Thanks to the ease of adding web pages and scripts to forms and dashboards in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, I was recently able to quickly create a Market Monitor Dashboard. The goal was to be able to surface relevant data inside the tool I use all day (CRM), without having to flip to other systems. This is meant to be an interface, not an integration. This flexible tool is a popular feature with many of our customers who use any of our CRM for Capital Markets products, like CE: Asset Management, CE: Wealth Management, CE: Investment Banking, and CE: Private Equity. Below are the easy steps.
Step by Step: How to create a Market Monitor Dashboard in Microsoft CRM 2011.
Step 1: Create the Dashboard
- To create a system dashboard for your office, Go to Settings > Customizations > Dashboard > New
- To create a personal dashboard, go to Dashboards > New (on the ribbon).
- Select your dashboard layout. I chose a 3 column for this example.
Step 2: Select your market feed components
- This step takes a little homework. I selected what I believe to be some pretty good feeds, but they may not fit the needs of what you need to do. I also limited this example to url and html feeds. The jscript feeds are just fine too; just not what I used in this example.
- For this step, just cut and collect your URLs on a notepad. What I used:
- For the main portion of the dash, I chose a fully interactive chart that allows me to select from any stock or index. It can be found here . After ‘Get Widget’ you can extract either the full script, or pick out the url. It will begin with “html://…” and end with a number and “>”. Do not include the “>”.
- For the indexes, I used the WatchList Widgets here
- For the ticker, I used the Nasdaq ticker. It is literally this url (just cut and paste this in your Iframe form)
- Additional feeds are available from many different sources, such as Dow Jones, CNBC, FoxBusiness, MarketWatch, etc. Just Bing “stock market feeds” and you will see them there.
Step 3: Add your IFRAMES
- From the dashboard, select an area on the grid and click on the IFRAME button on the ribbon. This will bring on a from where you can paste your URL. Be sure to uncheck the ‘Restrict cross-frame scripting’.
- Once you save this dashboard part, you can resize it as you see fit.
- Save and publish.
You may need to do a few things to make sure your browser with your dashboard. First, make sure you have java installed (available at java.com). Also, if you get a ‘secure content’ alert, you can disable it by following the instructions here:
Post by: Brad Koontz,
