Home Business & Other Microsoft Dynamics 365 Extensions Cookbook

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Extensions Cookbook

4.3 (4 reviews total)
By Rami Mounla
    What do you get with a Packt Subscription?

  • Instant access to this title and 7,500+ eBooks & Videos
  • Constantly updated with 100+ new titles each month
  • Breadth and depth in over 1,000+ technologies
  1. Free Chapter
    No Code Extensions
About this book
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a powerful tool. It has many unique features that empower organisations to bridge common business challenges and technology pitfalls that would usually hinder the adoption of a CRM solution. This book sets out to enable you to harness the power of Dynamics 365 and cater to your unique circumstances. We start this book with a no-code configuration chapter and explain the schema, fields, and forms modeling techniques. We then move on to server-side and client-side custom code extensions. Next, you will see how best to integrate Dynamics 365 in a DevOps pipeline to package and deploy your extensions to the various SDLC environments. This book also covers modern libraries and integration patterns that can be used with Dynamics 365 (Angular, 3 tiers, and many others). Finally, we end by highlighting some of the powerful extensions available. Throughout we explain a range of design patterns and techniques that can be used to enhance your code quality; the aim is that you will learn to write enterprise-scale quality code.
Publication date:
June 2017
Publisher
Packt
Pages
462
ISBN
9781786464170
  Download code from GitHub
 

Chapter 1. No Code Extensions

In this chapter, we will cover the following recipes:

  • Modeling denormalized entities
  • Modeling normalized entities with a common parent
  • Modeling independent normalized entities
  • Using a Business Rule to show and hide attributes
  • Building a configurable e-mail notification workflow
  • Building your first action
  • Setting up rollup fields
  • Setting up calculated fields
  • Duplicate detection using alternate keys
 

Introduction

Commercial off-the-shelf products (COTS) are attractive options for enterprise organizations as they are packed with configurable out-of-the-box features that address a good portion of business requirements without writing any code. Dynamics 365 is no exception. Dynamics CRM 365 specifically offers a powerful modularized feature-rich product that can be tailored to suit your organization's needs.

Generally speaking, configurable, no-code extensions are cheaper to implement, easier to maintain, and easier to upgrade, as the product evolves. Modeled correctly, those extensions can greatly enhance the value of your investment. Modeled incorrectly, they can lead to a platform that is locked down to one purpose only.

Using the same analogy as that of the Dynamics 365 suite, you can build your CRM application for general use by loosely coupling your entities, or you can build a specialized application by tightly coupling all the content. The following picture taken from the Dynamics 365 Microsoft marketing pack visualizes a specialized implementation versus a more general one:

A specialized implementation is not necessarily wrong, as some applications won't make sense if rendered generic, especially as some organizations work in siloed business units. That said, most organizations prefer a more flexible implementation.

This chapter will cover different schema-modeling techniques to deal with different business scenarios, along with their respective pros and cons. It will also cover out-of-the-box configurable business logic extensions that were introduced over the last few years, which drastically reduce the amount of code required to configure implementations.

To give context to our configuration, we will model our entities based on a college solution with a student/contact management system. The system will hold contacts that can either be generic individuals, students with graduation details, or contractors working for the college.

 

Modeling denormalized entities

Typically, account and contact entities are the most commonly used entities in a Dynamics CRM implementation. In large implementations, those entities are usually also reused for multiple purposes. To illustrate the modeling pattern, this recipe will leverage the college solution described in the introduction. We shall concentrate on creating contacts that can either be individuals or students. Each type of contact requires a different set of attributes.

The easiest way of modeling a multi-purpose entity is to add all the required attributes for the different types to the same entity.

Getting ready

In order to configure the schema, you will need to have access to a Dynamics 365 instance along with a System Customizer or higher security role . As a best practice, it is always recommended that you implement your configuration within a solution. For the purpose of this book, it is expected that you already have a solution created called Packt with a publisher prefix of packt_.

How to do it

  1. Navigate to Settings | Solutions | Packt.
  2. Click on Add Existing | Entity and select Contact, as shown in the following screenshot:

 

 

  1. Select the necessary assets that support your configuration and add them to your solution, or, for simplicity, select Add All Assets and click on Finish:
  1. Click on No, do not include required components.
  2. Navigate to Entities | Contacts | Fields.
  3. Click on New, and create an attribute called Student Id of type Single Line of Text, and click on Save and New.
  4. Create an Option Set attribute called Contact Type that contains two values; Student and Other. Then click on Save and Close.
  5. Back in the solution, navigate to Entities | Contact | Forms and click on New | Main Form as per this screenshot:
  1. In the newly created form, add the two newly created fields to your form by dragging and dropping the entities from the right-hand window onto the form.
  2. Click on the Publish All Customizations button for your solution.

How it works...

Just like database modeling, entities can be normalized or denormalized. Normalizing a structure is the action of separating it into several related tables to reduce redundant data or empty fields. Denormalizing a structure is the opposite: we merge two or more tables together to simplify the structure and improve query performance, whilst adding redundant or empty fields. In this recipe, the entity was denormalized to allow different types of contacts to be surfaced through the same contact entity.

In step 1 to step 4, we added the existing contact entity to the Packt solution. Notice that in step 3, we had the option to either add the necessary assets or add all assets. For this recipe's simplicity, we added all assets. With the recent granular solution enhancements, we can simply add what is required.

Note

It is a best practice to minimize the number of unnecessary attributes and relationships in a solution to avoid conflicts and dependencies.

In step 5 to step 7, we created the attributes, and in step 8 and step 9, we added the attributes to a new contact form. In step 10, we published the configuration we implemented.

Note

To avoid multi-solution dependencies and scenarios where a form is overwritten with an updated version from another solution, best practice dictates that you create a new form for your solution and mark it as default. Unnecessary forms can always be hidden by using Apps as described in Chapter 9, Dynamics 365 Extensions.

Looking at the design of the updated entity, we have now configured the contact entity to fulfill more than one purpose: it is a generic contact as well as a student one.

A simplifiedEntity Relationship (ER) diagram is depicted in the following screenshot:

The advantages of a denormalized model are:

  • Views will appear in the same combined list
  • A quick and advanced find will include both types and display the results in the same list
  • Positive form user experience, driven by the form configuration

The disadvantages of a denormalized model are:

  • Security roles cannot easily be made specific to types
  • Configuration/customization is required to show/hide irrelevant attributes or to mark them as mandatory or optional
  • Records will contain blank fields when not applicable

See also

  • Modeling normalized entities with a common parent
  • Modeling independent normalized entities
  • Using Business Rule to show and hide attributes
  • The Dynamics 365 applications recipe of Chapter 9, Dynamics 365 Extensions
 

Modeling normalized entities with a common parent

Similar to database modeling, the alternative to a denormalized model, is, you guessed it, a normalized model. Normalizing a structure is the action of separating a table into two or more structures. Normalization reduces the number of redundant or unnecessary fields in a form. In the Dynamics 365 context, normalizing will help avoid overcrowding one entity by spreading the attributes across different entities whilst keeping a common parent.

In this recipe, we will carry on using the contact entity and extending its relationships to include additional attributes: student graduation details.

Getting ready

Similar to the previous recipe, System Customizer or higher security role is required to perform the configuration as well as a solution to contain the changes.

How to do it

  1. Navigate to Settings | Solutions | Packt.
  2. Click on New | Entity.
  3. Enter Graduation Details in the Display Name field, and Graduations Details under the Plural Name field.

 

 

  1. Before saving the new entity, untick all the check boxes on the form:

 

 

  1. Click on the Save button.
  2. Navigate to Fields on the left-hand side and click on New.
  3. Create an attribute called Supervisor of type Lookup with a Target Record Type set to user and click on Save and Close.
  4. Create another attribute called Post Graduate Start Date of type Date and Time and click on Save and Close.
  5. Navigate to Forms and double-click the Quick View Form option.
  6. Add the two attributes on your form by dragging and dropping them from the right-hand Field Explorer, then click on Save and Close.
  7. Click on Save and Close on the entity as well to go back to your solution.
  8. Navigate to Entities | Contacts | N:1 relationships | New Many-to-1 Relationship.
  9. Enter Graduation Details in the primary contact field, Display Name: Graduation Details and click on Save and Close.
  10. Navigate to the contact's Forms and double-click the Main Information form.
  11. Add the newly created field to your form by dragging and dropping the Graduation attribute from the right-hand window on to the form.
  12. Click on the Insert tab at the top followed by Quick View Form:
  1. Enter the following details in the Quick View Control Properties window:
    • Name: Graduation_Details
    • Label: Graduation Details
    • Lookup Field: Graduation Details
    • Quick View Form: Information

 

 

  1. Click on OK:
  1. Click on Save and Close.
  2. Click on the Publish All Customizations button for your solution.

How it works...

Although this recipe is simplified, typical normalized models will contain more than one attribute, as well as more than one entity.

In step 2 to step 11, we created a normalized entity that contains the employee details along with its Quick View. In step 4, we avoided keeping the checkboxes ticked. All the checkboxes with a

symbol depict options that cannot be reverted. We can always enable them later if required. As a best practice, if they are not required, don't enable them, otherwise your choice will be irreversible. In step 12 and step 13, we created a relationship between contacts and the newly created entity to provide a navigation path between the parent contact entity and the additional attributes for the specific types (Supervisor and Post Graduate Start Date). In the last steps, step 14 to step 18, we added the lookup as well as the Quick View on the contact form. A Quick View is a simplified sub-view of another record that can be placed on the parent record's form to display the child's subset of attributes in read-only. The red box in the following screenshot highlights the Quick View related to the Graduation Details lookup record:

With this design we can now see the graduate details on the contact form without creating the attributes on the entity itself.

Our ER diagram now looks like this:

The advantages of normalizing your data with a common parent are:

  • Lighter multipurpose parent entity
  • Security roles can control the normalized entities with the additional attributes

Note

However, the primary field value will still appear on the parent form, even if the user does not have read rights to the child entity. Moreover, field level security can be used to obfuscate the lookup's text.

  • Quick Views help display the normalized data on the parent form (read-only)
  • Advanced search can still retrieve and filter information from the related entities
  • Views can contain data from the related entities (non-sortable)

Note

With quick Views, a user can retrieve data that is two levels deep. Attributes from the related record as well as its 1:N or N:N related lists.

This model also has some cons, which are as follows:

  • Degraded user experience as the Quick Views are read-only
  • May require some customization to show and hide irrelevant details
  • Quick search cannot search attributes across the different normalized entities

See also

  • Modeling denormalized entities
  • Modeling independent normalized entities
  • Using a Business Rule to show and hide attributes
  • The Building cumulative security roles recipe of Chapter 7, Security

 

 

 

Modeling independent normalized entities

The third modeling technique is similar to the second, except that the entities are completely independent. This scenario is typically used when there is a logical separation between the entities and there are few commonalities between them, to the point where reusability is not justified.

In this recipe, we will create a new entity called contractor that mirrors the contact entity with some additional attributes.

Getting ready

Similar to the previous recipes, a System Customizer or higher security role is required to perform the configuration, as well as a solution to contain the changes.

How to do it

  1. Navigate to Settings | Solutions | Packt.
  2. Click on New | Entity.
  3. Enter Contractor in the Display Name field, and Contractors under the Plural Name field, and click on Save:

 

 

  1. Navigate to Fields on the left-hand side and click on New.
  2. Create an attribute called Hourly Rate of type Currency and click on Save and Close:
  1. Navigate to Contractor | Forms and open the Main Information form.
  2. Add the newly created field to your form by dragging and dropping the attributes from the right-hand window on to the form.
  3. Click on the Publish All Customizations button for your solution.

 

 

How it works...

The alternative to the previous two modeling patterns is to keep your entities completely separate. This could prove to be an efficient design as it maximizes your instance's diversity. You can create a multitude of entities without overcrowding and without overlapping functionality. Nonetheless, as a best practice, promote reusability where possible. Keep in mind that a Dynamics 365 online instance has a limit on the number of custom entities that can be created. The limit also includes custom entities introduced by deploying third-party solutions. At the time of writing, the limit is 300 custom entities per Dynamics 365 instance. You can check your limit by navigating to Settings | Administration | Resources In Use:

Your new ER diagram is highlighted in the following screenshot:

The advantages of a completely normalized model are:

  • No coupling between entities, resulting in cleaner and easier to manage solutions
  • Full independent control using security roles for each of the entities
  • Positive user experience with clean independent forms
  • No need for complex configuration or customization to show and hide irrelevant sections

This model also has some cons, some of which are:

  • Search results will appear in different lists
  • Cannot combine views with both entities
  • Some out-of-the-box entities (contact, account, and activities, among others) have well-defined core structures that could be difficult to recreate (for example, the regarding field on activities).

See also

  • Modeling denormalized entities
  • Modeling normalized entities with a common parent
  • Using a Business Rule to show and hide attributes
  • The Building cumulative security roles recipe of Chapter 7, Security
 

Using a Business Rule to show and hide attributes

Business Rules are a Power User's dream come true. They minimize the amount of custom JavaScript required on forms and they can replace some simple calculation plugins when the rule is scoped at the entity level.

In this example, we will create a simple Business Rule to show and hide the Student Id attribute based on the contact types defined in the first recipe of this chapter.

Getting ready

Similar to the previous recipes, a System Customizer or higher security role is required to perform the configuration as well as a solution to contain the changes.

How to do it

  1. Navigate to Settings | Solutions | Packt.
  2. Navigate to Entities | Contact | Forms and open the previously created Contact form.
  3. Double-click on Contact Type and uncheck the Visible by default checkbox.
  4. Click on OK, then click on Save and Close.
  5. Navigate to Entities | Contact | Business Rules and click on New.
  6. Under BUSINESS RULE: Contact, enter the title, Show/Hide Student Id.
  7. Click on the first available CONDITION and enter the following details in the right pane:
    • Display Name: Check Contact Type Student
    • Source: Entity
    • Field: Contact Type
    • Operator: Equals
    • Type: Value
    • Value: Student
  8. Click on the Apply button.
  9. Back in the main editor, click on Add | Add Set Visibly and select the + sign adjacent to the tick sign: 

Enter the following details, followed by a click on Apply:

    • Display Name: Show Student Id
    • Field: Student Id
    • Status: Show field
  1. Back in the main editor again, click on Add | Add Condition and select the + sign adjacent to the X sign:

Enter the following details:

    • Display Name: Check Contact Type Other
    • Source: Entity
    • Field: Contact Type
    • Operator: Equals
    • Type: Value
    • Value: Other
  1. Click on Apply.

 

 

  1. Click on Add action | Add Set Visibility and select the + sign adjacent to the tick sign for the new condition:

Enter the following in the right-hand pane:

    • Display Name: Hide Student Id
    • Field: Student Id
    • Status: Hide field

 

 

  1. Click on Apply in the right navigation pane, followed by Save in the main editor in the top left:
  1. Once saved, click on Activate on the main editor followed by Activate in the Process Activate Confirmation prompt:
  1. You can optionally click on the VALIDATE button to ensure that your business rules do not have any issues.

How it works

We started by marking the field as hidden by default in step 3. As a best practice, it always makes for a better user experience when hidden fields are revealed, as opposed to hiding visible fields on loading a record. In step 7 and step 8, we created the condition and rule to show the field; in step 9 and step 10, we created the converse condition and rule to hide the field. Always think about the reverse scenario when implementing business rules, otherwise, you will be faced with an irreversible action.

Given that the scope of the business rule was set to the default All Forms (top-right corner when editing the business rule), all forms will now respect that rule. If the scope was set to Entity, the rule would also trigger on the server side, which could be useful if implementing calculation rules that need to be respected when manipulating the data outside of a form (for example editable grids, bulk import, or through the Web API or SDK):

Behind the scenes, JavaScript functionality is created to address the rules' requirements. This is also respected in all form factors following the configure once, deploy everywhere design pattern.

Business Rules also have limitations, as follows:

  • There is a limit of 10 If Else conditions per business rule
  • Business Rules cannot control sections and tabs
  • If not set to a scope of Entity, a Business Rule will only run on load and on changes to the field, not on save.
  • Conditions cannot be a mixture of AND and OR; it's a set of one or the other

For additional limitations, visit https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn531086.

There's more...

Business Rules provide a wide range of actions that can be performed. Among them are the following:

  • Show error message
  • Set field value (using another field's value, a static value, a formula, or simply clear it; it's good for simple plugin replacements)
  • Set visibility
  • Set default value
  • Lock or unlock a field

The TechNet article (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Dynamics/crm-customer-center/create-business-rules-and-recommendations-to-apply-logic-in-a-form.aspx) covers more details about Business Rule.

 

Building a configurable e-mail notification workflow

Workflows are one of the most powerful no-code extensions you can configure in Dynamics 365; without any code, you can automate repetitive business processes.

Workflows are versatile and can fulfill a wide range of functionalities, ranging from creating entities and sending e-mails to calling actions. In this recipe, we will create a workflow that sends an e-mail to any new students after 24 hours of their record being created.

Getting ready

Similar to the previous recipe, a System Customizer or higher security role is required to perform the configuration as well as a solution to contain the changes.

How to do it

  1. Navigate to Settings | Solutions | Packt.
  2. Under Processes, click on New.
  3. Fill in the following details:
    • Process name: Send Student Welcome Email
    • Category: Workflow
    • Entity: Contact
    • Tick Run this workflow in the background
    • Type: New blank process
  4. In the Process editor tick Record is created and As an on-demand. Keep the rest as is with their default values.
  5. Click on Add Step | Wait Condition.
  6. Click on <condition> (click to configure) and select the following:
    • Process in the first column
    • Execution time in the second column
    • Equals in the third column
    • In the last column, use the form assistance on the right-hand side:
      1. Select 1 under Day
      2. Select After
      3. Look for Process
      4. Double click Execution Time in the last list

 

 

  1. Click on Save and Close.
  2. Back in your process, click on Select this row and click Add Step, then click on Add Step | Check condition.
  3. Click on <condition> (click to configure) and enter the following details:
  • Contact, Email, and Contains Data
  • Contact, Contact Type, Equals, and Student (created in the previous recipe)
  • Contact, Status, Equals, and Active
  • Click on Save and Close:
    1. Click on Select this row and click Add Step, followed by Add Step | Send Email.
    2. Select Create New Message from the drop-down and click on Set Properties.
    3. Enter the details of the e-mail as follows:
    • From: <your name>
    • To: using Form Assistance on the right, select Contact under Look for followed by Contact from the next dropdown, then click on the Add button followed by the OK button at the bottom:
        • Enter Welcome to Packt University in the Subject Line option
        • Enter Hi
        • Using the right Form Assistance, select Contact, Last Name, and click on Add, then OK
        • Follow the salutation with a carriage return (Enter) and Welcome to Packt University
      1. Save and Close the dialog.

       

       

      1. Click on Activate at the top of the workflow:

      How it works...

      In step 2 to step 4, we created a workflow that triggers on creation (when the contact record is first created, the workflow will start waiting). The workflow can also be called on demand in case we want to trigger it again. In this example, the contact might already be created but not as a Student. Once the contact is set as a Student, the workflow can be triggered manually to send the welcome e-mail.

      In step 5 and step 6, we set up the wait condition to wait for a day.

      In step 7 and step 8, we checked if the contact is an active student with an e-mail address.

      In step 9 to step 12, we created a personalized e-mail for the contact and welcomed them.

      In step 13, we activated the workflow.

      Note

      As a good practice, always add descriptions to your workflow, and to each step, to understand at a high level what the workflow is doing.

      When asynchronous workflows are triggered, they enter into a pool to be processed when the asynchronous service is free. Asynchronous workflows are typically executed within seconds or minutes. If the execution is taking hours, then you might want to raise a support ticket with Microsoft to investigate. Executing workflows asynchronously is a great way to lighten the load on your Dynamics instances.

      When workflows instances are waiting for a condition to be satisfied, they do not consume resources or affect your instance's performance. However, it is generally agreed by the community that it is a bad practice to have too many workflow instances in a waiting status.

      There's more

      In more recent releases, synchronous workflows that turn your workflow into a configurable plugin became available. Microsoft does not recommend synchronous workflows for long processes due to the load that is associated with them. Furthermore, online instances have a limit of 2 minutes per synchronous workflow or plugin. Nevertheless, synchronous workflows are there to be used. Use them wisely.

      See also

      • The Creating your first custom workflow activity recipe of Chapter 4, Server-Side Extensions
       

      Building your first action

      Have you ever wanted to call a workflow from your JavaScript? If you have, then you will be pleased to learn about Actions. Actions, introduced with Dynamics CRM 2013, are yet another great addition to the configurable extensions. It was created to allow a business logic to be called from within workflows, as well as from JavaScript and Plugin customization.

      Actions can be built using a point and click interface, as well as using .NET code. In this recipe, we will create a configured action that takes a few string values, creates a student record, and returns that record as an output parameter.

      Getting ready

      Similar to the previous recipes, a System Customizer or higher security role is required to perform the configuration as well as a solution to contain the changes.

      How to do it

      1. Navigate to Settings | Solutions | Packt.
      2. Under Processes, click on New.
      3. Fill in the following details:
        • Process name: Create Student
        • Category: Action
        • Entity: None (global)
      4. Click on OK.
      5. Click on the + button below Hide Process Arguments and add the following four arguments:
        • Name: FirstName, Type: String, and Direction: Input
        • Name: LastName, Type: String, and Direction: Input
        • Name: EmailAddress, Type: String, and Direction: Input
        • Name: CreatedStudent, Type: EntityReference, Entity: Contact, and Direction: Output
      6. Click on Add Step | Create Record.
      7. In the drop-down next to create, select Contact and click on Set Properties.

       

       

      1. Enter the following details:
        • First Name: From the right form assistance, select Arguments in the Look For dropdown, followed by FirstName in the drop down, click on Add, and then OK
        • Last Name: From the right form assistance, select Arguments in the Look For dropdown, followed by LastName in the drop down, click on Add, and then OK
        • Email Address: From the right form assistance, select Arguments in the Look For dropdown, followed by EmailAddress in the dropdown, click on Add, and then OK
        • Contact Type: Student
      2. Click on Save and Close.
      3. Click on Add Step | Assign Value.
      4. Select Set Properties next to Assign Value.
      5. Enter the following details:
        • Statement Label:  Assign a created student
        • Name: Created student
        • Go to Value from the right-hand Form Assistance and select Create (Contact) from the Look For dropdown and Contact from the next drop down
        • Click on Add and OK, and then Save and Close

       

       

      1. Click on Activate and then Save and Close:

      How it works...

      In step 2 and step 3, we created the blank action. We ensured that the action's entity is set to None (global), meaning that the process is not bound to any entities (the way workflows are).

      In step 4, we created three input parameters and one output parameter.

      In step 5 to step 7, we created the student contact record using the input parameters.

      In step 8 to step 10, we assigned the created record to the output parameter.

      In step 11, we activated the process.

      As mentioned previously, actions can be called from workflows, JavaScript, Plugins, or using the Dynamics 365 web services. Every time an action is created, Dynamics 365 creates a message that can be called externally. In the Creating your first custom action recipe in Chapter 4, Server-Side Extensions, you will learn how to generate early-bound types for actions to call using managed .NET code.

      Microsoft recommends naming your action using a verb describing what the action is about to ensure your application's vocabulary is something that makes sense from a business flow perspective.

      For more information about actions, visit https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn531060.aspx.

      See also

      The Creating your first custom action recipe of Chapter 4, Server-Side Extensions

       

      Setting up the rollup fields

      Rollup fields are one of the most exciting new features that were introduced in recent years that significantly reduced the amount of custom code required. Rollup fields can aggregate values from other attributes. You can calculate sums, averages, minimums, maximums, and counts.

      In this recipe, we will create a rollup field that counts how many active activities are associated with a contact.

      Getting ready

      Similar to the previous recipes, a System Customizer or higher security role is required to perform the configuration as well as a solution to contain the changes.

      How to do it

      1. Navigate to Settings | Solutions | Packt.
      2. Create a new field by clicking on Entity | Contact | Fields | New and enter the following details:
        • Display Name: Number of Activities
        • Data Type: Whole Number
        • Field Type: Rollup
      3. Click on Edit next to the Field Type dropdown.
      4. In the Rollup Field dialog, under Related Entity, select Activities (Regarding) and click the tick box.
      5. In the Filters section, select the following:
        • Activity Status under Field
        • Equals under Operator
        • Value under Type
        • Check Open and Scheduled under Value
      6. Click on the tick box.
      7. Under Aggregation, select the following:
        • Aggregate Function under Count
        • Activity under Aggregated Related Entity field
      8. Click on the tick box. Your ROLLUP FIELD dialog will look as follows:
      1. Click on Save and Close on the ROLLUP FIELD dialog and the attribute dialogue.
      2. Click on the Publish All Customizations button for your solution.

      How it works...

      In step 2 to step 7, we created a new rollup field of type whole number that calculates the total count of active activities associated with a contact.

      Note

      A couple of things to note about rollup fields: the fields are read-only and the calculation does not take into account a user's security roles.

       

       

      Frequency

      When a rollup field is created, behind the scenes, a system asynchronous job is scheduled to execute 12 hours after the field is created. Navigate to Settings | System Jobs; you will see a job of type Mass Calculate Rollup field with the name of your new field in System Job Name. You can force the job to run sooner by clicking on Action | Postpone and entering an earlier date/time. It is not recommended to do so when you have a large number of records in a production environment. The first time the job runs, it will have to update all fields, which might lead to a performance impact.

      Subsequently, the System Jobs option will have a Calculated Rollup field per entity that has rollup fields configured. By default, subsequent rollup field calculations will take place every hour, (which is the fastest schedule). If an hourly update is not necessary, you can update the value by double-clicking on the System Job option, and selecting Actions | Modify Recurrence. This will present a dialog box that helps you redefine the recurrence of the execution:

      Note

      Given that the rollup fields are executed as asynchronous jobs, if the calculation is not occurring, consider checking the status of the asynchronous service. For on-premise installation, log on to your backend server and check its status. For online implementations, log a support call with Microsoft to check the status of the service.

      Programmatic Rollup Field execution

      On top of the automated schedules, rollup fields can also be executed programmatically by executing CalcualteRollupFieldRequest. Furthermore, if you search online for "rollup field workflow", you will find custom workflow activities built by the community to force recalculations in your configurable workflows.

      There's more...

      Rollup fields are a powerful feature in Dynamics 365. On top of the counting capability described in this recipe, rollup fields offer other types of aggregations. Furthermore, in some cases (activities), the aggregation can span across multiple relationship levels.

      Different types of aggregation

      Counting the number of records is one of the many capabilities of a rollup field. You can also get the maximum, minimum, average, and sum of a field, assuming the field type allows it. As you select a different aggregate function, the entity fields will be filtered accordingly.

      Indirectly related activities

      Given that our rollup field is aggregating activities, the field can also include indirectly related activities by defining Activity Parties (activities) under indirectly related activities. This will expand the aggregation, not only when the contact is in the regarding field, but also in the parties field.

      For more details about rollup fields, visit https://technet.microsoft.com/en-nz/library/dn832162.aspx.

      See also

      • Setting up calculated fields
       

      Setting up calculated fields

      Similar to rollups fields, calculated fields are another recent addition to Dynamics 365's configuration capabilities that significantly reduces the need for custom code extensions.

      As the name suggests, calculated fields allow you to set the value of an attribute based on another field, a function, or a formula. Furthermore, calculated fields may trigger based on a set of conditions.

      In this example, we will configure a field to calculate the difference in months between two dates: (student start date, and student end date).

      Getting ready

      Similar to the previous recipes, a System Customizer or higher security role is required to perform the configuration as well as a solution to contain the changes.

      How to do it

      1. Navigate to Settings | Solutions | Packt.
      2. Create two new fields by clicking on Entity | Contact | Fields | New as follows:
        • Start Date of type Date Time
        • End Date of type Date Time
      3. Create a new Calculated field and enter the following details:
        • Display Name: Months for graduation
        • Data Type: Whole Number
        • Field Type: Calculated
      4. Click on Edit next to the Field Type drop-down.
      5. In the Calculated dialog under Condition (Optional), click on Add condition.

       

       

      1. In the If row, enter the following details and click on the tick box:
        • Entity: Current Entity (Contact)
        • Field: Contact Type
        • Operator: Equals
        • Type: Value
        • Value: Student
      2. Under Action, click on Add action, enter DIFFINMONTHS(packt_enddate, packt_startdate), and then click on the tick button:
      1. Click on Save and Close on the rollup field dialogue and the attribute dialogue.

      How it works

      In this recipe, we used a point and click configuration to set up a calculated field to calculate the number of months' difference between a graduate's start date and end date.

      In step 5 and step 6, we defined the condition, and in step 7, we defined the calculation formula.

      Note

      Calculated fields translate to synchronous server-side code executions. They are similar to plugins and are executed during stage 40 of the execution pipeline of a post update or create message.

      Given that the execution takes place on the server side, the users will only see the changes right after a save event is triggered. Unlike business rules and JavaScript customization, the result is not instantaneous. They do not trigger after the condition is met on the form frontend.

      Similar to rollup fields, calculated fields are read-only and do not take into account a user's security roles.

      There's more...

      Calculated fields are a powerful addition; they can be used in many scenarios, some of which are:

      • Number calculations, (for accounting, weights, and so on)
      • Retrieving values from related entities
      • Constructing a string based on other attributes

      The TechNet article (https://technet.microsoft.com/library/dn832103.aspx) covers calculated fields in a few examples. The article also covers some limitations of calculated fields. Among them are the following:

      • Calculated fields cannot trigger a plugin or workflows
      • Once a field is created as simple, you cannot convert it to a calculated field without deleting it; (something to consider when upgrading old versions)
      • A calculated field cannot reference itself, but it can reference another calculated field or rollup field (limit of five chained fields)
      • Values in the calculated formula can come from the current entity or a direct parent (no access to 1:N or N:N entities)
      • Up to 10 unique calculated fields can be used in saved queries, charts, and visualizations
      • You cannot define a maximum or minimum metadata property on a calculated field

      At the time of writing, in addition to basic arithmetic operations, the Dynamics 365 supports the following built-in formulas with their respective return types:

      Function syntax

      Return type

      ADDDAYS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      ADDHOURS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      ADDMONTHS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      ADDWEEKS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      ADDYEARS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      SUBTRACTDAYS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      SUBTRACTHOURS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      SUBTRACTMONTHS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      SUBTRACTWEEKS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      SUBTRACTYEARS (whole number, date and time)

      Date and Time

      DIFFINDAYS (date and time, date and time)

      Whole Number

      DIFFINHOURS (date and time, date and time)

      Whole Number

      DIFFINMINUTES (date and time, date and time)

      Whole Number

      DIFFINMONTHS (date and time, date and time)

      Whole Number

      DIFFINWEEKS (date and time, date and time)

      Whole Number

      DIFFINYEARS (date and time, date and time)

      Whole Number

      CONCAT (single line of text, single line of text, ... single line of text)

      String

      TRIMLEFT (single line of text, whole number)

      String

      TRIMRIGHT (single line of text, whole number)

      String

      See also

      • Setting up the rollup fields
       

      Duplicate detection using alternate keys

      Duplicate detection has been around since the early versions of Dynamics CRM. In 2015, alternate keys were introduced to help identify a record based on a unique combination of attributes to perform an upsert request. An upsert is the action of inserting a record if it is new, or updating it if it already exists, based on the primary key identifier (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn932135.aspx). Logically, this means whenever an alternate key is defined, any new records that are created with the same key combination will throw a duplicate exception.

      This recipe will walk us though defining an alternate key for a contact, and testing the duplicate detection.

      Getting ready

      Similar to the previous recipes, a System Customizer or higher security role is required to perform the configuration as well as a solution to contain the changes.

      How to do it

      1. Navigate to Settings | Solutions | Packt.
      2. Create a new field by clicking on Entity | Contact | Keys | New.
      3. In the Key definition dialogue, type Name and Email in the Display Name field.
      4. Double-click on the First Name, Last Name, and Email Address fields under Available Attributes:
      1. Click on Save and Close.

       

       

      1. Navigate to contacts and try creating two contacts with the same first name, last name, and e-mail address. You will be prompted with the Duplicate Record error, as shown in the following screenshot:

      How it works

      In step 2 to step 5, we created an alternate key using First Name, Last Name, and Email on an individual. In step 6, we tested the duplicate detection by creating two records with the same key combination.

      Alternate keys have a similar behaviour to conventional duplicate detection, except the check happens at a lower level in the database (a unique nonclustered index). Additionally, if a duplicate is detected, primary keys will strictly stop a duplicate from being created, whereas, conventional duplicate detection functionality gives you the option to create it nonetheless. This is particularly important if you want to stop duplicates when using different channels than the frontend forms.

      Behind the scenes, Dynamics CRM is creating a nonclustered unique index using the three fields defined in the key. If you have an on-premise deployment, you can run a SQL profiler to intercept commands that are executed on the database. A query similar to the following one will appear in your list:

      CREATE UNIQUE INDEX [ndx_for_entitykey_packt_NameandEmail]
ON [ContactBase]
([EMailAddress1] ASC, [FirstName] ASC, [LastName] ASC) 
INCLUDE ([ContactId])
WHERE [EMailAddress1] is not null
AND [FirstName] is not null
AND [LastName] is not null
WITH (FILLFACTOR = 80, MAXDOP = 4, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON)

      The preceding query creates a unique nonclustered index on the ContactBase (the contact table) on the three columns: FirstName, LastName, and EmailAddress1. For more information on nonclustered indexes, read the following article at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/indexes/create-nonclustered-indexes

      During the duplicate detection process, if a field has an empty value (translated to NULL in the database) in one of the fields, the record will not be identified as a duplicate.

      Note that alternate key creation can fail sometimes. Always check, after creating your key, whether the creation has been successful. If a duplicate already exists in your dataset, the key creation will fail. To check the status of a newly created key, in your solution, navigate to Entities | <your entity> | Keys and ensure the Status column states Active. If the creation fails, it will state Failed:

      Read more
      About the Author
      • Rami Mounla

        Rami Mounla is a Solution Architect with over 15 years of experience in IT. He was introduced to Dynamics CRM 3.0 when it first came out and has built a career around the product since then. Based in Wellington, New Zealand, his focus is on enterprise-scale Dynamics CRM solutions targeted at the public sector and large multinational corporations. Throughout his career, he has worked on some of the largest CRM implementations in New Zealand, both on-premise and in the cloud. Rami is active in the Dynamics community, a leader of the Wellington Dynamics User Group, a frequent speaker at Microsoft Ignite New Zealand, and a supporter of open source Dynamics 365 extensions. His contributions over the last few years gained him the Microsoft Business Solutions MVP status in 2015, a title that reflects his ambitions. After being frustrated with frequently reviewing poor-quality CRM implementations, Rami decided to write about best practices and promote quality CRM implementations. The topics and ideas inspired this book on extending Dynamics 365.

        Browse publications by this author
      Latest Reviews (4 reviews total)
      great book, lots of info.
      5
      28 October 2018 Trusted Customer
      Perfect for my current role, learning as I go.
      4
      25 October 2018 Glenn Robertson
      Decent effort nothing special.
      3
      10 October 2018 Trusted Customer
      Microsoft Dynamics 365 Extensions Cookbook
      Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
      Start now