Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly known as Dynamics CRM) is a robust platform for managing customer relationships and streamlining business processes. One of its most powerful features is the ability to customize the system using plugins. When creating plugins, you can work with pre and post images, which allow you to manipulate data before and after it's been saved to the system. In this blog post, we'll explore what pre and post images are, and how to use them effectively in your plugins.
What are Pre and Post Images?
Pre and post images are snapshots of the data before and after an operation takes place. They allow you to access the old and new values of a record during plugin execution, and enable you to make decisions based on those values.
Pre-Image: This is a snapshot of the entity data before the operation takes place. In other words, it shows you what the data looked like before the user made any changes to it.
Post-Image: This is a snapshot of the entity data after the operation has taken place. It shows you what the data looks like after the user has made changes to it.
When you create a plugin, you can specify whether you want to use pre or post images, or both. This gives you the flexibility to choose when you want to access the data and what you want to do with it.
How to Use Pre and Post Images in Your Plugins
Pre and post images can be used in a variety of ways in your plugins. Here are a few examples:
Validation: You can use pre-images to validate data before it's saved to the system. For example, you can check to see if a field has been updated to an invalid value and prevent the save from happening.
Auditing: You can use post-images to log changes to the system. For example, you can create an audit record every time a record is updated, and include the old and new values in the audit record.
Automation: You can use pre and post images to automate processes in the system. For example, you can create a plugin that automatically updates a field on a related record whenever a specific field on the current record is updated.
To use pre and post images in your plugins, you'll need to retrieve the images using the IPluginExecutionContext interface. Once you've retrieved the images, you can access the data using the GetAttributeValue method, and make any necessary changes to the data.
Conclusion
Pre and post images are a powerful feature of Microsoft Dynamics 365 plugins. They allow you to access data before and after it's been saved to the system, and give you the flexibility to make decisions based on that data. By using pre and post images in your plugins, you can create more intelligent and efficient customizations, and improve the overall user experience of the system.
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