Filtered lookup in CRM 2011: a dynamic lookup view

Filtered lookup in CRM 2011 is quite different than CRM 4.0. It contains more code, but result could be fruitful. I learn this as a different approach. This actually is imposing of a custom view which is temporary and dynamic. I like the idea. “addCustomView” is the method that enables us to do this. We will see how I do this.

Assume I have a custom entity called office. My office entity contains two main lookups. One is for account and other one is for contact. Obviously, I need to have a filter for contact lookup which will show only the contacts of selected account (if account lookup field is not null). In this approach, we are just creating a view and make it default when loading the lookup window.

Below is the method I use for this. This code shows you how it gives more control over the new view... we decide its name, criteria and also layouts that contains the widths of each column to show. Guid is any new Guid.

function ContactLookupFilter(accountid, accountname)
{     
var _viewId = "{10CACCF3-AC63-46FE-920B-DFEF53BCDE33}";
var _entityName = "contact";
var _viewDisplayName = "Contacts of Account : " + accountname;

var _fetchXml = "<fetch version='1.0' output-format='xml-platform' mapping='logical' distinct='false'>" +
                "<entity name='contact'>" +
                "<attribute name='fullname' />" +
                " <attribute name='contactid' />" +
                " <attribute name='parentcustomerid' />" +
                " <attribute name='address1_city' />" +
                " <attribute name='address1_telephone1' />" +
                " <attribute name='telephone1' />" +
                " <attribute name='emailaddress1' />" +
                "<filter type='and'>" +
                "<condition attribute='parentcustomerid' operator='eq' value='"+accountid+"'/>" +
                "</filter>" +
                "<order attribute='fullname' descending='false' />" +
                "</entity>" +
                "</fetch>";

var _layoutXml = "<grid name='resultset' object='1' jump='name' select='1' icon='1' preview='1'>" +
                 "<row name='result' id='contactid'>" +
                    "<cell name='fullname' width='250' />" +
                    "<cell name='parentcustomerid' width='150' />" +
                    "<cell name='address1_city' width='150' />" +
                    "<cell name='address1_telephone1' width='100' />" +
                    "<cell name='telephone1' width='100' />" +
                    "<cell name='emailaddress1' width='150' />" +
                  "</row>" +
                  "</grid>";

var lookupControl = Xrm.Page.ui.controls.get('office_contactid');
lookupControl.addCustomView(_viewId, _entityName, _viewDisplayName, _fetchXml, _layoutXml, true);
}

Here is the code to call this from the loading event.

function office_OnLoad()
{
 var attrs =  Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes;
 if (attrs.get("office_accountid").getValue() != null)
 {
 var _aid  =attrs.get("office_accountid").getValue()[0].id; 
 var _aname  =attrs.get("office_accountid").getValue()[0].name; 
 ContactLookupFilter(_aid, _aname);
 }
}

Are we done now? Some explained this is it, but I propose you to call this method from the OnChange event of the account lookup as well. Let me explain why? If we call this method only in loading, this custom view will load for the contacts of account which is currently assigned to the form. If user changes the account (and not save yet) prior to filling the contact lookup, our view is still showing the contacts of the account which was present when loading. But now we got different account on the form... Hope you understand the scenario...

Now check how its look likes... Can you see how our new view have got the custom name we gave. Very descriptive; since we have selected “SO and Company” as the account, we can see that as a part of the view name.

See how this dynamic view is listed along with other views that give the flexibility of selection.