IFrames and Relative Paths

IFrames URL Setting in MS CRM for ISV Components:

I ran into this issue again and although I am sure I write about it before, I can’t find a reference to it.

The Scenario:

In Dynamics CRM 2011 it was quite common for companies (on-premise) to have custom ASP.NET pages 

that were shown within the context of the Dynamics CRM web site.  

Since they were always in a specific folder (the ISV folder), 

you could use a relative path to locate that page.

Here is an example of this practice:

The Problem

The problem appears after one of the updates to Dynamics CRM 2011 (I can’t remember which), 

but if you edit the URL field, CRM will automatically add http:// to the beginning of the URL.  

This will end up producing a totally invalid URL and your page will not load in the iFrame.

The Solution:

Unfortunately, once the change is made, there is no undoing it.  Here are your options:

1. Add a piece of JavaScript to set the URL.

2. Export, manually edit, and reimport the default solution.

3. Change the path to one that is fully-qualified.

#1 is the easiest to implement.

#2 is a painful, but one-time charge.

#3 will cause issues should you have a multi-server environment (development, test, production) 

and are constantly moving the solution around.

Conclusion:

So this is a fairly simple and innocuous change that many people will not look at twice .

– until they make a change and find that their iFrame no longer works, that is…