tricks

Using PowerShell to generate Earlybound classes

Natraj Yegnaraman , ,

Early Bound generator is a great XrmToolBox tool developed by fellow MVP Daryl LaBar. It helps you to generate the strongly-typed classes that can be used in your custom code development projects e.g. plugins, workflows, console app etc.  If your are committing the early bound classes into source control, you also should committing the configuration that is used to generate the classes and also make it easy for the next developer joining the team to generate these classes, without jumping into XrmToolBox and clicking it manually. In this post, I will present my approach into streamlining this process.

  1. Generate the files once from XrmToolBox with the settings that are optimal for your requirements EBG Settings
  2. Locate the the path where all XrmToolBox tools are installed. You can see this by clicking Configuration -> Settings. On the settings page, click on the “Paths” tab and then the “Open XrmToolBox storage folder” link.XTB Path
  3. Navigate to Plugins -> DLaB.EarlyBoundGeneratorEBG Folder
  4. Copy the crmsvcutil.exe.config file into a folder. You would need this for checking in into source control. This file won’t have any passwords, so it is safe to check in.
  5. Below is the PowerShell script to run. You also should committing this script into source control. The PowerShell script should be run on the same location where you copied the crmsvcutil.exe.config file in the previous step. The generated early bound classes will be in the folder specified in the “$outputPath” variable, which is “EarlyBoundClasses” in this script. You can change this match your solution folder structure. 
    Write-Output "Start"

$sourceNugetExe = "https://dist.nuget.org/win-x86-commandline/latest/nuget.exe"
$targetNugetExe = ".\nuget.exe"
Remove-Item .\Tools -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction Ignore
Invoke-WebRequest $sourceNugetExe -OutFile $targetNugetExe
Set-Alias nuget $targetNugetExe -Scope Global -Verbose
$connString = "AuthType=OAuth;Username=[LOGINNAME];Integrated Security=true;Url=https://[INSTANCENAME].[INSTANCEREGION].dynamics.com;AppId=51f81489-12ee-4a9e-aaae-a2591f45987d;RedirectUri=app://58145B91-0C36-4500-8554-080854F2AC97;TokenCacheStorePath=.\MyTokenCache;LoginPrompt=Auto"
$outputPath = ".\EarlyBoundClasses"
$namespace = "Xrm.Entities"

##
##Download EBG
##
./nuget install DLaB.Xrm.EarlyBoundGenerator.Api
move .\DLaB.Xrm.*\content\bin\DLaB.*\* .\EBG -Force
copy .\crmsvcutil.exe.config .\EBG -Force
Remove-Item .\DLaB.Xrm.EarlyBoundGenerator.Api* -Force -Recurse

.\EBG\CrmSvcUtil.exe /connstr:$connString /generateActions /out:"$outputPath\Actions.cs" /namespace:"$namespace" /codecustomization:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.Action.CustomizeCodeDomService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /codegenerationservice:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.Action.CustomCodeGenerationService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /codewriterfilter:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.Action.CodeWriterFilterService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /metadataproviderservice:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.BaseMetadataProviderService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions"
.\EBG\CrmSvcUtil.exe /connstr:$connString /out:"$outputPath\CrmServiceContext.cs" /namespace:"$namespace" /servicecontextname:"CrmServiceContext" /codecustomization:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.Entity.CustomizeCodeDomService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /codegenerationservice:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.Entity.CustomCodeGenerationService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /codewriterfilter:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.Entity.CodeWriterFilterService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /namingservice:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.NamingService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /metadataproviderservice:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.Entity.MetadataProviderService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions"
.\EBG\CrmSvcUtil.exe /connstr:$connString /out:"$outputPath\OptionSets.cs" /namespace:"$namespace" /codecustomization:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.OptionSet.CustomizeCodeDomService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /codegenerationservice:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.OptionSet.CustomCodeGenerationService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /codewriterfilter:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.OptionSet.CodeWriterFilterService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /namingservice:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.NamingService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions" /metadataproviderservice:"DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions.BaseMetadataProviderService,DLaB.CrmSvcUtilExtensions"

##
#Cleanup
##
Remove-Item nuget.exe
Remove-Item .\EBG -Force -Recurse

Write-Output "Complete"

You can see that I use OAuth for authentication. OAuth is one of the mechanism you can use to authenticate in the connection string. You can refer https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/developer/common-data-service/xrm-tooling/use-connection-strings-xrm-tooling-connect page for additional information. If you don’t like entering your credentials during script execution, you can also use “ClientSecret”, but this needs to be first configured on Azure AD.  You can refer Nishant’s post about this https://nishantrana.me/2019/08/24/connect-to-dynamics-365-web-api-using-oauth-2-0-client-credentials/

Microsoft also has created a AppId and RedirectUri that you can use on you development or test instance. Below is the disclaimer on the docs page about these.

When using the OAuth AuthType\AuthenticationType
For development and prototyping purposes we have provided the following AppId or ClientId and Redirect URI for use in OAuth Flows.

For production use, you should create an AppId or ClientId that is specific to your tenant in the Azure Management portal.

Sample AppId or ClientId = 51f81489-12ee-4a9e-aaae-a2591f45987d
Sample RedirectUri = app://58145B91-0C36-4500-8554-080854F2AC97

 

Hope this helps.

Embedded Canvas App: User Settings Utility

Natraj Yegnaraman , ,

User Settings utility is a popular XrmToolBox tool that helps administrators update the user specific settings in bulk, without asking individual users to update them. Here is how it looks:

User Settings Utility.png

I attempted to do this using embedded canvas apps. Here is how it looks:

Business Unit Form

As you can see the canvas app is embedded inside the “Business Unit” form called “Business Unit – Users”. It initially displays a list of users in the Gallery. You can then click on an user record to edit the user’s settings.

Edit Settings

The canvas app currently uses the ModelDrivenFormIntegration datasource, that is the default for embedded canvas app. But, you could very well tweak this app to make it a regular canvas app, and then you would be able to edit the user settings from your phone on the go, which could be quite useful for an administrator.

You can download the managed solution from https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvzjERKFC6gOxDDJp_ZoVc2Pqw7x?e=sNq5Gq. The solution contains the following components:

  1. New view – “Enabled Users for UserSettings” on System User entity
  2. New form – “Business Unit – Users” on Business Unit entity
  3. Canvas app – “User Settings Utility”

User Settings Utility Solution.png

Hope this is a useful tool for admins.

 

 

Getting entity record counts

Natraj Yegnaraman , , ,

There are couple of ways to gets entity record counts: you could use XrmToolBox’s Record Counter Tool, or write the FetchXml to count the records as you navigate from one page to the next. But, if you just want to use the SDK here is a simple method: a new message called RetrieveTotalRecordCountRequest. Here is how to use it in C#:

var r = new RetrieveTotalRecordCountRequest();
r.EntityNames = new[] {
"contact", "account"
};
var m = ((RetrieveTotalRecordCountResponse)this.Execute(r)).EntityRecordCountCollection;
m.Dump();

Retrieve Record Count

Here is the same call in JavaScript:

var entities = ['contact','account'];
fetch(`${Xrm.Utility.getGlobalContext().getClientUrl()}/api/data/v9.1/RetrieveTotalRecordCount(EntityNames=@EntityNames)?@EntityNames=${encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify(entities))}`, {
	credentials: 'include',
	headers: {
		'accept': 'application/json',
		'content-type': 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
		'odata-maxversion': '4.0',
		'odata-version': '4.0',
	},
	method: 'GET',
	mode: 'cors'
})
.then(x => x.json())
.then(r => console.log(r.EntityRecordCountCollection.Keys.forEach((k, i) => console.log(`${k}: ${r.EntityRecordCountCollection.Values[i]}`))));

Retrieve Record Count JS

Hope this is useful.

Reference:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.crm.sdk.messages.retrievetotalrecordcountrequest?view=dynamics-general-ce-9

Triggering Flow from NFC cards

Natraj Yegnaraman ,

I recently came back from Sydney and I now have 4 new Opal cards. Opal card is used in public transport across Sydney and these cards use NFC technology. Since I no longer have any use for these cards in Melbourne, I wanted to do some thing productive with these cards. I also wanted to try a low cost alternative for triggering Flow from a hardware that is not flic (Opal cards are free).

Reading NFC card is not a native functionality of Flow, so I decide to use something that is capable of reading NFC card and also can call a HTTP endpoint. Since I am using Android, there is an app that meets this need perfectly. It is called Automate. This app has been around for a while, and you can develop Automate Flows that can use native hardware capability of Android.

Here is how my Flow looks in Automate.

Automate Flow

The are start important blocks to get this Automate Flow working:

  1. Read NFC Tag
  2. HTTP Request
  3. Flow Start

Read NFC block is used to read the NFC card. I map the NFC tag id to the variable called “TagId”. You can use the “Read tag” button in this to identify the NFC tagid and then use it in the switch/case statements in Microsoft Flow.

Read NFC

 

The next step in the one where I call Microsoft Flow, which is triggered by HTTP Request.

HTTP Request

The same Automate Flow has to be triggered again after Microsoft Flow is called using HTTP Request, so that a new fiber is started to continue reading the NFC card.

Start Flow

This is the Microsoft Flow that is triggered by HTTP request.

NFC HTTP Flow

The HTTP trigger accepts the tagId in the URL parameter of the HTTP Request.

HTTP Trigger

Based on what tag has been scanned, I can then perform the appropriate action. I use the switch statement for this purpose.

Flow Switch.png

Here is a quick demo of Automate and Flow working together in harmony.

Automate Flow.gif

Here are somethings that are now possible with the NFC capability:

  1. Deploy solution from DEV to TEST, using Azure Function, PowerShell and Xrm.Data.PowerShell module. I experimented with this and it works nicely even though PowerShell support in Azure Function is only experimental
  2. Call a RunBook in Azure Automate using HTTP Webhook

I hope this is useful in scenarios where you need alternate ways to trigger Microsoft Flow.

 

 

Quick Tip: CDS Base URL in Flow

Natraj Yegnaraman , ,

I have a Flow that sends out email at 8 a.m everyday that lists the solutions that were imported in the past 24 hours. In the initial version of the Flow, the email was missing an link to the actual solution. But, after making some changes, the email now includes a clickable link to the solution that was imported.

Flow Email.png

As you can see there is a link in the last column. This link is not hardcoded. The base URL changes, based on the CDS environment the Flow is deployed to. The trick is to grab this URL from the “List records” action which includes the full URL to each record in the result. You just need the first record in the result set to use in the expression in the next step.

RetrieveMultiple.png

As you can see the @odata.id key contains the full URL to the record, from which you just need the base URL. Once you grab the base URL, you can easily compose the full URLs to the areas that you want the link to navigate to e.g. open the record, open solution, new record, open list etc.

Below is the expression that I use to get the base URL only.

first(split(first(body(‘[ACTION_NAME]’)?[‘value’])?[‘@odata.id’],’/api/’))
If you use this expression and assign it to a variable, you can set the variable with the base URL.
Variable.png
This technique is quite useful if you are sending emails with clickable links that navigate to a CDS record or area.

 

Flowception: Creating solution enabled Flow with Flow

Natraj Yegnaraman , ,

Solution is a feature that has been used in the CRM space for a long time. Solutions support for Flow was announced last year -> https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/solutions-in-microsoft-flow/. One thing the post does not mention is that Flows have to be created from the solution record. If you have an existing Flow, that you want to package up into a solution, you cannot do that. To workaround this limitation, I have created a Flow to clone an exisiting Flow and make it solution enabled.

The Flow itself it not that long. Here is how it looks.

The Flow definition fits on a readable screenshot!

The first step is to select the existing Flow that you want to clone, into a solution enabled Flow. This can be done using the Flow Management Connector’s “Get Flow” action.

Solution enabled Flows, like solution enabled canvas apps, are also stored in the CDS database. The entity it used to store the Flow is called Process (logical name: workflow). It stores both the Flow definition, as well the the connection references.

LINQ output

However, the connection references are stored differently between CDS and Flow. Here is how the connections are stored in Flow.

[{
	"connectionName": "shared-flowmanagemen-f22a175e-d99e-4e41-8404-f6823b2d4d5e",
	"displayName": "Flow management",
	"id": "/providers/Microsoft.PowerApps/apis/shared_flowmanagement"
}, {
	"connectionName": "46c0ebf24ba6458f9a582abde1185b12",
	"displayName": "Common Data Service",
	"id": "/providers/Microsoft.PowerApps/apis/shared_commondataservice"
}]

Here is how the connections are stored inside CDS workflow.

{
	"shared_flowmanagement": {
		"connectionName": "shared-flowmanagemen-f22a175e-d99e-4e41-8404-f6823b2d4d5e",
		"source": "Invoker",
		"id": "/providers/Microsoft.PowerApps/apis/shared_flowmanagement",
		"tier": "NotSpecified"
	},
	"shared_commondataservice": {
		"connectionName": "46c0ebf24ba6458f9a582abde1185b12",
		"source": "Invoker",
		"id": "/providers/Microsoft.PowerApps/apis/shared_commondataservice",
		"tier": "NotSpecified"
	}
}

As you can see one is an array and another is an object. So, this means the connection JSON has to be reshaped, when we create a Modern Flow Process record, directly in CDS. We will use select action to reshape the data, and then do a replace to cleanup the JSON.

Flow Connection JSON.png

Connection References

The action below is the one that creates the Solution enabled Flow. You create the “Process” record using the CDS connection, and populate the Flow JSON in “Client Data” field.

Create Workflow.png

This is the formula I use in the concat.

concat
(
	'{"schemaVersion":"1.0.0.0","properties": { "definition": ', 
	body('Get_Flow')['properties']['definition'],
	', "connectionReferences": ', 
	variables('connectionReference'), '}}'
)

This creates the JSON that is accepted for the “Modern Flow” process record.

In the last step we activate (start) the newly created Flow.

Enable Flow.png

The Flow’s GUID is stored in a field called “workflowidunique” on the Process entity. So, we can use this to the retrieve the Flow, and activate it.

The crazy part of this Flow is that I was able to run the Flow on itself and add it to the solution, hence the title of the post.

Flow run.png

You can now add the Flow into the Solution, from web.powerapps.com

Solution.png

The newly created Flow, will have the same step Flow name, you specific in the first Get Flow step, prefixed with “Solution: “

Add Flow.png

The solution with the Flow can now be exported and imported into a new CDS environment. I hope this helps you to package some of you old Flows into a solution. This Flow can further improved by listing all Flows in the environment and doing the same process or cloning it, rather than specifying a specific Flow at design time.

You can download the Flow from https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvzjERKFC6gOwWC7Ywi5fgguPW1s

If you have any comments/feedback, please share them on the post or tweet me @rajyraman.

CDS, Microsoft Flow and DateTime formats

Natraj Yegnaraman , ,

EDIT (7/12): You can download the Flow from https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvzjERKFC6gOwCqKnnAvMZA6mDsW if you just want to jump straight into exploring the actual Flow, instead of reading the article.

DateTime and Timezones seem to be the flavor of the month, so I thought I will take a crack at the problem as well. Coming from CRM background and spending a lot of time fiddling around the internal schema to understand the plumbings I came up with the following approach which I believe is decoupled and flexible.

In CDS, there is an entity called “UserSettings”, which stores a whole bunch of information regarding the user preferences. If you have used the awesome XrmToolBox tool called “UserSettings Utility”, you would remember this screen.

Timezone.png

Formats

The “UserSettings” entity is the source of this information. So, why not use the same for managing the timezones and datetime formats?

For re-usability, I want to create a Flow that just returns me the timezone information based on the executing user. Here is how it looks.

Get Timezone and Formats.png

Let us understand this step by step.

Step 1:

This is the HTTP trigger, which can take in a parameter for activedirectoryguid. This is the unique identifier for the Office 365 user.

Step 1.png

Step 2:

Get the Office 365 profile of the current user. If the activedirectoryguid is not passed in step 1, the intention is to use the current user’s Office 365 information.

Step 2.png

Step 3 & 4:

Initialise the activedirectoryguid variable, and query the CDS entity “Users”, and retrieve the user that matches the activedirectoryguid.

Step 3 and 4.png

Since activedirectoryguid can be passed on the trigger as well, I use the following coalesce expression, to set the variable to either the passed value on the trigger or from the Office 365 profile in step 2. This is the expression.

coalesce(triggerBody()?['activedirectoryguid'],body('Get_my_profile_(V2)')?['id'])

Step 5 & 6:

Retrieve “User Settings” entity and the associated “Time Zone Definitions” record based on the user’s timezone.

Step 5 and 6.png

The filter for User Settings is

first(body('Get_System_Users')?['value'])['systemuserid']

The filter for Time Zone Definitions is

first(body('Get_User_Settings')?['value'])['timezonecode']

Step 7:

This is the last step, where we return all the format and timezone information.

Step 7

Below are the expressions for the returned properties:

timezone

first(body('Get_User_Timezone')?['value'])['standardname']

dateformat

replace(first(body('Get_User_Settings')?['value'])['dateformatstring'],'/',first(body('Get_User_Settings')?['value'])['dateseparator'])

timeformat

replace(first(body('Get_User_Settings')?['value'])['timeformatstring'],':',first(body('Get_User_Settings')?['value'])['timeseparator'])

dateseparator

first(body('Get_User_Settings')?['value'])['dateseparator']

timeseparator

first(body('Get_User_Settings')?['value'])['timeseparator']

Now let us look at some sample output. For a user located in US, here is how the output of the Flow looks like.

US Output

Compare this with someone who is in Australian timezone.

Australia Output

Since this Flow now contains the logic for getting the formats and timezones, it can be utilised for another Flow that needs this information. For example look at the sample Flow below

Calling Flow

Calling Flow1

Below is the expression, I use to convert the “createdon” returned by the CDS Get Record, step which returns the datetime in UTC.

convertFromUtc(body('Get_record')?['createdon'],body('Parse_JSON')?['timezone'],concat(body('Parse_JSON')?['dateformat'],' ',body('Parse_JSON')?['timeformat']))

If you compare this Flow output and the record properties from Dynamics 365, it becomes obvious that the datetime and format is correctly displayed. Note that the CDS connector returns the datetime in UTC.

Output

CRM Record Properties

Initially I wanted to call the Flow that returns the formats and timezone using the “Start Flow” action on the Flow Connector, but it doesn’t seem to be picked up the response, so I had to resort to the whole HTTP action, which is not ideal.

It seems “Start Flow”, simply enables the Flow, does not actually run the Flow. Not sure why it is named in a misleading way.

Hope this is helpful.