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Filtered Views are a concept to show data in a view that is filtered on some other data. For instance, let's look at the default history view of a contact:
To see more of the view definition, here's the same view without the form:
The above history view displays all kinds of activities, but let's assume that you want to have an email view similar to what you know from your » Read more... |  |
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Filtered Views are a concept to show data in a view that is filtered on some other data. For instance, let's look at the default history view of a contact:
To see more of the view definition, here's the same view without the form:
The above history view displays all kinds of activities, but let's assume that you want to have an email view similar to what you know from your Outlook client. How do you it? Though you can modify the history view in the activity entity, you can only select fields common to all activity types. So you need a pure email view and though there is a relationship between the contact and the email entities, you cannot change its definition. As a workaround you could create a new relationship between contacts and emails and write a plug-in that automatically associates contacts and emails whenever an email is modified. While that should work, it seems quite a bit overhead to just view data.
An alternative is to create a report in SQL Server Reporting Services and display it in an IFRAME. Or you can create your own solution and try to mimic the CRM UI. All of this will work, but whenever you need another view, you have to repeat these steps.
The Filtered Views add-on is based on a different idea. Instead of using workarounds to mimic a behavior that already is an integral part of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it uses the existing advanced find functionality to assemble a view filter and layout, and lets Microsoft Dynamics CRM render it. To give you an example how it could look like, here's an email view based on the Filtered Views add-on:
This looks more like an Outlook view, though not exactly due to the limited capabilities of CRM views in general. The view above does display emails associated to the contact record where it is displayed in. However, it did not require you to write a custom solution, create a report, or otherwise develop a solution.
How it works
The solution
is based on an article I wrote almost
two years ago and you can use this
article to create this solution on your own.
However, you may also decide to simply use
the Filtered Views and the price of this
product is fair enough that it shouldn't be
hard to decide what direction to go.
The Filtered View uses a Fetch XML query and a view layout, assembles it and uses the Advanced Find functionality of Microsoft Dynamics CRM to execute the query and have it been rendered. The result can then be shown in an IFRAME on the form or as an entry in the navigation bar. It could be even used in the sitemap, but as you cannot easily pass parameters to a link in the sitemap and don't have an entity context where such parameters could come from, it's certainly easier to use a standard view in the sitemap.
Because the add-on uses the Advanced Find functionality and because this functionality is not documented by Microsoft, the Filtered Views add-on is an unsupported extension. However, it cannot do anything bad to your data, because it only reads information from CRM and does not change anything.
Update's Version 4.1.12
- View OnLoad Scripts were added. They can be used to easily manage toolbar buttons (e.g. hiding the Add Existing button) or colorizing cell values.
- When displaying a filtered view in a CRM form, whether in the navigation bar or in an IFRAME, the entity context is not passed to a new entity being created by a click of the New button in the filtered view. The next version adds support for an entity context.
- Currently you can only use one language when designing filtered views. Localization support will be available in the next version. Nov The current version does not support searching. The next version adds search support and allows multiple search parameters to be defined that can be displayed in text fields or dropdown controls. Support for additional controls may be added.
Licensing option
The only licensing option for the Filtered Views
add-on is a server license. This license enables
the add-on in every organization on the server
having not more active CRM users than specified
in the license. For instance, when purchasing a
100-user license, then the Filtered Views add-on will
successfully run in any organization having not more
than 100 active users. It won't run in
an organization with 101 users though. There is
not limitation to the number of organizations or
the total number of users in all organizations.
If you have 10 organizations with 20 users,
then you only need a single 25-user license.
Production License
A separate license is required for
each CRM application server used for production.
Developer
License
After having licensed your production system(s), you
can order additional developer licenses for servers not
used for production. A developer license always includes
the same number of users as ordered for
the production system.