How To Include A Custom View In The Site Map In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
Adding any view, including custom views, into the Site Map in Microsoft Dynamics CRM is very easy to do. Perhaps you have created a view that you want people to have easy access to or maybe you are trying to setup the navigation in a way that your users will best understand.
Since everything in Microsoft CRM is URL addressable the first step is to determine the URL of the view you want to add to the Site Map. To do this, navigate to the view in CRM, click on More Actions, Copy Shortcut, Of Current View as shown in the screen shot below.
Depending on your browser version and settings, you will likely get a prompt warning you that CRM will be accessing your clipboard. Click Allow Access.
The URL of the CRM view is now on your clipboard. Paste the URL into NotePad for use in a few moments.
Now you need to export the Site Map from Microsoft CRM so you can make the change and then re-import the Site Map.
Click Settings, Customization, Export Customizations.
Select the Site Map from the list and click Export Selected Customizations.
Click OKto Microsoft CRM’s message.
You will then be prompted to save a zip file that contains the Site Map. Click Save.
Name the file SiteMap.zip and save it somewhere on your computer such as your Desktop.
Unzip SiteMap.zip and open customizations.xml in NotePad. Now, either add the URL you copied earlier to an existing entry in your site map or add a new sub area wherever you want it to be displayed in your Site Map. The SubArea will look like the following:
<SubArea Id=”UniqueID” Url=”/../_root/homepage.aspx?etc=1&viewid=%46b5CC8A38-2374-DD11-955C-000C29ECA931%7d” Title=”My Custom View” />
Note: The URL that was copied from CRM earlier will need slightly modified. After the “?” in the url you will see the ampersand “&” right before viewid. You will get errors trying to import the customizations back into CRM because of the incorrect XML syntax. You will need to replace the “&” with “&” to be able to import.Second Note: You will want to use a relative url meaning that you remove the http://servername/ portion from the url that was copied earlier. This is important so that Microsoft CRM in offline mode will still work. Third Note: Please refer to Microsoft documentation for help with specific syntax within the Site Map XML file.Now, all you have to do is import the customizations back in to Microsoft CRM. Go back to Settings, Customization, and choose Import Customizations.
Select the file you saved.
Click Upload and Microsoft CRM will read in the XML file and will display a list of all entities available to upload. Select Site Map and click Import Selected Customizations.
Click OK to CRM’s prompt.
Note: Unlike importing most other customizations, there is nothing to Publish after importing the Site Map. To see your changes you may need to refresh IE by pressing Ctrl+F5 or sometimes you even have to clear out your history to see the changes take effect.