Who needs a free customizable team calendar for Dynamics CRM 2013? Maybe you do.

How many times have you heard “I need to display my team’s data in a calendar view” while customizing a Dynamics CRM system? Perhaps more than once, and unless you used one of the paid components available on the market, you were out of luck.

At BusiPlanIT labs, we have come up with a solution that leverages one popular open source JQuery library (FullCalendar) and some OData calls, and embedded them in a solution that allows us to place a calendar anywhere we want in any Dynamics CRM 2013 application.

The components of this solution are:

• JQuery library (jquery.com)
• FullCalendar library and styling file (http://fullcalendar.io)
• HTML page
• JavaScript that contains OData calls to fetch your data
• Sample dashboard

The HTML web resource can be used with any entity (OOTB or custom) and the data displayed is sorted by a date field passed in the custom parameters. In addition, you can pass an OData filter and a team name for further filtering. Your data will be color coded, green for active and red for inactive records. Each record displayed in the calendar includes a live link, so that you can navigate directly to the corresponding detail form.

The end result will look like this:

The following image shows the configuration screen for the HTML web resource:

Note that you will need to pass a comma separated list of parameters in the format:

Parameter1,Parameter2,Parameter3,Parametr4,Parameter5

1. Parameter1 (Required) – Entity schema name (use the exact same casing as found in the entities list)
2. Parameter2 (Required) – Date field schema name (use the exact same casing as found in the attributes list) to sort data in calendar.
3. Parameter3 (Required) – String field schema name (use the exact same casing as found in the attributes list) to display in the calendar.
4. Parameter4 (Optional) – OData filter for additional filtering (example “&$filter=Community/Value eq 1” for social channel Facebook).
5. Parametr 5 (Optional) – Team name to filter by its members.

The parameters in the provided  example “ActivityPointer,ModifiedOn,Subject,,test,” will fetch all “activities” whose members belong to the team “test“, the field to be displayed in the calendar will be the “Subject” and the cells will displayed on the last date they were modified. It’s up you to decide which date field suits your needs best; for example if you wanted to show activities by due date, then the syntax would be “ActivityPointer,ScheduledEnd,Subject,,test,“, or if you wanted to sort them by start date then you would use “ActivityPointer,ScheduledStart,Subject,,test,“. The calendar can change display modes from daily, weekly to monthly.

This free component has some limitations that will be addressed in the paid version:

• No drag and drop
• Only captures one date, so no data ranges are shown
• No edits are available from within the calendar
• Teams of type “Access” are not supported

If you want to get a copy of the solution, just send us a request at: http://busiplanit.com/contactus.aspx

DISCLAIMER
THIS TOOL IS PROVIDED BY BUSIPLANIT INC. “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL BUSIPLANIT INC. BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

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