My Custom Form for Leads Will Not Display

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Posted on by rgriff50

I am customizing a commercial app that sits on Dynamics 365 (Tamarac CRM). I'm trying to follow best practice by copying and renaming the existing Lead main form, intending to make my field change there. (I have tried two different techniques to create the custom form (a) open the existing form and 'save as' and (b) selecting the 'main form' button at the top of the list of forms in the solution explorer.) But I cannot get the new form ("Lead Custom") to display instead of the existing form ("Lead"). I have enabled security roles to "display for everyone." I have changed the form order so my new form is on the top of the list. I have tried deactivating the old form, but the new form never shows up as an option on the dropdown of forms even. I have tried clearing my browser cache and also logging out and then back in from a new browser window. I make sure to save and publish. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

-Thanks

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AndyArndt 110 on at

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RE: My Custom Form for Leads Will Not Display

Griff,

You're welcome. I'm glad you got it worked out and that the solution ended up being simple!

--Andy
rgriff50 37 on at

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RE: My Custom Form for Leads Will Not Display

Andy,

Thanks very much for going the extra mile on this with me. I had an opportunity to do a screen share with an expert connected to one of the commercial apps we are using in our Dynamics 365 environment with Tamarac CRM (plug: it’s called D365 Checklists and is very handy). Because a picture is worth a thousand words, he very quickly uncovered the source of my problem. (Don’t quote me on the lingo; still coming up to speed on that.) Here’s what did the trick:

(1) Went to the view of all the apps in our Power Apps environment:

(2) Clicked on the three dots, a menu option “Open in App Designer” is presented. When you click on that, all of the entities “included” in the model are displayed. I scrolled down to Leads, and clicked the Forms box, and there is my orphan form:

This picture shows after I checked. When I first entered, it was not checked. That was the problem. Somehow my form was not “included” in the Power Apps app. I think you sensed this when you took note of the form not appearing even in the drop down.

Now I can move forward. I had to deactivate the main Lead form to get Lead Custom to come up first (even though it was on top in form order list all along). So that’s a loose end, but not a big deal, I think.

Thanks for your ideas about what was going on. I learned a lot from that along the way.

-Griff
AndyArndt 110 on at

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RE: My Custom Form for Leads Will Not Display

If something is in a managed solution, it can be marked as Customizable true or Customizable false. I have made copies of Lead and Contact forms in the Default solution and they are available in the drop down as expected. You'll notice that when you create a new Main form from a base entity like account, contact, lead, it should essentially inherit things from the base Main form such as the fields and it will be version 1. Have you tried putting the lead entity into your own unmanaged solution and creating a new Main form in there? When you add lead to a solution in the classic interface, make sure to have the two checkboxes unchecked so you don't have a lot of overhead or unwanted assets. If you're on the make.powerapps.com site, the same two checkboxes are there but the order is reversed left to right and it will say table rather than entity. Also, classic interface defaults to unmanaged as the solution type and make.powerapps.com defaults to managed as the solution type.
AndyArndt 110 on at

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RE: My Custom Form for Leads Will Not Display

Griff,

This is useful additional information. The fact that it is rendering the composite full name field as individual fields might indicate something about the model driven app you are using as your CRM interface. There is info in this article about that behavior: docs.microsoft.com/.../composite-attributes

"The mobile client for model-driven apps use the same form definitions used for the tables that have composite columns but it interprets them differently. If a composite column is found in the form definition, it will show all the columns that are part of the composite column in that section of the form. "

That could also explain why your forms are not available in the drop down, maybe they're not enabled for mobile.

The mobile versions of model driven apps can be used on the desktop but they have slightly different behaviors.

Not sure if this is going to solve your issue, but I think it gives more things to look at as possible explanations for the behavior.

--Andy
rgriff50 37 on at

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RE: My Custom Form for Leads Will Not Display

Andy,

After sending that last response to your good message, I decided to use your technique of trying a different entity again, on a less fundamental entity and it behaves properly! (Tamarac supplied a new entity with the recent upgrade to UCI, called "Service Request" (replacing dialogs). A third-party consultant created a custom version of the basic form to add tabs for some new unique types of service requests. So I made a copy of their form, and changed the form order, and it worked.) Is there something about copying a form from a Managed solution (e.g. Lead, Contact) vs. an Unmanaged solution (Service Request)?

Griff
rgriff50 37 on at

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RE: My Custom Form for Leads Will Not Display

Andy,

Thank you very much for a great set of thoughts.

I had in fact tried changing the security roles for the new form to just System Administrator and System Customizer, roles which I am in—to no avail.

My new custom form, “Lead Custom” has version 1.0.0 listed.

At your suggestion, tried in Edge, but still same behavior. Will work in Edge in the rest of my troubleshooting. (Have worked in Chrome up till now.)

Yes, this is online with the unified interface.

Checking another entity: added Contact entity to my solution; created Contact Custom form as a copy of Contact form (generated version value of 1.0.0); in Contact Custom form modified one of the field display labels slightly; adjusted form order so Contact Custom was on top; set security roles to display only to System Administrator and System Customizer; unchecked “enable fallback.” No change. The form Contact Custom still not showing on the drop down. (Did this after checking the system setting for “use legacy form rendering.”

I had tried the unchecking of “enable for fallback” before—also to no avail.

Interesting to know now of this option. Checking it made no difference.

Two other pieces of context info that may help diagnose: I am doing all this in our Sandbox version of the system (which I assumed was supposed to mirror production in everything except data). Also, curiously, in the Lead form, the solution entity definition of first, last & full name does not exactly match what shows up in the user’s GUI:

Here’s the form definition (for the original Lead main form):

And here’s what is displayed to the user:

I have been thinking maybe there’s some fancy footwork Dynamics allows around the full name as a compound of Last Name and First name—but maybe it’s a sign that the form getting displayed is not the one I think it is??

Really appreciate your time and knowledge.

Griff
AndyArndt 110 on at

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RE: My Custom Form for Leads Will Not Display

It seems like you've done all of the correct steps to have the form available. If it wasn't showing by default but was selectable in the drop down, that's one thing but as you've described it's not even in the drop down list then that's a whole different issue. When you choose "Display to everyone" in form design it still uses security roles, it just checks all of the boxes. Maybe try "Display only to these selected security roles" and select a couple of roles that you are in.

Some things I would look at are:

1. In the solution that the form is in, or the default solution, what "version" is listed for the form?

2. Do you see the same behavior in Edge and Chrome?

3. Is this online with unified interface?

5. Does this happen with other entities or just Lead?

6. Try unchecking the "enable for fallback" option in the "Enable Security Roles" area.

7. Check system setting on the General tab for "Use legacy form rendering"