There is a lot you can do with forms in the Modal driven app, so this topic is split into two

Episode 6: Forms Pt 1

Transcript

In the solution, select our entity, then forms

Select the main form. Once the form opens, you can see the fields I have already added.

I am going to a new tab, then add sections. Sections allow you to add controls linked to the primary record. Each section can have upto 4 columns to display your fields.

As you drag fields onto the segment, the form renders for you.

Another form control is the subgrid. A subgrid allows you to display a grid of records, either assocaitated with the main record or defined by a view. If you want to display contacts associated with an account, this is where you would do it.

Quick View allows you to display the quick form displayed for a parent entity. Approver is a user record and is a parent of our entity. This allows quick display of important data from the parent. The form you choose is defined as any other form, just a special type.

Depending on the field you add to the form, you can change the control that is used. There are a few controls that Microsoft provide out of the box. Here I have added a numeric field to the form. Under components, you can change the default component to a selection, depending on your business needs.

Each component will have properties for you to set and configure the interaction. There are a growing number of controls available to you, google pcf gallery.

Don’t forget about your header and footer as well, drag fields into them. The header tends to be critical information that you can alter, owner status reason etc.

The footer tends to be more audit information, the current status, who last edited or create the record for example, but this will depend on your requirements.

Switching to the form we created, you can see the Arc Knob we selected, allows us to point or drag the data entry

In the new tab we created, you can see the fields that have been rendered. You can also see the subgrid that was added, giving the user the ability to create a new contact or associate this record with an existing record. Hit save and you can confirm that the grid now displays the newly linked record.

 If you noticed on our main tab, there was a large control displaying notes and activities. This is a special section that is really useful and common in D365. To utilise it on your entity, we first have to enable your entity for activities. This is not currently available within the maker experience, so as a customiser, go back to the old method of editing apps and switch to the classic interface

Select the  Activities check box, which enables your entity to have all the activity types associated with it. Save and close to update the entity.

If you go to the form now, you will not notice any difference, as again this is a Classic interface only feature currently.

Opening ithe form in classic mode allows the activity section to be tweaked. You can show Notes or activities or both and a host of additional options including whether to show the filter pane or not.

Under the activities tab you can select which activity types are visible and which field to sort on. You can also define options to tweak what is displayed to the user and how the user interacts with the form.

So publishing our form and displaying the content you can see that the user can quickly add a phone call or other activity tab to the entity. This displays in the timeline. Notes can be added straight in the grid. This is also where attachments can be uploaded .