Tag: Customization

How to add icons to a custom table in Dynamics CRM

In this post we are looking at where to find icons and how to add them to a custom tables in Dynamics CRM.

Check out the YouTube video to take you through the process step-by-step.

There are a couple places where the icon of a table shows in the system, these are:

  • the navigation of a model driven app,
  • a lookup to that entity

So, let’s first talk about the technical requirements for an icon:

  • dimensions: 16×16 pixel
  • format: svg
  • less than 10kb
  • no padding
  • preferably no background

N.B. other format are permitted, but svg offers the best squality

A few great and free websites are:

However, personally, I prefer “Metro Studio” by Syncfusion https://www.syncfusion.com/downloads/metrostudio

You will have to sign up download and install the software first. However once that is done, it will significantly improve the speed at which you can find and download items in the future, as it remembers your settings and let you save items into projects from data retrieval.

Set the colour to black (#FF000000) or dark grey, at least: #FF757474

One advantage of icons8 is that you can customise icons, but adding extra elements to them – just make sure to filter by “Simple small”, as this only shows icons that are available in 16×16 pixels.

https://icons8.com/icon/set/icon/small

Head over to the make.powerapps.com UI. First, we will need to add the icon as a new webresouce to CRM – go to your web resouce solution, click on new > more > web resource and then upload the png like this – consider a naming pattern to stick to, such as entityname_icon_dimension:

In order to add it to a custom table, navigate to the relevant table, select properties and then add the image there:

That’s it, click on save and reload your MDA – voila!

How to create a new table (previously: custom entity) in Dynamics CRM- things to watch out for!

This post will outline the most important things to consider when creating a new table (formerly: custom entity) in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Check out the Youtube version.

> Always create entities within a solution

  • Navigate to https://make.powerapps.com/ and sign in
  • Go to “Solutions”
  • Create a new solution or use an existing one
  • Create a new “Table” (what used to be called “entity”)

After choosing the name (and plural name):

  • Description: add at least 1 sentence in here – others will thank you later!
  • Schema name: update the schema name to all lowercase letters (and consider if this is a reference data entity, in which case you should prefix it with “ref_”)
  • Record ownership: always set this to “User or team”, there are no advantages to chosing “Organization”, only disadvantages.
  • Other setting:
    • Uncheck all boxes – unless you are certain you will need the feature – these can be checked later if required
    • consider checking the “Audit changes to its data” – this will likely come in handy during development and testing, as it will allow you to better understand what might have caused an error. To safe space, consider turning this off before releasing into PRODUCTION
  • Primary column – Schema name:
    • change the schema name of name field to all lower case
    • leave it as “name” – this helps later to identify the column containing the name.

That’s it, hit save and the new table will be created.

I recommend that you take a look at my checklist for customising a new table:

[WIP – add the link when the post has been pubished]

You might also want to add a custom icon:

[WIP – add the link when the post has been pubished]