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Posts Tagged ‘plugin’

Dataverse | Plugins | ILMerge Alternative | Shared Project

January 7, 2022 Leave a comment

Role of ILMerge in Plugin Development:

If you are familiar with writing Plugins in Dataverse, chances are that you would have used ILMerge to merge the Assemblies.

In a typical Dynamics Plug-in development, we will have following .Net Class Library Projects.

  • Plugins.csproj
  • Plugins.Helper.csproj

When you compile above projects, you get two .dlls (i.e., Plugins.dll and Plugins.Helper.dll). As we can only deploy one .dll to Dataverse, we use ILMerge to merge both Plugins.dll and Plugins.Helper.dll in to one.

Is it recommended to use ILMerge in Plugin development? Answer is No. As per this Microsoft article ILMerge is not supported in Plugins development.

Now whats the alternative? Answer is Shared Projects.

Steps to use Shared Projects in Plug-in Development:

To explain the Shared Projects, I am going to build a simple Plugin project ‘Plugins.csproj’ with ‘PreAccountCreate’ class, which refers a ‘Shared’ Helper project ‘Plugins.Helper’.

  • Create a new C# class library project and add ‘PreAccountCreate’ class as below.
    • You can copy the code I’ve used from here.
  • Now lets add a ‘Shared’ Helper project which our Plugin project would refer.
  • Right click your Solution and click ‘New Project’.
  • Select a Project template of type C# ‘Shared Project’.
  • Give a Name to your ‘Shared Project’.
    • I’ve named it as ‘Plugins.Helper’.
  • ‘Plugins.Helper’ Shared Project, looks as below in the Solution Explorer.
  • Now add a Class file ‘AccountHelper.cs’ to the ‘Shared Project’.
  • I’ve added a simple function ‘GetAccountName()’ which returns ‘Microsoft India’.
  • To use the ‘Shared Project’ in our Plug-in project, right click ‘Plugins’ project and add ‘Reference’.
  • From ‘Shared Projects’, choose your project (i.e., Plugins.Helper in my case).
  • Once you referred the ‘Shared Project’ in your Plugin project, it looks as below.
  • Now its time to call ‘GetAccountName()’ from our ‘PreAccountCreate’ class.
  • Sign the Assembly.
  • Build the Plug-in project and you would get the ‘Plugins.dll’ in bin/Debug folder.
  • Go ahead and deploy the ‘Plugins.dll’ to Dataverse and register step using Plugin Registration Tool.

🙂

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Categories: Plug-Ins Tags: , ,

[Code Snippet] Set Business process flow (BPF) stage using C#

October 15, 2020 2 comments

Assume you have a BPF with 3 Stages on an Entity ‘Employer’. When you create a new ‘Employer’ record, by default ‘Stage-1’ gets set.

What if you have to create the ‘Employer’ record with a different stage.

Lets see how to create a record and set the desired BPF stage with an example entity ‘Employer’.

I’ve an ‘Employer’ entity and a BPF name ‘Employer flow’ with 3 stages named ‘Basic Details’, ‘Address’ and ‘Experience’.

Key point to notice is, when ever you create a BPF a new entity gets created with the given BPF name.

‘Employer flow’ is BPF Entity

Following are the steps to create a ‘Employer’ record and set the BPF stage to ‘Experience’.

  • Query ‘Workflow’ entity to get the ‘BPF ID’ by passing the BPF entity schema name (i.e., crf10_employerflow).
var queryEmployerBPF = new QueryExpression
                {
                    EntityName = "workflow",
                    ColumnSet = new ColumnSet(true),
                    Criteria = new FilterExpression
                    {
                        Conditions =
                        {
                            new ConditionExpression
                            {
                                AttributeName = "uniquename",
                                Operator = ConditionOperator.Equal,
                                Values = { "crf10_employerflow" }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                };
                var retrievedBPF = ConnectionManager.CrmService.RetrieveMultiple(queryEmployerBPF).Entities[0];
                var _bpfId = retrievedBPF.Id;
  • Query Process Stage by passing ‘BPF ID’ fetched in previous step.
var queryPS = new QueryExpression{
EntityName = "processstage",
ColumnSet = new ColumnSet(true),
Criteria = new FilterExpression{
Conditions ={
new ConditionExpression{
AttributeName = "processid",
Operator = ConditionOperator.Equal,
Values={ _bpfId }
}
}
}
};
  • Copy the ‘Stage’ GUID’s which will be used in next steps.
  • Create the ‘Employer’ record, which also creates record in ‘BPF entity’ (i.e., Employer Flow).
            Entity entEmployer = new Entity("crf10_employer");
            entEmployer["crf10_name"] = "BPF Test";
            //entEmployer["processid"] = Guid.Empty;
            var violationID = ConnectionManager.CrmService.Create(entEmployer);
  • Fetch the ‘BPF entity’ (i.e., Employer Flow) record, which auto created in previous step, using ‘RetrieveProcessInstancesRequest’ request.
                var procOpp2Req = new RetrieveProcessInstancesRequest
                {
                    EntityId = violationID,
                    EntityLogicalName = "crf10_employer"
                };

                var procOpp2Resp = (RetrieveProcessInstancesResponse)ConnectionManager.CrmService.Execute(procOpp2Req);
  • Update ‘activestageid’ field of the ‘BPF entity’ (i.e., Employer Flow) record fetched in previous step, with the desired stage GUID captured in Step #2.
// Declare variables to store values returned in response
                int processCount = procOpp2Resp.Processes.Entities.Count;
                var activeProcessInstance = procOpp2Resp.Processes.Entities[0]; // First record is the active process instance
                var _processOpp2Id = activeProcessInstance.Id; // Id of the active process instance, which will be used

                // Retrieve the process instance record to update its active stage
                ColumnSet cols1 = new ColumnSet();
                cols1.AddColumn("activestageid");
                Entity retrievedProcessInstance = ConnectionManager.CrmService.Retrieve("crf10_employerflow", _processOpp2Id, cols1);

                // Update the stage to 'Experience' by passing GUID (i.e.,"05aeaf03-e135-40ac-8ae7-cafc7d746a02") 
                retrievedProcessInstance["activestageid"] = new EntityReference("processstage", new Guid("05aeaf03-e135-40ac-8ae7-cafc7d746a02"));
                ConnectionManager.CrmService.Update(retrievedProcessInstance);
  • Open the record from the App and the stage should set to ‘Experience’.
‘BPF Test’ record’s stage set to ‘Experience’
  • Check the BPF records and you should see ‘Active Stage’ got set to ‘Experience’ (This is optional step and for your learning).
  • Below is the complete snippet.
                var queryEmployerBPF = new QueryExpression
                {
                    EntityName = "workflow",
                    ColumnSet = new ColumnSet(true),
                    Criteria = new FilterExpression
                    {
                        Conditions =
                        {
                            new ConditionExpression
                            {
                                AttributeName = "uniquename",
                                Operator = ConditionOperator.Equal,
                                Values = { "crf10_employerflow" }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                };
                var retrievedBPF = ConnectionManager.CrmService.RetrieveMultiple(queryEmployerBPF).Entities[0];
                var _bpfId = retrievedBPF.Id;

                var queryPS = new QueryExpression
                {
                    EntityName = "processstage",
                    ColumnSet = new ColumnSet(true),
                    Criteria = new FilterExpression
                    {
                        Conditions =
                        {
                            new ConditionExpression
                            {
                                AttributeName = "processid",
                                Operator = ConditionOperator.Equal,
                                Values={ _bpfId }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                };
                var retrievedPS = ConnectionManager.CrmService.RetrieveMultiple(queryPS);
// Copy the Stage GUID's using below loop.
                foreach (var stage in retrievedPS.Entities)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine($"Stage Name : {stage["stagename"]}");
                    Console.WriteLine($"Stage ID : {stage["processstageid"]}");
                }
//Create 'Employer' record
                var entEmployer = new Entity("crf10_employer");
                entEmployer["crf10_name"] = "BPF Test";
                //entEmployer["processid"] = Guid.Empty;
                var violationID = ConnectionManager.CrmService.Create(entEmployer);

                var procOpp2Req = new RetrieveProcessInstancesRequest
                {
                    EntityId = violationID,
                    EntityLogicalName = "crf10_employer"
                };

                var procOpp2Resp = (RetrieveProcessInstancesResponse)ConnectionManager.CrmService.Execute(procOpp2Req);

                // Declare variables to store values returned in response
                int processCount = procOpp2Resp.Processes.Entities.Count;
                var activeProcessInstance = procOpp2Resp.Processes.Entities[0]; // First record is the active process instance
                var _processOpp2Id = activeProcessInstance.Id; // Id of the active process instance, which will be used

                // Retrieve the process instance record to update its active stage
                var cols1 = new ColumnSet();
                cols1.AddColumn("activestageid");
                var retrievedProcessInstance = ConnectionManager.CrmService.Retrieve("crf10_employerflow", _processOpp2Id, cols1);

                // Update the stage to 'Experience' by passing GUID (i.e.,"05aeaf03-e135-40ac-8ae7-cafc7d746a02") 
                retrievedProcessInstance["activestageid"] = new EntityReference("processstage", new Guid("05aeaf03-e135-40ac-8ae7-cafc7d746a02"));
                ConnectionManager.CrmService.Update(retrievedProcessInstance);

🙂

Categories: CRM Tags: , , ,

Plug-in on related entities during ‘Cascade All’ actions

October 7, 2013 Leave a comment

Assume the relationship behavior between ‘Contact’ and ‘Appointment’ is “Cascade All” on ‘Assign’ action.

Relationship Behavior

Relationship Behavior – Assign – Cascade All

By virtue of that, if a Contact has 2 Appointments, if I change the owner of ‘Contact’ the related 2 Appointment owner also changes.

In one of the requirement, we have to restrict the Cascade operation based on business logic on child record (i.e.,  Appointment)

So I registered a Plugin on ‘Assign’ of ‘Appointment’ and want to handle the Cascade operation, but the Plugin never get executed.

Reason & Solution

  • CRM treats Cascade Assign operation on Child records as an Update.
  • Register the Plug-in on ‘Update’ instead of ‘Assign’ message.
  • In the Update plug-in, the Target entity only contain ‘Owner’ field

🙂

Categories: CRM 2011, Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

UserId & InitiatingUserId properties in Plugin of CRM

August 19, 2012 3 comments

In CRM plugin, “IExecutionContext” contains 2 properties

  • UserId
    • Gets the GUID of the user for whom the plug-in invokes “on behalf of”.
  • InitiatingUserId
    • Gets the GUID of the user under which the current pipeline is executing.

Consider a scenario

  • You have a user “RAJ” with “Sales Person” role with only “User Level” “Read” privilege on ‘Contact’
  • You have a plugin on Post Deletion of ‘Contact’ with name “PostContactDelete”
  • Assume in one particular scenario user “RAJ” should be able to delete a ‘Contact’
  • So you can run the “PostContactDelete” plugin in the user with “SystemAdministrator” role
    • (i.e., Set “Run in User’s Context” to User with admin role; In sample screen shot below I chosen my admin user whose name is  ‘CRM WaSu1)

Run in User Context

Run in User Context

  • When User “RAJ” logs in and try to delete ‘Contact’ the plug-in “PostContactDelete” fires. When you debug
    • IExecutionContext.UserId = GUID of  SystemAdministrator (i.e., OnBehalfOf User ‘RAJ’)
    • IExecutionContext. InitiatingUserId =GUID of  RAJ   (i.e., Actual User)

🙂

Categories: CRM 2011, Plug-Ins Tags: , , , , ,

Creating a plug-in on SavedQuery entity using CRM developer toolkit

August 13, 2012 3 comments

In one of my requirement I have to create a plugin on “SavedQuery” entity to filter the views

I was using CRM developer toolkit and when I open the “CRM Explorer” I did not find “SavedQuery” entity

Later I came to know that “CRM Explorer” show entities by ‘Display Name’ and there was entity with name ‘View’ for ‘SavedQuery’

SavedQuery in Developer Toolkit

SavedQuery in Developer Toolkit

Thought of sharing this though its simple observation

🙂

Categories: CRM 2011 Tags: , , ,