There might be situations where you’ll need to perform the same actions/calculations (via javascript) on different form events. Code duplication is always a bad idea so you could either include an external javascript file with your function or create the function in your form’s load event as follows:

CalculateAge = function()

{

  if(crmForm.all.new_dateofbirth.DataValue != null)

  {

     // Your javascript logic

  }

}

CalculateAge();

You can change the value of a Lookup Field on a CRM form (for example the owner or the selected currency) by using the following piece of javascript:

var lookupObject = new Object;

var lookupObjectArray = new Array();

lookupObject.id = '<Guid of the target record>';

lookupObject.name = '<Name of the target record>';

lookupObject.typename = "<target record type>";

lookupObjectArray[0] = lookupObject;

crmForm.all.<target field>.DataValue = lookupObjectArray;

crmForm.all.<target field>.ForceSubmit = true;

Just make sure to change the values between < and > to suit your own situation. For example if I wanted to change the default currency I would change the code to the following:

var lookupObject = new Object;

var lookupObjectArray = new Array();

lookupObject.id = '{EF63EA80-02BE-DD11-8241-0017A410DDDA}';    // Rand's Guid

lookupObject.name = 'Rand';                                    // Name of currency

lookupObject.typename = "transactioncurrency";                 // Lookup's type

lookupObjectArray[0] = lookupObject;

crmForm.all.transactioncurrencyid.DataValue = lookupObjectArray;

crmForm.all.transactioncurrencyid.ForceSubmit = true;

Note that the Guid used above will be unique per installation so yours won’t necessarily match mine.The last line just ensures that the record is updated correctly if my Lookup field is disabled on the form.

When I first started working with CRM’s web service, I was really frustrated by the lack of a detailed error message when something went wrong, turns out there is an easy way to always get a descriptive error.

I used to only catch a generic Exception and most of the time the only error message you’ll get from that is “Server was unable to process request”. In the example below I’m creating a phone call activity and assigning it to a system user.

However, when you catch a SoapException (found in the System.Web.Services.Protocols namespace) instead, you can view the SoapException’s Detail Property which has an InnerXml property.

Ahhhhh, I was using a Guid for a system user which doesn’t exists… *facepalm*

Interesting tip I found on Ronald Lemmen’s blog. When you want to make a tab which isn’t the first tab on a form active programmatically, all you need to do is:

crmForm.all.tab1Tab.click();

In this case it will activate the 2nd tab on the form.

Ryan Farley wrote an article explaining how to disable the various types of controls typically found on a CRM form. In his article he covers: Text and Numeric Fields (nvarchar, ntext, float, int, money), Picklist Fields, Lookups, Date Fields and Bit Fields.

View Ryan’s article

Bill Owens also wrote an excellent article covering some things you can accomplish with javascript inside MSCRM Forms: Bill Owens on Microsoft Dynamics CRM - Technical Version

You can hide a form field in Microsoft CRM using javascript by using the following snippet:

crmForm.all.schemaName_c.style.display = 'none';

crmForm.all.schemaName_d.style.display = 'none';

Just be sure to replace “schemaName” in the above example with your own field.

The “_c” postfix denotes the table cell containing the label for the field while the “_d” postfix is the table cell which contains the actual input controls.

To make a field visible again, you can use the following:

crmForm.all.schemaName_c.style.display = 'inline';

crmForm.all.schemaName_d.style.display = 'inline';

I just started out with a company specializing in CRM deployments and customizations through the exposed web service. So naturally I've been playing around with with some of the QueryExpression and QueryByAttribute Classes.

Working though some examples in the book I have (yes I'm a total newby when it comes to CRM) I thought that there has to be a cleaner way to deal with querying data so I had a look around if anyone else has written something...

This is what I found: Microsoft CRM 3.0 Web Service Calls With Generic Methods. Now I haven't used this extensively nor am I familiar enough with CRM to know if this would have any negative impacts along the line but it looked like a clean solution which is easy to expand by writing other overloaded methods.

Here is the main method which can then be overloaded for simplicity. Have a look at the original post for some overloaded methods:

public static T[] FindEntities<T>(string[] attributes, object[] values, 

    ConditionOperator[] operators, string[] columns, string[] orderAttribute, 

    OrderType[] orderType) where T : BusinessEntity

{

    if (_service == null)

        _service = GetInstance();

    QueryExpression query = new QueryExpression();

    query.EntityName = typeof(T).Name;

    ConditionExpression[] conditionExpressions = null;

    if (attributes != null && values != null)

    {

        conditionExpressions = new ConditionExpression[attributes.Length];

        for (int i = 0; i < conditionExpressions.Length; i++)

        {

            ConditionExpression conditionExpression = new ConditionExpression();

            conditionExpression.AttributeName = attributes[i];

            conditionExpression.Operator = 

                operators == null ? ConditionOperator.Equal : operators[i];

            conditionExpression.Values = new object[] { values[i] };

            conditionExpressions[i] = conditionExpression;

        }

    }

    FilterExpression filterExpression = new FilterExpression();

    filterExpression.FilterOperator = LogicalOperator.And;

    filterExpression.Conditions = conditionExpressions;

    query.Criteria = filterExpression;

    if (orderAttribute != null)

    {

        for (int i = 0; i < orderAttribute.Length; i++)

        {

            OrderExpression order = new OrderExpression();

            order.AttributeName = orderAttribute[i];

            order.OrderType = 

                orderType[i] == null ? OrderType.Ascending : orderType[i];

            query.Orders = new OrderExpression[] { order };

        }

    }

    ColumnSetBase columnSet = null;

    if (columns == null)

    {

        columnSet = new AllColumns();

    }

    else

    {

        columnSet = new ColumnSet();

        ((ColumnSet)columnSet).Attributes = columns;

    }

    query.ColumnSet = columnSet;

    query.EntityName = typeof(T).Name;

    BusinessEntityCollection result = _service.RetrieveMultiple(query);

    T[] entities = new T[result.BusinessEntities.Length];

    Array.Copy(result.BusinessEntities, entities, entities.Length);

    return entities;

}

Hope that makes a fellow CRM newby's life a little easier :)