Today we’re going to continue our discussion of the Entity-based model that makes Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online so flexible. Entities can be customized to meet the varying needs of the different types of businesses that subscribe to CRM Online. In this post, we’ll perform some basic customizations and repurpose an existing Entity into something specifically suited to a car dealership.
Please note: You’ll need a Security Role of System Administrator or System Customizer to customize Entities. It is highly recommended that you read Unraveling the Entity: Part 1 before attempting the steps described in this post.
In CRM Online (see below), navigate to Settings> Customization> Customizations and click Customize the System.
The Solution window opens for the Default Solution (see below). Click Entities.
The window refreshes with a view of Entities that are customizable (see below). Navigate to the second page of records by clicking the right-facing arrow in the bottom-right corner, and then double-click Product.
The window for the Product Entity opens (see below). If we want to repurpose this Entity into something a car dealership might find useful, we should begin by renaming it and giving it a new description.
Change the value of the Display Name field to “Car”, the Plural Name field to “Cars”, and the Description field to “Information about cars and their pricing at this dealership.” Click the Save (floppy disc) icon to update the Entity, and then click Fields.
The window refreshes to a view of all of the Fields of the Car entity. Let’s repurpose an existing Field to something more specifically suited for a car dealership. Scroll down and double-click the “vendorname” Field.
The Field window opens for Vendor (see below). This Field could use a few quick changes!
Change the value of the Display Name field to “Manufacturer” and the value of the Description field to “Manufacturer of the car” (see below). This Field is already using a Single Line of Text, the option we prefer as value Type for our Manufacturers field. There are other values available for the Type field, which we’ll discuss in more detail in our next post on Entity customization. Click the Save and Close button.
Now that we’ve given the Car Entity a specific Manufacturer Field, any values stored in that Field can be interacted with in CRM Online. Here’s an example: If a customer walks onto a car dealership’s lot and is only interested in buying Volkswagens, the salespeople will quickly be able to do an Advanced Find in CRM Online for cars on their lot that are manufactured by VW. Isn’t that handy?
There’s still one step left that must be completed in order to update the Entity, and that’s publishing our customizations. Click Publish.
If we navigate to an Area of CRM Online that would have displayed the Product Entity, such as Sales, we’ll see that the Entity has been replaced by our recently modified Entity: Car.
Now that we know how to customize an Entity’s Fields, we can customize other parts of the Entity that interact with those Fields, such as Forms and Views. In our next post in this series we’ll unravel the Entity even further by showing you how to create a brand new Field for the Car Entity.
If you’re looking for more CRM training, look no further than the Success Portal for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The Success Portal is full of guided tutorial videos aimed at bringing you up to speed on all processes in CRM Online.