Quick Views in CRM 2013

One of the simplest and most exciting features of CRM 2013 (Orion) is the ability to embed and display fields from the parent entity in the form a given record. This feature is not nearly as promoted as other features but I like it so much I will write about it.

Many times in the past I have struggled with the need to include fields from a related entity in the form of a given record. Typical scenario is that you would want to include the account number and the primary contact of the account in the form of a given case for which the customer is an account. Additionally, if the customer of the case is a contact, then I’d like to display in the case form the contact name, contact phone number and list of activities associated with the contact in the case form. While this was a nightmare to implement in previous version of CRM (require custom web resources that query and display data from related entities), all this is possible very easily out-of-the-box with MS CRM 2013 without having to write a line of code.

First, I will define the quick view forms for contact and account which I will later include in the case form:

 

Now that I have defined the quick view forms for both the accounts and contact, I can modify my contact form to include the related information form the account/contact. I have created a “Customer Details” section in the case form and will now insert the quick view forms I defined earlier:

 

Then I need to specify the quick view forms that I will use and for which lookup field it applies:

 

After I publish my case form, this is what it looks like if the contact of the case is an account:

 

If I change the customer field on the case, the form is updated dynamically and the “customer details” section is updated to display the contact quick view form I defined:

 

You can see that I can even insert sub-grids for records related directly to my lookup field (in this case activities related only to my customer contact). It is also  worth noting that fields from the quick view form are always read-only (e.g. From a case form, I cannot see the phone number of the contact associated, but I cannot edit it). If I need to edit fields from the related record I have to open the record and edit them in the regular form.