Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Dynamics CRM Blogs by Dominic Jarvis | Magnetism Solutions | NZ (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin)

How to Expand Multi-line Text to Fit Content in Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 26 September 2017

So I’m sure that you’ve all come across a situation in Microsoft Dynamics 365 before where you’ve created a Multi-line text object on a form, given it lots of space, and then been annoyed when the edit box doesn’t use up the entire space. Once the text length has passed the limits of the allocated
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How to Serialize to JSON in Sandboxed Plugin for Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 25 September 2017

When utilising web services in Microsoft Dynamics 365, you may need to serialize some data to a JSON string. The most convenient way of doing this is to use a .NET library called System.Web, specifically System.Web.Script.Serialization. However, in a sandboxed plugin, access to the System.Web family
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How to Change Icons of Custom Entities in Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 22 September 2017

Once you’ve created your custom entities in Microsoft Dynamics 365, you’ll probably want to give them custom icons to make them more easily recognisable, and to give the entities a more finished feel. Thankfully, this is very easy to do in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Simply acquire the image that you w
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How to Run Workflow on Business Process Flow Stage Change in Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 21 September 2017

In Microsoft Dynamics 365 when a stage changes in a Business Process, you may want to run a workflow to automate the fetching of information, an invoicing process, or any other number of things. This is incredibly easy to do with Microsoft Dynamics 365. In the new business process flow designer, si
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How to Register Xamarin.Forms App with Azure Active Directory and Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 21 September 2017

Registering your app with Azure Active Directory can be incredibly useful for authenticating with services such as Microsoft Dynamics 365. A registered app can request an authentication token with which they can access the Dynamics CRM web API – given they have the correct permissions. The process f
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How to Retrieve Entity Metadata Programmatically in Microsoft Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 20 September 2017

In this blog I will cover how to retrieve Entity Metadata via the CRM SDK. There are a variety of reasons that you may want to do this in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Recently, I’ve needed to retrieve the display name for an entity while working with a generalised control. The request itself is an Organ
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Tips for Your Xamarin.Forms Dynamics CRM App

Dominic Jarvis, 19 September 2017

Having recently created a custom app that integrates with Dynamics CRM, I came across a few issues that took me a while to resolve. This post I’m sharing some of the workarounds I have for those issues. Async, Async, Async… When working with the mobile SDK, one of the things you’ll find is that alm
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How to Trigger Plugins on Custom Messages using Actions in Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 18 September 2017

When modifying a Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution, you may require functionality that is portable and can be triggered in multiple circumstances. For example, running a rollup field calculation job, which is able to be done from SDK messages, but otherwise cannot be triggered manually out-of-the-box.
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How to Display Alerts and Dialog Processes with Alert.js in Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 15 September 2017

Dialogs are great, but it can be a hassle to show nicely in CRM, especially when activating them via a custom button. With different browsers, browser settings and configurations, opening a dialog may result in the dialog opening in a new tab, or a new window, and doesn’t allow for a consistent user
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Commitment to Mastery: A Private Victory

Dominic Jarvis, 12 September 2017

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – By Stephen R. Covey. In this, Covey talks about the habits and behaviours that lead to being an effective person. The pathway that starts with achieving small, personal victories, and then how this shapes us a
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What are the Advantages of Using Child Workflows in Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 12 September 2017

What are Child Workflows? Child workflows are workflows that can be started by another workflow or dialog. They are useful for a number of reasons, but are particularly useful for abstracting logic so that it can be used in different areas, or to isolate a particular process.To provide an example, t
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How to Create a Personal Dashboard in Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 11 September 2017

For those that have just started learning Dynamics CRM, the information presented can be a bit overwhelming at times. Dashboards are a convenient interface to the CRM system, with commonly accessed information available for quick reference, and links in the charts, lists and diagrams providing a qu
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Adding Attributes To a Many-to-Many Relationship in Microsoft Dynamics 365

Dominic Jarvis, 08 September 2017

Why would I Want to Do This? This last week I’ve been experimenting with more of the features present in Dynamics 365. I ran across an issue when I was creating an Event Management scenario. A brief overview of my scenario: A company wanted to manage multiple events, which contacts can register for.
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Editing the Site Map in Dynamics 365 using the built-in Site Map Designer

Dominic Jarvis, 08 March 2017

Editing the Site Map in a Dynamics CRM application can be a mission, particularly if you aren’t using any third party applications and editing the schema by hand, as it were. Fortunately, in the December 2016 update for Dynamics 365, Microsoft added an in-application Site Map editor called the Site
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