to the next level; why not add PowerGrid to the areas of CRM that your users are working in the most; such as sales, marketing or service? That way your users have PowerGrid right at their fingertips!

So, let’s say that you are a CRM Administrator for a company and your sales team is currently using PowerGrid to edit records on the fly and search within their views. However, they want less clicks to get to the PowerGrid screen; the solution is simple, you can add the PowerGrid web resource to the Sales area of CRM’s Site Map and then edit PowerGrid’s default screen to sales views!

The first step to this process would be to decide where it makes sense to add PowerGrid and what entity and entity view you want the solution to default to – you will want to make sure that wherever you place the grid (Sales, Service, or Marketing), your users are getting pertinent information to what they are working on. In this case we will add PowerGrid to the Sales section of CRM, by adding the PowerGrid web resource to the navigation in the Site Map and defaulting the solution to the Contact entity and the My Active Contacts view.

  • To edit the site map you must first export it from your CRM system. If you do not have a copy of the site map please follow these instructions.

Please note: Whenever you are editing the site map of your CRM system it is best practice to save an original copy, this way if the changes you applied mess something up in CRM you can simply import the original copy of the Site Map back into your CRM system.

  1. Navigate to Settings > Solutions > select New, give the solution the name “Site Map,” and a version number such as 1.0.0.0, then choose the default publisher and select Save.

2. Next select, “Add Existing,” and choose “Site Map.” Do not add anything else!

3. Now you are ready to add PowerGrid’s web resource to the Sales section of CRM and set the default entity and view for PowerGrid.

4. Navigate to the site map .zip file, open it and copy the customization file, then paste it somewhere outside of the zip file.

5. Next right click on the customizations file and open with Notepad, once you are in the notepad hit “Ctrl F” which will give you a find box, type in PowerGrid

6. Find the section that says,

7. You will want to copy this string of code and then add it under:

7. To setup the default entity and the default entity view, you will need to append the following string(s) of text:

  • For the entity, you will want to add “?data=entityentitylogicalname” to the end of the web resource
  • If you want to also define the entity view, you will want to add viewviewdisplayname to the end of the entity string so it would look something like the following: URL=”$webresource:popg_/Grid.html? ?data=entityentitylogicalnameviewviewdisplayname

8. Once you are done editing the customization file, save it, copy it and paste it back into the Site Map .zip file. Please make sure when you copy the customization file back into the .zip file you choose to “Copy and Replace.”

9. Then navigate back to CRM, under Settings > Solutions > Import and select the newly edited Site Map file, once the file has completed importing choose to Publish all Customizations, and then you will see the PowerGrid web resource under the Sales section and it should default to your entity and entity view settings.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the PowerPack Team at powerpackpro@powerobjects.com! Haven’t tried PowerGrid yet?! Try it today with our free 30 day trial! To get started visit the PowerGrid webpage.

Happy CRM’ing!

 

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

2 comments on “Editing PowerPack Add-on PowerGrid’s Entity View”

    1. Hi - PowerGrid will display system views and user views for the user using powerGrid.

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