CRM 2013 Tool – CRM 2013 One Click Navigation

Gather round children Uncle Ben is going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time Microsoft updated it’s CRM version from CRM 2011 to CRM 2013 and during this process removed the popular left hand navigation and replaced it with a better looking but much harder to use new navigation.  Highlights of the new navigation

Top menu disappearing just as  you try to go to it (this has been fixed a bit in the latest rollup because it stays there longer)

impossible to find Advanced find button

a smaller command bar with only room for 5 items (bumped up to 7 in the latest release)

 

To speed this story up,  Rockton Software commissioned a contest to see who could create the best solution to help the CRM 2013 navigation.   CRM MVP’s from all the land flocked round to battle it in a winner takes all ($5000 reward).  You can see the final five here and the winner, CRM MVP Damian Sinay

The problem was the winning solution wasn’t a solution so not everyone could deploy it

 

roll on one week and Damian Sinay creator of the winning solution has converted it a free solution on codeplex and the CRM 2013 One Click Navigation was born.

The solution is a manged solution and can be downloaded by the link below

https://crm2013oneclicknavigation.codeplex.com/

Now import that solution

When you refresh your CRM you will now see a tidy small navigation bar.  You may be thinking it looks a bit small but when you move you mouse over it, it is really responsive and quick.  I have borrowed the images from the codeplex page because if I did them again they wouldn’t actually be any different.

When you hover over one of nav items the entities drop down quickly, it’s hard to explain but it’s very enjoyable to use because it’s so responsive.  Basically what this solution does is put the good old CRM 2011 achored left hand menu at the top.  It’s a fantastic solution because it offers the same functionality but takes up less room.

In fact I would almost say this is better than the left hand menu because you don’t need it there all the time taking up that space but you want to be able to access those entities/menu choices so you can quickly navigate around CRM 2013.

 

In the codeplex solution also has this line

I want to thanks Rhett Clinton, Ramon Tebar and mtcantero for the CRM 2013 Quick View Menu project from where I took some of the codes to build the final solution.

Download this and try it, you will love it.

The only improvement I can really think of is if there were another column which had advanced find button on but you can import the advanced find solution so it doesn’t really matter.

great work Damian Sinay, this should definitely win you another years MVP award, you certainly get my vote.

Video review