Dienstag, 27. März 2007

Save time and energy creating large picklists

Some time ago I created an online tool which makes life easier if you have to generate large picklists. Creating every item one-by-one can be very tideous. Caution: only use it, if you are comfortable with editing XML-Files and know exactly what you are doing ;-)


Here's how to use it (at your own risk):
  1. Create the attribute/picklist in the Microsoft CRM entity customization

  2. Add at least one option

  3. Export the entity as XML

  4. go here: http://www.beatnik.at/picklist_for_mscrm.php
  5. Choose the appropriate language setting (if missing, contact me)

  6. Enter the desired picklist values into the textbox

  7. Click "Generate XML"

  8. Open the XML-File that you exported in step (3) with WordPad or your favourite TextEditor (Notepad tends to have problems with encoding)

  9. Search for the displayname or the schemaname of the attribute

  10. Replace the options tag with the XML-String generated in (7).
    It might look like that:

  11. <options nextvalue="3">
    ...
    </options>

  12. Save the XML-Customizations File

  13. Import the File into MS CRM and publish

21 Kommentare:

  1. This is great--saved me a bunch of time--thanks

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  2. CRM Picklist Generator has been updated and is now 4.0 compatible.

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  3. This tool will save me a lot of time!!! Can you add also the italian language?

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  4. This is wonderful it saved me a lot of time. One problem though, I was not able to set a default value to the picklist. Any ideas? I get something like 'Invalid Input' error message when I try to set the default.

    I appreciate your help!

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  5. Hi Bewnet,

    there is a Tag <AppDefaultValue>. Did you change that in the XML?

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  6. anyway of resorting the list after importing it? When I try and apply a sort to the picklist within the CRM i get an invalid argument...

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  7. @jeff: sorry, i can't reproduce that error.... did you maybe use the 3.0 version in 4.0 or vice versa?

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  8. Hi there,

    just to check, do you also provide the generator for list of nationality?

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  9. hi angela,
    the tool was meant to assist getting your values into picklists because the needs might vary greatly. but i'm considering putting some more pre-made lists (languages, countries, currency) in.

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  10. Picklist generator has been updated. It now supports values and I have included some premade lists as Angela suggested.

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  11. Good brief and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you as your information.

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  12. Amiable post and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you as your information.

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  13. Just one hint when adding Countries in a dropdown list.

    Since dynamics CRM (at least v3 and v4) only allow numeric values in for dropdowns, the idea of adding countries in a sequential integer order, such as:

    Afghanistan = 1
    Åland Islands = 2
    Albania = 3
    [...]

    However this is a bad idea, since if a country is added or removed from the list, it might be difficult to keep track, or even result in mismatches. I strongly recommend fellow CRM users to use the ISSO 3116-1 unique numeric value for each country instead (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1). So in case a new country is added or removed, you will never have mismatch issues in the future.

    following this idea, a country list would look something like this when following the ISO 3116-1 numerical values:

    Afghanistan = 4
    Åland Islands = 248
    Albania = 8
    [...]

    Just my two cents :)

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  14. Hello,

    is there a way to import data into Option-Set in Microsoft CRM 2011 ?

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