RapidStartCRM – Customizations

RapidStartCRM is built to be further customized. Depending on your knowledge of Power Apps, you may be capable of doing this yourself.

The steps to customize RapidStartCRM are the same as those for Dynamics 365 first-party applications. You will create an unmanaged solution in your environment, then add the RapidStartCRM components to it that you want to customize, and then perform your customizations.

There are two places where you can perform this work, the new “Maker” experience, or the “Classic” experience. Microsoft is phasing out the “Classic” experience, so we will show you the modern “Maker” approach.

Two common requests from RapidStartCRM customers are to add columns (fields) to forms, and customize views. For our first scenario, we will add a field to the RapidStartCRM Opportunity Form. In our second scenario below, we will customize a view.

Adding a Field to a Form

Log in to https://make.powerapps.com

(1) Confirm you are in the correct environment.
(2) Select “Solutions”.
(3) Then click “+ New solution”.

(1) Give your solution a name.
(2) Select “CDS Default Publisher”.
(3) Click “Create”.

(1) You will see your new solution in the list.
(2) Click the ellipses.
(3) Click “edit”.

(1) In the window that opens you will see your new solution is empty.
(2) Select “+ Add existing”.
(3) Click “Table” (Formerly Entity).

(1) We want to add the “Opportunity” table by checking it.
(2) Then click “Next”.

If we plan to make a lot changes, we may want to
(1) “Include all components”.
(2) and the “Metadata”.
(3) For this exercise, we will just click the “Select Components” link.

(1) We are looking for the main form so will will limit our view by selecting “Forms”
(2) then selecting the Main “Opportunity” form
(3) and click “Add” to add the form to our solution.

(1) We can now see the Main Opportunity form in our solution.
(2) Click the ellipses.
(3) Select “Edit”.

In the form designer select “+New Column”.

(1) In the new column creation form, give your column a name.
(2) Select the type of data you want to capture.
(3) Provide an optional description.
(4) and click “Done”.

We can now see our new column in the columns list.

(1) Drag the new column from the columns list onto the form where you want it to appear.
(2) Click “Save”.
(3) then “Publish” your changes.

Returning to the RapidStartCRM App, we can now see our new column on the Opportunity form.

Customizing Views

For this exercise, we will customize a view of our Opportunities to display the column we created above. We will assume you already followed steps above.

If you are not still in the maker portal,  log in to https://make.powerapps.com

(1) Confirm you are working on the correct environment.
(2) Select “Solutions”.
(3) you will see your solution.
(4) Click the ellipses.
(5) then click “Edit”.

(1) Filter the components by clicking “Views”.
(2) You will see that you have not added any Views to this solution.
(3) Click “+ Add subcomponents”.

(1) In the subcomponent selector, click “Views”.
(2) Select the view(s) you want to add.
(3) then click “Add” to add to your solution.

(1) Back in your solution, select “Views” and you will see the view in your solution,
(2) to edit select the view’s name.

(1) You can see the previously created custom column in the column list.
(2) You can change the name of the view.
(3) as well as the view sorting
(4) and filtering.

(1) To add your column, click “+ Add column”.
(2) then select your column to add it to the view.

(1) You can see your column has been added.
(2) You can drag it to the position you want.
(3) You can also edit other properties like width etc. by clicking the chevron.
(4) When you are done click “Save”.
(5) then “Publish” your changes .

Returning to the RapidStartCRM App, we can now see our new column on the Opportunity view.