Creating charts in Dynamics CRM is not limited to only the Administrator and System Customizer security roles. Standard users of Dynamics CRM can also create User charts that are managed and viewed by the individual user. This recipe shows how a standard user can create a User chart.
In order for a non-admin user to create a User chart, they will need to have the User chart security privilege as part of their assigned CRM Security Role. Refer to the There's more… section of this recipe for further details.
Carry out the following steps in order to complete this recipe:
- Start by navigating to the Cases section in the Service area of Dynamics CRM. You will see case records in the My Active Cases view. Now, along the top ribbon toolbar, click on the Charts tab, as shown in the following screenshot:
- From the ribbon, click the New Chart button. A new tab will open on the ribbon, named Chart Tools Design. The Chart Designer will also appear on the right-hand side of the view pane:
- Provide a name for the chart; enter My Cases by Priority Chart into the first field of the Chart Designer.
- In the Legend Entries ( Series ) section, select the Priority field and set the aggregate function to Count:All.
- Next, select the chart type by clicking on the small chart icon sitting after the two fields you just completed. This will expand into a chart selection pop-up. Pick the standard Column chart option:
- Moving onto the Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels field, select the Priority field from the list of options. The chart will now render in the preview window:
- Now that the chart is finished, click the Save & Close button on the ribbon. This will close the Chart Designer and open the new User chart in the Chart Pane section of the list. You will also notice that many of the ribbon toolbar options are now enabled allowing you to manage the User chart:
Just like the differences between User dashboards and System dashboards, User charts have a few features unique to them that are not applicable to System charts.
In order for a user to create and manage a User chart, they will need to have a Dynamics CRM Security Role that at least has the Create, Read, and Write privileges for the User Chart entity. It is also worth noting that this entity only has two privilege settings of either User or None Selected:
There is no central list of all the User charts that have been created by a user. In order to locate an existing User chart, you must first start with one of the views for the entity the chart was created for. When the Chart pane is showing, click on the list of available charts and scroll to the bottom of the list. The collection of User charts will be found there:
In order to edit an existing User chart, first locate the chart in the view (as mentioned in the previous section) and then switch to the Charts tab on the ribbon toolbar. If you have the proper security privileges, then you can click on the Edit Chart button to activate the Chart Designer, as shown in the following screenshot:
Unlike the CRM system charts, a User chart can be assigned to a different user. This will transfer the ownership of the Chart to a different CRM user. This is helpful when user charts are being constructed by the administration team, but need to be used by an individual who doesn't have the Create privilege (or doesn't want to build the chart).
When you have located the User chart and selected the Charts tab in the ribbon, as long as you have the Assign security privilege for User charts, then the Assign button will be available. Clicking on this button will launch the Assign User Chart dialog, which will allow you take control of the specific chart by selecting the Assign to me option.
Otherwise, you can pass the ownership of the chart to someone else (user or team) by selecting the Assign to another user or team option, and then filling in the value, as shown in the following screenshot:
Similar to assigning charts to other users or teams, which transfers the ownership of the chart, there is also the option to share User charts in Dynamics CRM. Sharing a User chart literally allows you to share ownership with other users or entire teams in Dynamics CRM. The person sharing also gets the opportunity to specify how they would like to share the User chart and what privileges are being granted. This is often useful when a manager has created a chart that they want to share with their department (team) but not the entire company (all system users). The following shows the Who would you like to share the selected user chart with?, which allows you to share the selected chart with specific users with whom you want to share the chart:
