Development Matters Blog

Microsoft Word provides an extensive list of properties available for user. However, every now and then there is a need for a special property, especially when fields are used. Or so I thought.
Actually, fields aren’t used that often as one who uses them could expect. Although almost everyone has at one point in time used fields (Total number of pages, current page – these are actually fields), most of the users aren’t aware of this.

How to insert a field in a document:

In order to insert a field in a document, follow these steps:

1. Position the cursor at the place in document where you want to insert the field
2. Go to Insert > Quick Parts > Fields
3. Select from the list of available fields (left pane) and select one of their properties

That’s it. This way you can insert Author property, Create Date, Date Saved, etc.

How to create a new property and use it as a fields.

However, I found on a couple of occasions that I cannot find the property I need. For example, I needed something like Customer, Project, Technology… things that simply weren’t there. What I did – I create custom properties and used them as fields. Here is how:

1. Click Microsoft Office Button > Prepare > Properties
2. Document Properties menu and window are displayed. From Document Properties menu, select Advanced Properties
3. Click on Custom tab
4. In the Name field, type the name of your custom property (Customer in this example)
5. Select Text from the Type drop down list
6. Type in Customer’s name in the Value field
7. Click Add
   1. 
      Note: If you later want to edit this property, Add button will change to Modify when you select the property from the list of properties and change the value. It will not be available until you change it.
8. Now position the cursor at the place in document where you want to insert the field
9. Go to Insert > Quick Parts > Fields
10. Select from the list of available fields (left pane) DocProperty
11. Locate Customer property in the right pane and select it. Click OK.

That’s it.

Note: Although Word automatically updates fields, it seems that custom properties have to be updated manually. In order to do this, just right click on the field and select Update Field
Keywords: Word 2007 Property fields custom tips tricks

Most of the people who use Google search think of the Advanced Search option when they want to perform some more controllable searches. However, Advanced Search only offers a bit of Google’s search capabilities. Below are a few basic tips to extend the search knowledge of an average user.

• +Term. When you search for often used words, like how, where, or the, they will be ignored. But if you want to have them in your search string you have to put a ‘+’ right on their left, e.g. “+how +to ax 2009 demo”
• -Term. Use this when you want to exclude pages with certain words. That is most useful when you search for someone who has the same name as a celebrity, e.g. “Chuck Norris -actor -karate -facts -sport -video -youtube.com”. (Of course, in this case, this doesn’t work because no one else can have the name Chuck Norris)
• ‘*’. Replaces one or more words, e.g.  ” “AX * Snap In” “
• Advanced Operators. The form for using advanced operators is operator:searching_term. There are many different operators and I will describe few.
  • Operator ‘site’. This limits the search results onto a certain web site or a group of web sites on the same domain, e.g. “AX site:meritsolutions.com”
  • Operator ‘filetype’. This is useful when you are looking for a certain filetype in your results. Note: Don’t put a dot in front of the extension. Another good example is “AX 2009 filetype:pdf”
  • Operator ‘link’. With this operator, you provide the url and you will get all pages which have links toward it. Let’s see the incoming links for the Merit Solutions’ homepage with the query “link:http://www.meritsolutions.com -site:www.meritsolutions.com”
  • Operator ‘intitle’. This Operator filters the results to only those who have the search term in the title, e.g. “intitle:AX.2009. site:www.meritsolutions.com”
  • Operator ‘inurl’. This Operator filters the results to those who have the search term in the url. Let’s try to find the download page of Vendors Journal AX Snap-In on meritsolutions.com, e.g. “AX Snap In site:www.meritsolutions.com inurl:download”

Of course there are many more tips out there – and I invite you to share your Dynamics search tips below.

To hide fields on a Dynamics CRM form you should use the next two statements.

crmForm.all. fieldname_c.style.visibility=’hidden’;
crmForm.all. fieldname _d.style.visibility=’hidden’;

You can put this on filed Change or Form OnLoad/OnSave event script. Also, you can define it visible again:

crmForm.all. fieldname_c.style.visibility=’visible’;
crmForm.all.fieldname _d.style.visibility=’visible’;

Generally speaking, ensuring that an ERP application works after it is deployed at a customer site is a very challenging endeavor. The base application, which is both broad and deep, has a multitude of modules, features and hardware configurations. ISVs extend or modify the base application to provide functionality for specific market needs and verticals. As a final point, implementation partners or customers do point customizations to address specific customer needs. This combination of base application, one to more ISV add-ons and point customizations that operate in a unique hardware and software configuration, is what businesses depend on for mission critical financial data and company operations.

There hasn’t been an easy way to provide QAs with means of testing. A limited amount of guidance or number of tools have been available. Although there are some announcements as this need has been recognized by the Visual Studio Team System group – in particular, that test case management and support for the manual tester will be available in ‘Rosario’ release of the product – right now there is a tool available directly in the product for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 – the Task Recorder.

Task Recorder is a tool that can log and create documentation and workflows of user activities in the application. The tool can output this transcript of activity in several Microsoft Office system formats. Task Recorder can be used as a powerful tool to help manual testing. Since it records screenshots and user actions into Word, a QA person that creates a test script could easily enhance the document with expected results and other notes to fully document the script.