Neil McDonald's Dynamics 365 Blog

I’ve been using a solution recently which I really like, but it has added quite a lot of new fields, tabs, sections etc to my default entity forms which I didn’t really need.

I want some of the features of the solution, but without the form customisations. To get around this I took a look inside the solution zip file.

Note: You should check that the solution does not rely on the form changes by performing this on a dev system first. Also, make a backup copy of the solution and your MSCRM database. In this case, I’m using a managed solution, so the changes can be easily reversed by uninstalling.

I extracted the customizations.xml file to my machine and opened it up in Notepad++. In this case we’ll look at the Account entity.

If you scroll through the Account entity, you’ll eventually get to the <FormXml> element. I find it easier to get the <EntityInfo> element out of the way by minimising it with Notepad++. It saves me scrolling through 2500+ lines.

The <FormXml> element contains all of the form customisations which are going to be imported i.e. fields to display, sections on-load/on-save script etc.

This element does not contain the field definitions or web resources themselves. Fields are defined within the <EntityInfo> element and web resources are stored within another folder in the solution zip file.

Remove the whole <FormXml> element from within the Account entity. I also did the same to the Contact entity

Now we need to save the customizations.xml file and put it back into the solution zip file. You will be overwriting the customizations.xml file which came with the solution, so please make sure you have a back up of this first.

The solution can now be imported into CRM. Once imported, check out the entities from which you removed the form customisation. They should still be in the same pre-solution state.

You should also be able to see the fields added to entity by the solution by entering the customisation screen. If you want to add any of the fields to your forms which the solution may rely on, you can do that manually here.