Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Masthead

David Sutton, 13 September 2010

With the new version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, ‘Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011’ being released, one of the things that I have been wondering is how the graphical elements are going to change for one the icons and the Masthead. For this post I thought that I would cover the Masthead.

One thing to take into consideration if you want to design something is that there are multiple tabs that may be covering up to half the height of the masthead. This will restrict your ability to have an image or something that you would want displayed all the time.

With Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 they will have these extended tabs that will, by the looks of it, cover the whole Masthead. This again creates a problem if you are designing something that you want to be seen all the time.

Here are some tips if you are thinking about upgrading to Dynamics CRM 2011 and changing the masthead:

- Keep your design simple. Making it overly complicated may clash with the tabs and the way they can vary in size.

- Be aware that this may change as Dynamics CRM 2011 is not in its final release and anything can still change.

- Be creative - see what other people have said about it and what they plan to do in customizing it.

Here is a way I have found to change the Masthead:

First you need to find the masthead, I found that they made a good job of hiding it but with help of the developer tools and a bit of previous knowledge I was able to find it. You should be able to find it in one of the two following directories:

C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\_imgs\theme\Outlook14Silver

or

C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM Server\CRMWeb\_imgs\theme\Outlook14Silver

It's called masthead and should be a .png file – should look like the following image.

Once you have found this what you need to do then is edit it however you like, just remembering to keep it the right size and back up the original masthead.

Some things you may need to know when editing:

The size is 1004x39 pixels

Save as a .png file

Once you are done, all you have to do is save it back as a .png with the file name ‘masthead’ in the same folder location as before. Open your browser and press refresh and you should see your newly edited masthead in its place.

I have edited mine a little bit as an example I uploaded and it turns out very nice:

Don’t have CRM 2011? Check out my blog for the Masthead in CRM 4.0