Alerts are a very popular functionality in D365FO, do you agree? However, let's be honest, D365FO could offer more alert-related features out of the box 😀.

But here we are, stepping up the game again with your favorite free library 😎 Docentric Free Edition 🚀.
In v3.4.7 we released an awesome new alert functionality Create alert in a ⚡single click, which will save you a ton of time. How?

You are now able to right-click on the wanted control on any form and select a new custom menu context option Create a custom alert. This will open the built-in Create alert rule form with the preselected data field that your control is bound to!

There are also other alert improvements we previously delivered as part of our Free Edition; this is only a 🍒 cherry on the top. We call them Alerts++ 😊. Learn more on Alerts++ >>

Download Docentric Free Edition and start using Alerts++ right away >>

Let’s go now through some scenarios such as creating an alert rule for a data field on a complex form or belonging to the grid bound to a child data source with “lines”, where Create alert in a ⚡single click becomes a real lifesaver. This article is gonna be fun!

Create Alert Rules on a Complex Form

Check out the Released product details form. What do you see? A heavy form with many data sources and many controls. A challenge 👀: Go ahead and create a new alert rule for the Price field within the Purchase tab to be triggered when the Price value is changed.

If you open the built-in Create a custom alert form, you might be confused at first, looking for the corresponding data source in the Table name combobox and then, for the Price field (control) in the Field combobox. The situation is even worse, since these comboboxes aren’t populated as expected for complex forms. By implementing Create alert in a ⚡single click, we've actually fixed 2 bugs and learned about a workaround to become even able to create the alert rule Has changed for the Price field in the Inventory module parameters table! Read all about this >>

When you complete the challenge (or not 😀), look at this beauty, our new Create alert in a ⚡single click feature! You just right-click on the Price control on the Released product details form within the Purchase tab, or any other control on any other form, and voila, the Create a custom alert form is open and the right field is already selected for you. Let’s admit, this is AWESOME!

Create Alert Rules on a Form with Lines

Let’s move on to another tedious use case when you need to create an alert rule for a field belonging to the grid bound to a form child data source with “lines”. For example, let’s say that we want to create an alert rule for the Unit price field belonging to Purchase order lines (the PurchLine table) on the All purchase orders form.

Click the Create a custom alert button from the Options action tab and the Create alert rule form will open. But wait! There is no possibility to select the Purchase order lines table among data sources.

Workaround: Use Table Browser to create alert rules for Line Table fields

The workaround recommended by Microsoft is to open the “line” table, in our case the Purchase order lines (PurchLine) table, using Table Browser and create the alert rule for the wanted field - Unit price (PurchPrice) - from there.

This certainly works but you need to discover the technical field name first, since in Table Browser the labels that you see on regular forms are not used.

Docentric Table Browser

Just to mention, for the above screenshots we used Table Browser improved by Docentric, where you can discover the table field labels - which are needed to create alert rules, as mentioned above. Additionally, you can see Field IDs and Table ID. Learn about the improvements >>

Use the Create a custom alert context menu option

Instead of all that hustle, you can simply use our custom context menu option Create a custom alert and create the alert rule for the Unit price field in no time!

Right-click on the Unit price column, click Create a custom alert and the Create alert rule is open.

For this specific case, we need to clear the condition on the creating alert rule, because by default the rule is bound to the currently selected purchase order.

Other Alert Improvements

Precisely because alerts are so important functionality in D365FO, we created many alert improvements (and called them Alerts++ 😊). Just to list some of them: creating conditional alert rules, better view and management of alert rules, targeting a user group with one alert rule and not just a single user, alert emailing improvements and more. Learn more about Alerts++ >>

Recommendations and Limitations

If the form is in the Read only mode, you can do the right-click on a form control. However, if the form is in the Edit mode, you need to do the right-click on the label of a form control, otherwise the context menu of the web browser will be shown.

Limitations

The Context menu option is not supported for:

• Unbound form controls (not bound to a data source field).
• Form controls bound to a display method.
• Form controls added in the runtime.

See Also

Documentation: Improved Alert Rules >>
Fixed Bugs for Alert Rule Creation >>
Alerts++ in D365FO Session by Miha Vuk >>
Improved Alert Emails >>