Tag Archives: Dynamics

CrmSvcUtil Entity Generator Extension

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Following from my other CrmSvcUtil extensions CrmSvcUtil Attribute Constant Generator Extension and CrmSvcUtil Option Set Enum Generator Extension, I’ve also implemented a (light-weight) extension to the standard entity generator.

Currently, the list of customisations that this extension adds is:

  1. Replaces the standard <summary> tag for all attributes with the new summary in the form: [ISNULL(Attribute.Label, Attribute.LogicalName)]: [Attribute.Description].
  2. Add a System.ComponentModel.Description attribute to each attribute showing the label of the attribute.

The purpose of these extensions is to give visiblity of the label of an attribute – specifically to make our lives easier when coding against attributes whose labels no longer match their logical name.

Download the CrmSvcUtil extension at codeplex: CrmSvcUtil Generate Entities.

To use the extension:

  1. Copy GenerateEntities.dll into the directory containing CrmSvcUtil.exe
  2. Run CrmSvcUtil with the following parameters:
CrmSvcUtil.exe ^
/codecustomization:"GenerateEntities.CodeCustomizationService, GenerateEntities" ^
/url:http://servername/orgname/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc ^
/out:Attributes.cs ^

CrmSvcUtil Option Set Enum Generator Extension

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Following from my recent post, I thought I’d release the option set enumeration generator I have been using as well.

I am aware that several existing CrmSvcUtil extensions as well as the unextended CrmSvcUtil generate option set enumerations but this one has several key advantages:

  1. Enumerations are generated as members of the entity classes, not global options sets. This allows copies of global option sets per attribute that uses the global option set.
  2. Duplicate enumeration options are handled by appending the value of the item, not an arbitrary counter. Appending a counter can actually cause bugs that are incredibly difficult to track down if another duplicate instance is added in between two existing duplicates – effectively changing the key/value pair combination without updating dependent code.
  3. Enumerations are generated and consistently named for Option Set, Boolean, State and Status attribute types. Enumerations are referred to in the form “[Entity Schema Name].[Attribute Logical Name]Values” in all cases.

Download the CrmSvcUtil extension at codeplex: CrmSvcUtil Generate Option Set Enums.

To use the extension:

  1. Copy GenerateOptionSetEnums.dll into the directory containing CrmSvcUtil.exe
  2. Run CrmSvcUtil with the following parameters:
CrmSvcUtil.exe ^
/codecustomization:"GenerateOptionSetEnums.CodeCustomizationService, GenerateOptionSetEnums" ^
/codewriterfilter:"GenerateOptionSetEnums.FilteringService, GenerateOptionSetEnums" ^
/url:http://servername/orgname/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc ^
/out:Enumerations.cs ^

The baseTypes parameter is optional and can be used to override the base types for entity classes which is needed if you have previously generated the wrapper classes with an extension (eg. Microsoft.Xrm.Client.CodeGeneration.CodeCustomization).

To use the generated option set enumerations:

Contact contact = new Contact();
contact.Attributes[Contact.firstnameAttribute] = "Michael";
contact.Attributes[Contact.lastnameAttribute] = "Palmer";
contact.EducationCode = new OptionSetValue((int)Contact.gendercodeValues.Male);

CrmSvcUtil Attribute Constant Generator Extension

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A recent question on the CRM MSDN forum made me realise that as far as I can see, no-one has yet created a CrmSvcUtil extension to generate attribute constants. So I did.

Download the CrmSvcUtil extension at codeplex: CrmSvcUtil Generate Attribute Constants.

To use the extension:

  1. Copy GenerateAttributeConstants.dll into the directory containing CrmSvcUtil.exe
  2. Run CrmSvcUtil with the following parameters:
CrmSvcUtil.exe ^
/codecustomization:&quot;GenerateAttributeConstants.CodeCustomizationService, GenerateAttributeConstants&quot; ^
/codewriterfilter:&quot;GenerateAttributeConstants.FilteringService, GenerateAttributeConstants&quot; ^
/url:http://servername/orgname/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc ^
/out:Attributes.cs

The baseTypes parameter is optional and can be used to override the base types for entity classes which is needed if you have previously generated the wrapper classes with an extension (eg. Microsoft.Xrm.Client.CodeGeneration.CodeCustomization).

To use the generated attribute constants:

Contact contact = new Contact();
contact.Attributes[Contact.firstnameAttribute] = &quot;Michael&quot;;
contact.Attributes[Contact.lastnameAttribute] = &quot;Palmer&quot;;

CRM2011 Plugin InputParameter and OutputParameter Helper

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Download: CRM 2011 Plugin Parameter Wrapper Generator (1.0.1.412)

Every time I am asked to write a plugin using one of the less common plugin messages, I silently wish that I didn’t have to trawl through the SDK and then access the InputParameters and OutputParameters collection through a DataCollection<string, object> collection. I usually end up deploying the plugin several times due to casting parameters to the wrong type or accessing parameters that just don’t exist. I know that there are several sources I could use to avoid this but lets face it – intelli-sense made us lazy.

So, the other day I’d had enough and created a tool that generates a helper file for plugin entity messages that gives me strongly typed access to all parameters in each plugin’s InputParameters and OutputParameters collection in C# or VB.Net.

The generated helper file includes a namespace for each plugin message and a class for each of the InputParameters and OutputParameters collection. Every parameter in the collection has a Contains<ParameterName> and a Get<ParameterName> method that both expect the Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.IPluginExecutionContext passed to them. The Contains<ParameterName> method returns a boolean value indicating whether the parameter exists and the Get<ParameterName> method gets the strongly typed value of the parameter.

AccountPreCreate.cs (below) shows the use of the Xrm.Core.Helpers.Plugins.Create helper class. Because there is a namespace per message type, I can include the relevant namespace in the using statements in my plugin class and then simply call the Contains and Get methods on the InputParameters and OutputParameters classes.

namespace Client.Plugins
{
    using System;
    using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;
    using Xrm.Core.Helpers.Plugins.Create;

    /// <summary>
    /// AccountPreCreate Plugin.
    /// </summary>
    public class AccountPreCreate : Plugin
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="AccountPreCreate"/> class.
        /// </summary>
        public AccountPreCreate() : base(typeof(AccountPreCreate))
        {
            this.RegisteredEvents.Add(new Tuple<int, string, string, Action<LocalPluginContext>>(20, "Create", "account", new Action<LocalPluginContext>(this.ExecuteAccountPreCreate)));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Executes the plug-in.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="localContext">The <see cref="LocalPluginContext"/></param>
        protected void ExecuteAccountPreCreate(LocalPluginContext localContext)
        {
            IPluginExecutionContext context = localContext.PluginExecutionContext;
            if (InputParameters.ContainsTarget(context))
            {
                Entity target = InputParameters.GetTarget(context);
                //Do something with the target
            }
        }
    }
}

In order to generate the helper classes, I needed to get the list of plugin parameters for all messages. The SDK was not very helpful there and while I was able to find a complete list for CRM4 here, no such thing seems to exist for CRM2011. Eventually, I decided to generate my own list using the following SQL statements in the CRM database and used them in the generator to generate the helper classes.

SELECT DISTINCT REPLACE(mreq.Name, '{Entity.PrimaryEntityName}', ''), mrf.Name, mrf.ClrParser, ISNULL(mreq.PrimaryObjectTypeCode, 0)
FROM SdkMessageRequestField mrf
INNER JOIN SdkMessageRequest mreq ON mrf.SdkMessageRequestId = mreq.SdkMessageRequestId
WHERE NOT mrf.ClrParser LIKE '%Microsoft.Crm.Sdk%'
AND NOT mrf.ClrParser LIKE '%Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Reserved%'
ORDER BY 1, 2, 4 DESC

SELECT DISTINCT REPLACE(mreq.Name, '{Entity.PrimaryEntityName}', ''), mrf.Value, mrf.ClrFormatter, ISNULL(mreq.PrimaryObjectTypeCode, 0)
FROM SdkMessageResponseField mrf
INNER JOIN SdkMessageResponse mres ON mrf.SdkMessageResponseId = mres.SdkMessageResponseId
INNER JOIN SdkMessageRequest mreq ON mres.SdkMessageRequestId = mreq.SdkMessageRequestId
WHERE NOT mrf.ClrFormatter LIKE '%Microsoft.Crm.Sdk%'
AND NOT mrf.ClrFormatter LIKE '%Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Reserved%'
ORDER BY 1, 2, 4 DESC

Where the statements above select more than one instance of a message (one with a primary object type code and the other without), the tools assume that the one with the primary object type code is the correct one.

I have obviously not tested every single plugin message input/output parameter so please let me know if there is a message/parameter missing, an extra message/parameter or a parameter with the incorrect data type etc.