I had a request to post on how you could replace characters within a blob field in the SalesLogix database. Blob fields are database fields that hold any sort of binary information (such as text, images, audio, etc..), but SalesLogix uses them primarily for holding large amounts of text, since you don't have to define a field length. The LongNotes field in the History table is a good example. Read more

In the SalesLogix web client, you don't really have the same old options regarding Queries and Datasets. However, by using IRepository you can create similar functionality by using projections to define groups and other calculations. Read more

My colleague Ryan just posted about a simple method to increase the height of picklist dropdowns in the SalesLogix web client. I have a slightly different way to accomplish the same thing for individual picklists, so while not really more difficult to do, would require you to do it for as many picklists you want to modify. Ryan's solution modifies a stylesheet to affect all picklists in the system at once. Read more

Recently, I had a request to create export functionality for a datagrid in the SalesLogix web client. I had a little difficulty exporting data from the actual grid, but as an alternative, we put together functionality to export data based on a provided SQL query. (Thanks to Ryan for working out the SmartPart code) By creating a new custom smartpart, we can simply export the results of a SQL query to a CSV file, save it on the webserver and download it to an individual client. First, you'll want to create a folder on the web server to hold the exported file. In this case, I'm exporting contact data based on the current account, so I created an export folder under the SupportFiles/SmartParts/Account folder in the portal manager. Read more

If you work on SalesLogix across a number of remote desktop connections and a number of different workstations as I do, you may occasionally run into an issue where the Properties or Toolbox windows cannot be made visible. This happens when you first start a Remote session from a machine with a greater screen resolution, move one of those windows to the far right of the screen, then start a Remote session on a machine with a smaller resolution. You can then end up in a situation where the propertes and/or toolbars views are technically "visible" but are in a position outside of the current screen resolution. Read more

Recently, I needed to create an account tab in the web client which would show a number of values from a stand-alone entity in SalesLogix. Using child relationships, SalesLogix web makes this easy to do. In this example, I'm creating a simple Product tab at the account level. This tab contains a Product Lookup to select a product for the account, and then also shows a number of product fields on the view. These product fields are read only, and I wanted them to update based on what was selected in the lookup. Read more

The Quick Find functionality in the SalesLogix web client is a fast and easy way to look up information from many different areas in SalesLogix, but did you know you could modify the layout of the various lookups displayed in that interface? The functionality is a little hard to find if you don't know where to look, but this post will explain how you can modify the Quick Find lookups. Read more

On a recent project, I worked on emulating functionality similar to what is found in the LAN client where a user is presented a dialog asking them to choose between different activity types then launching into the Schedule Activity functionality. I found this was fairly easy to duplicate in the web client, and in this post, I'll quickly go through the steps for creating that type of functionality. Read more

If you had a tab you wanted to hide in the LAN client, all you have to do is remove the current release. Once that was done, the Admin user will continue to see the tab, but no other users will have access to it. This is something that you can do in the Web client fairly easily as well, although you have to go about it slightly differently. In this post, I'll do a quick walk-through of hiding the Products tab in the Opportunities area of the Web Client. Read more

Most of the time, it is a simple process to add or subtract fields from views in SalesLogix, but on occasion, it is necessary to perform those changes by modifying custom smartparts rather than making changes directly to a view. A good example of this in the Insert Contact/Account screen in the web client. If you're not familiar with ASP or C#, this can be a little intimidating, but hopefully this post will show the areas you need to modify when making changes to the custom smart part. First of all, you need to find the custom smartpart. The easiest way to do this is to look at the Project Explorer in Application Architect. Expand the Portal manager, Sage SalesLogix, and Pages. Scroll down to the Insert Contact/Account page and double-click on it. This will open the page, and show all the smart parts used. Read more

In this post I'll outline some of the functionality available to you in the Standard Ticket Activity support script for SalesLogix LAN. As with the other built in SalesLogix scripts, access to this functionality allows you the ability to control the various processes regarding ticket activities. Most of these functions and methods deal with populating the activity and history tables. Read more

I was recently doing some work on merge forms in SageCRM and discovered that for Cases, SageCRM didn't take into account different address types in the OOTB Case merge fields. Normally, Address information is derived by joining the case_PrimaryCompanyID to the Company table, and then joining from Comp_PrimaryAddressID to the address tables. With these joins, you could only include the primary address for the Case's account, however I wanted to display both Shipping and Billing addresses as well. In this post, I'll go through the view changes I made to include Billing and Shipping Addresses on this merge form. Read more

I previously posted about using an update trigger to enforce data rules in SalesLogix. Since I was working on another trigger now, I also wanted to post a simple example of an Insert Trigger. Read more

If you've ever created a SSIS package and wanted to provide a way for end users to run that package without having to run the Business Intelligence Development studio, you can compile the package into a dtsx file for them to run. This would require them to manually alter connections and variables, which can get complicated for an average end user. Alternatively, it is pretty simple to put together an application which can be used to run the package. This would allow you to handle modifications to package variables in a much more user-friendly manner. Read more

Using pivot queries in SQL is a great tool for rotating data, but what if you need to do something more complicated with multiple data sources and multiple columns? Recently, I had a request to pivot some data from multiple similar tables and to rotate that data into a columnar format. Read more

It's easy to access the UserService interface from a Code Snippet Action item in the SalesLogix web client. For this example, I'm just going to add a button on account detail which will launch a DialogService message with the current user. Read more

I wanted to run through quickly how to set filters when using the OpenDialog in the SalesLogix LAN client. When using OpenDialog, it's nice to be able to define filters so that your users only see the type of file that you want them to open. This is really easy to set up. Read more

I've previously posed about a number of useful functions available to you within the SLX_Common script in the LAN version of SalesLogix. I'd like to go a little further in-depth about a couple of functions which are helpful for creating new SQL Query strings. In a recent project, I needed to build a query interface similar to what you find in standard opportunity products view. The SLX_Common script holds a couple of functions that I used in building this interface. In this posting, I'm going to go through building a simple account lookup view using this functionality. Read more

I recently had to build a datagrid displaying ticket information, including the current Status value. Under tickets, the Statuscode field contains the itemid from the picklist table rather than the actual text value as is stored for the Account, Contact or Opportunity areas. If you've only dealt with picklists in those other areas, it could cause some confusion when trying to determine just how to display the Ticket status text value in a datagird, however using the picklist column type makes this very easy. Read more

The SLX_Common script included in SalesLogix contains a number of simple, yet useful, functions that you can use within your own functionality to save yourself some time by not having to reinvent the wheel each time you need some simple functionality. Read more

In this basics article, I wanted to outline the use of include scripts within the SalesLogix LAN client. Specifically, I'm going to look at the standard SLX Database Support script. Read more

If you've ever wanted to modify the email generated from the Opportunity Snapshot in the web client, you'll find that it is incredibly simple to add new fields to the body of the email. To do so, you will need to modify the OpportunitySnapShot.ascx.cs smart part, found under Portal Manager->Sage SalesLogix->SupportFiles->SmartParts->Opportunity. Read more

In a recent project, I had to create a SQL Server Integration Services package to basically copy contact information (which was being stored in the Account.Account field) from the Account table into the Contact table. Since the Contact name was being stored in it's entirety within the account field, I needed a way to parse the Contact information to populate the individual contact name fields in the contact table. Read more

In a recent SLX Web project, it was requested that I add a contact lookup to the insert SalesOrder view, and when that was set, use the contact's address for the Shipping and Billing address in the SalesOrder. I was able to add a new Contact property to the SalesOrder and add the lookup to the insert SalesOrder view, but I wasn't able to reference the new property after it was set. Read more

This is a minor item, but one I always seem to forget, so I thought I'd throw it up here quick as a reference... On occasion in the web, I want to hide a particular control instead of removing it. If I set this via code snippet in the onload event of the form, it's a simple matter of just including the line .Visible = False. If this is all you do, the caption of the control will still display even though the control itself is hidden. Read more