Filtered Lookup for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Filtered Lookup for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 - Overview

The Filtered Lookup for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is the successor of the Custom Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. Initially being a workaround to filter lookup results, it grew to a tool set with a lot more functions than initially thought. As of January 2008, the current version of the Custom Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is 1.4.3. A list of features available in this release is available here.

New features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

As the new release 4.0 of Microsoft Dynamics CRM added a variety of new features, the initial concept used in the Custom Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 to define lookup dialogs could not be carried over to the new version. The main reasons are:

Multi-Tenancy: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 allows multiple organizations to be hosted on a single CRM server. As the Custom Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 used the file system on the CRM server to store the lookup definition files, but multiple organizations share the same web directory, another solution needed to be implemented.
Multi-Language: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 allows multiple user languages. To add a new language to a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Server, you install and enable a language pack at the server. Users can then select their preferred UI and help language in the web client. While the Custom Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 was fully configurable and allowed to specify custom labels for each lookup definition, only a single language was supported as there was no concept of multiple languages in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. Besides multi-tenancy the new multi-language feature in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is another reason why the file-based configuration did not work anymore.

New, maintained, planned and dropped features in the Filtered Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

The Filtered Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 supports the enhancements made in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 but is not compatible with the Custom Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, though it supports most of the previous features.

New features

The Filtered Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 contains the following new features:

No changes to server files: The Custom Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 changed existing JavaScript and HTML component files. The new version does not, making it easy to install and uninstall.
Multi-Tenancy: The Filtered Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 supports multiple organizations on a single Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Server installation.
Multi-Language: The filtered lookups can be configured to support multiple languages. However no right-to-left support is included in the product.
Filtering auto-complete: The lookup control in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 allows users to type in a search string in the lookup control itself. Hitting the Enter key or tabbing out of the field starts a search and displays the matching records in the lookup field. The Filtered Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 hooks into the auto-complete and limits the results according to the filter.
Retrieve Service: A JavaScript library is included to retrieve any object from the CRM Server, making it available in client-side scripting as an object with properties. There is no need to create SOAP messages and there is also no need to parse XML files.
Retrieve Multiple Service: A JavaScript library is included to retrieve a list of objects from the CRM Server, making it available in client-side scripting as an array, where each member of the array is an objects with properties. Again there is no need to create SOAP messages and there is also no need to parse XML files.
Synchronization of lookup definitions: As all configuration values needed to display a lookup dialog are now stored as custom entities, new and modified lookup definitions are automatically passed to the Outlook Offline Client. There's no need to deploy files to the clients anymore, other than the software installation.
Support for hosted environments: Starting with version 4.1, the Filtered Lookup supports Internet Facing Deployments and can be run in a hosted environment.
Support for Multi-Select Lookup fields: Starting with version 4.3, the Filtered Lookup supports filtering multi-select lookup fields.

Maintained features

Besides the new features, the following list includes the features that have been present in the Custom Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and are still available in the Filtered Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0:

The dialog looks exactly like the standard CRM lookup.
Easy to install: a typical installation does not require more than 30 minutes.
Easy to use: create your own lookups in minutes.
Fully customizable to support any language.
Use the quick-create form for any entity
Display fields from related entities (e.g. display the phone of the parent account in a contact lookup)
Retrieve multiple records without displaying the lookup dialog (see Retrieve Multiple Service)
Use templates to specify multiple views in the lookup window (see Multi-View Lookups)
Pass parameters to quick create forms
Defining the number of records per page
Formatting date and number columns
Support for the Outlook Offline Client
Customized forms will continue to work even if you uninstall the add-on.
Use standard CRM forms to create new entities from the lookup dialog, including field mapping from the original entity

Postponed features

The following features are postponed. They might however be included in a product update:

Using alternate privileges and editor URL's to create entities without their own privilege set.
Hiding the search field to maximize the grid area.

Dropped features

The following features are not available in the Filtered Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. They have been replaced with newer functions:

Integration into the form assistant: there is currently no supported approach to use filtering in the form assistant.
Modify the column headings (e.g. change "Address 1: City" to "City"): This feature has been dropped because of the new multi-language support in CRM 4.0. To globally change the column name, override the display name of the attribute in the CRM customization.
Use existing CRM lookup files as templates for your own lookup definitions: All customizations are now done in the CRM web client, making it impossible to use the existing files as a template.
Returning additional data from selected and related records: this is now done with the new Retrieve Service, but needs a separate function call, whereas the Custom Lookup Dialog for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 returned the additional data directly.

For more information please download the documentation.

Version 4.1

Version 4.1 introduces the following new main features:

Support for Internet Facing Deployments
New options to specify the default search behavior (automatically append or prepend a wildcard operator when searching for records)
Define a default search value when opening the lookup. This mainly is of interest when calling the lookup dialog through URLs.
A new parameter (viewMode) let's you use Single- or Multi-Lookup Views in an IFRAME and make them look like standard CRM views.

Version 4.2

Version 4.2 introduces the following new main features:

Support for external data providers, allowing to display and retrieve data from external systems.
Allows to override the default create from type in the application settings.
Allows to change the default view of a Multi-View Lookup in JavaScript.

Please read the updated documentation file for more details on these new features.