Consuming the MS CRM Web Service for a Secondary Organisation

If you've got multiple CRM organisations in a MS CRM instance, you would have noticed that connecting to the default Web Service gives you only the customisations of the default organisation. In the past, I've been downloading the WSDL files in the Customisation section for each of my secondary organisations and then creating a Web Service reference to the downloaded file- especially annoying when you make changes to your customisation and have to keep the file updated!

Well, I was about to do the same this morning.. until I discovered realised that I could simply consume the download URL of the WSDL file itself:

http://SERVERNAME/MSCrmServices/2007/CrmServiceWsdl.aspx?uniquename=ORGANISATION

Why didn't I discover this before?

Quick Create Form Layout

Unfortunately, the Quick Create form's aren't customisable in Microsoft CRM. Which is pretty annoying considering that the Business Required and Business Recommended fields are simply picked up and rendered as they read off the screen (left to right for every row). It's even more bizarre considering the tab ordering starts at the first row in the left-most column in every section and moves down the column, until reaching the end of the column before going to the second column!

If one were to have an Account record where the following fields (including the Account Name field) were Business Required:

Then the Quick Create form for the Account renders as follows:

You can change the order of the Business Required and Business Recommend fields so that they render in a logical way on the Quick Create form.

Which would render the Account Quick Create form as follows

Finally, we need to modify the tab-order on the fields otherwise users will have hard time entering new address data in. Add the following JavaScript into the OnLoad of the Account record:

crmForm.all.address1_line1.tabIndex = 1110;
crmForm.all.address1_line2.tabIndex = 1120;
crmForm.all.address1_line3.tabIndex = 1130;
crmForm.all.address1_city.tabIndex = 1140;
crmForm.all.address1_country.tabIndex = 1150;

I've simply taken the current tabIndex values being assigned to the 5 fields above and reassigned them to ensure that I don't distrupt anything else on the Account form.