A Dynamics CRM data group uses Views created in Dynamics CRM to retrieve corresponding data, permitting the override of criteria to gather the data required.

You will need to configure your Dynamics CRM instance to allow fSeries to connect and retrieve data.

When the data group is executed, the specified Dynamics View is inspected and any criteria that you have indicated should be change are altered to insert your values. For example, if you want to allow the user to enter a date range as External Inputs you can have those dates substituted into the Dynamics View as from/to dates.

The view is then executed, returning the View's data to be included in your data.

The views available are stored against the Source source in order to reduce the time taken to analyse and prepare the data group. If changes have been made to the Views you can update the source either by opening and saving the source, or by clicking on the “Refresh Views” button in the data group designer page. This will rebuild the source data so it may take some time.

Select a Dynamics CRM Source from the list. There may be multiple sources even if you only have one Dynamics CRM system, as it is sometimes more efficient to have sources for different areas (e.g. Orders, Products, Accounts).

Select a View from the list of available options. Use the Entity entry to filter the available Views based on their primary entity (e.g. Competitor, Contract, Order).

When you select a View, any conditions in the view that have a value element (i.e. a criterion value) are shown in the list of Condition Parameters. These are the conditions that you can change by applying values to them.

you don't have to apply these overrides as some are relevant, such as status values or number of days for a history view.

if you do want to override a View's condition, check the box alongside its name. this will activate the entry box, where you can enter a value and/or select placeholders from the list to the right. This value and placeholders will be evaluated when the data group is executed and substitute for the View's standard value.

Fetch Xml is the script that defines a View. Although it is unnecessary to understand this script it is useful see it if you want to get an idea of the fields that will be included and especially the conditions applied (especially if there are and/or clauses).

Conditions in the Fetch Xml are highlight to indicate that they are available to be overridden and whether they will be. Click on the green/amber text to apply/unapply the conditions in the main page.