Introducing: Dynamics CRM 2011 Read-Optimized Forms - UR7

Paul Nieuwelaar, 02 August 2012

Update Rollup 7 for Dynamics CRM 2011 includes a new feature to allow you to enable Read-Optimized forms for certain users. Often, many users just require the ability to read information within the system, but do not necessarily need to edit it. With this feature we can now show these users stripped down versions of the forms, which allows them to quickly load and read forms without having to load all the ribbons, side-navigations, and fields every time. At the click of a button however, they can quickly navigate to the Edit form if required.

If you are a CRM Online customer, Rollup 7 should already be installed on your system. If not you will need to install the server update on your CRM server.

Read-Optimized forms will be enabled straight away, it's just a matter of configuring which users have Read-Optimized by default, as otherwise all users are set to see the Edit form by default.

To set the Organization wide default for viewing forms, open up your system settings under Settings, Administration, System Settings, Customization, and then Form Mode. Switch this to Read-Optimized if you want everyone to have the Read-Optimized forms by default. You can also choose whether users can override this setting in their Personal Options to define their own default Form Mode.

For an admin, you can configure multiple users’ defaults at once by going into the Users area under Settings, Administration, and then Users. Select a group of Users, and click Form Mode from the ribbon. Here you can define the default form type for those users; Edit, or Read-Optimized.

If the checkbox in the system settings to allow users to select their own default form mode was enabled, each user can now log on and select their personal default through their Personal Options, under File, CRM, and then Options. On the General Tab, they can select to use the Edit, or Read-Optimized form by default, or they can choose to use the organization default, which is based on the system settings.

When users open a form, if that form has any JavaScript or Web Resources, CRM will automatically display the Edit form, regardless of their default form type, so it is important to keep this in mind when planning to use Read-Optimization. If some scripts are required for your edit forms, you will need to create copies of the forms for use with the read-optimized forms, and display them to certain users that will use the read-optimized forms.

If you are wondering how to open the Read-Optimized version of a form using code, you can simply add ‘&rof=true’ to the end of the record URL, or ‘&rof=false’ to display the Edit form. Setting this to ‘true’ however will not override CRM’s decision to display the Edit form where web resources/scripts are present. If there are no web resources/scripts though, setting this will override the users default, so read-optimized forms can be displayed in specific scenarios if required from code.