You’ve run into a long‑standing limitation in the Field Service recurrence engine.
Unfortunately:
There is no supported way to pre‑populate only the Start Date and End Date in the Booking Recurrence dialog without also creating the full msdyn_recurrencesettings XML.
And you’re absolutely right — once you create msdyn_recurrencesettings, the system assumes the recurrence pattern already exists, so you lose the ability to detect whether the user actually configured it.
This is a known product gap, and the Idea you linked is the correct one.
Why the dialog always defaults to “today → +7 days”
The Booking Recurrence dialog is not driven by:
Instead, it uses internal defaults unless a valid msdyn_recurrencesettings XML already exists.
Microsoft has never exposed a way to override only the date fields.
Why you cannot set only the dates
The recurrence dialog expects a fully valid recurrence XML.
If you populate only the dates:
If you populate the full XML:
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The dialog loads your values
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But now you cannot detect whether the user actually configured recurrence
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And users may not change the pattern because it appears “already set”
This is exactly the scenario you described.
Supported / recommended patterns
✔️ Option 1 — Let the dialog use defaults (Microsoft‑recommended)
This is the only fully supported approach today.
You allow the dialog to open with:
Then the user must manually adjust the dates.
This is not ideal, but it avoids corrupting recurrence settings.
✔️ Option 2 — Pre‑populate dates after the user saves the recurrence
A common workaround:
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Let the user open the dialog with default dates
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User configures the recurrence pattern
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After save, run a plugin/flow to:
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Read the user’s recurrence XML
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Replace only the start/end dates with your Quote Booking Setup dates
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Save the updated XML back
This preserves:
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User‑defined pattern
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Your required dates
And avoids pre‑creating the XML.
✔️ Option 3 — Use a custom UI (PCF) instead of the built‑in dialog
Some partners build a custom recurrence editor that:
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Reads the Quote Booking Setup dates
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Forces the user to choose a pattern
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Generates valid XML
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Writes directly to msdyn_recurrencesettings
This is fully supported because you are not modifying the internal dialog — you are replacing it.
What is not supported
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Pre‑populating only Start/End dates without a full recurrence XML
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Injecting partial XML into msdyn_recurrencesettings
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Modifying the built‑in dialog behavior
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Forcing the dialog to read dates from other fields
These are not supported and will break unpredictably.
