Dynamics CRM 2011 Metadata Browser

Roshan Mehta, 17 February 2013

The latest version of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 SDK (v 5.0.13) ships with a revamped metadata browser which allows you to get a quick glance into the customizations and configurations implemented in your CRM system. It is available as a managed solution which you can easily import into any number of CRM organisations and is accessible by double-clicking on the solution inside CRM.

The Metadata Browser Tool provides us with two options – Open Metadata Browser and Open Entity Metadata Browser. The first option lets us view the definition for system and custom entities in the system while the second option lets us filter on a specific entity to view information about its attributes, relationships and privileges. Let’s take a look at these options in more detail.

Firstly, let’s assume I want to view the definition of the Case (incident) entity. Simply click on Open Metadata Browser and scroll down to select the Case entity.

Some of the things I find particularly useful is that the entity list includes intersect entities created as part of native N:N relationships, which are identified by the IsIntersect property. I also like how it gives you the object type code and the schema name of both the primary id attribute and primary name attribute.

The toolbar at the top is quite handy in that it allows us to drill down into a specific entity to view its attributes, relationships and privileges. I can also edit the entity which will open the default solution with the selected entity already expanded. It also provides a powerful filtering feature where I can specify an entity by typing it into the search, and I can also filter by specific entities or properties.

Next, let’s take a look at the Open Entity Metadata Browser option. You can either click the button from the Metadata Browser Tools home screen, or click on View Entity Details from within the window shown above. This time, we will look at the definition of the Appointment entity.

I won’t talk about the Properties option as it shows us exactly the same thing as we saw before. The Attributes option gives us a full definition of each attribute belonging to the selected entity and we can see at a glance how customizable each attribute is.

The screenshot above shows the 1:N relationships defined for the Appointment entity. We can view the managed properties and cascading rules on a single window without having to scroll through too much information.

Lastly, the Privileges option gives us a quick overview of the security role privileges defined for the Appointment entity. The access levels are shown as CanBeBasic (User), CanBeLocal (Business Unit), CanBeDeep (Parent/Child Business Unit), and CanBeGlobal (Organization).

Like we saw previously, we have the ability to filter on properties, attributes, relationships, and privileges. We can also edit attributes or relationships from this window by selecting the necessary option on the left navigation and then clicking on any of the Edit buttons.

I highly recommend that you take a look at the features available in the Metadata Browser. It is very useful for organisations running in the cloud that have no direct access to the CRM database. The Metadata Browser can also serve as a starting point for any technical documentation you need to provide to your clients.