Monday, 30 May 2016

Limitations of Dynamics CRM mobile application

Hi everyone,

I have been working on the Dynamics CRM mobile application for some time. The app is very intuitive and easy to configure to work with existing code base for the web client application. However, there have been a few limitations of the app that I have stumbled upon that are not yet well documented and want to share so that others can save a bit of their time knowing these beforehand. As a note these limitations were observed in the Dynamics CRM mobile application that comes with Dynamics CRM 2016.

1. Iframe and web resource support is limited in the mobile application. The feature was introduced in CRM Online 2016 update and CRM 2016 (on-premises). The known issues are provided in details here.

2. Out of the box related records filtering does not work in the mobile client. Explicit JavaScript has to be written to support it. The issue and the workaround is mentioned here

3. There are some CRM JavaScript SDK methods that are not supported and can be found here. These need to be taken into consideration during the design of certain requirements.

4. Default values for out of the box fields do not get populated. Ex: Status. It is recommended that these fields are hidden on the create form.

5. Quick view forms are not supported

6. The default create form is the quick create form for the entity. So the quick create form needs to be disabled for the entity to display the complete create form according to the requirement.

7. The create form experience is restricted to roughly occupy only one third of the screen size. So try avoiding having multiple fields on create form for better user experience.

8. When validation pop-ups fire for the create form, the background is replaced from the create form to the search view as below screenshot.

It can confuse users, so better to plan in advance for UAT.

9. A tab always takes up its own space on the edit form even if there is nothing inside it. We might have a tab with 2 sections, each containing a sub grid on the web form. On the mobile form, it renders as a white box for the tab followed by the 2 grids. Refer the below screenshot to see how most of the space in the tab is unused in the mobile client when it contains mostly sub-grids:


10. Lookups in mobile client always take the default lookup view for the entity even if a different view is configured for the lookup field from the form. So in case any filters are applied to the default lookup view this will apply to the lookup in the mobile client.

11. Out of the box duplicate detection rules also do not work in the mobile clients.

12. Any filter conditions that contain link-entity need to added as a custom view (using the SDK method addCustomView) to the lookup field for it to work in the mobile client. If it is added as a custom filter (using the SDK method addCustomFilter), the filter will not work in the mobile client.

These are all my observed limitations, please feel free to add any other limitation that you may have observed and has not been covered above.

Happy coding!

7 comments:

  1. Hello Anurag, is the 2016 mobile client still limited to 1 form? Or does it now allow toggling between 2 forms? Example, my Account entity has 2 forms. Is the 'Information' (default) form the only form that the mobile client will accept?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello, thanks for the question, unfortunately, even in the latest version of the app, it does not allow switching between forms. You can refer here for details: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn531159.aspx

    That said, you have mentioned that the default form is the only form that the mobile client will accept, this is not true, the form that is displayed depends on the form order set and the security roles assigned on the form (this detail is also taken from the above link).

    Let me know if this helps or if you need any further help!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Logo can be displayed in navigation in mobile app for dynamics 365?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Harshitha, I am not updated with the features in the latest releases of the app. Please review the manuals publishes by Microsoft to know more. Sorry, I could not help.

      Thanks!

      Delete
  4. Informative post. Thanks for sharing
    office365

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You truly did more than visitors’ expectations. Thank you for rendering these helpful, trusted, edifying and also cool thoughts on the topic to KateSurya Informatics

    ReplyDelete