#Embeddable Calendar Views

Embedded Calendar Views are a great way to see related information for a specific record. Some examples for usage are viewing activities for a contact, related opportunity and quotes for an account, or cases and service activities. All of these can be displayed within a CRM form in a simple calendar interface.

This tutorial will walk you through the steps of setting up an embedded view, and adding the calendar view to the entity form to display it. The scenario will be viewing all activities for an Account.

1. Create new View

Click the + button on the main screen to create a new calendar view.

2. Enter View Details

Enter the view details as below. The updated values are highlighted. The key factor is marking the view as an “Embedded View”. Save the Calendar View record.

Note: Only embedded views are loaded on entity forms to better utilize the limited amount of screen real estate.

3. Edit the Account Entity Form

If you are a system customizer, you should know how to do this, and please use a solution to do any form changes. For simplicity I am showing a way that edits the default solution in CRM which is not a best practice. If you’re not sure what to do or what any of this means and you want to, contact me or ask your local MSCRM Guru.

If you have the right permissions, on the Account Form, click the Ellipsis (…) and select Form. This will open the form in edit mode.

4. Add the containing Tab

From the Ribbon at the top, select Insert and the insert a One Column Tab. This is best to utilize the calendar.

5. Configure the Tab

Set whatever you like for the label and name. I think since the calendar takes up so much room its better not to expand it by default and let the user expand it if he needs it. It reduces the page load time if we do this.

6. Add Web Resource

From the Ribbon at the top, select Insert and the insert a Web Resource.

7. Select Web Resource

Select the web resource “guru_/DynamicCalendar/entityView.html”. Enter a name and ensure the Pass record object type code and id checkbox is selected at the bottom.

8. Format the Web Resource

I found that you should allow for at least 20 rows to properly see the calendar. If you want you can put more. Also remove the border because… well, it looks better without it.

9. Save and Publish

On the Ribbon, click the Save and then Publish buttons so the changes made take effect.

10. Checkout the results!

Open up a an account record that has some activities associated to it, Expand the Activities Calendar, and appreciate the beautiful work you’ve done.

11. More options and features

When including the embedded calendar, by default all embedded views will be available and selected. If you want only specific views to be selected by default, simply enter the names (or IDs) of the Calendar View in the Parameters (data) of the Web Resource. Multiple views can be included, separated with a space, comma or pipe.