Archive
ADX Portals – Clear Cache On Web Page Submission
Adxstudio Portal application caches the results from Dynamics CRM to improve the performance.
But, there are times, where we need to override (invalidate) cache behavior to show latest data on Portals. Lets take a scenario
- My Portal has a ‘Contact’ web page and up on ‘Submit’, a plug-in updates all the associated ‘Cases’ in the background.
- Now, on Portal, navigate to ‘Cases’ entity list Web Page, which should show the latest ‘Cases’ data, which has been updated by plug-in in above step.
In above scenario, we will not get the latest ‘Cases’ due to Portal Cache behavior.
So what are the ‘Cache Invalidation’ options?
- Manual Cache Invalidation:
- This option is to manually hit the JavaScript bookmark-let as specified here.
- Drawback:
- Its not viable, to ask portal users to hit the URL every time they ‘Submit’ the ‘Contact’ web page
- Web Notifications:
- A Web Notification Plugin registered with the Adxstudio Portals solution in CRM is triggered on all entity create, update, delete, disassociate, associate, publish, and publish all messages and notifies the Web Notification URLs defined in the CRM to invalidate the cache so the users visiting the portal get the recent data changes
- Drawback:
- A ‘System Job’ gets created up on update of the entity, and the execution may get delayed based on the occupancy of CRM Async Service Job.
- This is not fool proof solution.
We took an approach to automate the ‘Manual Cache Invalidation’ process to fetch the latest CRM data.
Our Cache Invalidation Approach :
- Create a new ‘Web Page’ and paste below ‘Manual Cache Invalidation JavaScript’ code in ‘Custom JavaScript’ field.
- Note: You don’t need to associate any ‘Web Form’, ‘Entity List’ or ‘Entity Form’ to this Web Page.
$(document).ready(function () {
var url = document.location.protocol + ‘//’ + document.location.host + (document.location.host.indexOf(“demo.adxstudio.com”) != -1 ? document.location.pathname.split(“/”).slice(0, 3).join(“/”) : “”) + ‘/Cache.axd?Message=InvalidateAll&d=’ + (new Date()).valueOf();
var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
req.open(‘GET’, url, false);
req.send(null);
// Redirect to Portal Home Page
window.location.href = ‘../’;
});
- In below screen, I created a new Web Page ‘Portal Cache Clear’ and copied the above script.
- So, to invalidate ‘Cache’ on the ‘Submit’ of any of your Portal form, In Entity Form’s ‘On Success Settings’, Redirect to Cache ‘Web Page’ as configured in below screen.
- That’s it. Your portal should invalidate cache, up on Entity Form submission. One caveat of this approach is, ‘Portal Cache’ web page will flash for few seconds before redirecting to portal’s ‘Home’ page.
Note:
- This Information is Relevant to Legacy Adxstudio Portals Only.
- Dynamics 365 Portal Add-on’s Do Not Require this Configuration.
🙂
[Code Snippet] Dynamics Portals/ADX – Set ‘Field Requirement’ using script
Below is the code snippet to set the requirement level (i.e., Required/Non-Required) of a field using script in portals. This logic handles all kind of field types including Check boxes.
Set Field As Required:
function SetFieldAsRequired(fieldName) {
if (typeof (Page_Validators) == ‘undefined’) return;
if ($(“#” + fieldName) != undefined && $(“#” + fieldName + “_label”) != undefined) {
$(“#” + fieldName).prop(‘required’, true);
$(“#” + fieldName).closest(“.control”).prev().addClass(“required”);// Create new validator object
var Requiredvalidator = document.createElement(‘span’);
Requiredvalidator.style.display = “none”;
Requiredvalidator.id = fieldName + “Validator”;
Requiredvalidator.controltovalidate = fieldName;
Requiredvalidator.errormessage = “<a href=’#” + fieldName + “_label’>” + $(“#” + fieldName + “_label”).html() + ” is a required field.</a>”;
Requiredvalidator.initialvalue = “”;
Requiredvalidator.evaluationfunction = function () {
var fieldControl = $(“#” + fieldName);
if (fieldControl.is(“span”)) {
var value0 = $(“#” + fieldName + “_0”).prop(“checked”);
var value1 = $(“#” + fieldName + “_1”).prop(“checked”);
if (value0 == false && value1 == false) {
return false;
} else {
return true;
}
}
else {
var value = $(“#” + fieldName).val();
if (value == null || value == “”) {
return false;
} else {
return true;
}
}
};// Add the new validator to the page validators array
Page_Validators.push(Requiredvalidator);
}
}
Set Field As Non Required:
function SetFieldAsNonRequired(fieldName) {
if (typeof (Page_Validators) == ‘undefined’) return;
if ($(“#” + fieldName) != undefined) {
$(“#” + fieldName).closest(“.control”).prev().removeClass(“required”);
$(“#” + fieldName).prop(‘required’, false);for (i = 0; i < Page_Validators.length; i++) {
if (Page_Validators[i].id == fieldName + “Validator”) {
// Remove the current field’s ‘Required’ validator from ‘Page_Validators’ array
Page_Validators.splice(i);
}
}
}
}
How to use the functions:
- Above functions can be called from ‘Custom JavaScript’ tab of Portal’s ‘Entity Form’.
- Pass the Dynamics field’s schema name as the parameter to both functions.
- In below example, ’emailaddress1′ is the field name which I want to set the Requirement level.
Refer the article for Portal script syntax’s and usage.
🙂
ADX\Dynamics Portals – Using sub grids in Entity Form
In this article, lets see how to work with ‘Sub grids’ on ‘Entity Forms’ in Portals.
Lets take a scenario to understand this better, In Dynamics:
- Create a new custom Entity named ‘Employee’
- Create a related entity ‘Child’ to capture children details of ‘Employee’
- Configure a single portal screen, to capture ‘Employee’ and ‘Children’
Below is how the ‘Employee’ entity form with ‘Children’ sub grid, in Dynamics, looks like:
High level design steps:
- Create a new ‘Entity Form’ for ‘Employee’ Dynamics form
- Create a new ‘Entity Form’ (i.e.,Child Create) for ‘Child’ entity to ‘Insert’ (i.e., Mode=Insert) record
- Create a new ‘Entity Form’ (i.e., Child Details) for ‘Child’ entity to ‘Edit’ (i.e., Mode=Edit) record
- On ‘Employee’ entity form, configure ‘Child’ ‘Sub grid’ using ‘Entity Form Metadata’
- Add ‘Create’ and ‘Details’ actions on Sub grid.
Now lets see step by step.
Create new ‘Entity Form’ Employee:
- Create a new ‘Employee Details’ Entity Form pointing to ‘Employee’ entity and ‘Information’ form.
- Now lets see how the ‘Employee’ form looks in the portal.
- If you notice, there is a grid section ‘Children’ available on Portal form, however its unusable, as there are no ‘Create’ or ‘Edit/Details’ options.
Configure ”Entity Form Metadata’:
With ‘Entity Form Metadata’, we can make sub grid usable. We can add actions (i.e.,Create/Edit/Details buttons) and to the sub grid.
- Go to ‘Employee’ form site map and click on ‘Entity Form Metadata’
- Under the ‘Type’ select ‘Subgrid’ and choose your ‘Subgrid Name’
- Next, we need to configure ‘Create’ and ‘Edit’ buttons to the sub grid.
- Under the ‘Grid Configuration’ tab, click on ‘Create’ and fill the ‘Entity Form’ (i.e.,Child Create) details
- To add, Edit/Details action click on ‘Details’ and fill the ‘Entity Form’ details
- Note: Even though, I choose ‘Details’ action, my associated ‘Entity Form’ (i.e.,Child Details) is set form mode ‘Edit’ which can be used to view and edit.
- Save the ‘Entity Form Metadata’.
Test the functionality:
- Login to your portal
- Clear the Portal Cache by navigating to “Portal URL+‘/_services/about’”
- Note: This step is optional and needed only if you don’t find your changes in portal
- Open the ‘Employee’ record and now you should see ‘Child’ grid with ‘Add new child’ button.
- Click ‘Add new child’ button and it will open up ‘Child Create’ entity form.
- Click ‘Submit’ which saves the record.
- Now either click on 1st column or ‘Details’ button to ‘Edit’ the record which opens up ‘Child Details’ Entity form.
- Modify the data, if needed and click ‘Submit’
🙂
ADX Portals 7.x – ‘Page_Validators’ is undefined
Other day, while adding a custom validator using JScript on an Entity Form, I was getting ‘Page_Validators’ is undefined error, at below line of code.
// Add the custom validator to Web Page’s validators array
Page_Validators.push(spouseValidator);
Reason:
- The dynamics CRM form, associated to the ADX Entity Form, does’t have any required field, hence ‘Page_Validators’ array is NULL as ADX did’t need to load any validators.
Fix:
- ‘Page_Validators’ is a validator collection and we dont have control over this.
- Below workaround worked for us:
- Make one of the field as ‘Required’ by adding ‘Entity Form Metadata’. ADX instantiates ‘Page_Validators’ array, as there is Required field now.
- You can make the field as Non-required in the JScript.
Note:
- This behavior is fixed in further versions of ADX and Dynamics Portals.
🙂
ADX/Dynamics Portals Issue – Missing Entity ‘Tab’ in ‘Web Form Step’
We have ADX portal 7.0 solution installed on our Dynamics 365 8.2 application. We got a requirement to create a Web Form steps on a Custom Entity ‘Employee’.
‘Employee’ entity has an OOB ‘Information’ of ‘Form Type’ Main, with a tab named ‘Personal Details’.
Issue:
- While adding a Web Form step, there was no ‘Personal Details’ tab and could get only ‘general’ tab.
- In the new ‘WEB FORM STEP’, select the ‘Form Name’
- In the ‘Tab Name’ drop down, there is no ‘Personal Details’ tab and all it had was ‘general’ tab.
Reason:
- As there were 2 OOB forms (i.e., Form Type ‘Main’, ‘Mobile – Express’) with the same name ‘Information’, ADX solution always picking ‘Mobile – Express‘ form which had a tab ‘general’
Fix:
- Renamed ‘Information’ Main form to ‘Employee’.
- Publish the solution
- Refresh the ‘Web Form Step’ and you should see ‘Personal Details’ tab once you select the ‘Employee’ form.
🙂
ADX/Dynamics Portals – Date field custom validation using JScript
Other day, In one of our Portal Web Form step, we got a requirement to validate ‘Date Of Birth’ where the value should not be the future date.
We can achieve this by adding a custom validator using JScript and register in your ‘Web Form Step’.
Below is the JScript code snippet which you need to paste in your Web Form Step’s ‘Custom JavaScript’ control.
Note:
- In below script replace the ‘new_dateofbirth’ with your field’s schema name.
- ‘new_dateofbirth_label‘ is the label of the DOB field on your Web Form Step.
$(document).ready(function () {
try{
if (typeof (Page_Validators) == ‘undefined’) return;
// Create new DOB validator
var dobValidator = document.createElement(‘span’);
dobValidator.style.display = “none”;
dobValidator.id = “dobValidator”;
dobValidator.controltovalidate = “new_dateofbirth”;
dobValidator.errormessage = “<a href=’#new_dateofbirth_label’>Date of birth should be in past.</a>”;
dobValidator.validationGroup = “”;
dobValidator.initialvalue = “”;
dobValidator.evaluationfunction = function () {
var dobValue = $(“#new_dateofbirth”).val();
var dob=new Date(dobValue);
var today = new Date();
if (dob > today) {
return false;
}
return true;
};
// Add the dobValidator to Web Page’s validators array
Page_Validators.push(dobValidator);
// Attach event handler of the validation summary link
$(“a[href=’#new_dateofbirth_label’]”).on(“click”, function () { scrollToAndFocus(‘new_dateofbirth_label’,’new_dateofbirth’);});
}
catch(e)
{
alert(“Error during DOB validation – “+e.description);
}
});
- Save the Web Form Step and test in portal.
- If you try to save DOB with future date. It shows warning in the banner as below:
- Click on the message and it will take you to the DOB control.
Refer my other article to get familiar with Portal syntax’s.
🙂
Dynamics Portals – Entity List – Configure custom view names
With the Dynamics Portals ‘Entity List’, its easy and seamless to port the Dynamics entity views to Portal.
In below screen, I configured ‘Active Contacts’ and ‘Inactive Contacts’ views in my Entity List and if you notice, the view names are defaulted to Dynamics view names (i.e.,Active Contacts, Inactive Contacts)
What if we have to show custom labels for views in portal? its simple
- Open ‘Entity List’ form from your Dynamics application
- Views -> Advance settings
- Set your desired text in ‘Display Name’ field
- Save
- Go to Portal and refresh the Entity list web page
🙂
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