Dependent OptionSet Generator - Overview - Part 1

Some days ago I released a new Dynamics CRM tool called Dependent OptionSet Generator.
As the name suggests it helps to create and update dependent OptionSets, one of the possible approaches to filter data inside CRM UI.

Scott Durow wrote an overview about this argument on his blog: "Option-Set, Lookup or Autocomplete", it's very useful if you plan to use dependent OptionSets in order to know the pro and cons of this approach.

I want to thank Scott not only for his post but because he found the time to meet me when I was in London a couple of months ago (photo). He was the first person I talked about this little project and we had a pleasant discussion not only about Dynamics CRM, thanks again Scott!
During my short visit in London I also met again Ramón Tébar Bueno and it's really nice to spend some time with other members of the Dynamics CRM Community, plus he took me to a typical British Pub!

Now back to the main reason of this post, the Dependent OptionSet Generator.
Starting from CRM 2011 the possibility to filter OptionSets entries was available thanks to the Xrm supported methods. Microsoft also provided a solution inside their CRM SDK to implement the dependent OptionSets but the most tedious process, the generation of the XML file required to map the entries, was delegated completely to the user.

Creating manually the XML document has always been a bummer, especially when you need to deal with several entries, so developers and consultants suggest to use filtered Lookups instead.
However there are implementations where OptionSets are preferred due to the Multi-Language support, to facilitate CRM users (at eCraft, the company I work for, we often have customers with Finnish and Swedish users) or because it's required by the law (for example in some provinces of Canada).

Microsoft kept updated its Dependent OptionSet solution during the years and with the latest CRM 2016 version they changed the configuration format structure from XML to JSON, probably in order to simplify the creation of the file.

My solution consists of two parts:

• The first part is the JavaScript Library to be included inside the CRM forms in order to filter the OptionSets
• The second part is a Web Application to build and maintain the JSON configuration required by the JavaScript Library

This post will cover the first part, I will write another post (or more) regarding the Web Application.

The JavaScript Library included in my solution is based on the CRM 2016 SDK version called sample_SDK.DependentOptionSetSample.js, you can find the source code here. Except for the first point (Different Namespace) all the other changes were done in order to make the script compatible with CRM 2011 supported browsers.

• Different Namespace: because I didn't change the name of the functions I preferred to use a different namespace (DO instead of SDK) in order to avoid issues if the SDK library and my library are loaded in the same form.
  
  
• JSON: The CRM 2016 library uses JSON, but the original Microsoft Library created for CRM 2011 uses XML. When the CRM 2011 library was created Dynamics CRM supported only Internet Explorer, including old versions like IE7. These old IE versions don't have the JSON object, so (probably) they decided to parse an XML object instead. My library in order to be compatible with these IE versions includes the JSON2 library. I can include it without issues because the first line of the library checks if JSON is already defined

  if("object"!==typeof JSON)JSON={};
  

  in this way old browsers can support JSON methods like JSON.parse.
  
  
• getClientUrl: This Xrm method was introduced with CRM 2011 UR12, but my library in order to be compatible with pre-UR12 CRM 2011 instances checks if getClientUrl is available before using it. I used this code snippet in many of my samples in order to avoid creating a JavaScript only to handle CRM 2011 versions:

  var serverUrl;
  if (Xrm.Page.context.getClientUrl !== undefined) {
      serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getClientUrl();
  } else {
      serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl();
      if (serverUrl.match(/\/$/)) { serverUrl = serverUrl.substring(0, serverUrl.length - 1); }
  }
  

• response and responseText: Older versions of Internet Explorer don't implement the response property inside the object returned by the XmlHttpRequest, so if the property is not defined we will use the responseText instead.

  if (this.response !== undefined) { wrContent = this.response; }
  // handling responseText for older IE versions
  else { if (this.responseText !== undefined) { wrContent = this.responseText; } }
  

• setTimeout: The setTimeout syntax used inside the SDK sample is not compatible with older IE versions, an easy fix is to wrap the function called inside an anonymous function:

  // original SDK sample code
  setTimeout(SDK.DependentOptionSet.filterOptions, 100, parentFieldParam, childFieldParam, dependentOptionSet);    
  // setTimeout rewritten for older IE versions
  setTimeout(function() { DO.DependentOptionSet.filterOptions(parentFieldParam, childFieldParam, dependentOptionSet); }, 100);
  

• getClient and CRM for Tables and Phones: The SDK sample handles also the compatibility with CRM for mobile devices, but in order to handle the call to the method Xrm.Page.context.client.getClient() it's necessary to check if the context object contains the client property and its getClient method:

  if (Xrm.Page.context.client !== undefined && Xrm.Page.context.client.getClient !== undefined) {
      // ... rest of the code
  }
  

• forEach: The SDK sample uses forEach to iterate the available values for the child OptionSet, but forEach is not available for older IE versions, the code has been rewritten to use a standard for cycle:

  //original SDK sample code
  validOptionValues.forEach(function (optionValue) { /* ... */ })
  // standard for cycle
  for (var count = 0; count < validOptionValues.length; count++) { /* ... */ }
  

Making the library compatible with CRM 2011 was more an exercise for me, CRM 2011 is officially not supported and I hope that many instances have been already migrated to newer versions, but I am aware that this is not always possible.

However the main part of my solution is the Web Application to create/update the JSON configuration, if you are already using the CRM 2016 SDK Sample in your CRM, you can use the Web Application without using my library and just update the Web Resources.

Passing Arrays to JavaScript Web Resources as parameter

Despite the availability of Business Rules, JavaScript is still an important way to customize Dynamics CRM UI, especially in complex scenarios (or when you just need to hide a section).

If you ever need to pass an Array as parameter inside the Event Handler form, you can declare it with the square brackets or using the Array keyword:

// square brackets
[1, 2, 3, 4 ,5]
// Array keyword
new Array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

CRM Event Handler:


As example we write a function to hide fields passing their logicalname as an array:

["name", "accountnumber", "telephone1"]

the function handles the parameter in this way:

function HideFields(fields) {
    for (var count = 0; count < fields.length; count++) {
        if (Xrm.Page.getControl(fields[count]) != null) {
            Xrm.Page.getControl(fields[count]).setVisible(false);
        }
    }
}

If a parameter is an Array, multiple parameters can still be passed inside the Event Handler. For example:

// note the comma before the array is declared
true, ["name", "accountnumber", "telephone1"]

In this way we are sending a boolean as first parameter to our updated function:

function ShowHideFields(isVisible, fields) {
    for (var count = 0; count < fields.length; count++) {
        if (Xrm.Page.getControl(fields[count]) != null) {
            Xrm.Page.getControl(fields[count]).setVisible(isVisible);
        }
    }
}

There is another way to pass multiple parameters without declaring each parameter inside the function definition and without using an Array: the arguments variable.
In JavaScript the arguments variable holds automatically all the parameters passed to a function.
We can rewrite the previous example, inside the Event Handler we pass the values as separate parameters, not as an array:

// no square brackets, no Array Keywords, just 3 separate parameters
"name", "accountnumber", "telephone1"

and our function is simply this one:

function HideFields() {
    for (var count = 0; count < arguments.length; count++) {
        if (Xrm.Page.getControl(arguments[count]) != null) {
            Xrm.Page.getControl(arguments[count]).setVisible(false);
        }
    }
}

But if we want to handle a specific element (like the first element) we need to take care inside the code:

// we decided that the first parameter will contain the value for the isVisible variable
true, "name", "accountnumber", "telephone1"

function ShowHideFields() {
    // this function requires at least 2 parameters
    if (arguments.length > 1) {
        var isVisible = arguments[0];
        // we start the for cycle from 1 instead of 0
        for (var count = 1; count < arguments.length; count++) {
            if (Xrm.Page.getControl(arguments[count]) != null) {
                Xrm.Page.getControl(arguments[count]).setVisible(isVisible);
            }
        }
    }
}

Fix the "Role Error" message when updating security roles

TL;DR: This solution has been posted on Dynamics Community Forums by Nithink.K quoting a Microsoft support answer (link). This post provides an easy solution to fix the issue.

If you have a CRM Online instance and recently you tried to update a security role probably you got the following error:



Role Error - Users cannot add privileges to or change access levels for roles to which they are assigned. For help with changing a role, contact your Microsoft Dynamics CRM administrator.

The error is misleading, because in my case the user had only the "System Administrator" role and I was trying to update the "Sales Manager" role, also the log file didn't provide additional information, it just contained the message "Invalid privilege depth".

A solution has been posted on Dynamics Community Forums (you can find the whole thread here) and it's about a wrong privilege that has been assigned to the "Data Performance Dashboard" entity under the core records. This OOB entity is "Organization" type (meaning the privilege can be only "Organization" or "None") but in the CRM Online instances affected with this problem, the privilege is set to "User":



The solution is to set the privileges to "None", after this change the security role can be edited or copied again. I started a new CRM online trial and the correct configuration is "None" for all the security roles except System Administrator (that can't be customized) and System Customizer that has these privileges set to "Organization".

Because it's a tedious process to edit all the security roles one by one, you can use the "Role Updater" tool included inside the XrmToolBox, with this tool you can bulk update the security roles removing or adding privileges in few clicks.

After you started the tool, click on "Load Roles and Privileges" button and select all the users except "System Administrator" and "System Customizer"



After you click "Next", search for "data" and select the privileges related to "Data Performance Dashboard" entity and click the "None" button



When you are ready click the "Next" button and the privileges will be updated. Regarding the System Customizer role, you can edit it manually or use again this tool, select only the role and click on "Organization" instead of "None".

After this procedure you will be able to edit again your security roles, hope it helps!

CRM 2016 Web API and plural names

The new Web API available for CRM 2016 is based on OData V4 protocol and the endpoint is /api/data/v8.0/

The MSDN contains several examples of the new endpoint, for example if we want to retrieve the top 3 accounts:

/api/data/v8.0/accounts?$select=name&$top=3

Simple, right? if you want to retrieve from account entity you write accounts, if you want to retrieve from contact entity you write contacts, if you want to retrieve from opportunity entity you write opportunities. You write the plural.

What a poor choice to use the plural form instead of the singular one, and let me say something, the root of the problem is an English-centered vision.

I'm not an expert of REST and OData protocols, maybe they suggest to use the plural forms but when you let users dynamically add entries to the endpoint (i.e. creating an entity) the use of plural forms is a mess.

A user on Dynamics Community asked a question: "my custom entity name is xxx_settings and I can't query using the endpoint /api/data/v8.0/xxx_settingss, which is the right syntax?"

Well, in this case the answer is simple, who designed the API decided to apply the exceptions, so if the noun ends with s the plural is es, in the user's case the correct endpoint is /api/data/v8.0/xxx_settingses, but if you want to be sure about the name you can check the metadata at this url: /api/data/v8.0/ or download the XML from the Developer Resources inside CRM UI.

Now let's play a game, how much are robust the exceptions they implemented in order to create the plural form? The answer is weak.
English is not my first language so I googled "plural exceptions english" and I landed in this page: A handout on irregular plural noun forms. I started to create some custom entities, here some results:
new_city become new_cities, English correct.
new_wolf become new_wolfs, English incorrect.
new_knife become new_knifes, English incorrect.
new_man become new_mans, English incorrect.

Now, I don't expect that all the irregular forms are covered, but if you decide to handle the final 's' and the final 'y' why not handle the final 'f'? However not big deal, You check the metadata and you can find the exact plural word to use.

BUT, and there is a BUT

Let's say we created our custom entity new_city and now the REST endpoint responds to /api/data/v8.0/new_cities, what will happen if we create a custom entity called new_citie?
The entity is not listed inside the REST endpoint!!! because the plural of new_citie is new_cities but it's already used by new_city.
The lesson is: pay attention when you name your entities if you need to query them using the new REST endpoint, if the plural form of a new entity is the same of the plural form of a previous entity, you can't query it.

Dynamics CRM 2016 Certifications

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Certification Exams

• MB2-710: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Online Deployment
• MB2-711: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Installation
• MB2-712: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Customization and Configuration
• MB2-713: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Sales
• MB2-714: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Customer Service

Pay attention to the CRM version when using the SDK NuGet packages

Microsoft publishes the CRM SDK DLLs also as NuGet packages, you can find the list by browsing the crmsdk profile:

https://www.nuget.org/profiles/crmsdk

Because the packages are not separate by CRM version (for example a package for CRM 2015 and a package for CRM 2016) Microsoft simply updates the NuGet package increasing the version.
This can be an issue in some projects as happened to me some days ago. I was working on a plugin for CRM 2015, my project was targeting .NET 4.5.2 and I installed the current version of CoreAssemblies (8.0.1).
The build was successful but the plugin always returned the exception "Value cannot be null".

I spent some time to understand that the problem was the referenced DLL version, so I removed the NuGet package and I installed the 2015 specific version (7.1.1) using the Package Manager Console:

Install-Package Microsoft.CrmSdk.CoreAssemblies -Version 7.1.1

After the plugin worked like a charm.
As reference these are the current versions and the suggested .NET framework to use:

• CRM 2011: 5.0.18 (.NET 4.0)
• CRM 2013: 6.1.1 (.NET 4.0)
• CRM 2015: 7.1.1 (.NET 4.5.2)
• CRM 2016: 8.0.1 (.NET 4.5.2)

Another year with the MVP community

Yesterday I received my second MVP Award and it's a great way to start the New Year!
Be in the first quarter (or in the second one due to April Fools' Day) is a bit thrilling but worth the wait. Last October the MVP program made some changes, so my award category is now called Business Solutions and includes MVPs from the Dynamics family (CRM, AX, GP, NAV) and from Microsoft Project.

An anniversary is also a moment to look back and see what was done last year. Personally I contribute to these sites: Dynamics Community, MSDN Forums and StackOverflow.

I start with the last. StackOverflow doesn't have a so good reputation inside the Dynamics CRM community, probably because it's not the right place to ask all the questions, it's a site for developers, it has rules and you can't just drop there and ask: "How do I install the Email router?", but it's a great community with extraordinary members.

MSDN has forums for CRM questions, but I noticed in the last year that the number of questions asked there is lower, there are also some regional CRM forums (like in German or French) but I don't know if this trend I noticed affected also that part.

Dynamics Community had a huge increment of participation: more questions, more active users, more feedback. It's a site for everybody, beginners and experts, a great community, probably THE Dynamics CRM community, you can find everybody there.

Last year I also coded a bit and released two small utilities: a library to handle Moment.js multi language inside Dynamics CRM and a Theme Generator.

The library for Moment.js is a small thing, you can find details here but it got a mention on CRM Tip Of The Day.

The Dynamics CRM Theme Generator had more success, it has daily visitors and was mentioned or reviewed in some CRM articles, in particular this one that I like very much:

My Eyes! How to Create Jarring Themes Using the Theme Generator

2015 was a long and full year and I hope 2016 will be Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger!

Guido
ps: I started a new blog (8086.it)