BBCRM SDK – Query Views, List Builders, and Reports

If you’re starting out customizing BBCRM, or even if you’ve been doing so for several years, it’s not unusual to run into frustrations that you feel should be solvable, but that you can’t find a ready answer for among the excellent BBCRM customization resources already out there. If you’re not already aware, the website www.bbdevnetwork.com provides a great technical reference along with a reasonably well-trafficked Q&A site. Even so, sometimes it’s hard to find the answer you’re looking for.

This blog introduces a series of posts with practical advice and guidance based on real-world customization development and several years of questions from BBCRM SDK trainings I’ve conducted. Please feel free to contact me if I can clarify or explain any of this–or if you’ve found alternative ways to address the topic.

Report Builder 3.0 Download

• You can download a standalone Report Builder 3.0 installer from Microsoft’s website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6116

Linking from List Builders

• This is some text!When creating an action to link from a list builder field (e.g. link to another page or link to an add/edit form), you need to make sure the field you’re using as the action context is included in the “Required Columns”.
  • • In design mode this looks like the following:
    • In the page spec this looks like the following:

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Linking from SSRS Report to CRM Page

• To link from an SSRS report to a CRM page, you have to take the following steps:
  • Set an action on an SSRS item for “Go to URL”, then set the URL to the following format:
    • http://www.blackbaud.com/PLACEHOLDER?PLACEHOLDER=ID
    • Replacer PLACEHOLDER with a unique value (e.g. “CONSTITUENTLINK”)
    • Replace ID with the record ID you want to use when linking to the CRM page.
  • In SSRS this looks like the following:
  • The URL is formatted similar to the following, with “CONSTITUENTLINK” replaced with a unique string and the “CONSTITUENTID” field representing the record ID you’ll pass to the CRM page:
  • In CRM, when including the report in a page section, set up an action on the section as follows:
  • Note the “LinkFieldID” and action context <SectionField> reference to “CONSTITUENTLINK”. The value “CONSTITUENTLINK” must correspond the value you used when creating the URL in the SSRS report.
  • Note if you try and view this in design mode you won’t be able to see the action context, which is critical to making this work properly, so you’ll need to define the action in your page spec XML:

Query View “IsDefaultOutput”

• To cause a field to show up by default in ad hoc queries using the query view, set the “IsDefaultOutput” attribute to “true” in the query view spec:

Report Creation

Report creation will generally follow these steps:

1. 1. 1. Create stored procedures to drive the report data. This includes stored procedures to populate parameter lists, such as a stored procedure to return revenue type if you have a parameter for “Revenue Type” that you want to display different revenue types.
      2. Create an RDL file within Report Builder, create a datasource referencing your developer CRM database:
      3. Create datasets that reference the stored procedures you created earlier:
      4. Design your report.
      5. Once it is completed, save your RDL file within your catalog project’s folder and include it in the project:
      6. Set it to be an embedded resource:
      7. Create a report spec that references that RDL:
      8. If you’re referencing external stored procedures or other SQL objects, make sure to include them in the report spec so permissions are correctly set to allow the BBAPPFXREPORTROLE access to the SQL objects:
      9. Determine where in the application you wish to embed the report.
         1. To link from a task, set up a task spec linking to the report:
         2. To include in a page, create a section containing the report (note you can set report parameters via the “ParameterValues” XML):

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