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Query and visualize hierarchical data




I remember in 2005 in the CRM 2015 i was asked to do something similar, and only now Microsoft makes that available OOB.


Applies To: CRM 2015 on-prem, CRM Online



You can get valuable business insights by visualizing hierarchically related data. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM hierarchical modelling and visualization capabilities give you a number of benefits:

  1. View and explore complex hierarchical information.

  2. View key performance indicators (KPIs) in the contextual view of a hierarchy.

  3. Visually analyze key information across the web and the tablets.

For some entities, such as account and user, the visualizations are provided out-of-the-box. Other entities, including custom entities, can be enabled for a hierarchy and you can create the visualizations for them. Based on your needs, you can choose between using a tree view, which shows the entire hierarchy, or a tile view, which depicts a smaller portion of the hierarchy. Both views are shown side by side. You can explore a hierarchy by expanding and contracting a hierarchy tree. The same hierarchical settings for visualization are set once, but apply to both Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for tablets. In tablets, the visuals render in a modified format suitable for the smaller form factor. The customizable components required for hierarchical visualization are solution aware, therefore, they can be transported between organizations like any other customization. You can configure the attributes shown in the visualization by customizing a Quick Form using the form editor. There is no requirement to write code.




Query hierarchical data


In Microsoft Dynamics CRM, hierarchical data structures are supported by self-referential one-to-many (1:N) relationships of the related records. In the past, to view hierarchical data, you had to iteratively query for the related records. Presently, you can query the related data as a hierarchy, in one step. You’ll be able to query records using the Under and Not Under logic. The Under and Not Under hierarchical operators are exposed in Advanced Find and the workflow editor. For more information about how to use these operators, see Configure workflow steps. For more information about Advanced Find, see Create, edit, or save an Advanced Find search

The following examples illustrate various scenarios for querying hierarchies:

Query account hierarchy


Query account hierarchy, including related activities


Query account hierarchy, including related opportunities


To query the data as a hierarchy, you must set one of the entity’s one-to-many (1:N) self-referential relationships as hierarchical. To turn the hierarchy on, in Settings > Customizations > Customizer your system >Components > Entity > 1:N Relationships, choose a (1:N) relationship and in the Relationship definition, set Hierarchical to Yes.


NoteSome of the out-of the-box (1:N) relationships can’t be customized. This will prevent you from setting those relationships as hierarchical.


Visualize hierarchical data


The system entities that have visualizations available out-of-the-box include Account, Position, Product, and User. In the grid view of these entities, you can see the icon depicting the hierarchy chart, to the left of the record name. The hierarchy icon isn’t present for all records by default. The icon is shown for the records that have a parent record, a child record, or both.


If you select the hierarchy icon, you can view the hierarchy, with the tree view on the left and the tile view on the right, as shown below:


A few other out-of the-box system entities can be enabled for a hierarchy. These entities include Case, Contact, Opportunity, Order, Quote, Campaign, and Team. All custom entities can be enabled for a hierarchy.


TipIf an entity can be enabled for a hierarchy, in Settings > Customizations > Customizer your system > Components > Entity, you see the selection called Hierarchy Settings. The entities that can’t be enabled for a hierarchy don’t have this selection.

Important things to remember when you create visualizations:

  1. Only one (1: N) self-referential relationship per entity can be set as hierarchical. In this relationship the primary entity and the related entity must be of the same type, such as account_parent_account or new_new_widget_new_widget.

  2. Presently, a hierarchy or visualization is based on one entity only. You can depict the account hierarchy showing accounts at multiple levels, but you can’t show accounts and contacts in the same hierarchy visualization.

  3. Maximum number of fields that can be displayed in a tile is four. If you add more fields to the Quick Form that is used for the tile view, only the first four fields will be displayed.



Let’s look at an example of creating the visualization for a custom entity. We created a custom entity called new_Widget, created a (1:N) self-referential relationship new_new_widget_new_widget and marked it as hierarchical, as shown here.


Next, in the Hierarchy Settings grid view, we selected the new_new_widget_new_widget hierarchical relationship. In the form, we filled in the required fields. If you haven’t yet marked the (1:N) relationship as hierarchical, the link on the form will take you back to the relationship definition form, where you can mark the relationship as hierarchical.


For the Quick View Form, we created a Quick Form called Widget Hierarchy Tile Form. In this form, we added four fields to display in each tile.


After we completed the setup, we created two records: Standard Widget and Premium Widget. After making the Premium Widget a parent of the Standard Widget by using the lookup field, the new_Widget grid view depicted the hierarchy icons, as shown below:



TipThe hierarchy icons don’t appear in the record grid view until the records are paired in the parent – child relationship.

Choosing the hierarchy icon displays the new_Widget hierarchy with the tree view on the left and the tile view on the right, showing two records. Each tile contains four fields that we provided in the Widget Hierarchy Tile Form.



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