Beacon — D365 DevTools

About

Beacon — Developer Tools for Dynamics 365
Beacon is a browser extension that gives Dynamics 365 / Power Platform developers instant visibility into the record they are currently viewing — customisations, related data, browsing history, and test-data generation — all without leaving the page.

Important: Beacon activates only on CRM Main forms (record detail pages). It does not activate on dashboards, views, sub-grids, or non-record pages.

Requirements
Any Chromium-based browser
Access to a Dynamics 365 / Power Platform environment
You must be on a CRM Main form — the full record detail page for a specific record
Getting Started
Open any record in Dynamics 365 (e.g. an Account, Contact, or custom entity).
Click the Beacon icon in your Edge toolbar.
The popup shows four plugin buttons — click any one to open that panel as a side drawer on the right of the page.
Click the same button again (or the ✕ in the panel) to close it.
Tip: If a panel appears empty or shows no data on first load, refresh the page and open Beacon again.

Plugins
⚡ Events
Shows all entity-level customisations registered against the entity type of the current record. Divided into four tabs:

JS tab

Lists every JavaScript web resource registered as an event handler on this entity
Shows: web resource name, event (OnLoad / OnSave / OnChange), function name, enabled / disabled state
Plugins tab

Lists all Plugin Steps registered against this entity
Shows: assembly name, step name, message (Create / Update / Delete / Retrieve…), pipeline stage (Pre-Validation / Pre-Operation / Post-Operation), enabled / disabled state
Workflows tab

Lists all Classic Workflows (background processes) registered against this entity
Shows: workflow name, trigger (Record Created / Field Changes / Record Deleted / On Demand), active / inactive state
PA tab (Power Automate)

Lists all Power Automate cloud flows bound to this entity via the Dataverse connector
Shows: flow name, enabled / disabled state, last run status and duration (e.g. Succeeded (4s) or Failed (12s))
A ⚠ warning icon flags any flow whose most recent run failed
Ignore lists Each tab has its own ignore list to permanently hide items you are not interested in (e.g. platform-level plugins or system workflows).

Type any part of the item name into the text box and click Add (or press Enter) to hide all matching items
Click ✕ on a saved filter tag to remove it
Ignore lists persist locally in the browser across sessions
Note: Events shows entity-level customisations — everything registered against the table type, not just the specific form you have open.

⚗ Forge
Generates realistic test data and populates the open Create form in one click. Forge analyses the last 50 records of the same entity, builds per-field value distributions, then fills every settable field with a plausible generated value.

Requirements: Forge only works on new unsaved records. Click + New in D365 to open a blank Create form first, then open Forge.

How to use:

Press + New in D365 to open a blank Create form.
Open Forge from the Beacon popup.
Forge analyses recent records and auto-populates all fields — usually takes a few seconds.
Review the summary table showing every populated field and its generated value.
Click Forge Again to instantly re-randomise all values without any additional API calls.
When you are happy with the values, save the record normally.
Field generation rules (highlights):

OptionSet / multi-select fields — values are always drawn from the entity's schema metadata, not just observed samples
Lookup fields pointing to systemuser or team — replaced with freshly fetched enabled users / owner teams for variety
GUID-shaped string values are detected and skipped to prevent corrupting reference fields
Email fields — only the local part (before @) is randomised; the domain is preserved
Phone / formatted-number fields — digits are replaced individually; separators are preserved
Status bar shows Sampled X records · Y fields after generation.

🕐 History
Tracks every D365 record you open (Update and Read Only forms) across all browser tabs, and gives you a searchable, grouped list to jump back to any record instantly.

Records are tracked automatically — you do not need the History panel to be open.

What it shows:

Records grouped by entity type with a count badge per group
Newest-first ordering within each group
For each record: name, relative timestamp (e.g. 5m ago, Yesterday, Mar 12), and a Read Only badge where applicable
Groups with 2 or more entries start collapsed; single-entry groups are always expanded
Controls:

Search bar — filters all records in real time (case-insensitive); all groups expand automatically during a search
Click any record — opens it in a new browser tab
Group clear button — removes all history entries for that entity type
↻ Refresh — re-fetches the latest history list
Clear All History (footer button) — wipes the entire history
Note: You need to activate the plugin at least once when you start a fresh browser. Then it can be closed and it will track activity on all the tabs in that browser. Retention: entries older than 24 hours are automatically pruned each time the browser starts. The list is capped at 500 entries.

Family
Shows the relationship tree for the current record — 1:N child entities (two levels deep) and N:N linked entities — with live record counts displayed as proportional log-scale bars.

Requirements: Family only works on existing saved records (Update or Read Only forms). It does not work on Create forms (no record ID exists yet).

What it shows:

1:N Children section — entities that have a lookup pointing to this record, with a count of how many child records exist
N:N Linked section — entities associated via a many-to-many intersect table
Each entity row shows: display name, a proportional count bar, and a clickable count button
Grandchildren — each 1:N child row expands to show its own child entities (level 2). Counts are loaded on demand via the Show counts button
Clicking a count opens a record overlay showing up to 50 related records, each with a direct ↗ link to open the record in D365.

Configuring which entities appear:

Family filters the tree to a master entity list built from:

Always included: account, contact, case — these are always shown regardless of configuration
Your solutions — add any D365 solution by its technical name; Family fetches all entities in that solution and adds them to the master list
To configure solutions:

Click the ⚙ button in the panel header.
Type a solution's technical name (e.g. mySolution) and click Add.
Family verifies the solution exists before accepting it.
The Default solution cannot be added (it contains every entity in the org).
Solutions are shown as chips with their friendly name. Click ✕ on a chip to remove one.
Click Save — Family rebuilds the entity list and reloads the tree immediately.
Count bars use a logarithmic scale so large outliers (e.g. 100K activity records) do not collapse smaller counts into invisible slivers.

↻ Refresh re-reads the current record context and rebuilds the tree from scratch.

Themes
Beacon supports dark and light themes. Toggle between them using the ☀ / 🌙 buttons at the bottom of the popup. The selected theme applies to all open panels immediately and is saved for future sessions.

Known Issues
Issue	Workaround
Panel shows no data on first load	Refresh the page and reopen Beacon
Beacon icon badge does not appear	Confirm you are on a CRM Main form, not a dashboard or view
Extension does not activate	Confirm the URL contains .dynamics.com and you are on a record detail page
Forge shows "not enough records"	Create at least 5 records of that entity type manually first
Family shows no entities	Add a solution in ⚙ Settings, or check that account, contact, or case have relationships to the current entity