Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Page 130 – Nishant Rana's Weblog

How to – Use Plugin on Pre-Validation Stage in Dynamics 365 CE

Recently we had a requirement to delete the Account record without deleting the associated Contact records.

If we try deleting the account record we’d get the following message box

The relationship definition can’t be updated as well to achieve this

So, we wrote a plugin on the pre-validation stage of pre-delete event of Account, which will retrieve and loop through all the child contact records and set its parent customer field as null.

In case of pre-operation the child records were not available.

</p>
<p>public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)<br />
{<br />
ITracingService tracingService = (ITracingService)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(ITracingService));<br />
IPluginExecutionContext pluginContext = (IPluginExecutionContext)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));<br />
IOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory = (IOrganizationServiceFactory)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IOrganizationServiceFactory));<br />
IOrganizationService organizationService = serviceFactory.CreateOrganizationService(pluginContext.UserId);<br />
EntityReference targetEntity = (EntityReference)pluginContext.InputParameters["Target"];<br />
QueryExpression getContacts = new QueryExpression("contact");<br />
getContacts.Criteria.AddCondition(new ConditionExpression("parentcustomerid", ConditionOperator.Equal, targetEntity.Id));EntityCollection allContacts = organizationService.RetrieveMultiple(getContacts);foreach (Entity contact in allContacts.Entities)<br />
{<br />
Entity contactToBeUpdated = new Entity("contact");<br />
contactToBeUpdated.Id = contact.Id;<br />
contactToBeUpdated.Attributes["parentcustomerid"] = null;<br />
organizationService.Update(contactToBeUpdated);<br />
}}<br />

Another practical scenario

https://www.inogic.com/blog/2017/03/plugin-pre-validation-operation-to-show-an-error-message-as-well-as-log-the-error/

Hope it helps..

Using the Content Access Level for KB Articles in Customer Self-Service Portal

Suppose we have already configured Portal, created contacts and associated KB article to the Portal.

Now the scenario we want to implement is we want a particular user to have access to all the KB article and another user to only specific KB Articles.

For this, we will make use of Content Access Level concept of the portals.

Content access level can be assigned to KB Article and can also be assigned to the Contact Users.

There are 3 content access levels OOB, we can also create our own content access levels.

We have 2 users in our portal, one user we have assigned Default content access level and to another user, we have assigned Premium Users content access level.

Now let us associate content access level to the KB Article.

If we try to edit the KB Article in the Web, we will be presented with the following information

Let us open the Customer Service Hub

The other challenge we will face here is the default and the only form being displayed inside the Customer Service Hub for the KB Article doesn’t include the section or sub-grid for Content Access Level.

To add the Portal Interactive Experience Form, open the Customer Service Hub app in app designer (Settings à My Apps) and add the form, followed by Publish.

Now let us update our KB Article and associate content access levels.

Now the most important step, enabling the Content Access Levels for the website.

Navigate to Portals à Site Settings and set Value field as True.

With all the required configuration done, let us search for the keyword booking in the portal for both the users.

User 1 (on the left)à Default Users CAL and User 2 à Premium Users CAL
Booking Travel KB Article à Premium Users CAL.

The article is accessible only to User 2.

Now search for Instruction Manuals and Drivers KB Article which has both Default and Premium Users CAL.

As expected the article is accessible to both the users

Audit Information not getting retrieved using SSIS/KingswaySoft Adapter

Update – 29 Oct 2018 –-> We are getting the same issue in one of the entities and it has audit enabled. We have a raised a support ticket for it. Will update the post with the solution.

A few days back I wrote about how we can use CDS/CRM Source component of KingswaysSoft Adapter to get the audit information.

https://nishantrana.me/2018/10/08/using-kingswaysofts-cds-crm-source-component-to-get-audit-information-in-dynamics-365-ce-ssis/

Recently while writing a package for getting audit details against one of the entities, we realized that the records were not getting retrieved and also, we were not getting any error or exception. The package kept on running.

Setting timeout in the CRM Connection Manager also didn’t stop the package, it kept running without retrieving the records.

After spending a good amount of time, we realized the silly mistake that we had made. We were running the package against the entity for which Audit was not enabled.

Thanks to KingswaySoft Support team for their relentless support.

Ideally, we should have been more careful before running the package against that entity, and also it will be helpful if the tool can also check if the audit is enabled for an entity before beggning the execution and if the audit is not enabled inform back the user or at least return 0 rows and complete its execution successfully.

Hope it helps..

How to – Use OverriddenCreatedOn or Record Created On field to update Created On field in Dynamics 365

overriddencreatedon

While working in data migration project, when creating records in the target system, we would want the “created on” field to hold the original value instead of it being set to the actual value when it was created in the target system, which is set by the system or the platform itself.

Suppose we are having the “created on” field in our source SQL Server Table and we are creating the lead records in our target Dynamics 365 organization using KingswaySoft’s CRM Destination Component.

Here we have mapped the CreatedDate of our source table to overrriddecnreatedon field of Lead entity.

On executing the package, back inside Dynamics 365, we can see the following values for Created On and Record Created On (overrriddecnreatedon) field for the lead records.

Record created on will have the time when the record was created in Dynamics 365 and Created On field will have the values that we passed from our source SQL Table.

Get all the details here

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/emeadcrmsupport/2012/08/01/the-truth-about-override-created-on-or-created-by-for-records-during-data-import/

Hope it helps..

Using Alternate Key to set Lookup in SSIS (KingswaySoft)

Alternate Keys which were introduced with CRM 2015 Update 1, gave us the ability to Upsert and Update records, by defining one or more fields as Alternate Key and use that field(s) instead of relying only on Primary Key.

Alternate Keys can also be used for setting or updating the lookup instead of GUID.

CDS\CRM Destination Component in KingswaySoft SSIS Integration Toolkit allows us the option of specifying the Alternate Key for updating the lookup field.

Suppose we have Contact entity with following Alternate Key defined in it

Key1 on field last name
Key2 on 2 fields emailaddress1 and last name

Within the CDS/CRM Destination Component Editor for the lookup field, click on ellipsis for the Text Lookup column. Here we have selected parent contact field inside Lead Entity.

Inside Text Lookup Editor, select the option “Choose Target Field(s)”, in lookup method select Alternate Key and we will see both our alternate keys listed there.

Key1 on field lastname

Key 2 on emailaddress 1 and last name

One thing I have observed that it doesn’t list the alternate key if it is defined by using more than 2 fields. Looks like it is by design.

Hope it helps..

Solved – Alternate Key not getting created on solution import in Dynamics 365

Recently, we moved our Solution from Development to Test. Then on running one of the SSIS Packages we got the below error

The specified key attributes are not a defined key for the entity [4] CRM service call returned an error:

On opening the Entity for customization, and checking for the key, we saw that it was in the Status Pending.

On opening the system job, there was no detail for the error.

We normally get this error, if there are records already available that have duplicate values for that alternate key field. However, in this case, there we no record as this entity was being moved first time in the Test.

Well to just fix this we thought of manually reactivating the key