Re-imagined Phone & Tablet Client for Dynamics CRM Online

By | August 7, 2015

Introduction

One of the USP of Microsoft Dynamics CRM that differentiates it from other CRM applications available in the market is BYOD – CRM Anywhere. Dynamics CRM as of today supports the following client

  1. Web Client ( All major browsers IE/Edge, Chrome, FireFox, Safari)
  2. Outlook Client – Seamless integration with Microsoft Outlook so that you can access Dynamics CRM from your familiar Microsoft Outlook environment. No need to move to the web.
  3. Tablet Client – Tablet apps have been available for a long time in major app stores like Window, iOS and Android.
  4. Phone Client – A phone app that allows you to access CRM right from your phone!!

All of these have been available for long now and Microsoft is continuously working hard on improving the user experience in all of these clients. In the latest update there have been enhancements that have been brought about in the Tablet and Phone app.

Tablet app

Note: The enhancements discussed here are only supported for Dynamics CRM Online Update 1

It was a long standing demand to enable support for IFRAME and WebResources in the tablet client. The tablet client already designs the forms based on the form design for the web app. The idea is only one design and different rendering depending on client type.

Earlier CRM forms could have IFRAME and Webresource control added to them but the tablet client would simply not render them.

In the current enhancement, they have now enabled these control types for rendering on the tablet client.

On IFRAME and WebResource control, you now find an additional checkbox to enable display on tablet client.tablet

While this is enabled for editing while adding an IFRAME control, it appears disabled on the WebResource Control.tablet1

As per the documentation, we should be able to enable that for webresource as well. Perhaps since this is still a preview feature, it has not been enabled, but the fact that it is on the roadmap is a very positive sign and hopefully this would be available on general release of the feature.

Availability of Dashboards

With this new release you can now enable Dashboards for tablet viewing as well. Earlier there was only one single fixed Dashboard that was available. Now, an option has been added to the Dashboard properties to enable Dashboards to be available on tablet.tablet2

With this enabled, the dashboard starts appearing both on your Phone as well as the Tablet Client.

Choose the Dashboard you desire using the Select Dashboard optiontablet3

Note: During my review, I could only get the IFRAME controls to show up on the Tablet Client. In the Phone Client, the IFRAME controls would also not show up.

Phone app

There was always a phone app available that was called “Mobile Express”. In the current release, they have added a new “Phone app”. So if you visit the app store, you will find 2 phone apps. The new one is called the “Mobile Express”.

The earlier phone app was a very basic app and you had a different “Mobile Express” form that was used to select the fields available on the phone. This new app, continues to use the main form designed for the entity and renders it appropriately for the Phone.

And it actually renders all of it :), you can swipe across the various tabs on your phone to access all the details made available on the form, with the exception of IFRAME and webresources that are not rendered on the phone app.tablet4

The form design application has been modified to allow the designer to specify the controls to be displayed on the phone app. With the limited space available on the phone, you may want to restrict the fields and controls that displayed on the phone client.tablet5

The Availability section is now available on controls that can be added on the form.

You can add notes to the phone app.tablet6

If you have integrated with OneNote, you even see the OneNote books here and can directly open them in your mobile, if you have the OneNote app installed.tablet7

 

Conclusion

With the enhancements introduced in the phone and tablet client, it takes the user experience to the next level.

There’s much more. For any assistance in implementation, customization, migration or upgradation of Dynamics CRM, get in touch with us on crm@inogic.com.