SharePoint Journey: Editable Grids in Dynamics 365

Sunday, April 17, 2022

Editable Grids in Dynamics 365

Editable grid is a new custom control in Microsoft Dynamics 365 that provides rich inline editing capabilities on web and mobile clients (Dynamics 365 for phones and Dynamics 365 for tablets) including the ability to group, sort, and filter data within the same grid so that users need not have to switch records or views. The editable grid control is supported in the main grid and subgrids on a form in the web client and in dashboards and on form grids on the mobile clients. Although the editable grid control provides editing capability, it also allows the user to choose between read-only grid or Editable Grid and field-level security settings. Editable grids also support business rules and form scripting so you can apply custom business logic according to your organization’s requirements.

Editable grid was introduced in December 2016 update for Dynamics 365 (online and on-premises).

Editable Grid View

Editable Grid Supports:

In-line editing of multiple records at the view or sub-grid level
Web and mobile clients
Move between fields within the record using a keyboard or mouse
Grouping and Sorting (Able to group by/sort by any column on current view)
Filtering
Moving and resizing columns
Pagination
Lookup configuration
Calculated fields and Rollup fields
Business rules
Hierarchical view
Enabling or disabling of cells based on security role
JavaScript
Dashboard

Editable Grid Limitations:

Composite field such as Full Name.
Fields from Related Entities added to a view. ie you cannot update the related primary contacts email directly from the Account View.
State ie Active / Inactive.
Customer type field such as Potential Customer or a Custom Customer Type field that looks up-to polymorphic relationships.
Partylist such as those used in activities.

Enabling the Editable Grid Control for an Entity:

It is important to note that the editable grid can be enabled only at the entity level. This can be achieved by adding the Editable Grid Control to the entity. Enabling the editable Grid control will also enable Editable Grid for all the entity views from the main entity page. The editable grid can be enabled by navigating to Entity > Controls Tab > Add Control > Editable Grid

On clicking Editable Grid under “Add Control” screen, and upon clicking Add it will provide further options to select the client type for which the editable grid should be made available for such as Web, Phone and Tablet Clients.

Editable Grid Lookup Control Filters:

On enabling the editable grid for the entity, users have options to further define the filter controls for lookup fields associated with the entity

The provision to enable Nested Grid is applicable only for Mobile and Tablet.

Once the Editable Control is enabled, will also enable Editable Grid for all the entity views as shown below.

You will notice the user experience will now provide the Ability to group by/sort by any column on current view as well as filtering, moving positions of column views on the fly, resizing columns & pagination. Calculated fields and Rollup fields, Hierarchical view, Enabling or disabling of cells based on security role.

Enabling the editable Grid for Subgrids:

Once the Editable Control has been enabled you can now enable it for Subgrids. When you add a Sub grid onto a form you will need to set the following properties in the Controls by clicking the + on the Editable Grid Template and setting the options for the editable grid for the Web Client, Phone and Tablet. This is a necessary step to enable the Sub grid on the form.

Form > Subgrid > Set Properties > Controls Tab