{Lessons Learned}Customizing the Social Pane in Dynamics CRM

Scenario 1: Customer wants Post tab to be removed from Social Pane

Currently customer is seeing Social Pane under Account and other Sales entity as below:

Customer wanted two things:

· Remove Post tab from visibility

· Default to Activities instead of Post tab

Well, second bit was pretty easy: I just defaulted on the Social Pane on Form Editor ->

Double Click Social Pane on Form Editor-> Under Display change the Default tab:

Good stuff, now for the second set of the problem. Removing Post tab completely.

I got methods like this one, totally unsupported:

http://www.crmsoftwareblog.com/2013/10/hide-post-tab-in-social-pane-microsoft-crm-2013/

The next thing I did was removed users Access on the Post entity in their Security Role. The tab was still visible, however when somebody clicked it, they got the privileges error.

This was as close to good I got, when I went to fellow MVPs for help.

And, MVPS are MVPs for a reason. MVPs @FrankLeeCRM and @edwardsdna came up with the solution for the problem.

Regarding the Post tab – should be able to remove out of the box via configuration.  Settings >> Activity Feeds Configurations >> Post Configuration >> Inactivate the entity

Publish the entity.

And the Post tab will disappear:

Lesson Learned: There is often a supported easier way to achieve what you need in Dynamics CRM, you just need to keep trying.

Scenario 2: Customer wants to change the Phone call which appears when using Social pane to Add Phone call activity.

This one is a bit more restricted and there is no supported way to edit this user control at the moment:

Well, I have found some alternate ways though. Suggestions from another great CRM MVP @CRMLarry got me to remember this alternative.

Use Activity grid instead of Social pane.

I have explained on this approach in a past blog which I came to remember, here is the link:

https://dynamicsofdynamicscrm.com/2015/03/05/quick-tip-design-it-simple-when-you-can-with-dynamics-crm/

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!

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