CRM 2011 - Using contact data on Case form

Question

I've installed CRM 2011 to see if I can tailor it to our business. We do repairs, I want to be able to book in a contact (client) and then a case and have the clients number and address print on the case form. All I can find are fields relevant to the case and not client, any idea on how I can select them?

Answer 1

To get fields from the contact onto the case form you could -

1. Create redundant fields on the case form for the fields that you want to port over from the contact, and then edit the mappings of the relationship from Contact to Case to map those fields to the case.

2. Create a web application that loads contact data and then add it to an iframe on the case form. Make it so that the web application accepts the case id in the query string of the URL so that it can look up the related contact and load its details within the web app.

3. Add JScript (or HTML resource in 2011) to the case form to load the contact values on the fly. You will have to use SOAP XML (or REST endpoints in 2011) messages to pull the data from the CRM service and then can inject it into the CRM case form's DOM.

Option 1 is the quickest solution but will not be realtime (only comes over when the case is first created and must be related to the contact on creation. Option 1 also adds some database redundancy.

Option 2 is the most supported realtime solution, but also requires the most work.

Option 3 is easier than option 2, but any DOM injection will likely not be supported for future releases.

EDIT

To use the mapping option, go to Settings > Customization > "Customize the System". Expand the Case item in the left hand navigation. Then click on N:1 relationships and open the relationship "incident_customer_contacts". This relationship connects the contact to its cases.

On the relationship window click on "Mappings" in the left hand navigation. This controls what fields are mapped from the case when it is created.

Click new and select the contact field from the left that you want to map to the case on the right. Repeat this for each field that you want mapped. Note that the fields need to be the same types, and if they are option sets, they will have to have the same underlying integer values for each of their options.

Now when you create a new case from a contact (or set the contact during the create), the fields should map onto the case.

Answer 2

Seeing as how Craig mentioned he's using CRM 2011, I felt I'd clarify that for Option 3 of Cole's suggestion, you can also use SOAP Xml against the Organization Service, or just use the REST endpoint and both will be supported. So long as you utilize CRM's Xrm.Page object to display the data on the form and don't do any other DOM manipulation, you should be fully supported.

Another Option, "Option 2b" we'll call it would be to add fields to the form for the data you want to be loaded, then add a plugin registered to the Retrieve of the case entity that would populate those fields on the fly for you. No redundancy other than the fields on the form at that point.

I would personally recommend Option 2b if possible because there will not be any lag in loading the data onto the form, and it provides for minimal data redundancy, minimal service calls, and the least amount of additional customizations.

Answer 3

My option is a lot easy one. All we are doing is using Dialog to create cases and in the dialog fields you can get contact detail dynamically. At the end of the form when you create new case, use this dynamic values to submit in Case form.

We get times when customer tell us that the phone number is changed since last time and this method gives you option to change customer's details on the fly and submit both in Contact Entity and Case entity at the same time.