Why doesn’t my new custom entity appear in the navigation pane?
If you are familiar with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4, then you know that you can easily add a custom entity to any area in the sitemap navigation. When you select an area in the entity metadata editor, Microsoft CRM automatically modifies the sitemap to create an extra group called “Extensions” in the specified area for your custom entity.
In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 changes to the sitemap are not visible until the sitemap is published. This is similar to how forms worked in previous versions. When you create a custom entity and add it to a specific group then you will need to publish the sitemap individually or “publish all customizations.” After publishing you can refresh your browser to see the changes.
Why is this group “unknown” showing up after upgrade?
If you customized the CRM 4 sitemap by adding a custom sub area to the settings area then you will get a group titled “unknownXX” after you upgrade your server to CRM 2011.
This occurs because there is no specified title for this group. The reason that you will see this only after you upgrade is because the CRM 2011 settings area is broken down into 4 new groups, whereas in CRM 4 everything was in a single group that unfortunately did not have a title. To fix this you just need to update your settings area similarly to:
<Area Id="Settings" ResourceId="Area_Settings" Icon="/_imgs/settings_24x24.gif" DescriptionResourceId="Settings_Area_Description"> <Group Id="Settings"> <Titles> <Title Title="Your Custom Title" LCID="XXXX" /> </Titles> <!--The rest of your sitemap customizations--> </Group> <!--More groups added by CRM--> </Area>
Going forward if you see “unknown” for one of your other custom areas, groups or subareas you will want to double check that you have specified a title for the element.
See the SDK topic Editing the Site Map for specific information about how to edit the sitemap.
Cheers,