How to clone a record (server side) in Dynamics crm 2016? - dynamics-crm

Question

I am using crm 2016 and I need to clone a record using plugin, after googling I found out that I need to use Microsoft.Xrm.Client that hold the clone() function - which is not in 2016 SDK because of MS reorganization.This lib is in 2015 SDK.
My questions are :
1. If I'll take that lib from CRM 2015 and use it in 2016 will it be supported?
2. If it's not supported what are my options to clone a record in server side?

Answer 1

The method Clone() in the Microsoft.Xrm.Client only creates a copy of the Entity object in memory. It does not create a copy in the database of CRM. When you need to create a copy in the database just instantiate a new Entity object and pass it to the Create() method of the IOrganizationService interface.
When you really need a deep clone as described on MSDN you could consider writing one yourself. In most scenarios you will only need to copy the objects in the attributes collection. Of those objects only the reference types EntityReference, OptionSetValue and Money wiil need your special attention.
I would not advise to use deprecated libraries.

Answer 2

We use the following helper method to clone an entity - this is an updated version from the original which correctly clones the reference types, and excludes the system attributes
public static Entity CloneEntitySandbox(Entity entityToClone)
{
var newEntity = new Entity(entityToClone.LogicalName);
var systemAttributes = new List<string>();
systemAttributes.Add("createdon");
systemAttributes.Add("createdby");
systemAttributes.Add("modifiedon");
systemAttributes.Add("modifiedby");
systemAttributes.Add("owninguser");
systemAttributes.Add("owningbusinessunit");
foreach (var attribute in entityToClone.Attributes
.Where(x => x.Key != entityToClone.LogicalName + "id")
.Where(x => !systemAttributes.Contains(x.Key)))
{
switch (attribute.Value.GetType().Name)
{
case "Money":
var m = attribute.Value as Money;
newEntity[attribute.Key] = new Money(m.Value);
break;
case "EntityReference":
var er = attribute.Value as EntityReference;
newEntity[attribute.Key] = new EntityReference(er.LogicalName, er.Id);
break;
case "OptionSetValue":
var os = attribute.Value as OptionSetValue;
newEntity[attribute.Key] = new OptionSetValue(os.Value);
break;
default:
newEntity[attribute.Key] = attribute.Value;
break;
}
}
return newEntity;
}
Note that this does not perform the save to create the cloned entity in the CRM database, that's up to you.

Answer 3

Microsoft announcement says:
We also removed Microsoft.Xrm.Client from the CRM 2016 (8.x) SDK client because it was not compliant with the OAuth changes, and replaced it with Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.Connector. You can use the current Microsoft Dynamics 365 Software Development Kit (SDK) to access Microsoft Dynamics CRM back to version 6.x for both auth and messaging.
Dynamics 365 SDK Backwards Compatibility
You can still use Microsoft.Xrm.Client.dll in your project from older SDK, this maybe supported for a while.
But I would recommend to go with custom Action, taking parent record as EntityReference Input parameter, Retrieve the parent record data + needed related entities & manually create (clone) child record + related entities records in Action.
You can Execute/invoke this Action from client/server side, wherever you want.