CRM 2011 - E-mail snapshot of Dashboard to a particular user

Question

I have a request of a customer who wants his dashboards to be send weekly/daily to him via E-mail (PDF or IMAGE). I have searched for hours to find a decent solution, but I can’t seem to find one. This should work on “CRM Online” and on “IFD”.

I have found some code that can take a snapshot of a Webpage, but there I have the “Log-In” problems. Each time you execute the page, you see a page with the “MICROSOFT PASSPORT” or “ADFS” sign in box. I tried the “wkhtmltopdf”-method and “WebBrowser”-method and 3rd party tools.

There is also no “JavaScript” or “JQuery” that is able to generate screenshots from the current page. I’ve created a Webresource in CRM 2011 with an iFrame and in that iFrame I’m able to show the “Dashboard”. If I would be able to take a snapshot of that page, I could create an attachment and put in the CRM.

I think I’m on the right way of doing this, but I can’t seem to get over the last difficulties. I hope someone here on the forum already has done something like that. I’m almost sure it must be possible, because a partner of us was able to take a screenshot of the Dashboard and put it in their application. Of course they don’t want to share that piece of code with me.

Answer 1

I don't believe there is a way to possibly implement the functionality requested with out some major "hacks" that would be brittle and most likely break with any type of CRM/Browser update. I would work with the customer and advise them that what they are asking really doesn't make sense from a cost / maintenance standpoint. I'd try to see if they'd be willing to live with these work arounds:

1. Send a weekly e-mail with a link to CRM. Downside is the user has to be able to have rights to login and see the data, but it would be super easy.
2. Create custom reports that recreate the dashboard data. You should be able to schedule e-mails for this through SSRS

Good luck!