Nishant Rana

Use Security Roles to manage access to views (preview)– Dataverse / Dynamics 365

Sometimes, we might create a new view for a table, and not everyone in our organization needs to see it — or maybe, only a specific team should have access to the existing views, now we can achieve it through security roles.

This feature is governed by the EnableRoleBasedSystemViews property, which we can manage through the OrganizationSettingsEditor tool.

Download and install the managed solution.

https://github.com/seanmcne/OrgDbOrgSettings/releases

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Before we set the property as true, let us apply security roles to some of our views.

To apply it, select the view in the PowerApps Maker Portal and click on View Settings.

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From the View Settings window, we can choose Specific security roles to apply to the views. Here we have selected the Vice President of Sales role for the All Leads Views. Save and publish the change.

Here we have repeated the same steps for the below remaining views.

Now if we open the leads view as System Admin, we can see all the views. This is because we have not yet set the EnableRoleBasedSystemViews to true.

Now let us set the property as true.

As soon as we set the property as true, we can see the views getting filtered for the System Admin user.

Only the below public view is visible. (along with the 2 private views at the top)

Now if we assign the “Vice President of Sales” role to the same user, he can then see the views on which security roles were applied.

The user can still see the remaining views through the “Manage and share views” option.

The records that the user can see in the views are still governed by security privileges.

Although the documentation mentions, that this feature only filters views in the table list view selector and not in associated grids or subgrids, we can see the same filtering applied.

Below is the Lead Associated view in the Competitor table.

When we enable the EnableRoleBasedSystemViews setting using the OrganizationSettingsEditor tool, it takes effect immediately. All table views, except the default one, start getting filtered based on assigned security roles right away. Assigning security roles to a view is also effective immediately after we save and publish the view. However, if we change a view’s access from ‘Specify security roles’ to ‘Everyone’, it might take up to 24 hours for the change to fully apply across the system.

Get all the details here – Manage access to public system views (preview)

Hope it helps..

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Using gridContext.refreshRibbon() to Dynamically Show/Hide a Subgrid Ribbon Button – Dynamics 365 / Dataverse

In Dynamics 365 / Dataverse, sometimes we want to show or hide a ribbon button based on a form field value. But when the button is on a subgrid, it does not refresh automatically when a field changes on the form. We can handle this requirement using gridContext.refreshRibbon(). It is a small but very useful method that helps to refresh the subgrid ribbon without saving or reloading the form.

Here we are taking a simple scenario to understand the usage.

We will only show the New Case button on the Case Subgrid if the Preferred Method of Contact = Any else we will hide it.

Below is our JavaScript function to check the field value and return true or false. This function will be used as CustomRule for our Add New button command’s EnableRule on the subgrid. This function checks if the Preferred Method of Contact is ‘Any’. If yes, it returns true. Otherwise, it returns false.

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We are passing CRM Parameter = PrimaryControl here.

Depending on where the button lives (Form ribbon or Subgrid ribbon), the correct context is passed.

On a form: PrimaryControl is the formContext.
On a Subgrid: PrimaryControl gives the context of the parent form hosting the subgrid.

Below we have customized the Add New Subgrid button for Case and added a new Enable Rule for its command.

Now on the form load, the Add New button on the subgrid will be hidden on the form load event.

But when we change the value for the Preferred Method of Contact we will not see any effect on the Add New button. For it to work we need to use the refershRibbon method of the grid’s context as shown below.

We added it on the onChange event for the Preferred Method of Contact field so that when a user changes it, the subgrid ribbon refreshes.

Now, when a user changes the Preferred Method of Contact, the subgrid ribbon will refresh and check again if the button should be visible.

As a result, now the Add New button appears on the Case subgrid when the Preferred Method of Contact is ‘Any’.

The ribbon refreshes immediately when the field changes to Email or any other value except Any.No need to save or reload the form.

JavaScript –

function showAddNewButtonOnCaseSubgrid(primaryControl) {
    var formContext = primaryControl;
    var preferredMethod = formContext.getAttribute("preferredcontactmethodcode");    
    var preferredMethodValue = preferredMethod.getValue();
    // Check if Preferred Method is 'Any' 
    if (preferredMethodValue === 1) {
        return true;
    }
    else {
        return false;
    }
}
function refreshCaseSubgridRibbon(executionContext) {
    var formContext = executionContext.getFormContext();
    var gridContext = formContext.getControl("Subgrid_Cases");  
    if (gridContext) {
        gridContext.refreshRibbon();  
    }
}

The helpful post – https://butenko.pro/2019/04/16/refreshing-the-ribbon-form-vs-grid/

Hope it helps..

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Using External Value property of Choice / Option Set Field for Integration – Dynamics 365 / Dataverse

When working with Choice fields (Option Sets) in Dataverse, we mostly use the label and internal numeric value. But there’s also a lesser-known property — External Value — which can be quite handy, especially in integration scenarios.

Below is the Priority column of the case table.

We have Severe, Moderate, and Minor external values specified for High, Normal, and Low choices respectively. These external values could be how the external third-party system is tracking the priority values to which we are integrating.

The external system sends us “priority”:” high” and we map that to the internal value 1 in Dataverse.

While sending data to the external system we convert the internal value to the external code i.e. 1 to. High

Below is how we can read the external values.

     var myServiceClient = new CrmServiceClient(connectionString);     

        if (myServiceClient.IsReady)
        {
            var request = new RetrieveAttributeRequest
            {
                EntityLogicalName = "incident",
                LogicalName = "prioritycode",
                RetrieveAsIfPublished = true
            };

            var response = (RetrieveAttributeResponse)myServiceClient.Execute(request);
            var picklistMetadata = (PicklistAttributeMetadata)response.AttributeMetadata;

            foreach (var option in picklistMetadata.OptionSet.Options)
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"Value: {option.Value}, Label: {option.Label?.UserLocalizedLabel?.Label}, External: {option.ExternalValue}");
            }

            string ext = "Severe";
            var match = picklistMetadata.OptionSet.Options.FirstOrDefault(o => o.ExternalValue == ext);
            if (match != null)
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"\nExternal '{ext}' maps to Value {match.Value}");
            }

        }

Using External values, we can decouple integrations from the internal values that we use for our choice column. By using them, we can speak the language of the external system while still maintaining proper structure and metadata within Dataverse.

Hope it helps..

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Fixed – Could not find an implementation of the query pattern for source type. ‘Where’ not found (LINQ, Dataverse)

While working on a LINQ query using early-bound classes in a Dynamics 365 plugin, we encountered a familiar error.

“Could not find an implementation of the query pattern for source type. ‘Where’ not found”

At a glance, everything looked fine. The query was syntactically correct, and the early-bound class was generated properly.

After spending some time, we realized that the error message wasn’t due to the query or the early-bound class itself. It was because we forgot to include the following directive:

using System.Linq;

Without this, C# doesn’t recognize LINQ query methods like Where, Select, or ToList.

Adding this single line at the top of the file resolved the issue immediately, the LINQ query compiled and executed as expected.

Hope it helps..

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Updating Records Without Triggering Plugins – Bypassing Plugin Execution in Dynamics 365 / Dataverse using C#

Recently, we had to write a small utility—a console application—that would go and update a bunch of existing records in our Dynamics 365 environment. However, we didn’t want any of my custom plugins to trigger during this update. Because the updates were internal, more like data correction / cleanup, and had nothing to do with business rules or processes enforced via plugins. Triggering them would’ve not only been unnecessary but could also lead to unwanted side effects like auto-assignments, email sends, or data syncing. Thankfully, the Dataverse platform provides us with two powerful properties that allow us to selectively bypass plugin execution logic.

BypassCustomPluginExecution – This allows us to bypass all the plugin steps for an operation – create, update, delete, etc.

BypassBusinessLogicExecutionStepIds – If we do not want to skip all the plugin steps, but just a few specific ones, we can use this property.

We have the below sample plugin registered that throws InvalidPluginExecutionException on the update of the lead record.

On updating the record through the console app, we will get the same exception.

To bypass all the plugins that are registered on Update, we can use the BypassCustomPluginExecution property as shown below.

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To bypass only the specific plugin steps that are registered on Update, we can use the BypassBusinessLogicExecutionStepIds property as shown below.

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One point to remember is these flags do not bypass system plugins or platform logic—only custom plugin steps we’ve registered.

This was a really handy trick in our recent utility and helped us to safely update the records without triggering the plugin. The other options could have been to either temporarily deactivate the plugin step, add certain conditions to the plugin based on calling user, flag/fields on the record etc.

Also check – https://nishantrana.me/2023/11/08/use-tag-parameter-to-add-a-shared-variable-to-the-plugin-dataverse-dynamics-365/comment-page-1/

Hope it helps..

Understanding the Hidden Property for Choice Datatype in Dataverse / Dynamics 365

Dataverse provides a flexible way to manage data through choice (option set) fields. One of the newer enhancements is the Hidden property, which allows administrators to hide specific choice values from selection while retaining them in the system.

To see it in action,

Navigate to Dataverse Table Designer in the Power Apps Maker Portal, and select the Choice (Option Set) field.

Here we have selected the Origin choice field of the Case table.

We have selected the Twitter choice value.

Click on a particular choice value and open Additional Properties, check the Hidden checkbox, and save and publish the changes.

After applying these settings,

Hidden choice values will not appear in dropdown lists when users create or update records.

Existing records with hidden values will still display them in forms and views.

We can see the option greyed out for the record having that existing hidden value.

Business rules and workflows can still reference hidden values.
The hidden choice remains in the metadata and can be retrieved using FetchXML, OData, or SDK queries.
Power Automate flows triggered on record updates will still recognize hidden values.

We can use this new feature for the deprecating values that should no longer be used but still need to exist in historical data. Also, we need to communicate changes to users to prevent confusion when certain values disappear from selection lists. And finally, we should consider data migration and cleanup if a value should never be used again.

Thus, the Hidden property for choice fields in Dataverse provides a powerful way for us to manage choice options dynamically without affecting existing records. By leveraging this feature, we can ensure a smoother transition when phasing out obsolete values while maintaining data integrity.

Hope it helps..

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