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Add the Knowledge Base Search control to Microsoft Dynamics CRM forms

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Applies To: Dynamics CRM Online

Add a Knowledge Base Search control to Microsoft Dynamics CRM forms to make it easy for users in your organization to access and find Parature KB articles so they can answer common customer questions and resolve their issues right from Microsoft Dynamics CRM records, without having to switch to a different application.

You can add the control to any section of the form, including the activity wall or social pane, except the header and footer. You can also add this control to custom entity forms.

You can configure the Knowledge Base Search control to:

  • Show automatic suggestions in search results based on certain fields

  • Define filters that the users can use on search results

  • Choose from a set of predefined contextual actions that the users can take on an article

  • Add the control on any section of any entity, including the activity wall and also in custom entities

Important

For Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online organizations, this feature is available only if your organization has updated to Dynamics CRM Online 2015 Update 1. Interested in getting this feature? Find your CRM administrator or support person. This feature is not available for Dynamics CRM (on-premises).

In This Topic

Prerequisites

Add the Knowledge Base Search control

Prerequisites

Before you add the Knowledge Base Search control, make sure to:

Add the Knowledge Base Search control

  1. Make sure that you have the System Administrator or System Customizer security role or equivalent permissions.

  2. Go to Settings > Customizations.

  3. Choose Customize the System.

  4. In the solution explorer, choose the entity you want to add the search control to, and under Communication & Collaboration, make sure the Knowledge Management check box is selected.

    Setting to enable knowledge management on account

  5. Expand the entity that you’re adding the search control to, and choose Forms.

  6. Choose the entity form of type Main.

    Customize the account form of type Main

  7. Select the area where you want to place the search control, and on the Insert tab, choose Knowledge Base Search.

    If the option to add Knowledge Base Search is disabled, it could be because knowledge management isn’t set up or isn’t enabled for the entity you’re adding the Search control to.

  8. In the Set Properties dialog box, on the Display tab, specify the following:

    Set properties for Knowledge Base Search control

    1. In the Name section, enter a name and label for the control.

    2. In the Filter Data section:

      • In the Filter Search results, show only drop-down box, select if you want CRM to search in all articles or only in specific set of articles. For example, you could choose to search only in draft articles or only in published articles.

      • To allow users to be able to select a different filter on search results so that they can see other type of articles, select the Users can change filters check box. Only when you enable this option, will users see an option to change the filter in the Search pane in a record.

    3. In the Additional Options section:

      1. If you want CRM to suggest articles automatically based on the value in certain fields of the entity, select Turn on automatic suggestions.

      2. If you’ve enabled automatic suggestion, select the field of the entity that CRM will use to suggest article results in the Give knowledge base (KB) suggestions using drop-down box.

        For example, if you’re adding the search control to the Account entity, and want CRM to automatically show search results that contain the account name, select Account Name in the drop-down box.

        Note

        This drop-down can include all the fields that are text, multi-line text, or lookup type fields.

      3. In Select primary customer, select who the email will be sent to when a customer service agent chooses to send the link of the article in email. This drop-down box includes all the fields of the entity that are enabled for email, for example account or contact. When the customer service agent chooses to send a link to the article to customer, the To field is automatically populated with the value of the field that you select here.

      4. In Number of results, select how many articles to show in the search results at first.

      5. In the Actions drop-down list, select whether you want to make all the default actions available to CSRs or only selected ones. If you choose Show Selected Actions, select the actions you would like to show.

  9. Choose Set.

Add the search control to the activity wall

  1. Open the entity form you want to add the search control to.

  2. In the form, in the Social Pane section, double-click the Notes Properties box.

    Add Knowledge Base Search control to social pane

  3. In the Activities Tab Properties dialog box, select the Show Knowledge Base Search Control check box.

    As soon as you select the check box, a new tab “Knowledge Base Search” is added to the Activity Tab Properties dialog box.

    Set properties of Activities tab

  4. Choose the Knowledge Base Search tab.

  5. Follow steps 8 and 9 as described in the earlier section.

Tip

You can set the up the Knowledge base tab as the default tab so that whenever users open the form, the Knowledge Base tab is opened on the activity wall. To do this, in the Activity Tab Properties dialog box, in the Default tab section, select Knowledge Base Search.

See Also

Connect Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Parature knowledge base

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