How can I group client objects in MS Dynamics

Question

We want to implement a simple hierarchy of clients and accounts. Accounts will have only one parent client (normal functionality), but we want to add parent clients to clients in order to create a hierarchy:

Client 1----------Act 5 / \ Client 2 Client 3 / \ / \ Act1 Act2 Act3 Act 4 

We want the “minimized” information to be displayed on standard screens, that is, when viewing client 2, to see the contacts and other related data from Law 1 and Law 2. When viewing client 1, we want to see all contacts from all objects in the diagram above.

I think there should be a “right” way to do this using the framework. What is the correct way to implement it?

thanks

Ryan

Answer 1

Great question, but as far as I know, there is no “right” way to do this using the existing API. The Dynamics CRM Denver team recently reported this and included an answer on this from Microsoft:

• This is a key understandable limitation of subgrid. The way to create this makes the implementation as a whole difficult, and we couldn’t have it work on CRM 2011. But it leaves a gap to fully understand the functionality.
• We are considering this functionality for a future CRM release.

Since related (recursive) views only work in supported explicit objects, there is no way to create a custom object that will recursively return all contacts and related activities under the accounts associated with the custom entity. You will have to resort to reports and any smart tricks that you could come up with (outside the API) to make this work.

Answer 2

There are several options here, and it all depends on how to “integrate” you want it to be.

If you want this to be completely seamless, I would suggest a plugin. The advanced search subsegment will be the easiest. Another option is to enable the built-in grid with custom selection, and then use JavaScript to change the parameters of the left navigator.