Why is my Full Name Popup Missing Middle Name in Microsoft CRM 2013?

I recently found myself asking this question loudly to an instance of hosted Microsoft CRM 2013 on which I was working for one of my favorite clients. I could click on “Full Name” on his shiny new Contact Form, but when the popup popped up, there was only First Name and Last Name. This was intensely annoying as I had a requirement document which clearly stated that Middle Name needed to appear in that pop up.

To give you a little background, in Dynamics CRM 2013, Microsoft added a UI feature that groups names and addresses into a single control. When you click on that field, a small dialog pops up with all the standard out-of-the-box address fields or name fields, depending on whether you clicked on Full Name or Address. Here’s an example of how the popup should look for a name.

Also, to give you a little more background on this particular of my favorite clients, he hosts his CRM with Microsoft and recently was upgraded from CRM 2011. I mention this for two reasons.

The genesis of this problem may lie in the fact that my client’s Dynamics CRM software was upgraded from Microsoft CRM 2011. It’s very possible that some settings which are set by default in a CRM 2013 install didn’t get set during the upgrade (though, to be fair, that’s pure speculation.)
My gut tells me that the slight variations between a Microsoft hosted CRM and the Microsoft CRM 2013 software we typically use on-premises might have something to do with the issues I’ve seen.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. These are the facts: I’ve got Microsoft CRM 2013. I’ve got a Full Name field. Middle Name isn’t appearing. After doing some digging, I found that the full name popup dialog is supposed to use the Name Format from the “General” tab on System Systems (Settings->Administration->System Settings.) Sure, enough, when I went to the Name Format, it looked like this:

So, I switched the format to this:

And suddenly my popup worked just fine. Favorite client saved! Except… there’s only one problem. I went and checked an instance of CRM 2013 that we use for demos that started life as a Microsoft CRM 2013 instance and wasn’t upgraded. The name format for that instance was just “First Name Last Name” and the Middle Name field still appeared. So, I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. So, the name format thing isn’t foolproof, but it does fix the issue if the Middle Name box isn’t appearing on Hosted environments.

Jeff Roper

16:18 29 Aug 17

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17:33 01 Sep 17

Tricension came to the table with expertise and dug deep to understand what our company needed. They scoped our project appropriate and applied the right resources to get it done on time, on budget, and delivered exactly what we needed. Their staff is professional and highly skilled.

Renee Keffer

20:44 29 Aug 17

Tricension is a great business partner. They put focus on delivering a quality product and put the needs of the customer first. When our requirements shifted mid-project, they worked with us to make the necessary adjustments to ensure success.

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12:26 06 Sep 17

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19:47 08 Sep 17

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Why is my Full Name Popup Missing Middle Name in Microsoft CRM 2013?

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