Chapter 6. Home Page, Workplace, and Navigation
In this chapter
The Microsoft CRM Homepage
Microsoft CRM Navigation Map
Setting the Miscellaneous User Options
Microsoft CRM Info Views and Searching
Workplace
Errors in Microsoft CRM
Use Case Corner—Navigation to Other Resources Through a Simple Quick Launch Customization
Summary
This chapter covers the Microsoft CRM home page and Workplace screens as well as the key concepts for navigating within Microsoft CRM. Because the look, feel, and operation of the Microsoft CRM Web interface is very similar to that of the Outlook interface, the focus here is on the Web interface. Specific details related to the Outlook interface can be found in Chapter 8, “Microsoft CRM Sales for Outlook.”
The first difference between Microsoft CRM and other Web applications is that it looks very much like a traditional client-server application interface in that it has menus and buttons and does not display the controls of a Web browser. In fact, when navigating Microsoft CRM the only indication to the user that they are using a browser application is the bar at the very bottom of the screen. Although the browser's buttons are not displayed, the application still reacts when the user executes a keyboard shortcut. However, this is generally not advisable because the results will seldom match the user's expectation. For example, if the user presses the F5 key to refresh the screen, the screen will refresh, but the user will always be returned to whatever page they have set to their home page in the user options section (to be discussed later). Refresh will not simply refresh whatever the user perceives to be the current page.
NOTEThere is an option (in the web.config file) available to make the Microsoft CRM Web client display the normal Web browser controls. This option may be helpful for debugging if you are customizing Microsoft CRM. For more information on this option, refer to Chapter 14, “Customizing Microsoft CRM.” |
Likewise, if the user presses the Alt+left arrow key (←) to simulate the Back button, the user will most likely not be returned to what he perceives to be the last page. This is because of Microsoft CRM's design. In short, what the user perceives to be a unique page might not be a unique page to Microsoft CRM. If you play around with this concept, you'll quickly get a feel for it and then decide when keyboard shortcuts will work for you.