Grids are a convenient way of listing many records on one page. A grid in a CRM system would be recognisable to anyone who has ever used a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel.

Here’s a standard grid showing activity records

Example of a grid in Dynamics 365 — A standard grid in Dynamics 365

As well as being a great way to view data, it’s also very convenient if you can edit record fields directly in the grid – just like Excel.

Before 2016, Dynamics 365 or Dynamics CRM as it was then, had read only grids. As regular users you’d have to open each record separately and then load the record list again, every time you wanted to make an edit. Often this meant that importing changes would be a faster option, but with the potential data loss, not without its problems.

What is an editable grid in Dynamics 365?

In the December 2016 release of Dynamics, editable grids were introduced. They were easy to implement and allowed users to edit some data directly in a grid, rather than open each record individually.

What do editable grids allow?

Direct editing of values in a cell, like Excel
They supports lookup fields
Records can be
- Sorted
- Filtered
- Grouped
Columns can be reordered by drag-dropping

How do I switch to an editable grid in Dynamics?

First, you’ll need to enable editable grids for each entity you wish

Now, when you’re viewing a list in that entity, simply choose Show As from the command bar

You’ll be able to switch between the standard grid (Read only grid) and the editable grid

Limitations of editable grids in Dynamics 365

Pagination is slow – every time you load a new page, new records are loaded.
Bulk actions are difficult.
Grouping and filtering are slow and clumsy
Some data types aren’t editable, like composite fields such as Name or Status
Doesn’t work on all data types
Filtering and sorting is not saved between sessions

A better editable grid

It’s possible to improve the standard editable grid in Dynamics.

We’ve spent a lot of time working on the integration and we’ve now launched a better editable grid – AMS Grid

It’s a replacement for the Dynamics editable grid, but contains many more features.
It’s like an application within an application.

See the grid in action

What’s so good about this editable grid?

It’s fast! Very fast. It can quickly load in 10,000s of records and scroll through them with no delay. So much easier than the Dynamics standard editable grid
Filtering is immediate as you type.
There are loads of power options like you’d expect from Excel
Easy to use filters
Drag drop grouping
Drag drop column ordering
Fill down like Excel
Fast charting
Handles currency, Yes/No, rating. All sorts of field types
Supports lookup fields
Conditional formatting
Copy/Paste/export to/from Excel

If you’re interested in this solution, take a look at how we’ve implemented it to speed up quoting, or contact us for more information about how it can help your system.