The most overlooked setting during CRM user setup are the work hours. Setting up the work hours for a user/facility/equipment record has always been an afterthought (at least for me). Then again, this setting becomes more relevant and important to setup when you are scheduling resources., This is especially true in setting up the service module or as part of any project management/field service module where appointments are being setup for tasks. For those who may not know where this setting exists, it can be found by navigating to ;Settings->Security->Users.’ Open any user record, and in the navigation for the user record, you can find the “WORK HOURS” navigation tile. You can access the resources work hours by navigating to ;Settings->Business Management -> Facilities/Equipment.’ The resource entity still uses the old CRM form layout so the work hour navigation can be accessed from within the form.
The navigation may be a little different depending on your CRM version, but the view should be the same. Once you are at this screen, the next step is to select the “Set Up” option and select “New Weekly Schedule”. This selection will open a new popup to set the different options. Here you can set the same hours for the week or specific days, and also set the work days along with updating your calendar with the business closure dates. Other options also allow you to set different work hours for a specific day and put in a time off on the calendar. All these work hour options are available on a facility/equipment record. When setting up work hours you can also setup breaks within the daily hours that you setup. There is also a section to setup capacity, and that setting is only used in the Service module.
. You can still save your appointments by selecting the “Ignore and Save” option. This can also become an issue if you are using other XRM solutions in CRM, like xRM1, which use the user work hour calendar to provide resource scheduling information.
So the next question you may ask is how I can set the work hours for all my users in bulk. Currently there isn’t an option in CRM to do this, but this function can be achieved by creating a plugin that would create the calendar records for a user upon creation of a user record. A detailed explanation on how the work hours are stored in Dynamics CRM along with other calendar records has already been provided at http://inogic.com/blog/2014/08/calendars-and-expand-calendar-request-in-crm-2013-sp-1/. Using this information and other tools that interact with CRM using SDK, you can set these programmatically. Without customization, another option would be to make it as part of the user training. Each new user logging into CRM should be required to update their user record and their work hours.
I have thought of using Scribe to create the calendar records for the user and I am going to explore that as an option and provide the results in my next blog post.
DAVE VORA |Senior Business Software Consultant and CRM Lead
Dave is responsible for leading KTL’s CRM consultants, assuring that our solution scoping, architecting and delivery meet and exceed customer expectations. Dave has built lasting relationships with clients by understanding their business needs and providing value by leveraging their existing resources. Along with his consulting team, he has delivered effective solutions beyond traditional CRM constraints. Dave has more than eight years of experience in implementing business software for a variety of industries including service, government, distribution, not-for-profit and manufacturing. He graduated with a Bachelors of Science Degree in Computer Science and also a specialization in Management from University of California at Irvine. His experience includes helping companies embrace technology to fulfill their organizational needs and creating innovative solutions using CRM, GP, Scribe and other Microsoft products.
