Along with the chart component, dashboards in Dynamics CRM 2011 can also include the list component. The list component is used to show CRM data in a tabular format. Sometimes, the list of data being presented can go over the 50 or 250 record display limit, and you will need to search for the information you are looking for.
Carry out the following steps in order to complete this recipe:
- Select the Dashboards link from the Workplace area.
- If it is not currently showing, select the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Overview dashboard. There should be a list located near the bottom right of this dashboard with the title My Activities, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Move your mouse cursor over to the input box that says Search for records; this is the search criteria box. You will notice a tooltip appear that says Use asterisk (*) wildcard character to search on partial text. This means that if you don't know the complete word, or want to look for words that might be in the middle of other text, you can combine them with the asterisk (*) character to get your results.
- In order to demonstrate this, type like into the search criteria box and then hit your Enter key or click on the magnifying glass icon next to the input box (the related tooltip will say Start search). If you are still using the Dynamics CRM 2011 sample data, you should see the following two records returned in the search results. The criterion provided asks CRM for any records where the Subject field starts with the word like:
- Next, we want to broaden the search to contain any records in the My Activities list where the word like is used in the Subject field. To clear the search results, you must click on the small x icon located where the magnifying glass was before you started the search. The related tooltip will say Clear search. This will return the list to the original state.
- Type the following into the search criteria box: *like* and the hit your Enter key or click on the magnifying glass icon to start the search. If you are still using the Dynamics CRM 2011 sample data, you should now see the following three records returned in the search results. The extra record is a result of widening the search criteria by instructing to look for any records where the Subject field contains the word like:
The list component on the dashboard allows the dashboard creator to show one or more of the system views that were created earlier in the Dynamics CRM application. A view is basically a query that has predefined display columns and predefined criteria. The list used in this recipe was looking at the My Activities view. That view had certain display columns (Subject, Regarding, Activity Type, and so on) and predefined criteria (show all CRM Activity records that I own). It is important to note that the My Activities view only defined the Subject field to be used as a Find Column. The Find Column of a view is used when performing searches. So when we typed in the word like, it only checked for matching results using the Subject field values.
Modifying and creating system views is outside the scope of this recipe, but it is important to understand this behavior if you are not getting the expected results in your list searches, and is also something to consider when designing items to be put on a dashboard.
As discussed earlier, views can be defined to have multiple Find Columns, and by design, when searching lists the comparisons can check against multiple field values. To demonstrate this, as I have the CRM Customizer security role, I modified the Activity entity's Quick Find All Activities view to include both the Subject field and the Regarding field as Find Columns for search results.
- If you have the appropriate security role, modify the Activity's Quick Find All Activities view in the same way as mentioned above, then navigate to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Overview dashboard, locate the My Activities list and type the word *doe* into the search criteria box.
- Hit the Enter key to launch the search and get the following results that contain records where the Subject field contains the word Doe, and also records where the Regarding field contains the word Doe, as shown in the following screenshot:
