Since the debut of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, the Social Pane was introduced to show information regarding activities (Posts, Activities, and Notes) on and related to records. The interface of the Social Pane presents activity information in an easily viewable grid format that you can see at a glance along with in-line editing capabilities. However, as with any tool, the Social Pane has its advantages and its considerations. As a designer of the CRM user interface, understanding these differentiating aspects of the Social Pane is important--especially when deciding when and where to use the Social Pane versus sub-grids.
ADVANTAGES
Glanceable: As you can see from the screenshot below, the Social Pane's user experience presents information regarding Posts, Activities, and Notes in a more compact and glanceable format than is available with a sub-grid. The number of characters displayed, while somewhat dependent on the form layout, can be noticeably larger than what sub-grids permit.
Tabbed Interface: The tabbed interface, visible above, lets you rapidly flip between the three types information (Posts, Activities, and Notes) presented in the Social Pane feed. Sub-grids do have a similar capability view called the View Selector. However, the View Selector only permits choosing between different views of the same entity or, in the case of Activities, entity type. The Social Pane allows you to rapidly switch between Posts, Activities, and Notes all within the same control.
In-Line Editing: The Social Pane permits users to enter information directly into an in-line editing interface.
This allows users to record their activities for a given record without having to leave the record they are currently viewing or wait for a new window to pop open over the current one. Sub-grids for Activities, on the other hand, spawn a new window for the creation of an Activity record.
Party List Fields: Party List fields are a special type of field in CRM that allow you to enter multiple references to other records—which could be Accounts, Contacts, or Leads—in the same field. For more information regarding Party List fields, please visit Party List fields and how to filter Custom Activity records that use them using Advance Find.
One of the greatest advantages of the Social Pane is that it will display the Activity on all records referenced via the Party List field. When displaying Activities via a sub-grid, only the records directly related via a Lookup type field (in the example screenshot below, that field is named Regarding) will be displayed via the related records setting for the grid.
So, the Social Pane will display the Appointment record being created above on all four Contact records, whereas, a sub-grid would only display the Appointment record for the Contact listed in the Regarding field.
Considerations
Flexibility: Dynamics CRM is highly configurable and customizable. However, the Social Pane is a slight exception to this. While you can determine, on a form by form basis, which tab (Posts, Activities, or Notes) is displayed by default (see below), you cannot hide or remove a tab.
This means that if the design of an entity form calls for only Notes or only Activities, all three tabs will always be visible to the user, which could cause confusion depending on the nature of the design. With a sub-grid, you can limit a user to just Activities or even just a specific activity type.
Additionally, the fields displayed in the Social Pane are not configurable either, whereas, a sub-grid permits you to choose your columns, their order, their widths, and allows specifying filter criteria. The Social Pane is fixed in regards to the fields displayed in its list view and the filter criteria applied.
In-Line Editing: While in-line editing is an advantage of the Social Pane, it may be too simplified for some business uses. With the Social Pane, only Phone Call and Task activities can be created in-line. Any other Activity available via the Social Pane will push you to a new screen for creating the Activity record. A sub-grid, on the other hand, would pop open a window over the current page.
Whether to use the Social Pane or a sub-grid to display activity information is a question you will have to answer based upon the needs of your end-user processes. Hopefully, our blog today will help you find the solution that works best for you! If you would like to learn more about MS Dynamics CRM 2013 or any other versions, make sure you check out our website!
Happy CRM'ing!
It is possible to hide the Post tab from the Social Pane which eliminates a lot of user confusion and un-necessary CRM noise. This resource provides a great set of instructions: http://www.summitgroupsoftware.com/blog/how-turn-posts-microsoft-dynamics-crm
Dear Joe,
I have a question: How I can customize Social Pane, Activities > Phonecall ? I want to add fields to it. Thank for your help!
Hi - Unfortunately currently we can not customize the social pane activities area. We hope this functionality comes in a future version.
Hi Joe,
Is it possible to filter the social pane in dynamics 2013?
I want to place a filter for a specific user, so the updates of a specfic user won't be visible in the social pane.
Ho Etk - Unfortunately it is not possible to filter out certain posts in the social pane. In fact, the social pane allows for almost no customizing capabilities. We hope in future versions this will be enhanced.
Hi Joe,
Thanks for your reply! Do you know how to filter the order close activity? I don't want to see this as an activity in the social pane. But OOTB the order close is an activity entity. Thanks in advance!
Hi!
Do you know, why is there modified on date on social pane and it is sorted by that date.
Everything comes useless even when there are many activity records and everything
is reassigned to another user. All the history will be shown and sorted by last modified date
and is is completly mixed up then.
To you know any ways to avoid it?
With regards,
Peep Palts
Hi!
Do you know, why is there modified on date on social pane and it is sorted by that date.
Everything comes useless even when there are many activity records and everything
is reassigned to another user. All the history will be shown and sorted by last modified date
and is is completly mixed up then.
To you know any ways to avoid it?
With regards,
Peep Palts
You can change the cascading rules between the entity that has the social pane and the child activity records. Go to the relationship record and change the Cascading rule from Parental, to Configurable Cascading, then the 'Assign' option to Cascade None.
Jay- It looks like you have a better understanding of how social pane works than most. Here is a problem maybe you can answer. In leads, only activities that have been set to regarding to the parent record are displayed while in contacts all records (related) appear. IN contacts they show in social pane even if the regarding is not set, as long as they have the related set to the parent record.
How do I get leads to behave in the same way as contacts- IE- have all activities that are related appear in the social pane for leafs even if the regarding is not set?
Hi Peter. Let me know if I'm misunderstanding your question. CRM links activities (emails, specifically) to the contact using the email address field as well as the regarding field. Those activities without a Regarding item are likely linked to the contact via the email address on both records. The same should happen with Leads. If you want email activities linked to a lead, then try making sure that there's a matching email address on the Lead record. I believe this can only be done at the time of tracking an email in the Outlook client, or upon creation of a received email in CRM.
HI Jay- all emails do link to record, contacts and leads, and can be viewed in sub grids. However, in the case of social pane for leads only, it will not show an email unless it has specifically been set with the regarding. This is a problem as you can imagine, because any email written from outlook (or received) that has been tracked, but not set regarding (or a regarding set to another record) will not show in the social pane. If I need to see a historical email, In leads, i need to go to the sub grid instead of the social pane.
This is not the case for contacts. Social pane will show an email that is linked by email (related) even if the regarding is not set.
I would like the social pane in leads to show all related emails even if it does not have a regarding set.
I see. Unfortunately I can't think of an easy solution for that. CRM simply doesn't let you control the filter behind the social pane. Hopefully a future release will. Perhaps you could use a custom plugin to automatically assign the Regarding field, but that gets rather complicated. Sorry I don't have a better answer. Good luck!
Thanks Jay. I was hopeful there must be a solution since Contacts works as expected while leads do not. Seems very odd that they would not behave the same. I wonder where they even have a different setting?
Social pane behaves differently on contacts then leads. On contacts all records show- regardless if there has been a regarding set. IN Leads only records that have a regarding set to the primary record show.
How do I get leads to behave like contacts and show all related records without regard to the regarding field?