I have already implement auto number with plugin, and it is through another entity type to ensure all operations are in one transaction.
but I have another question, that is can we use process lock(eg. mutex) to fix it? this will more flexible than before, isn't it?
Dynamics 365 has native support for auto-numbering fields since v9.0, with the minor inconvenience of having to manipulate them through code only.
Unless it's a broken feature (it happens), there's no need for custom autonumbers anymore.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/developer/create-auto-number-attributes
Example:
CreateAttributeRequest widgetSerialNumberAttributeRequest = new CreateAttributeRequest
{
EntityName = "newWidget",
Attribute = new StringAttributeMetadata
{
//Define the format of the attribute
AutoNumberFormat = "WID-{SEQNUM:5}-{RANDSTRING:6}-{DATETIMEUTC:yyyyMMddhhmmss}",
LogicalName = "new_serialnumber",
SchemaName = "new_SerialNumber",
RequiredLevel = new AttributeRequiredLevelManagedProperty(AttributeRequiredLevel.None),
MaxLength = 100, // The MaxLength defined for the string attribute must be greater than the length of the AutoNumberFormat value, that is, it should be able to fit in the generated value.
DisplayName = new Label("Serial Number", 1033),
Description = new Label("Serial Number of the widget.", 1033)
}
};
_serviceProxy.Execute(widgetSerialNumberAttributeRequest);
Docs point out that
The sequential segment is generated by SQL and hence uniqueness is guaranteed by SQL.
XrmToolbox should have a plugin to manage auto number fields (thus making it easier), but I haven't tried it.
Plugin's can be run on multiple machines concurrently depending on your installation - that's why the entity (database) lock is regularly used.
Related
Time to leave the shy mode behind and make my first post on stackoverflow.
After doing loads of research (plugins, performance, indexes, types of update, friends) and after trying several approaches I was unable to find a proper answer/solution.
So if possible I would like to get your feedback/help in a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013/2015 plugin performance issue (or coding technique)
Scenario:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013/2015
2 Entities with Relationship 1:N
EntityA
EntityB
EntityB has the following columns:
Id | EntityAId | ColumnDemoX (decimal) | ColumnDemoY (currency)
Entity A has: 500 records
Entity B has: 150 records per each Entity A record. So 500*150 = 75000 records.
Objective:
Create a Post Entity A Plugin Update to "mimic" the following SQL command
Update EntityB
Set ColumnDemoX = (some quantity), ColumnDemoY = (some quantity) * (some value)
Where EntityAId = (some id)
One approach could be:
using (var serviceContext = new XrmServiceContext(service))
{
var query = from a in serviceContext.EntityASet
where a.EntityAId.Equals(someId)
select a;
foreach (EntityA entA in query)
{
entA.ColumnDemoX = (some quantity);
serviceContext.UpdateObject(entA);
}
serviceContext.SaveChanges();
}
Problem:
The foreach for 150 records in the post plugin update will take 20 secs or more.
While the
Update EntityB Set ColumnDemoX = (some quantity), ColumnDemoY = (some quantity) * (some value) Where EntityAId = (some id)
it will take 0.00001 secs
Any suggestion/solution?
Thank you all for reading.
H
You can use the ExecuteMultipleRequest, when you iterate the 150 entities, save the entities you need to update and after that call the request. If you do this, you only call the service once, that's very good for the perfomance.
If your process could be bigger and bigger, then you should think making it asynchronous as a plug-in or a custom activity workflow.
This is an example:
// Create an ExecuteMultipleRequest object.
requestWithResults = new ExecuteMultipleRequest()
{
// Assign settings that define execution behavior: continue on error, return responses.
Settings = new ExecuteMultipleSettings()
{
ContinueOnError = false,
ReturnResponses = true
},
// Create an empty organization request collection.
Requests = new OrganizationRequestCollection()
};
// Add a UpdateRequest for each entity to the request collection.
foreach (var entity in input.Entities)
{
UpdateRequest updateRequest = new UpdateRequest { Target = entity };
requestWithResults.Requests.Add(updateRequest);
}
// Execute all the requests in the request collection using a single web method call.
ExecuteMultipleResponse responseWithResults =
(ExecuteMultipleResponse)_serviceProxy.Execute(requestWithResults);
Few solutions comes to mind but I don't think they will please you...
Is this really a problem ? Yes it's slow and database update can be so much faster. However if you can have it as a background process (asynchronous), you'll have your numbers anyway. Is it really a "I need this numbers in the next second as soon as I click or business will go down" situation ?
It can be a reason to ditch 2013. In CRM 2015 you can use a calculated field. If you need this numbers only to show up in forms (eg. you don't use them in reporting), you could also do it in javascript.
Warning this is for the desesperate call. If you really need your update to be synchronous, immediate, you can't use calculated fields, you really know what your doing etc... Why not do it directly in the database? I know this is a very bad advice. There are a lot of reason not to do it this way (you can read a few here). It's unsupported and if you do something wrong it could go really bad. But if your real situation is as simple as your example (just a calculated field, no entity creation, no relation modification), you could do it this way. You'll have to consider many things: you won't have any audit on the fields, no security, caching issues, no modified by, etc. Actually I pretty much advise against this solution.
1 - Put it this logic to async workflow.
OR
2 - Don't use
serviceContext.UpdateObject(entA);
serviceContext.SaveChanges();.
Get all the records (150) from post stage update the fields and ExecuteMultipleRequest to update crm records in one time.
Don't send update request for each and every record
In attempting to merge contacts in Microsoft CRM, I am using the following code -
//c1ID and c2ID are GUIDs of duplicated contacts.
EntityReference target = new EntityReference();
target.LogicalName = Contact.EntityLogicalName;
target.Id = c2ID;
MergeRequest merge = new MergeRequest();
// SubordinateId is the GUID of the account merging.
merge.SubordinateId = c1ID;
merge.Target = target;
merge.PerformParentingChecks = true;
Contact updater = new Contact();
Contact updater2 = new Contact();
updater = (Contact)xrmSvc.ContactSet.Where(c => c.ContactId.Equals(c1ID)).First();
updater2 = (Contact)xrmSvc.ContactSet.Where(c => c.ContactId.Equals(c2ID)).First();
MergeResponse mergedR = (MergeResponse)xrmSvc.Execute(merge);
When I try my Execute call here,I get this error -
Cannot specify child attributes in the columnset for Retrieve. Attribute: owneridname.
Am I not setting something correctly?
Having updatecontent does not change the issue. In fact, I get the error on lookups entered into the updatecontent. I find you have to build new entityreferences:
if (match.Contains("new_mostrecentcampaign"))
master["new_mostrecentcampaign"] =
new EntityReference(match.GetAttributeValue<EntityReference>("new_mostrecentcampaign").LogicalName
, match.GetAttributeValue<EntityReference>("new_mostrecentcampaign").Id);
...
Merge.UpdateContent = master
...
I realize this is a pretty old question, but for those of you who have run into the same issue in 2021 and beyond, here's the reason this error happens.
TL;DR: Ensure the EntityReference values for the attributes does not specify the Name property.
Explanation:
Everything that gets added to the Entity set to UpdateContent will be applied to the Target contact. When programmatically executing a MergeRequest within a plugin/workflow, the attributes of the UpdateContent get applied (as desired).
Where this breaks down is for EntityReference value types (lookups). The internal Microsoft code that performs this operation tries to interpret all properties of the EntityReference object, including Name.
So when the existing values from the SubordinateId contact are pulled using IOrganizationService.Retrieve (to dynamically get the latest version), the Name property is automatically set for those lookup attributes (the child record). This operation is not valid, even though it's not the user code that's directly executing it.
This brings us full circle to explain the original error:
Cannot specify child attributes in the columnset for Retrieve
I wish I had some documentation for this, but although the official documentation notes that the UpdateContent is optional, experience proves that it is in fact necessary. In the MergeRequests I've tested, I always include that property in the request, and there's a post in the MSDN forums for Dynamics 3.0 that suggests the same.
In fact, when I try to merge two contacts in my org without UpdateContent assigned, I actually get a FaultException saying the following:
Required field 'UpdateContent' is missing
Even though the documentation says it's optional!
So I'd suggest populating the UpdateContent property with something as in the below and see if that works:
var merge = new MergeRequest
{
// SubordinateId is the GUID of the account merging.
SubordinateId = c1ID,
Target = target,
PerformParentingChecks = true,
UpdateContent = new Contact()
};
I'm facing a problem when I try to grab the Extended Amount Attribute inside the Opportunity Product Line Entity.
As follows my requirements are that upon creation of a an Opportunity Product Line I have a post-create plugin on it which applies a discount onto the extended amount and creates another line, with the new discounted extended amount. When I try to output the value on another field just to check what it gets, I keep getting 0 strangley. My code is as follows:
// Part where I grab the value
Entity entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters["Target"];
Money extenedAmount = (Money)entity["baseamount"];
//Create new line
Entity oppportunity_product = new Entity("opportunityproduct");
oppportunity_product["manualdiscountamount"] = extenedAmount;
service.Create(oppportunity_product);
Is it even possible to grab the amount? Would really much appreciate if someone could help me out here. Thanks in advanace.
After creation, you want to add a post image. Then reference the post image instead of the target.
if (context.PostEntityImages.Contains("PostImage") &&
context.PostEntityImages["PostImage"] is Entity)
{
postMessageImage = (Entity)context.PostEntityImages["PostImage"];
}
else
{
throw new Exception("No Post Image Entity in Plugin Context for Message");
}
My main question here is dealing with the pramas map when having a one-to-many relationship managed within one dynamic form, as well as best practices for dealing with one-to-many when editing/updating a domain object through the dynamic form. The inputs for my questions are as follows.
I have managed to hack away a form that allows me to create the domain objects shown below in one Dynamic form, since there is no point in having a separate form for creating phone numbers and then assigning them to a contact, it makes sense to just create everything in one form in my application. I managed to implement something similar to what I have asked in my Previous Question (thanks for the people who helped out)
class Contact{
String firstName
String lastName
// ....
// some other properties
// ...
static hasMany = [phones:Phone]
static mapping = {
phones sort:"index", cascade: "all-delete-orphan"
}
}
class Phone{
int index
String number
String type
Contact contact
static belongsTo = [contact:Contact]
}
I basically managed to get the values from the 'params' map and parse them on my own and create the domain object and association manually. I.e. i did not use the same logic that is used in the default scaffolding, i.e.
Contact c = new Contact(params)
etc...., i just looped through all the params and hand crafted my domain objects and saved them and everything works out fine.
My controller has code blocks that look like this (this is stripped down, just to show a point)
//create the contact by handpicking params values
def cntct = new Contact()
cntct.firstName = params.firstName
cntct.lastName = params.lastName
//etc...
//get array of values for number,type
def numbers = params['phone.number']
def types = params['phone.type']
//loop through one of the arrays and create the phones
numbers.eachWithIndex(){ num, i ->
//create the phone domain object from
def phone = new Phone()
phone.number = num
phone.type = types[i]
phone.index = i
cntct.addToPhones(phone)
}
//save
My questions are as follows:
What is the best practice of handeling such a situation, would using Command objects work in this case, if yes where can i found more info about this, all the examples I have found during my search deal with one-to-one relationships, I couldn't find an example for one-to-many?
What is the best way to deal with the relatiohsips of the phones in this case, in terms of add/removing phones when editing the contact object. I mean the creation logic is simple since I have to always create new phones on save, but when dealing with updating a contact, the user might have removed a phone and/or editing an exiting one and/or added some new phones. Right now what I do is just delete all the phones a contact has and re-create them according to what was posted by the form, but I feel that's not the best way to do it, I also don't think looping over the existing ones and comparing with the posted values and doing a manual diff is the best way to do it either, is there a best practice on how to deal with this?
Thanks, hopefully the questions are clear.
[edit] Just for more information, phone information can be added and deleted dynamically using javascript (jquery) within the form [/edit]
disclaimer: i do not know if the following approach works when using grails. Let me know later.
See better way for dynamic forms. The author says:
To add LineItems I have some js that calculates the new index and adds that to the DOM. When deleting a LineItem i have to renumber all the indexes and it is what i would like to avoid
So what i do
I have a variable which stores the next index
var nextIndex = 0;
When the page is loaded, i perform a JavaScript function which calculates how many child The collection has and configure nextIndex variable. You can use JQuery or YUI, feel free.
Adding a child statically
I create a variable which store the template (Notice {index})
var child = "<div>"
+= "<div>"
+= "<label>Name</label>"
+= "<input type="text" name=\"childList[{index}].name\"/>"
+= "</div>"
+= "</div>"
When the user click on the Add child button, i replace {index} - by using regex - by the value stored in the nextIndex variable and increment by one. Then i add to the DOM
See also Add and Remove HTML elements dynamically with Javascript
Adding a child dinamically
Here you can see The Paolo Bergantino solution
By removing
But i think it is the issue grow up when deleting. No matter how many child you remove, does not touch on the nextIndex variable. See here
/**
* var nextIndex = 3;
*/
<input type="text" name="childList[0].name"/>
<input type="text" name="childList[1].name"/> // It will be removed
<input type="text" name="childList[2].name"/>
Suppose i remove childList1 What i do ??? Should i renumber all the indexes ???
On the server side i use AutoPopulatingList. Because childList1 has been removed, AutoPopulatingList handles it as null. So on the initialization i do
List<Child> childList = new AutoPopulatingList(new ElementFactory() {
public Object createElement(int index) throws ElementInstantiationException {
/**
* remove any null value added
*/
childList.removeAll(Collections.singletonList(null));
return new Child();
}
});
This way, my collection just contains two child (without any null value) and i do not need to renumber all the indexes on the client side
About adding/removing you can see this link where i show a scenario wich can gives you some insight.
See also Grails UI plugin
Thanks,
Your answer brought some insight for me to do a wider search and I actually found a great post that covers all the inputs in my question. This is just a reference for anyone reading this. I will write a blog entry on how I implemented my case soon, but this link should provide a good source of ino with a working exmaple.
http://www.2paths.com/2009/10/01/one-to-many-relationships-in-grails-forms/
Most of the time I use ajax to manage such problem.
So when the user clicks add new phone I get the template UI from the server for manageability purpose ( the UI just same GSP template that I use to edit, update the phone), so this way you are not mixing your UI with your js code, whenever you want to change the UI you have to deal only with our GSP code.
Then after getting the UI I add it to the page using jquery DOM manipulation. Then after filling the form when they hit add(save) the request is sent to the server via ajax and is persisted immediately.
When the user clicks edit phone the same UI template is loaded from the server filled with existing phone data, then clicking update will update the corresponding phone immediately via ajax, and same thing applies to delete operation.
But one day I got an additional scenario for the use case that says, "until I say save contact no phone shall be saved on the backend, also after adding phones to the contact on the ui if navigate away to another page and come back later to the contact page the phones I added before must be still there." ugh..
To do this I started using the Session, so the above operations I explained will act on the phone list object I stored on the session instead of the DB. This is simple perform all the operation on the phonesInSession but finally dont forget to do this(delete update):
phonesToBeDeleted = phonesInDB - phonesInSession
phonesToBeDeleted.each{
contact.removeFromPhones(it)
it.delete()
}
I know I dont have to put a lot of data in session but this is the only solution I got for my scenario.
If someone has got similar problem/solution please leave a comment.
First, in all your input fields names you add an #:
<input type="text" name="references[#].name"/>
Second, add call a function before submitting:
<g:form action="save" onsubmit="replaceAllWildCardsWithConsecutiveNumbers();">
Third, this is the code for the function that you call before submitting the form:
function replaceAllWildCardsWithConsecutiveNumbers(){
var inputs = $('form').find("[name*='#']");
var names = $.map(inputs, function(el) { return el.name });
var uniqueNames = unique(names);
for (index in uniqueNames) {
var uniqueName = uniqueNames[index];
replaceWildCardsWithConsecutiveNumbers("input", uniqueName);
replaceWildCardsWithConsecutiveNumbers("select", uniqueName);
}
}
function unique(array){
return array.filter(function(el, index, arr) {
return index === arr.indexOf(el);
});
}
function replaceWildCardsWithConsecutiveNumbers(inputName, name){
counter = 0;
$(inputName + "[name='" + name + "']").each(function (i, el) {
var curName = $(this).attr('name');
var newName = curName.replace("#", counter);
$(this).attr('name', newName);
counter += 1;
});
}
Basically, what the code for replaceAllWildCardsWithConsecutiveNumbers() does, is to create a list for all input (or select) elements whose name contains an #. Removes the duplicates. And then iterates over them replacing the # with a number.
This works great if you have a table and you are submitting the values to a command object's list when creating a domain class for the first time. If you are updating I guess you'll have to change the value of counter to something higher.
I hope this helps someone else since I was stuck on this issue for a while myself.
I'm using a CalendarItemType view to retrieve calendar items. The only items I care about are those that I've created and I know that they are all weekly recurring items. I'm able to get each individual occurrence and, from any one of them the recurring master item, but I'd like to narrow the scope of my search to just those items that would match my pattern.
I've trying using the Restriction property on the FindItemType to specify a NotEqualTo restriction with a null constant for calenderRecurrenceId. This caused my request to time out. So far I've been unable to load the recurrences with the FindItemType at all and need to use a subsequent GetItemType call when I find an event that is an occurence in a recurring series.
Here's the code that I'm starting with. The code needs to work with both Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010.
var findItemRequest = new FindItemType();
findItemRequest.ParentFolderIds = new DistinguishedFolderIdType[]
{
new DistinguishedFolderIdType()
};
((DistinguishedFolderIdType)findItemequest.ParentFolderIds[0]).Id = DistinguishedFolderIdNameType.calendar;
findItemRequest.Traversal = ItemQueryTraversalType.Shallow;
var itemShapeDefinition = new ItemResponseShapeType(
{
BaseShape = DefaultShapeNamesType.AllProperties;
}
findItemRequest.Item = calenderView;
findItemRequest.ItemShape = itemShapeDefinition;
var findItemResponse = this.esb.FindItem( findItemRequest );
Also, if you know of any good source of examples (beyond the ones in MSDN), I'd welcome them. I'm picking up someone else's code in an emergency and trying to learn Exchange Web Services on the fly.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, in which case I apologize.
You do NOT use the CalendarView - you use the normal IndexedPageItemView if all you want is Master Recurring Calendar items.
You use the CalendarView to expand the recurrences to individual items. However the compromise with CalendarView is NO restrictions are permitted besides Start and End Date. None.
You can search for a RecurrenceMaster by using the recurrence PidLid with an ExtendedPropertyDefinition. This works because, according to their documentation, "this property must not exist on single instance calendar items."
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc842017.aspx
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc842017.aspx
ExtendedPropertyDefinition apptType = new ExtendedPropertyDefinition(
DefaultExtendedPropertySet.Appointment,
0x00008216, //PidLidAppointmentRecur
MapiPropertyType.Binary);
var restriction = new SearchFilter.Exists(apptType);
var iView = new ItemView(10);
var found = folder.FindItems(restriction, iView);
I just confirmed this works, today, when revisiting some old code that works with Office365 EWS in the cloud.
Found only property you need is RecurrenceStart property. Because EWS has limitations it is not possible to use all properties in restriction. This one working as expected.
Reference: Find master recurring appointments
You can create custom searchfilters. If you search from specific startdate OR isRecurring property you have most easy way...(SearchItems returns recurring masters)
List<SearchFilter> searchFilterCollection = new List<SearchFilter>();
SearchFilter.IsGreaterThanOrEqualTo startDatumFilter = new SearchFilter.IsGreaterThanOrEqualTo(AppointmentSchema.Start, new DateTime(2012, 9, 16));
SearchFilter.IsEqualTo masterRecurringFilter = new SearchFilter.IsEqualTo(AppointmentSchema.IsRecurring, true);
searchFilterCollection.Add(startDatumFilter);
searchFilterCollection.Add(masterRecurringFilter);
SearchFilter finalFilter = new SearchFilter.SearchFilterCollection(LogicalOperator.Or, searchFilterCollection);
ItemView itemView = new ItemView(100000);
itemView.PropertySet = new PropertySet(BasePropertySet.FirstClassProperties, AppointmentSchema.AppointmentType);
FindItemsResults<Item> items = _service.FindItems(WellKnownFolderName.Calendar, finalFilter, itemView);