Question

I am attempting to write my first Dynamics Crm 2011 plugin.

I have therefore downloaded the CRM11 sdk and taken a look at the plugin samples. I have finally got my first plugin installed and registered using the supplied tools (quite a steep learning curve on that one, for me at least).

I started with the basics and compiled up the “Account Number Plugin” that is provided in the samples and used the registration tool. All was reported as being installed successfully but on creating a new account the generated account number was not showing up at all. I initially thought that the plugin was not installed correctly but after noticing that the code would throw an error if the account number was already present I set about trying to get the plugin to raise the error. This worked first time so I am happy that the installation is correct.

After looking at the sample code I am lost as to how the generated account number is saved back to Dynamis Crm.

// An accountnumber attribute should not already exist because it is system generated.

if (entity.Attributes.Contains("accountnumber") == false)    
{    
    // Create a new accountnumber attribute, set its value, and add
    // the attribute to the entity's attribute collection.

    Random rndgen = new Random();  
    entity.Attributes.Add("accountnumber", rndgen.Next().ToString());    
}    
else     
{    
    // Throw an error, because account numbers must be system generated.    
    throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException("The account number can only be set by the system.");    
}

Looking through some of the other samples I noticed some additional code that appears to be called to create new entities. I adjusted this and copied it into the new account number code, deployed and the account number was generated as expected.

IOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory  = (IOrganizationServiceFactory)

    serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IOrganizationServiceFactory));

IOrganizationService service = serviceFactory.CreateOrganizationService(context.UserId);

service.Update(entity); // Originally - service.Create(entity);

Is this an error in the sample code or am I doing something wrong? If this code is not required when does the entity submit its changes to the database?

Answer 1

Just worked it out. You need to register this plugin as a “Pre-Operation” step.

That will teach me for leaving the registration tool to its defaults. With it set to “Pre-Operation” the settings of the entity are changed before saving. Therefore you do not need to call save again.