GridBuddy Connect for Dynamics - Create a GridBuddy Connect + Dynamics grid from start to finish

Make sure you have already set up a functional Dynamics datasource before you try to build any grids.

1. To build a grid from start to finish, first go to Gridbuddyconnect.com and login to your account.
2. Click “Manage Grids”
3. Click “New” to create a new grid. This will take you to the Grid Wizard “Step 1” of your new grid.

4. STEP 1: Name your grid. The name should represent what the grid is, so if you’re building a grid on Accounts, name it “Accounts.”
5. Select the correct Dynamics datasource for your parent object. This will be the datasource where each row of records that appears in the grid will come from.
6. Select the parent object. If you want to edit all your Contacts in a single grid, select Contacts. If you want to edit Account records, select Account.

In Step 1 you can also modify levels of access on your grid, such as mass create, mass update, and more.

You can control how many records appear per page, and how the grid displays if you have multiple objects set up (that’s done in Step 2) or groupings applied (Step 3).

Groups allow you to control who has access to which grids.


If you want to use CSS or JReact to customize your grid, you can add those extensions at the bottom of Step 1. To add or modify JS or CSS extensions, go to “Manage Grids” and click “Manage Extensions.”

7. STEP 2: Click “Next” to move to Step 2 of the Grid Wizard. This will save your work and take you to the second step where you will add fields to your grid.
   1. Note: If you click the “Select Fields” link at the top of the page, you will move to step 2 but your work WILL NOT be saved.
8. In Step 2 of the Grid Wizard, you will see three columns.
   1. The left-hand column lists every object that’s available to you in your Dynamics environment. This includes your parent object at the top, and directly related objects beneath that.
   2. The central column lists the fields available in whatever object you selected on the left.
   3. The right-hand column shows whatever fields you’ve added to your grid. Select fields by clicking the green circle. Remove fields from your grid by clicking the red circle.
   4. Click “show API field names” to see the api name beside each field name

9. If you scroll down on the left-hand column, you will see “Additional Objects.” These are objects that are not directly related to the parent object you selected in step 1, but you can still use them in your grid as long as you can map to the parent object.

• For example, if I built a grid using Contacts as my parent object, and I add Agreement Line Item as a child, I will need to map the Agreement Line Item child object to the Contacts parent object using a field from each object on the grid.

10. FIELD PROPERTIES: You can add limitations or filters to each field in the grid, which will sit on top of existing Salesforce permissions that already apply to each user.
    1. In Step 2, if you click the three horizontal dots to the right of each field you’ve added to the grid (in the right-hand column), you’ll see field properties for each field.

• You can change the field label, add a quick filter, set a fixed column width, or activate the summary function.

11. DATACARDS: If you want to include more than ~15 fields in your grid, we recommend enabling the Datacard feature. This allows you to limit the number of columns that appear across the grid and show the remaining fields in a responsive expandable field below each record.
    1. In Step 2 of the Grid Wizard, click the three horizontal lines to turn Datacards on. Click it again to turn it off.
    2. When you enable Datacards, the grid will move all fields except the first 7 into the data card field area. You can drag and drop to reorder or remove fields from the data card area.

• In the grid, you’ll see the same datacard icon to the left of each record. Click it to expand and collapse the data card area.

12. CONDITIONAL FORMATTING: In Step 2, you can set up Conditional Formatting rules. These will highlight different fields in your grid based on conditions that you define here.
    1. Click “new rule” and give your rule a name
    2. Set the field condition
    3. Set the formatting
    4. In this example, any opportunity record (a child object in this grid) with an actual revenue greater than $100K will have that same field highlighted in green.

13. ACTIONS: At the bottom of Step 2, you can add Salesforce Actions to your grid.

Go to “Manage Grids” and click “Manage Actions” to create or modify actions.

14. STEP 3: Click “Next” to go to Step 3 of the Grid Wizard. This is where you can set up filters which will be attached to the grid and available to all users who access this grid. We recommend creating a filter for any view you know your end-users will need, to save them from having to create it themselves.
15. You can filter and sort on parent object fields as well as child object fields. The goal here is to filter the grid down until you are showing only the records you need.

16. Done! Click the link on the top right corner (the name of your grid) to launch your grid. You can now edit your Dynamics data in this grid.