Forms
will load significantly faster and more efficiently.
The
new renderer is based on previous generations and has the same functionality
and behavior. However, there are some things that admins and developers need to
do to ensure full compatibility when upgrading.
Each
CRM form is held in an IFRAME but previously these weren’t retained in the
browser which meant the entire IFRAME needed to be reloaded each time a similar
record is opened.
IFRAMES
are now retained throughout the user session. For example, once you’ve opened
the first contact record in a session CRM will cache the frame enabling
subsequent contacts to be opened without reloading this component.
CRM
now handles common and custom scripts separately to achieve further performance
gains.
Common
scripts will always be cached and never need to be reloaded during this
session.
Because
caching is only retained per user session it means that the initial form
rendering for each entity will take slightly longer after logging in but all
subsequently forms for the same entity will load significantly quicker.
Custom
scripts are now loaded in a separate IFRAME and are discarded when the user
closes the form but because CRM now retains common scripts users will
immediately enjoy faster form loads once this upgrade is applied.
Microsoft
has made further changes to CRM’s form rendering which now handles more
processes concurrently to shave off additional time each time a record is
loaded compared to earlier versions.
In
order to help catch unsupported customization's, we added a dialog that displays
the issue when script errors occur so that they do not fail silently. If these
symptoms occur, then it is likely there are unsupported customization's in the
system.
There
are 2 main changes that have been made: loading process of the form, and
handling of cache.
In
terms of loading process, we have parallelized as many operations as possible
to eliminate time wasted because the browser is idle. We increased the content
that’s cached, moved rendering processes partially to server-side, and optimized
the initialization of controls.
Form
load used to be a very linear process. Since the new form renderer is more
parallelized, the rendering engine now constructs the form and XRM model first
and binds the data whenever the server responds. The diagram below is a rough
approximation in order to illustrate the differences between the 2 rendering
engines and may not reflect the exact changes.
Customers
should all make sure to test their organization in sandbox mode to preview
before upgrade. This
way, should any symptoms show up around forms not loading/script errors, you
will be able to catch and fix it
before
upgrade.
- Any
attempt to access DOM in the content iframe using JS, jQuery or other 3rd party
libraries (document.getElementById() or jQuery selectors)
- Creating
a new HTML content in the parent window for persistent content (and
assumed that the parent window was the main CRM iframe.
- Window.load,
parsing iframe/form URL
- Attempting
to use unsupported (non-XRM) APIs, especially undocumented ones that may
have been shipped with CRM for internal usage only
- Accessing
window.parent() from a web resource that may assume for example there’s a
variable set in the current window context.
Fallback options
- No action is
needed by users or administrator as this is turned on by default.
- The loading
process for record forms is significantly better and faster since more
content is cached. For more information on performance, see Microsoft’s
note on form rendering engine.
- Common and
custom scripts are handled separately.
- The engine has
the same functionality as it is based on previous generations. It uses
Form XML Schema and has full support for client scripting.
- Access
window.parent from a web source that has to do with a variable set.
- Unsupported
APIs, i.e., non-XRM.
- Window.load or
iframe/form.
- Access DOM in
content iframe using JQuery or JavaScript.
Examples
of things that will break:
· In
case there is difficulty identifying the issue or a backup plan is needed
post-upgrade, we have introduced an organizational-level fallback to
temporarily allow usage of the legacy rendering engine. This will ensure
compatibility at the cost of performance. Do not rely on this solution long
term as the plan is to remove this option in the following release.
· This
setting can be found under Settings -> Administration -> System Settings
-> General. Select “Yes” under “Use legacy form rendering” to enable this
mode for all users.
· If
script errors are showing up, or if forms are not behaving as intended, this
setting can be used to diagnose if the problem is specific to the new form
rendering or not. If it is due to the new form rendering engine, then most
likely there are some unsupported customization's.
Here
are a few of the benefits of the new Form Rendering Engine:
- No action is
needed by users or administrator as this is turned on by default.
- The loading
process for record forms is significantly better and faster since more
content is cached. For more information on performance, see Microsoft’s
note on form rendering engine.
- Common and
custom scripts are handled separately.
- The engine has
the same functionality as it is based on previous generations. It uses
Form XML Schema and has full support for client scripting.
The
tricky thing for users and administrators has to do with unsupported customization's or direct DOM manipulations which will possibly fail and need to
be re-engineered. The following are examples of when this might occur:
- Access window.parent from a web source that has to do with a variable set.
- Unsupported APIs, i.e., non-XRM.
- Window.load or iframe/form.
- Access DOM in content iframe using JQuery or JavaScript.
When using JavaScript code in Microsoft
Dynamics CRM, it is possible that some code will stop working or cause an error
when you upgrade. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Custom Code Validation Tool helps
identify potential problems so that a developer can fix them.
Please run this tool on your CRM instance to
help identify potential issues with custom JavaScript in JavaScript libraries
and HTML web resources. It will detect issues in the custom web resources that
will no longer work after the upgrade is completed.
The most common issues that this tool targets
are:
- Common DOM manipulations
- CRM 2013 Deprecated
APIs
Running this tool before upgrade will enable
you to identify issues and fix them prior to your scheduled upgrade so that
your upgrade process can run smoothly. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Custom Code Validation Tool
