Customizing the side pane in the Deal Manager Workspace

The Deal Manager Workspace is a feature that was introduced to us in 2021 Wave 1, and is currently in public preview. The Deal Manager Workspace is a work space that sales users can access from within the Sales Hub app in Dynamics 365 Sales. If you want to learn more about the Deal Manager Workspace then take a look at this article that I wrote on the topic. There are some items that we were able to configure by navigating to the Deal Manager Workspace settings in the app settings area, like the charts and the editable grid, but now we also have the ability to edit the side pane in the app and I am going to discuss how we can do that! But before I get into this, let’s discuss what exactly the side pane is and how we can access it from an end-user perspective.

The first thing we’ll need to do is access the Deal Manager Workspace in the Sales Hub app. When you click on a record in the opportunity list on the bottom of the workspace (this could be an opportunity, or a record linked to the opportunity such as an account or contact) the side pane will open on the right side of the screen. This is where you will be able to see details regarding the record that was clicked from the view. It’s important to understand that this side-pane is just a ‘regular’ main form in the application, but not all configurations in this form are supported. Below are the configuration that are supported for the side pane:

• Removing or adding fields to the form header (Although it seems that only the top 2 fields are shown in the side pane when adding more fields to the header)
• Removing or adding fields in the ‘Key Details’ section (Besides the header, is the only section you can add or remove fields from. If you add fields to the ‘Contacts’ section they will not show up in the UI.)
• Hiding or changing field labels
• Marking fields ‘read only’
• Changing tab labels
• Rearranging tabs
• Changing section labels

Other form configurations are currently not supported, which means that you can’t change the layout of sections or tabs on this form, or add sections or tabs to the form. (well, technically you can’t, but they won’t be visible in the side pane) Adding web resources to the form are also not supported today. Neither are adding sub grids or quick view forms. Alright! Now that we know what our limitations are lets take a look at where we can make these configuration changes.

Configure the side pane form

As I mentioned above, the side pane uses a ‘regular’ main form and you can find it by navigating to https://make.powerapps.com (make sure you have the correct environment selected) or you can open the legacy form designer in the default solution. Once logged in, you’ll need to click on ‘Dataverse’ on the sitemap and search for the opportunity table. Once you open the opportunity table you need to navigate to forms. The form we’re looking for is called ‘In Context Form’. NOTE: This form is marked as inactive, so if you are using the legacy form designer you need to make sure to change the form view to ‘Inactive’. Once you open the form you can start your configurations. Just don’t forget to click save and publish!

You probably noticed that there are other record types you can open in the side pane in the Deal Manager Workspace, such as the account record that is related to the opportunity, the primary contact or the owner of the opportunity. Well, it turns out that those tables also have a ‘In Context Form’ (also in an inactive state) that you can configure like the opportunity ‘In Context Form’. If you open a record for which the ‘In context form’ doesn’t exist, you’ll notice the record opens in the ‘regular’ form. I tested this by adding the currency field to the opportunity and clicked on the currency value to open the record.

I love the fact that we have the tools to configure most of the Deal Manager Workspace to our sales people’s needs! I hope you found this article informative! Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post!