Update the Default Associated View on a CRM 2011 Form

Our Project Managers use Microsoft CRM to manage and track all of our projects – including the project plans, financials, time tracking and expenses.  When combined with SharePoint, our Agile Project Management solution has become a great way to carefully track all the details of our projects and communicate with our clients.  During a recent update to this solution, our Project Managers asked us if we could use a different view for the Time Tracking entity than the associated view.

After doing a bit of research we found that this is possible to some extent, but it is not well documented.  So here are some options for changing the associated view on a specific Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 form.

Use JavaScript with Parent Entity Forms to Update and Retrieve Records

Dynamics CRM makes it easy to customize forms.  But businesses frequently require that a form needs to inherit some data from the parent record.  A hypothetical example of this is a part on a piece of equipment might inherit some information about the piece of equipment that it is a part of (in this particular case, both of these would be custom entities).  This article discusses some best practices for using JavaScript to inherit this data.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 SDK, Implementation Guide & Planning Tools Now Available

Microsoft has released the SDK (Software Development Kit), Implementation Guide (IG), and Planning Tools for Dynamics CRM 2011. These tools are indispensable references that cover customizing and extending CRM, system architecture, process design, installation of the CRM server and related components, and much more. The SDK is available here. The IG and Planning Tools are available for download here.