Dynamics 365 - How to retrieve METADATA for an Entity using a OData REST GET request

In this article we describe  How to retrieve METADATA for an Entity using a OData REST GET request using Web API and Javascript  .

How to retrieve METADATA for an Entity using a OData REST GET request using Web API and Javascript 

Send to the Dynamics webservice the following HTTP request :

http://DOMAIN/ORGANIZATION/api/data/v8.2/EntityDefinitions(LogicalName='phonecall')?$select=LogicalName&$expand=Attributes($select=LogicalName)

That's all...
In this article we've seen  How to retrieve METADATA for an Entity using a OData REST GET request using Web API and Javascript .
Enjoy Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM!

by Carmel Schvartzman

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CRM RetrieveMultiple QueryExpression to retrieve the top one last created record

In this article we see Step by step How to write a C# query Microsoft Dynamics CRM QueryExpression  to retrieve the top one last created record/modified record , in both CRM 2011 , CRM 2013 ,CRM 2015 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 .
We'll use the IOrganizationService RetrieveMultiple method with a FilterExpression and a ConditionExpression, to get only one record: the latest one created . We also check an attribute for null values .
Usually this C# code will be run from a Dynamics CRM Plugin.
Download the C# code from the following GitHub repository:


We'll see here in only 10 minutes how to write the CRM query , which will be shown this way , for example :

CRM RetrieveMultiple QueryExpression to retrieve the top one last created record/last modified record

First , you need to set which columns to retrieve. It is strongly recommended that you do not select all columns in an of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK entity :

Next, we create the QueryExpression that will hold the query to be send to the OrganizationService , as follows :

There, we add an OrderExpression to sort the records acording to its "createdon" or "modifiedon" attribute.

Then, we cut the results to just the first result and circumscribe them to the first page:

Then, we can check some determined attribute to contain a value - with the not null ConditionOperator:

And include all conditions in a FilterExpression, into the Criteria:

The complete query will look something like this (this code has been tested , and works very well) :

The steps are as follows:
0) Set which columns to retrieve.
1) Create the QueryExpression
2) Add an OrderExpression
3) Check some determined attribute to contain a value using a ConditionOperator (optional)
4) Include all conditions inside  the Criteria as a FilterExpression
5) Send a RetrieveMultiple with the QueryExpression

Happy CRM.....

      by Carmel Schvartzman

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How to programmatically create a CustomerAddress in Dynamics CRM 2011/2013

1. In this article we see how to programmatically create a CustomerAddress in Dynamics CRM 2011/2013. 
   In CRM 2013, the address data of an Account or a Contact are stored in a separate Entity called CustomerAddress, on a 1:N relationship basis, in which an Account can have (and have, by default) many addresses.
   This post is about Dynamics CRM 2011 - 2013 custom Plugins or custom Workflows, and any   C# code which calls the CRM Organization Web Service to create a new CustomerAddress item , that means, a third address for an Account or a Contact. The following snapshot shows the Account address fields:
   

How to programmatically create a CustomerAddress in Dynamics CRM 2011/2013

1. When an Account is created, CRM creates by default 2 addresses for it, from  the CustomerAddress entity type, which are called Address1 and Address2.
2. If you intend to programmatically update the Account or Contact address, and not to create a new address, you just instantiate the following Account fields with the data, and CRM will automatically update the corresponding CustomerAddresses objects related to the specific Account:

oAccount["address1_telephone1"]
oAccount["address1_line1"]oAccount["address1_city"]oAccount["address1_postalcode"]

Change "Address1" with "Address2" if you want to update the second Account address.

If you intend to create a new (third) CustomerAddress item for the Account, follow this step by step instructions:

1. First we write a check to see whether we got a legal ID of the Account we want to refer to:
   
   

   if (guidParentAccount.HasValue){

2. Then we create the CustomerAddress entity , and instantiate the "ParentID" of the CustomerAddress . When creating a new address for an Account or a Contact entity, it's crucial to provide a reference field which points to the "ParentId" , that means , the Account or Contact to which belongs this new address. The C# code below instantiates the "ParentId" property with the actual Account , and not just the Parent's  ID (guid) :
   
   

   Entity oAccountAddress = new Entity("customeraddress");                                  
   EntityReference parentID = new EntityReference();                   
   parentID.Id = guidParentAccount.Value;                   
   parentID.LogicalName = "account";
                      
    oAccountAddress.Attributes["parentid"] = parentID;

3. However, if you try to instantiate this "ParentId" field with the guid, you will be confronted with an exception , that's raised informing that the value is null : this error message is misleading, and we wrote about it in another article here.
4. Another way, shorter, to instantiate the ParentID is the following:
   
   oAccountAddress["parentid"] = new EntityReference("account", guidParentAccount.Value );
5. Next we save the street in the "line1" field: for the example, here i made a street search by street code on a generic List<> which contains street codes and descriptions:
   

                   
   
     string sStreetDescription = String.Empty;                   
     if ( oStreetList != null &&  oStreetList.Count > 0  && iStreetCode > 0)                   
     {                       
              sStreetDescription = oStreetList.FirstOrDefault(sc => sc.Code == iStreetCode).Description;                       
              if (sStreetDescription.Length > 0)                       
              {                           
                        oAccountAddress["line1"] = sStreetDescription;                       
              }                   
     }

6. Next we save the city  in the "city" field: for this example, here i got a city object also from data migration, which contains both city code and description:
   
   

   string sCityDescription = String.Empty;                   
   if (oCity != null)                   
   {                       
         sCityDescription = oCity.Description;                       
         if (sCityDescription.Length > 0)                       
         {                           
                  oAccountAddress["city"] = sCityDescription;                       
         }                   
   }

   
   
7. 
   
8. Then we instantiate the "postalcode" and "telephone1" properties:
   
   

    if (oAccount.Zip != null)                    
   {                        
            oAccountAddress["postalcode"] = Convert.ToString(oAccount.Zip);                    
   }
   oAccountAddress["telephone1"] = oAccount.Phone ?? "0";

9. Finally we call the Organization Web Service to create the CustomerAddress entity from the Account:
   
   Guid? guidAccountAddress = XrmContext.Create(oAccountAddress);
10. The CRM database will then reflect the 3 addresses (AddressNumber 1,2 and 3) as shown here:
    
     

That's all...Enjoy Dynamics CRM!!!

by Carmel Schvartzman

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"The given key was not present in the dictionary" KeyNotFoundException Exception in CRM 2013 Plugin or custom Workflow

by Carmel Shvartzman

In this walkthrough we will learn how to take care of the "The given key was not present in the dictionary" - "KeyNotFoundException" error in a Dynamics CRM 2013 (2011) Plug-in or custom Workflow.

1. A disadvantage of using late-binding when coding a CRM 2013 Plugin is, you shoud be very careful with the attributes names, since there is no compile time checking. 
2. Specially when you have added a new field to an entity, and you get the "The given key was not present in the dictionary" Exception, you'll be prone to think something is not good with the new field definitions, or worse , the Organization Web Service is not recognizing the new field, or even worse, the Web Service needs to be reset to render the field, or may be you'd be desperately thinking to restart the CRM server to refresh the Web Service.
3. That's because the error message by CRM may be misleading : you may be expecting that, in case your new field contains a null value, CRM Retrieve() or RetrieveMultiple() or Execute() will locate the field attribute, and fetch a NULL value for it. But CRM wouldn't : it WILL NOT INCLUDE THE KEY IN THE ATTRIBUTE'S DICTIONARY UNLESS IT CONTAINS A VALUE : if your field is not a REQUIRED field, you must code a checking for the presence or absence of the field.
4. For instance, let's say you've added a new field named "new_test", and inside your Plug In you fetch it as follows:
   
5. If the present entity has a NULL value in it , you'll be faced to the "The given Key..." exception:
   
6. First think you'll want to check, is whether you requested for the field in the ColumnsSet:
   
7. But that's not the problem. You did indeed. However, the "new_test" field attribute IS NOT THERE:
   
   
8. That's because CRM WILL NOT INCLUDE THE KEY IN THE ATTRIBUTE'S DICTIONARY UNLESS IT CONTAINS A VALUE (meaning it was SET or UPDATED).
9. You MUST perform a check for the field existence, but not a NULL check as this:
   
10. You should instead use the ContainsKey(string) method from the Collection, for EVERY NO REQUIRED FIELD on the Entity:
    
    
    
    Hoping it helped you.
    That's all...Enjoy Dynamics CRM
    
    
    
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How to consume the CRM 2011 Organization (SOAP) WCF Services programmatically

by Carmel Schvartzman

1. In this walkthrough we will learn  Step By Step  How to call the CRM 2011 Organization (SOAP) Services  in Dynamics CRM 2011. We'll call the CRM 2011 WCF Web Service and perform CRUD operations using Indexing on the generic Entity class.  We'll consume the CRM 2011 Organization (SOAP) services from a class which can also be used by a console application, or a Windows Service, or a Windows Form application.
   We'll not be using the Microsoft CRM SDK 2011; instead we'll reach directly the CRM 2011 WCF SOAP endpoint to perform the CRUD operations. That means, we will not need an early binding proxy with the classes and methods available at the CRM organization. Instead, we will use Late Binding in our calls to the CRM WCF service.
2. By enabling Indexing we mean that we could access an Entity property getting/setting its value, by using an " entity["field_name"]  "  sintax, while reaching Crm2011 from a WIN app via its Organization Web Service. Therefore, a code like the following....:
   
   
   ... will allows us to create a new Contact, for example:
   
3. In order to create a client for the CRM2011 Organization Service, we'll create a .dll which will send requests to the CRM2011 Organization SOAP Web Service Endpoint. Then, we'll create a WIN project to use that assembly and fetch the CRM data, and also create new entities.
4. So let's create a new Class Project in Visual Studio 2010 or 2008, selecting the target framework to be version 3.5:
   
5. Next, add the CRM 2011 Web Service reference to the project:
   
6. Remember that we'll be using the Organization CRM SOAP Web Service, so type the address:
   
7. After adding the Web Service reference, rename the Class :
   
8. Type an static method returning an IOrganizationService object. This method will receive as parameters the host, the CRM organization and user logon data:
   
9. Now add the following security code for reaching the CRM Web Service :
   
   
   
   
   
   SymmetricSecurityBindingElement security = new SymmetricSecurityBindingElement();
   security.ProtectionTokenParameters = new SspiSecurityTokenParameters();
   HttpTransportBindingElement httpTransport = new HttpTransportBindingElement();
   httpTransport.MaxReceivedMessageSize = Int32.MaxValue ;
   CustomBinding binding = new CustomBinding();
   binding.Elements.Add(security);
   TextMessageEncodingBindingElement encoding =
   new TextMessageEncodingBindingElement(MessageVersion.Soap12WSAddressing10, Encoding.UTF8);
   binding.Elements.Add(encoding);
   binding.Elements.Add(httpTransport);
    
10. Now add the WCF Endpoint code:
    
    
    
    EndpointAddress endpoint =
    new EndpointAddress(new Uri(string.Format("{0}/{1}/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc", host, organization)),
    EndpointIdentity.CreateUpnIdentity(string.Format("{0}@{1}", user, "")), new AddressHeader[] { });
    
    
    The "host" variable holds the name of your CRM server , and the "organization" variable is the name of your organization.
     
11. And finally add the code to create the Client:
    
    
    
    
    
    OrganizationServiceClient client = new OrganizationServiceClient(binding, endpoint);
    client.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential = new System.Net.NetworkCredential(user, password, "");
    
     
12. Check that we have all the "usings" we need:
    
13. Also, check whether all the references are listed:
    
14. Now, in order to perform the testings on our class, create a new console Project , which will call our CRM assembly:
    
15. Add the following references:
    
16. First, add the Runtime.Serialization assembly:
    
17. Second, add our class assembly:
    
18. Now, code a call to the IOrganizationService:
    
19. Add the corresponding using:
    
20. ... and type the relevant logon data, for security reasons:
    
21. Next, select some columns that you want to retrieve, and instantiate the entity object:
    
22. Check in the QuickWatch window that you get an account with the required attributes:
    
    
    
23. Now, try to use the  "account["field_name"]" sintax, that means to use Indexing on the Entity class:
    
24. It seems that,  if we want to use the "account["field_name"]" sintax, we'll be confronted with an error:
    
25. Same thing will happen if we try to create a new record, let's say a new Contact:
    
26. According to the error message, Indexing cannot be applied to an Entity.
27. To solve the problem, let's add Indexing support to the Entity class. We'll extend the Entity class by using two collections: the FormattedValueCollection and the RelatedEntityCollection:
    
28. Lookup also the RelatedEntityCollection documentation on MSDN:
    
29. Both collections are defined as OptionalFieldAttribute on the Serialization assembly, meaning that the formatters will not require such fields while serializing the Entity class:
    
30. Take a look at the FormattedValuesField in the "References" .cs file on your project:
    
    
    As you can see, the Entity class is partial, can be extended, and the FormattedValuesField is an optional collection.
    
31. Therefore, the first thing we'll do is instantiate those two fields in the partial Entity constructor:
    
32. Next, we'll add the Indexing feature to allow a "entity["field_name"] " sintax:
    
33. Then, code the get/set functions of the indexing using the AttributeCollection class:
    
34. Press "F12" on the AttributeCollection to see that object:
    
    
    It's a generic List<> of  KeyValuePair<string,object>, therefore let's code according to that.
35. Create a static class to hold the Extensions we need to interact with that List<>. Inside the static class, type the get - set extension methods for that List<>:
    
36. There are two simple cases that can happen while getting-setting a value from-to a collection. Let's code against them first. In the case of the "get" extension method, prepare to throw an exception if the key does not exists:
    
37. In the case of the "set" extension method, the value does not exists in the collection, so just add it to the List.
38. Next, the two important cases are when the value is in the collection , and we need to know the index it is in, in order to fetch it....:
    
    
    ...and when the value is in the collection, and we must override it with the new value. In both cases we'll use a method to get the index of the cell holding the value: GetIndex<K,V>(IList<> col,K key, out i).
39. Create the  GetIndex<K,V>(IList<> col,K key, out i) method:
    
40. Code the basic case in which the collection is null:
    
41. .. Next add the code for the Index search:
    
42. We're done. Compile and run the WIN Startup Project which uses the assembly:
    
    We can see that the Indexing is now working, and we can fetch the Account name, and also create a new Contact record.
43. Finally, let's check our CRM 2011 Workplace to see the new Contact added:
    
    
    
    
    That's all...Enjoy Dynamics CRM
    
    
    
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