Published by

Rajeev Pentyala

April 17, 2013

In CRM, the Associate or Disassociate event happens

If you have a N:N relationship between two entities and when you try to associate or disassociate records either from Associated view or Sub grid.

Entity Associate View

In Plugins, the Associate & Disassociate messages behave little different than other messages.

When you register a plugin on Associate message, you have to leave “Primary and Secondary” entities as ‘none’.

Associate Plugin Step

Since we don’t provide entity names, the registered Plug-in step triggers on all “Associate” operations, so we have to check few conditions to let the “Association” trigger happen only between intended entities.

You can use the below code template for Associate or Disassociate plugins

            EntityReference targetEntity = null;

            string relationshipName = string.Empty;

            EntityReferenceCollection relatedEntities = null;

            EntityReference relatedEntity = null;

            if (context.MessageName == “Associate”) {

                // Get the “Relationship” Key from context

                if (context.InputParameters.Contains(“Relationship”)) {

                    relationshipName = context.InputParameters[“Relationship”].ToString();

                }

                // Check the “Relationship Name” with your intended one

                if (relationshipName != “{YOUR RELATION NAME}”) {

                    return;

                }

                // Get Entity 1 reference from “Target” Key from context

                if (context.InputParameters.Contains(“Target”) && context.InputParameters[“Target”] is EntityReference)  {

                    targetEntity = (EntityReference)context.InputParameters[“Target”];

                }

                // Get Entity 2 reference from ” RelatedEntities” Key from context

                if (context.InputParameters.Contains(“RelatedEntities”) && context.InputParameters[“RelatedEntities”] is EntityReferenceCollection) {

                    relatedEntities = context.InputParameters[“RelatedEntities”] as EntityReferenceCollection;

                    relatedEntity = relatedEntities[0];

                }

            }

🙂

15 responses to “Associate/Disassociate plugin messages in CRM”

Claus Appel

January 12, 2015

Thanks for the tip. However, as far as I can tell, your expression does not work correctly:

relationshipName = context.InputParameters[“Relationship”].ToString()

This expression does not yield the relationship name. It just returns the string ‘Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Relationship’. Instead, you need:

relationshipName = ((Relationship) context.InputParameters[“Relationship”]).SchemaName

(I am in CRM 2015, but the APIs seem to be virtually the same.)

Reply
1. Rajeev Pentyala
  
  August 26, 2015
  
  Thanks for the update.
  
  Reply
Roop

August 26, 2015

Will this work 1: N relationship. Please confirm?

Reply
1. Rajeev Pentyala
  
  August 26, 2015
  
  Associate\Disassociate is only for N:N relationship. For 1:N you can use Update Message, if you want to trigger a Plug-in when Primary Record changes by keeping Lookup field as ‘Filtering Attribute’
  
  Reply
Antoine

June 9, 2016

When i put a plugin with a step associate or dissociate it don’t activate itself when i link two entities. have i misunderstande this event?

Reply
Ganesh

August 26, 2016

Suppose i have a custom entity Registration and Individuals and I have N:N relationship created. Below is my sample code not yet used in my plugin.

public static void AssociateIndividualsToRegistration(EntityReference individual, EntityReference registration, IOrganizationService service)
{
//Create EntityReferenceCollection for Individuals
EntityReferenceCollection relatedEntities = new EntityReferenceCollection();

//Add the related entity Individuals
relatedEntities.Add(individual);

//Add the Registration Individual relationship schema name
Relationship relationship = new Relationship(“poc_registration_individual”);

//Associate the Individual record to Registration
service.Associate(registration.LogicalName, registration.Id, relationship, relatedEntities);

}

Since I have never used Associate message, am curious to what does associate plugin will do exactly
For. eg.
Create message – when you create a new record and save.(do something)
Update message – when you update any fields on the form and save.(do something)
Delete message – when you delete a record or child record from subgrid(do something)

Similarly

associate message – when this will be triggered? I have the individual lookup field in Registration entity. I also see that when I save the registration record with individual lookup value selected. I see this record in registration entity associated view.

Please help me understanding the associate/disassociate plugin of CRM.

Regards,
Ganesh A

Reply
Rajeev Pentyala

August 26, 2016

Associate – Triggers when you associate ‘Registration’ and ‘Individual’ (i.e., When you go to Associated View grid of either ‘Registration’ or ‘Individual’ and click ‘Add Existing button’)
Disassociate – Triggers when you remove either ‘Registration’ or ‘Individual’ records from Associated View grid.

Reply
Hero

October 19, 2016

thanks a lot Rajeev you are amazing developer

Reply
Erik Ramsgaard Wognsen

July 19, 2017

Thanks for your blog post. Like Claus, I also had a problem with ToString() – however, it’s a different problem. I’m on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Version 1612 (8.2.1.271) (DB 8.2.1.271) online, and

context.InputParameters[“Relationship”].ToString()

gives me the real relationship name followed by a period. This was hard to catch since it looked right at a quick glance!
May I suggest you update your original post with Claus’ fix? That could save people some time in the future 🙂

Reply
1. Rajeev Pentyala
  
  July 23, 2017
  
  Thanks for feedback. But I could not find any discrepancy.
  
  Reply
Ruonan Wen

September 6, 2019

do we need to register the inout parameter anywhere?

Reply
Anthony Dobbelaere

December 15, 2021

Hello Rajeev,

I have a usecase where i would like to implement your strategy. I want to have a webhook with the “Associate” message handler who will redirect to a custom api i will build. This api would do some calculations and make some updates on some Dataverse entities. My question is where you should implement the code so it only triggers on a certain relation name.

Reply
1. Rajeev Pentyala
  
  December 16, 2021
  
  In your Azure function, you can either use
  -> string jsonPluginContext=await httpRequest.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
  or
  -> Use RemoteExecutionContext class (https://msdynamicscrm137374033.wordpress.com/2019/11/03/azure-function-integration-ms-dynamics-crm-using-remote-execution-context/) statements to read the Plug-in Context.
  Once you have Plug-in Context, you can use check as following:
  if (context.InputParameters.Contains(“Relationship”)) {
  
  relationshipName = context.InputParameters[“Relationship”].ToString();
  
  }
  
  // Check the “Relationship Name” with your intended one
  
  if (relationshipName != “{YOUR RELATION NAME}”) {
  
  return;
  
  }
  
  Reply
Nishant Rana

June 27, 2023

Reblogged this on Nishant Rana's Weblog.

Reply
Associate/Disassociate plugin messages in CRM | 365 Community

June 27, 2023

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