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The Quick Button App from North52 is a ready-go-to solution for Microsoft Dynamics 2013/2015/2016/365 that allows you to place a HTML web-resource on a form which displays a button to the end user. This button can be configured to execute a North52 Formula which can then perform an action or return a message to be displayed to a user. 

It consists of a HTML web resource which can be used as-is or can be fully customized to specific requirement. The following screenshot shows what a button would look like when it is configured on the Account form.

Click here for a Sample Walk Through of a real world scenario.

Custom 'Process Expense' Button

Install Process

  1. Ensure North52 BPA is installed
  2. Download the solution file from the Quick Button app home page
  3. Logon to Dynamics and navigate to Settings -> Solutions
  4. Click Import and choose the downloaded solution file to import
  5. Take all the default options during the install process
  6. After the import completes click Publish All Customizations


Note: There are 4 web-resources in North52 Quick Button: 

  • north52_quick_button_unified_interface  requires North52 BPA v1.0.0.598 or higher installed and is the recommended version to use.
  • north52_quick_button_advanced requires North52 BPA v1.0.0.536 or higher.
  • north52_quick_button_subgrid requires North52 BPA v1.0.0.536 or higher installed. Use this when you need to execute a formula on subgrid records. See how to configure this Quick Button type here
  • north52_quick_button requires North52 BPA v1.0.0.471 or higher installed. This web resource should be considered deprecated.

The advanced version offers significantly more functionality and we would always recommend using this web-resource.

Configuration

  1. Create a Formula of type ClientSide - Calculation to perform the desired operation. This is the recommended formula type, although the Process Genie type is also supported. 
  2. Make a note of the formula shortcode in the top right hand corner of the formula
  3. Next open the form designer for the form that you want the button displayed on
  4. Add the north52_quick_button_unified_interface web-resource to the form where you want the button to appear
  5. Configure it as shown in the screenshot below, changing the 3-character shortcode
  6. The custom parameters (data) field needs to be set in the following order separated by a | (pipe) character:
Data Parameter Required? Value
First Yes Short Code
Second Optional Display name for the button, default is 'Click Me'
Third Optional Button Styles
Fourth Optional Save and Refresh options: presaveonly or presaveandrefresh - see below for examples
Fifth Optional ShortCode of formula to execute onload of the button (e.g. to hide the section containing the button in certain circumstances)
Sixth Optional (Quick Button v4.5 and higher only) manually specify message type: get or post - see below for examples
Seventh Optional (Quick Button v4.5 and higher only) Message for a confirmation dialog - see below for examples


Note: You can control hiding or showing the section containing the QuickButton using the 5th parameter using an additional ClientSide-Calculation formula, for example:

If the account category is Preferred Customer then hide the section

if ([account.accountcategorycode] = 1, 

  HideSections('SUMMARY_TAB.Quick_Button_Section'),

  'NoOp'
)

Custom  Button Configuration 1

Custom  Button Configuration 2



The available style names are as listed below. Note you can just open the CSS webresource file yourself and add or change any of the existing style information to meet your specific needs:

  • pure-button button-success
  • pure-button button-error
  • pure-button button-warning
  • pure-button button-secondary

All the CSS used in the Quick Button App comes from PureCSS.io. You can find full details of how to apply customizations to your buttons by reviewing this PureCSS Button page.


The default for the styles is that a button takes 2 rows of height, as shown in the screenshot above. If you need to fit a button into just 1 row then please post fix '-small' to the first style name as shown below.

  • pure-button-small button-success
  • pure-button-small button-error
  • pure-button-small button-warning
  • pure-button-small button-secondary

Example configurations:

PreSaveOnly Configuration

Example showing how automatically force a form save as the quick button gets clicked. 

afr|Process Expense|pure-button button-success|presaveonly

PreSaveAndRefresh Configuration

Example showing how automatically force a form save as the quick button gets clicked and refreshs the form after it completes. 

afr|Process Expense|pure-button button-success|presaveandrefresh

Specify message type post and ask user to confirm their click

Example showing how to make the message use post, and ask the user to confirm if they want to proceed with the click action

afr|Process Expense|pure-button button-success|||post|Are you sure you want to process this expense?

Presaveonly and ask user to confirm their click

Example showing how to save the form on click and ask the user to confirm if they really want to proceed with the click action

afr|Process Expense|pure-button button-success|presaveonly|||Are you sure you want to process this expense?

Tablet Support

Finally please see the screenshot below which shows the same button rendered on the CRM for Tablets application that Microsoft makes available. This really helps to build an intuitive UI for the end-user. 

Steps to Enable Tablet Support

  • Open up your quick button web resource like below.
  • Click on the hyperlink north52_quick_button_unified_interface.htm to open up the web resource and ensure Enable for mobile is ticked.
  • Click Save and close the web resource
  • Refresh the web resource properties page.
  • Tick Enable for Mobile and click Ok.
  • Publish this change on your form. 
Keywords: Formula Manager