addCustomFilter method for lookup control in CRM2013

In CRM2011, Microsoft introduced a new method “addCustomView” to filter the lookup dialogs.  The process was a bit complicated. You have to create a unique guid, fetchxml, layoutxml and few other things.
In the new release, Dynamics team has introduce a new method addCustomFilter. It makes it very easy to apply filters to the lookup dialog. But there is one gotcha.This method can only be called from a “PreSearch” event handler of the lookup control. This event get triggered as the user is about to view results for the lookup.
We can add and remove the event handler to the PreSearch event using addPreSearch(handler) and removePreSearch(handler) methods.
In this blog, I am going to filter the parent customer lookup on the contact entity based on the city of the contact. Here is the code.

Code

function addEventHandler() {
    // add the event handler for PreSearch Event
    Xrm.Page.getControl("parentcustomerid").addPreSearch(addFilter);

}

function addFilter() {
    //check if the city is not empty
    
    if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_city").getValue() != null) {
        var city = Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_city").getValue();
        //create a filter xml
        var filter ="<filter type='and'>" +
                     "<condition attribute='address1_city' operator='eq' value='" + city + "'/>" +
                     "</filter>";
        //add filter
        Xrm.Page.getControl("parentcustomerid").addCustomFilter(filter);

    }
}

I am calling the addEventHandler function on the form load event.
The addEventHandler() function is used to attach the event handler to the PreSearch event of the “parentcustomerid” lookup of contact entity.
The addFilter() function will be called when the PreSearch event is triggered.

Screen Shot

In the screen shot above, the lookup is displaying accounts and  contacts where city is equal to ‘Renton’

Things to remember

addCustomFilter method takes two parameters ‘filter’ and the ‘entityLogicalName’. The entityLogicalName is optional and if this parameter is provided, the filter will only apply to that entity type. Otherwise it will apply to all types of entities returned.

For e.g. customer lookup control display account and contact records. If we don’t provide entityLogicalName  parameter, the filter will apply to both account and contact records and if we provide “account” as a  parameter then filter will only be applied to account records not to contact records.

Client side notifications in CRM2013- Part 2

This is second part of my last blog Client side notifications in CRM2013- Part 1. This blog will explain how to display notifications on form level.

Important points regarding form level notifications

• You can display multiple notifications on form.
• The height of the notification area is limited so If you have too many notification then user may have to scroll down to see the rest of notifications.
• The new notification is added at the top of notification area.

The following 2 methods are available to display and clear the notification on form.

1. setFormNotification  - Xrm.Page.ui.setFormNotification(message, level, uniqueId);

There are 3 parameters for this method


• message- The text of the notification
• level- it decides the icon infront of the message. It can be an “ERROR” or a “WARNING” or a “INFO”
• unique- It can be any unique text string. it has to be unique as we use this uniqueId to clear the notification

2. clearFormNotification  - Xrm.Page.ui.clearFormNotification(uniqueId);

There is only one parameter for this method


• uniqueId – it is same that is used to set the form notification

For this blog I have created two functions. 

• formNotification1 – This function displays an error notification if the value of  “noofemplyees” attribute is less than 5.
• formNotification2– This function displays an warning notification if the value of  “address1_postalcode” attribute is not 2150.

Code

function formNotification1()
{   
     //check if the value is greater than 5
    if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("numberofemployees").getValue() <= 5) {

         //set the notification with an error icon
         Xrm.Page.ui.setFormNotification("Employees number should be more than 5", "ERROR", "noofemployees");
    }
    else
   {
       //clear the notification
       Xrm.Page.ui.clearFormNotification("noofemployees");
  }
  }

function formNotification2()
{   
     //check if the postal code is not 2150
    if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute("address1_postalcode").getValue() != "2150") {

         //set the notification with a warning icon
         Xrm.Page.ui.setFormNotification("Account is not located in Parramatta", "WARNING", "postcode");
    }
    else
   {
       //clear the notification
       Xrm.Page.ui.clearFormNotification("postcode");
  }
  }

Result

setNotication VS setFormNotification

setNotification	setFormNotification
set notification on the control	set notification on the form
can create just one notification per control	can create multiple notification on the form
only supports error notifications	supports error, warning and info notifcations
can’t save the form without clearing the notification	can save the form with the notifications

If you are interested in creating a similar functionality in CRM2011, check one of my old blog How to display a warning message on the CRM form. It looks like Microsoft has copied our idea.

Client side notifications in CRM2013- Part 1

In CRM2011, there was no out of box functionality to show notifications on the entity forms. We have used alert function of JavaScript to pop up the message boxs. There was no way to show the error messages on the form except using web resources. Microsoft has introduced some new JavaScript methods to achieve this functionality in CRM2013.
In CRM2013,notifications can be displayed on form level and/or on field level. This blog will explain How to use notification next to specific control on the entity form.
We can use the following 2 methods to display and clear the notification next to field/control on the form

1. setNotification- Xrm.Page.getControl(controlname).setNotification(message) :

            This method will display a message near the control to indicate that data is not valid. When this method is used on Microsoft Dynamics CRM for tablets a red "X" icon appears next to the control. Tapping on the icon will display the message.
     2.  clearNotification- Xrm.Page.getControl(controlname).clearNotification() :
            Remove a message already displayed for a control. We have to remove the notification to save the form.
Here is the JavaScript code I wrote to display the notification if the “No of Employees” entered on account form is less than 5.

function fieldNotification() 
{
    //get the control
    cont = Xrm.Page.getControl("numberofemployees");

    //check if the value is greater than 5
    if (cont.getAttribute().getValue()<=5)
    {
        //set the notification
         cont.setNotification("The number of employees should be more than 5");
    }
    else
   {
       //clear the notification
       cont.clearNotification();
   }
    
}

The above screen shot displays the notification next to “No of employees” control.

Note

This method is only available for updated entities. Please check the CRM SDK for the list of updated entities.