When you click on the 'New' button in the Main Menu, the system displays the New Company screen. Can we change this behaviour ?
The initial reaction might be 'No', as the behaviour appears to be in the DLL; after all we did not select New->Company explicitly.
We want to determine whether/how we can influence the DLL behaviour. The options available in the New menu are defined under Administration->Advanced Customization->System Menus, in the "New" tabgroup.
Examining the "New" tabgroup, we notice that Company is the first item in the list. However, moving Company to be the 2nd or subsequent item in the list does not change the behaviour.
So, as a next step, we remove the Company item from the "New" tabgroup and... yes, the behaviour does change - when we select New the system displays the New Person screen.
Now we know that the behaviour is not totally DLL-driven and does depend on the Company item being in the menu. Also, we know that we can get the New button to display the New Person screen, but how can we achieve this behaviour but still keep the New Company menu option
Generally, the text displayed to the user is different from the code/text in the tabgroup definition in the metadata. In the 'New' menu, the menu text in the metadata is the same as that displayed to the end-user. This leads to the thought....maybe the DLL looks for a menu option with metadata text of 'Company' and that is why it displays the New Company screen ?
So, let's change the menu text in the metadata, e.g. to say 'ACompany', and see what happens. We notice that when we select the 'New' menu item, the system still displays the New Person screen and we still can create a New Company from the menu.
All we need now is to make the 'ACompany' menu item read Company again. This is a simple change, requiring the addition of the translation
Code: ACompany
Family: TabNames
FamilyType: Tags
UK/USTranslation: Company
One other concern when adapting DLL-driven behaviour is whether there is also some special security-related behaviour. We can test this by creating a user whose security profile does not allow them to create new companies and checking whether our revised menu handles this situation properly - ie that logging in as this user, we do not see 'Company' option in the New menu but the New button does open the New Person screen.
Lastly, can we extend this technique to display any particular item in the New menu ? eg can we have the system display the New Case screen when we select the New menu button.
The answer to this is 'No'.
If we modify the Person menu text in the metadata to read eg APerson, then the New menu gives us the New Lead screen. If we modify the Lead menu text in the metadata to read eg ALead, then the New menu gives us the New Appointment screen.
And that is as far as it goes. Whether we rename or even remove the Appointment menu option from the NewActivity tabgroup, the system displays the New Appointment screen anyway.
The initial reaction might be 'No', as the behaviour appears to be in the DLL; after all we did not select New->Company explicitly.
We want to determine whether/how we can influence the DLL behaviour. The options available in the New menu are defined under Administration->Advanced Customization->System Menus, in the "New" tabgroup.
Examining the "New" tabgroup, we notice that Company is the first item in the list. However, moving Company to be the 2nd or subsequent item in the list does not change the behaviour.
So, as a next step, we remove the Company item from the "New" tabgroup and... yes, the behaviour does change - when we select New the system displays the New Person screen.
Now we know that the behaviour is not totally DLL-driven and does depend on the Company item being in the menu. Also, we know that we can get the New button to display the New Person screen, but how can we achieve this behaviour but still keep the New Company menu option
Generally, the text displayed to the user is different from the code/text in the tabgroup definition in the metadata. In the 'New' menu, the menu text in the metadata is the same as that displayed to the end-user. This leads to the thought....maybe the DLL looks for a menu option with metadata text of 'Company' and that is why it displays the New Company screen ?
So, let's change the menu text in the metadata, e.g. to say 'ACompany', and see what happens. We notice that when we select the 'New' menu item, the system still displays the New Person screen and we still can create a New Company from the menu.
All we need now is to make the 'ACompany' menu item read Company again. This is a simple change, requiring the addition of the translation
Code: ACompany
Family: TabNames
FamilyType: Tags
UK/USTranslation: Company
One other concern when adapting DLL-driven behaviour is whether there is also some special security-related behaviour. We can test this by creating a user whose security profile does not allow them to create new companies and checking whether our revised menu handles this situation properly - ie that logging in as this user, we do not see 'Company' option in the New menu but the New button does open the New Person screen.
Lastly, can we extend this technique to display any particular item in the New menu ? eg can we have the system display the New Case screen when we select the New menu button.
The answer to this is 'No'.
If we modify the Person menu text in the metadata to read eg APerson, then the New menu gives us the New Lead screen. If we modify the Lead menu text in the metadata to read eg ALead, then the New menu gives us the New Appointment screen.
And that is as far as it goes. Whether we rename or even remove the Appointment menu option from the NewActivity tabgroup, the system displays the New Appointment screen anyway.