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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Filtered Lookups

Post Author: Joe D365 |

In CRM 4.0, creating a "Filtered Lookup" was… well… kind of a pain. It required quite a bit of JavaScript on the Form in order for the filter to work correctly and if you needed to make additional modifications later on… You get the picture! Good news...in CRM 2011 filtered lookups are simple, and you don't have to know JavaScript to create them.

Example 1: I would like the "Out of the box" Primary Contact lookup on the Account, to ONLY show the contacts that are related to that particular Account. (Very Common request)

Step 1: Access the Account form (From your Solution or Main Customization Area)

CRM 2011 filtered lookups

Step 2: Open the Form and "Double Click" the Primary Contact field to access the Attribute Properties, then scroll to the bottom of the Field Properties window to adjust the properties of the Lookup!

In addition to being able to filter on Related Records, you can create Filtered views and have the Lookup use it as the default!

Example 2: In CRM, I have multiple "Account Types". The Account Type field is a Picklist (Option Set) with the following choices: Hospital and Surgery Center. I would like to add an additional Lookup field on the Account form that looks up all Accounts with the "Account Type" of "Surgery Center".

Step 1: Create the View that filters all Accounts where the Account Type = Surgery Center

Step 2: Create a new Lookup field on the Account Form. (Account to Account)

  1. Access the Account form (Customization Area)
  2. New to CRM 2011 – Create the Lookup directly from the Form!
    -- At the bottom of the Account form, click "New" to create a new Field.

  3. Add your display name and choose the Field "Type" of Lookup.

  4. After the field has been created, add the field to the form using the new "Drag and Drop" functionality.

  5. Double click the field to open its properties

  6. Change the "Default View" to your new View!

As always, make sure to publish your changes to make them available to the users! And that's how you use CRM 2011 filtered lookups.

Hope you find this helpful – and don't be afraid to reach out to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM experts at PowerObjects!

Happy CRM'ing

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

10 comments on “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Filtered Lookups”

  1. Finally filtered searches without having to know Java. Nice post.

  2. Thanks! I needed that tidbit for our CRM 2011 implementation.

    Perhaps you could do me the favor of explaining how you could set the account primary contact email address to default in after a primary contact is selected.

  3. Thats great from you. But the problem for me is, In filtered lookups case, It is displaying all records when the Source Lookup is not selected. Can we restict this behaviour so that the target lookup field will not show any records when source is not selcted ?

  4. I'm looking to create a query/Advanced Find that will check for all my Accounts who do not have a Contact. It seems like the only option is for it to look for a Primary Contact but some of my users haven't been entering contacts as the Primary and we need to clean up our records.

    Please let me know who I can do an Advanced Find and get all the Accounts and list their Contacts, even if they aren't listed as the Primary Contact.

  5. I created the look as Country, States and City. But what i actually need that these look should be dependent with each other Example:Country : India , States -( should be from Indiaonly), City - (should be belonging to that particular state only)...guide me

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