Changes to client-side code for CRM 4.0

Following on from looking at server-side code changes for CRM 4.0, here's what I know so far about client-side code changes. Again, this is based on the CTP3 code so may soon become out-dated. Another caveat is that it is based on investigation of the CRM client files, and not on the SDK documentation (which at time of posting is incomplete); hence, some of what I cover may well be undocumented and hence unsupported.

Calling CRM web services directly
This has never been a favourite approach of mine, as the creation of the SOAP data in client-code seems too fragile; I prefer to create server-side web pages or services to abstract the CRM web service. However, I know many people who make direct SOAP requests, and there is another consideration - if customising a deployment on Windows Live you will not be permitted to deploy server web code, so you will have to make direct requests.

If you do make direct requests, you will need to pass the new CrmAuthenticationToken within the SOAP header. Rather than generating this yourself, there is a new global method for this:

GenerateAuthenticationHeader();

CRM 4.0 now provides a proper web service interface for offline use. This can be accessed from client-side code via the http://localhost:2525 location.

New Global Variables
CRM 4.0 provides the following documented global variables related to the multi-language and multi-tenant features:

• USER_LANGUAGE_CODE - Code (LCID) of the current user's language
• ORG_LANGUAGE_CODE - Code (LCID) of the base language
• ORG_UNIQUE_NAME - Current organisation name

New Object Properties and Methods
Note, everything in this section may be undocumented and hence unsupported. As you may know, the crmForm and field objects are implemented as HTML components (.htc files) in the /_forms/controls directory. A comparison between the CRM 3.0 and CRM 4.0 versions show the following changes:

All CRM 3.0 properties and methods seem intact, even the undocumented ones. I've not tested this exhaustively, but all current code works fine.

The crmForm object has the following new members:

• fireSaveEvent
• HideField - I hope this will become supported, as it will avoid direct DHTML manipulation
• VerifyFieldIsSet
• BypassValidation - a property to tell CRM not to validate fields

The Lookup control has more members, mostly to do with the new auto-resolve functionality:

• AutoResolve and ResolveEmailAddress boolean properties
• AreValuesDifferent method allows comparison between the lookup contents and a supplied array of values

The Picklist control exposes the underlying properties of the select HTML element, SelectedIndex and SelectedOption.

Across these, and the undocumented members from CRM 3.0, what I see as most significant is the extent to which they will be supported in CRM 4.0. We shall see.