Welcome to Dataverse Dialog Builder, a managed solution helps you build Microsoft Dataverse OOB dialogs, such as the Assign dialog, Close Opportunity dialog, ...

If you are a Microsoft Dataverse developer, especially when working on model-driven app, you encounter a lot of dialogs like the ones shown in the images below.

Questions:

1. Can I build a custom dialog like that?

Yes.

2. But I don't see any documents that Microsoft refers to regarding this?

Yes, there are no documents.

3. I understand that if there are no documents from Microsoft, and you can achieve this in the model-driven app, it means you are writing unsupported code?

Yes, you corrected.

4. Unsupported code?

Yes, until now. But I believe that in the future, this will be supported. Let's see.

5. It very risk for our projects?

I don't think so. If you believe it is, you can close the browser and not read anything.

6. Ok, tell my why unsupported code?

Because we used 2 functions that not list in the Microsoft documents.

Xrm.Navigation.openDialog(...)

formContext.ui.moveTo(...)

7. Not list in the Microsoft document?

Yes, here, and here. And you don't see 2 functions I mention above. Mean unsupported code.

8. What are the benefits of using Dataverse Dialog Builder?

If you ignore the 2 functions I mentioned above, all your knowledge of JavaScript and WebApi remains the same as what you're already familiar with. For example, you have an OnLoad event on form, then you can access formContext. Then, you can use getAttribute to get or set values, manipulate controls with getControl to hide or show them, addPreSearch logic to filter lookup, or addOnChange logic, or trigger fireOnChange, ... In essence, dialog are similar to the main form you've known before.

Once you've built a dialog using Dataverse Dialog Builder, you can use it across various platforms, including Desktop Web, Mobile Web, Mobile App, Dynamics 365 App for Outlook, Unified Service Desk, Omnichannel, ...

9. Show me some dialogs you've built?

Absolutely! I can confirm that I have built several dialogs and successfully run them in production for many years.

10. Crm Dialog?

Crm Dialog was the initial version of the Dataverse Dialog Builder. Subsequently, it was renamed to Dataverse Dialog Builder.

11. Why I show you the initial version?

If you go to the Crm Dialog repository, you will see my last committed code in this repository from many years ago. In this repository, I shared a blog post about crmdialog that I wrote on June 20, 2020. The initial version involved many manual tasks and required careful reading of the Crm Dialog documents. That's why I reworked it, and the Dataverse Dialog Builder was born.

12. How you do that?

If you are a Microsoft Dataverse developer, you are likely familiar with some form types: Main, Quick Create, Quick View, Card, .... But did you know that there is another form type called Dialog (OptionSet value = 8)? You can build a FetchXml query with the filter value 8 for the attribute type in the systemform entity in your current environment to retrieve all your dialogs.

Navigate to the DataverseDialogBuilder.Others\dialogs folder, where you'll find 323 dialog files that I obtained from Microsoft first-party apps. I believe these files will continue to grow in the future as more first-party apps are developed by Microsoft.

Consider a scenario where you need to examine a single file. Your task involves manually constructing the FormXml and subsequently saving it to the systemform entity. This manual process can be challenging. However, the Dataverse Dialog Builder solution simplifies this by assisting you in building FormXml and seamlessly saving it back to the systemform entity.

13. Try, Errors, Results -> Try, Errors, Results -> ...

Yes, I meticulously examined each file, analyzed them one by one, manually constructed FormXml, and experimented with updating the systemform entity to observe errors and results. This process was labor-intensive, spanning many days, months, and even years. Subsequently, I extracted conventions from the FormXml, which I later leveraged to create Dataverse Dialog Builder.

Links

The following links are from a Google search. The first post dates back to 2018, which is six years ago. Surprisingly, the dialog is still functional, and nothing has changed with the 2 functions I mentioned earlier. This suggests that the remains unsupported code but still works.

July 22, 2018 Custom Dialog Boxes - Part 1
July 29, 2018 Custom Dialog Boxes - Part 2
June 10, 2019 Dynamics 365 - Custom Dialogs in UCI - Part 3
May 22, 2020 Dynamics 365 – Custom Dialogs in UCI – Part 4

Wiki

Examples

Syntax

Contribute

Fork this repository.
Create a developer environment.
Install Dataverse Dialog Builder.
Open solution DataverseDialogBuilder.sln in Visual Studio 2022 and ensure that you build it without any errors.
Run npm install from the DataverseDialogBuilder.GrapesJS folder.
After that, run npm run start to develop the Dataverse Dialog Builder in locally.
When you need deploy to Dataverse, run the file BUILD_AND_DEPLOY_ALL.bat in the DataverseDialogBuilder.WebResource folder.
Push and create a pull request to your repository.
Then pull request your code to the Dataverse Dialog Builder repository.

Note: solution DataverseDialogBuilder.sln uses DynamicsCrm.DevKit, which I also built.

Conclusion

Unsupported code, However, I believe that in the future, this will become supported code. Why? Well, in Question 12, Answer 2, I showed you 323 dialog files (and perhaps there will be even more in the future) that I obtained from Microsoft first-party apps. If Microsoft modifies the 2 functions I mentioned earlier, we can debug and adapt them, just like they do with their first-party apps. I don’t think Microsoft would deprecate dialogs and then they need to rebuild them across all their first-party apps.