Dynamics CRM 2013 / 2011 - On custom ribbon button click, create a new record, and open this newly created record

 

I’m feeling really happy while writing this blog, because it’s over a year that I got a chance to write it. I have been too busy for last year to write even a single blog. From now on, I’m hoping to keep this activity continued.

In this blog I would like to explain how to create a new record and open the same on click of custom ribbon button in Dynamics CRM. The steps are as following:

1. Create a custom ribbon button on a specific entity, the source entity. Use the Ribbon Workbench tool to add a button on this entity. This tool can be downloaded using following link.

http://www.develop1.net/public/page/Ribbon-Workbench-for-Dynamics-CRM-2011.aspx

2. Create a custom attribute of type of “Two Options” on the source entity say new_isribbonbuttonclicked. (specified above in step 1).

This field helps us in plug-in to identify whether the ribbon button is clicked by a user or not.

When the user clicks on this newly added button, a new record gets created via plug-in and the same will be opened in a new window with CRM 2011 or in a same window in CRM 2013.

3. Create another attribute of type “Single line text” on the same entity say new_uniqueidentifierofentity. This attribute will hold the GUID value of a newly created record.

The value of this field will be used in JavaScript/web resource code to open the newly created

record.

Create a new web resource of type Script (JScript) and write the following JavaScript code in it. This code updates the value as “True” to the new_isribbonbuttonclicked attribute.

   1: //Change the method and attribute name as per your need

   2: function UpdateAttribute() {

   3:   var attribute = Xrm.Page.getAttribute("new_isribbonbuttonclicked"); //Specify the name of your attribute

   4:   var attributeValue = null;

   5:   if (attribute != null) {

   6:     attributeValue = attribute.getValue();

   7:     if (attributeValue == null ||

   8:         attributeValue == false) {

   9:       attribute.setValue(true);

  10:       attribute.setSubmitMode("always");

  11:       Xrm.Page.data.entity.save();

  12:     }

  13:   }

  14: }

5. Call the above JavaScript function from the ribbon button which we have created at very first step of this post.

6. Now, write a pre update plug-in on the source entity. In this plug-in just check whether the plug-in context contains the new_isribbonbuttonclicked attribute or not. If it exists in the context and the value of this attribute is “True” then create a record of another entity and get the unique identifier (GUID) of the newly created record from the response of the SDK call.

7. Then, add this GUID to the plug-in context for the new_uniqueidentifierofentity field.

Like,

entity.Attributes[new_uniqueidentifierofentity] = GUID; //Specify the name of your attribute

8. Also add the new_isribbonbuttonclicked field in the plug-in context as “False”. So that, the custom ribbon button will work for the next attempt.

9. At the end of plug-in execution the above attribute values get automatically updated.

10. Lastly, add another method in the web resource of the source entity and bind this method to “form load” event. Primarily, this method checks following two conditions.

· The form is loaded into the edit mode or not.

· The new_uniqueidentifierofentity attribute contains data or not.

If it satisfies both the conditions, meant if the record is opened in edit mode and the GUID attribute contains unique identifier of newly created record then just write a code to open this record, update the value of new_uniqueidentifierofentity to null, and save the form.

Following is the code that performs the things that we specified here in this step.

   1: //Change the method and attribute name as per your need

   2: function Form_Load() {

   3:   if (Xrm.Page.ui.getFormType() == 2) {

   4:     var attribute = Xrm.Page.getAttribute("AttributeName"); //Specify the name of your attribute

   5:     var attributeValue = null;

   6:     if (attribute != null) {

   7:       attributeValue = attribute.getValue();

   8:       if (attributeValue != null &&

   9:           attributeValue != "") {

  10:         Xrm.Utility.openEntityForm("EntityName", attributeValue);

  11:         attribute.setValue(null);

  12:         attribute.setSubmitMode("always");

  13:         Xrm.Page.data.entity.save();

  14:       }

  15:     }

  16:   }

  17: }

That’s it!

Hope, this helps. Thanks.

Dynamics CRM 2011 On-premises - Use “Execute AS” to call custom stored procedures

For one of our customers, we had created some custom stored procedures in a separate database with CRM plugins to replace their existing SQL triggers. We required these SPs “as is” because they were having very complex logic inside them and would have taken ample amount of time to re-write the complete logic in CRM plugins. Hence, We had just reused those objects and amended it to make them compliance with Dynamics CRM standards by fetching the data from filtered views instead of direct table hits. Like,

Select * from DBO. Account

was replaced with,

Select {required columns } from OrganisationName_MSCRM.dbo.FilteredAccount

Inside the Dynamics CRM plugins, we had written the code to connect to the custom database (using windows authentication connection string) and called the above stored procedures. However, surprisingly, the stored procedures did not return any data. Hence, one of our developers came to me with this problem. I knew that the problem is with Application Pool Identity. The CRM plugins are executing under the CRM Application Pool Identity user and that user does not have permission to access the CRM data.

The CRM filtered views run under the user security roles and do not return data if you don’t have configured the required privileges. Additionally, we must not configure the Dynamics CRM user as CRM application pool identity. Please refer below URL to know more about Security considerations for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699825.aspx

Then, I suggested her to add the above application pool identity user to PrivUserGroup. (One of the auto-generated Active Directory groups.) But, in our case the identity pool user was already added in this group. To give complete CRM database access, it can also be added to SQLAccessGroup, however, the situation was same, and the identity was already added here too.

Eventually, we switched to user impersonation. There were two options; either we impersonate the user inside the plugin or at SQL server level. I had asked her to implement the latter one and she tried with “Execute AS” inside the stored procedure and it worked as per the expectation. Below is our complete solution.

1.  Add a new user in SQL server security logins, the security logins area is displayed in below screen shot.

OR

If you wish then you can use one of the existing users. However, this user must require sysadmin sever role to execute “Execute AS” command. Below link will help you to get more details on “Execute AS” (transact-SQL).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181362.aspx

2. Use the above SQL user in your connection string to connect with custom database inside CRM plugins, as described below.

Data Source=myServer;Initial Catalog=myDataBase;User Id=myUsername; Password=myPassword;Integrated Security=false

3. Retrieve the domain name of logged in CRM user.

In plugin context you will always get the UserID via Context.UserID property, which is the GUID of the logged in CRM User. Use this value to retrieve the domain name of logged in CRM user from “systemuser” table. Keep this web service call in a common class/method inside your plugin solution, so that, the same can be reused in other plugin classes as well.

4. Pass the above domain name to your custom stored procedure as parameter which can be further used in “Execute AS” command, as shown in below stored procedure.

USE [DBName]

GO

SET ANSI_NULLS ON

GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON

GO

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[TestProcedure] 

    @UserName NVARCHAR(100)

AS

BEGIN

    BEGIN TRY

        EXECUTE AS LOGIN =  @UserName 

        SELECT * FROM CRM_DB_Name.dbo.FilteredAccount

        REVERT;

    END TRY

    BEGIN CATCH

        REVERT;

    END CATCH

END

Note: Make sure you write the “REVERT” command to stop the user impersonation inside your stored procedure.

In this way we have impersonated the application pool identity user with the logged in CRM user. Thus, we can fetch the data from filtered views based on logged in user security roles.

I hope this would be helpful.

Dynamics CRM 2011 - Propagate the plug-in invalid exception message in JavaScript code.

Recently I came across an issue where I would like to propagate the plug-in InvalidPluginExcecutionException message via JavaScript code. Based on the client requirements I need to trigger a plug-in on click of custom ribbon button on the Opportunity entity. Hence on custom button click I have written a web service call that updates one of custom attributes of an Opportunity entity. So, when system will update this field via client side web service call, the registered plug-in will be triggered automatically.

Usually your InvalidPluginExcecutionException message inside your plug-in code is displayed to user in a standard CRM message box. In my case I am unable to see the same because the plug-in is being triggered via JavaScript web service call. Below is the code snippet that executes my query.

//Asynchronous AJAX function to update a CRM record using OData

  $.ajax({

    type: "POST",

    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",

    datatype: "json",

    data: jsonEntity,

    url: serverUrl + ODATA_ENDPOINT + "/" + odataSetName + "(guid'" + id + "')",

    beforeSend: function (XMLHttpRequest) {

      //Specifying this header ensures that the results will be returned as JSON.             

      XMLHttpRequest.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");

      //Specify the HTTP method MERGE to update just the changes you are submitting.             

      XMLHttpRequest.setRequestHeader("X-HTTP-Method", "MERGE");

    },

    success: function (data, textStatus, XmlHttpRequest) {

      //The MERGE does not return any data at all, so we'll add the id 

      //onto the data object so it can be leveraged in a Callback. When data 

      //is used in the callback function, the field will be named generically, "id"

      data = new Object();

      data.id = id;

      if (successCallback) {

        successCallback(data, textStatus, XmlHttpRequest);

      }

    },

    error: function (XmlHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown) {

      if (errorCallback) {

        errorCallback(XmlHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown);

      }

      else {

        ErrorHandler(XmlHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown);

      }

    }

  }); 

I have validated all the 3 objects i.e. XmlHttpRequest, textStatus and errorThrown inside errorCallback method to seek the plug-in error message with no success. However I can see the same error message via fiddler!!

Finally, I found a way to parse the response text of xmlHttpRequest and get the exact error message. Below is the code that works for me to alert the plug-in message from client side code.

function ErrorHandler(xmlHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown) {

  alert(JSON.parse(xmlHttpRequest.responseText).error.message.value);

}

I hope this will be helpful.