Customize CRM for phones and tablets

Applies To: Dynamics CRM 2015

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you can design once and deploy everywhere. Customizations you make to your CRM system appear in the CRM for phones and tablets apps as well as in the web app. Your changes are optimized in the mobile apps so they display properly. Choose one of the following or scroll down to see the types of changes you can make, and how they might display differently in the mobile apps than the web app.

The latest version of the phone app, Microsoft Dynamics CRM for phones, provides the same full-featured experience as the CRM for tablets app. It has the same intuitive user interface (adapted for phones), as well as offline capabilities.

The previous version of the phone app has a new name: Microsoft Dynamics CRM for phones express. For information about customizing the previous version of the app, see Create and edit mobile forms for CRM for phones express.

After you’ve made customizations to a form, users will see a prompt to download updates the next time they open their mobile app.

In this topic

Home page for CRM for phones and tablets

Form customizations for CRM for phones and tablets

Entities displayed in CRM for phones and tablets

Change navigation options for CRM for phones and tablets

Change commands for CRM for phones and tablets

Form script differences for CRM for phones and tablets

Publishing customizations for CRM for phones and tablets

Business rules in CRM for phones and tablets

Home page for CRM for phones and tablets

When users first open CRM for phones and tablets, they’ll see the home page, which defaults to the Sales Dashboard. You can create new dashboards or edit existing ones in the web app and enable them for mobile, and users can choose a different Home dashboard. For more information about creating or changing dashboards, see Create a dashboard or Manage dashboard components on the CRM Help & Training site.

Form customizations for CRM for phones and tablets

CRM for phones and CRM for tablets use the forms as the web app. The way the form displays in the app is optimized for the mobile experience. The following diagrams show the reflow from the web app to the tablet and phone apps:

Web app

Tablet app

Phone app

CRM for phones and tablets does not provide the capability to switch between forms. If you have more than one main form for an entity, the one displayed depends on the form order set and which security roles are assigned to the form. More information: Multiple forms 

While customizing a form, you can hide the following from the CRM for phones experience:

1. Fields

2. Sections

3. Entire tabs

That way, if you think phone users need to focus only on the primary information for a contact, for example, you can hide the contact details from the phone app while you’re customizing the form.

Hide details from the CRM for phones display

1. While customizing a form in the form editor, select the field, section, or tab you want to hide. For tips on using the form editor, see Use the form editor.

2. Choose Change Properties.

3. Uncheck Available on phone and choose OK.

Entities displayed in CRM for phones and tablets

You can enable a limited set of entities for CRM for phones and CRM for tablets. To see if an entity is enabled or to enable an entity, choose Settings > Customizations > Customize the System > Entities. Select an entity and review the Outlook & Mobile settings.

Note the following:

• All custom entities can be enabled for CRM for phones and CRM for tablets.

• You can use the Lookup for entities that are not enabled for CRM for phones and CRM for tablets from a record that is enabled and see the data. However, the entity will not be editable.

Entities that are visible and read-write in CRM for phones and CRM for tablets

Entities that are visible and read-only in CRM for phones and CRM for tablets

Change navigation options for CRM for phones and tablets

CRM for phones and tablets uses the same sitemap data to provide navigation options as the web application except that it is optimized for presentation in the mobile apps.

If an entity that appears in the navigation bar for the web application is enabled for CRM for phones and tablets, it will also appear on the navigation bar in the mobile apps.

A grouping within an Area on the web client is ignored in the mobile apps, which show entities as a flat list. You can add an entity to multiple groups on the web client. The mobile apps will display a flattened list and will not show any repeats. Users won’t see an entity unless they have read access to that entity.

The order of the items in the nav bar is determined by the order in the site map. If there is a duplicate, only the first instance will show.

Custom entities use a fixed custom entity icon.

See Change application navigation using the SiteMap for more information.

Change commands for CRM for phones and tablets

CRM for phones and tablets uses the same ribbon definitions to provide commands as the web application except that it is optimized for presentation in the mobile apps. You can set the ribbon definitions to display based on the type of client. For example, you can set commands so they appear in the web app but not the phone or tablet apps. Some default commands are set to appear only in the web app, which is why you won’t see them in the mobile apps.

More information:Customize commands and the ribbon

Form script differences for CRM for phones and tablets

Scripts written for forms used in the web application should also work with CRM for phones and tablets, but there are some differences. As a rule, methods that aren’t valid within for the mobile apps don’t return errors, but they also don’t return any values. Developers can use the following conditional statement to separate code that won’t work correctly in the mobile apps:

if (Xrm.Page.context.client.getClient() != "Mobile")
{
    // Add code that should not run in CRM for phones and tablets here

}

You can also use the getFormFactor API to set whether code will work on just phones or just tablets, with a statement like this:

if (Xrm.Page.context.client.getClient() == "Mobile" && Xrm.Page.context.client.getFormFactor() == 3)
{
// Add code that should only run in CRM for phones here
}

The following list shows what to expect with scripts in the mobile apps. For specific details, see the developer documentation in the MSDN: Client-side programming reference.

• Using window.alert, window.confirm, window.prompt or any other code that blocks code execution while waiting for a user’s response won’t work as expected or will display an error. You shouldn’t use these methods in scripts for the mobile apps.

• Because tabs displayed in CRM for phones and tablets can’t expand or collapse, code that tries to expand or collapse them won’t work, and code configured for event handlers using these events won’t execute.

• Web resource or iFrame elements in your dashboards won’t display in the mobile apps. Methods that interact with them won’t work, and code configured for event handlers using these for the events called when these items load won’t run. If you’re interested in trying out a preview feature that does display web resource or iFrame elements in CRM for tablets, see Preview feature: iFrame and web resource support in CRM for tablets.

• Because CRM for phones and tablets doesn’t provide the ability for a user to switch to different forms, methods that enable this in the web application won’t work.

• Any methods for showing or navigating to related entities in the web application won’t work.

• Methods that would refresh the command bar, get dimensions of the view port, or close a form window won’t work.

Publishing customizations for CRM for phones and tablets

When you customize CRM for phones and tablets, you should always explicitly publish your customizations to make sure they synchronize with the mobile apps.

Business rules in CRM for phones and tablets

Business rule definitions are downloaded and cached when CRM for phones and tablets opens. Changes made to business rules aren’t applied until the user closes and re-opens the mobile app.

See Also

Video: Extend Dynamics CRM to your Smart Phone with CRM Online Update 1 (2:34)
Video: Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Tablets – Customizations (16:41)
Customization overview
Create and edit metadata
Create and design forms
Create and edit views
Create and edit processes
Create and edit business rules

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