The Interactive Dashboard URL Blacklist is a hidden system setting which allows administrators to input a list of banned websites. It specifically relates to the URL/Web Gadget for the Interactive Dashboard. This list can be used to enforce corporate policy, stop the addition of spam sites or to prevent CRM users from going off-track and browsing inappropriate sites. To access this setting you will need to have administrative rights to the database.
An example site is already added to the database by default to view this run the following query against the database:
SELECT Parm_Value
FROM custom_sysparams
WHERE Parm_Name = 'InteractiveDashboardUrlBlacklist'
To add new URLs to this column you should add the addresses as a space-separated list.
As well as adding specific sites with the full URL address you can use regular expression entries so that all addresses which start with certain words will be blocked, e.g. if you add http://www.hotmail.com.*, all addresses which start with 'hotmail' will be disallowed. Once you have added the list of addresses you wish to disallow, you will need to carry out a Refresh System Parameters from Administration -> System -> Metadata for the changes to take effect. From the users perspective they will see an error message whenever they try to add a web gadget URL which is not allowed.
In the following example I want to disallow The New York Times website. So, first I will add the web URL into the Parameter Value for the Interactive Dashboard URL Blacklist.
UPDATE Custom_sysparams
SET Parm_Value ='http://www.nytimes.com'
WHERE Parm_Name ='InteractiveDashboardUrlBlacklist'
I then log into CRM and run a Refresh System Parameters action -
Log into CRM — Main Menu — Interactive Dashboard.
Choose Modify Dashboard and select New Gadget — Web Site.
Fill in the URL of the website you're trying to add, in this case - http://www.nytimes.com
Work through the steps for adding the gadget. Once you hit finish an error message will be returned -
If you wish to keep track of the sites which are disallowed from within CRM itself you could add the list as a dashboard gadget.
I've included the steps on how to do this below:
Log onto the Database and run the query -
SELECT Parm_Value
FROM custom_sysparams
WHERE Parm_Name = 'InteractiveDashboardUrlBlacklist'
Through SQL it will look like this:
Right-click and Save Results As -
Give the file a name and save as a tab delimited file -
Open this file and check that all addresses are legible -
Once you are happy they are save the text file as a HTML file -
Copy the newly created HTMl file to you CRM Static content directory -
Log into CRM — Main Menu — Interactive Dashboard.
Choose Modify Dashboard and select New Gadget — Web Site.
Fill in the URL of the website in the format -
#crm_server#/StaticContent/filename.html
Click through the screens until you are able to add the new gadget -
If you would like this list to be available to others you should add it as a library gadget -
Otherwise it will only be accessible through your personal dashboard.
If added to the library you can then add this gadget to user's dashboards or perhaps to a CRM Administrators Dashboard template.