IME Mode in MSCRM while creating new attribute

When you create a new attribute for a Microsoft Dynamics CRM entity and have to set the characteristics like data type, min-max values and schema name, you would have seen a property called IMEmode, I always use leave this with default setting i.e. auto as shown in the below screenshot-

What exactly the use this setting, we definitely should know the intention of each and every property while working with MS CRM and very careful while creating new Entity and the Attributes for it.

So let’s understand for what exactly the property we have to set.

This option occurs with Single Line of Text, Multiple Lines of Text and other attributes that are bound to input elements or text area element.

IME stands for Input Method Editor and it lets you to enter and edit Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters. These Asian writing systems have more characters than can be encoded for a regular keyboard. The IMEs for these languages use sequences of base characters that describe an individual character or group of characters to enter a larger set of characters.

Base characters can be component letters from Hangul syllables, phonetic components for Japanese kanji characters, or various combinations for Chinese characters. We can use the IME mode option to quickly enter these characters and symbols into text boxes, avoiding the manual switch to IME mode that would otherwise be required.

Input Method Editors have two principle states, inactive and active. The inactive mode behaves like a regular keyboard and uses a limited set of characters. The active mode accepts Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters.

The following IME modes are available:

·     auto (default) - The IME mode is not affected with this choice.

·     active - All characters are entered in the IME mode, but you can still deactivate it. For name-related fields and addresses, the default is active for detailed forms.

·     Inactive - All characters are entered without using the IME mode, but you can still activate it. For datetime type fields, the default is inactive for detailed forms.

·     Disabled - The IME mode is disabled, and you cannot activate it. For number type fields (money, int, float), the default is inactive for detailed forms.

Important changes in Dynamics 365 (Version 9)

In recent versions of MS CRM there are lot of changes or modification done by Microsoft as well few things are get deprecated. Below are important changes done Dynamics 365 latest version for development point of view.

While development of the latest version we should be careful about deprecated methods of API. The deprecated client APIs will continue to be available and supported until they are officially removed from a future major release of Dynamics 365.

The changes listed below are not all of them, I am trying to list down here only those which we always use while development. Complete list is listed with the URL- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/whats-new/customer-engagement/important-changes-coming

Xrm.Page. context Changes

Deprecated API	Replacement API
Xrm.Page.context.getTimeZoneOffsetMinutes	globalContext.userSettings.getTimeZoneOffsetMinutes
Xrm.Page.context.getUserId	globalContext.userSettings.userId
Xrm.Page.context.getUserLcid	globalContext.userSetings.languageId
Xrm.Page.context.getUserName	globalContext.userSettings.userName
Xrm.Page.context.getUserRoles	globalContext.userSettings.securityRoles
Xrm.Page.context.getIsAutoSaveEnabled	globalContext.organizationSettings.isAutoSaveEnabled
Xrm.Page.context.getOrgLcid	globalContext.organizationSettings.languageId
Xrm.Page.context.getOrgUniqueName	globalContext.organizationSettings.uniqueName
Xrm.Page.data.entity.getDataXml	No change in the method, but use "typename" instead of type for lookup attributes.

Grid Methods Changes

Deprecated API	Replacement API	Description
GridRow.getData	GridRow.data	GridRow is essentially a form context. This change unifies the interface of GridRow with formContext.
GridRowData.getEntity	GridRowData.entity	GridRowData is form data. This change unifies the interface of GridRowData with formContextData.

Xrm.Utility Changes

Deprecated API	Replacement API	Description
Xrm.Utility.alertDialog	Xrm.Navigation.openAlertDialog	The new signature is consistent with other APIs (openForm) and takes a new set of parameters for flexibility.
Xrm.Utility.confirmDialog	Xrm.Navigation.openConfirmDialog	The new signature is consistent with other APIs (openForm) and takes a new set of parameters for flexibility.
Xrm.Utility.isActivityType	Xrm.Utility.getEntityMetadata	The isActivityType method is synchronous so it was suitable for ribbon rules. However, the replacement method, getEntityMetadata, is asynchronous, and is not suitable for ribbon rules.
Xrm.Utility.openEntityForm	Xrm.Navigation.openForm	Moving navigation actions to Xrm.Navigation
Xrm.Utility.openQuickCreate	Xrm.Navigation.openForm	Moving navigation actions to Xrm.Navigation
Xrm.Utility.openWebResource	Xrm.Navigation.openWebResource	Moving navigation actions to Xrm.Navigation Note: This API returns VOID in Unified Interface.

New client APIs

Here is a list of new namespaces in this release that contains new and some existing methods that are moved under these namespaces for an enhanced object model design.

New Namespace	Description
Xrm.Device	Provides methods to use native device capabilities of mobile devices.
Xrm.Encoding	Provides methods to encode strings.
Xrm.Navigation	Provides navigation-related methods.
Xrm.WebApi	Provides properties and methods to use Web API to create and manage records and execute Web API actions and functions.

The following new APIs were introduced in the existing namespaces:

Namespace	New APIs
formContext.data	- OnLoad event and even handlers (addOnLoad and removeOnLoad) - isValid - Updated saveOptions in the formContext.data.save method to include a new value called saveMode to let the onSave event handlers know why the save is happening - attributes collection
formContext.data.entity	getEntityReference isValid
formContext.data.entity attribute	isValid setPrecision
formContext.ui	event handlers for the OnLoad event (addOnLoad and removeOnLoad)
Xrm.Utility	getAllowedStatusTransitions getEntityMetadata getGlobalContext getLearningPathAttributeName getResourceString invokeProcessAction lookupObjects showProgressIndicator closeProgressIndicator refreshParentGrid

Silverlight (XAP) web resource is deprecated

The Silverlight (XAP) web resource is deprecated on the web client, and is not supported on the new Unified Interface introduced in the Dynamics 365 (online), version 9.0. Instead of Silverlight web resources, you must use custom controls created using the HTML web resources with HTML5 to create UI components to visualize and interact with data.

MS CRM Interview Questions

1. What is Isolation mode for Plug-Ins?

2. How to call external WCF Service in Plugin or in a custom Workflow in MS CRM?

3. How to Call After Save Event in MS CRM 365?

4. What is Difference between Owner Team and access Team in MS CRM?

5. Difference between Business Rules and Custom Javascript?

6. How to Handle infinite loop for Plugin?

7. What is Plugin Dept?

8. What are the Client Side Events in MS CRM?

9. What is Secured Vs. Unsecured Configuration of Plugin?

 10. How to fetch records from Entity having N:N relationship?

11. What are Entity Types and Entity Ownership in MS CRM?

12. What is String Map table in MS CRM?

13. What is Relationship Behaviour in MS CRM?

14. Explain Hierarchy Visualization in MS CRM?

 15. How Business Process Flow works in Microsoft Dynamics CRM?

16. How to choose Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-Line and On-Premise?

17. Where Plugin Assembly storage location?

18. How to know Organization database name?

19. What is Web Resource Utility?

20. What is CRM REST Builder?

21. What is IME mode option while creating new Attribute?

22. What are the important changes in MS CRM 365 (Version 9) for development point of view?

23. What is Multi Select Option Set in MS CRM?

24. How to change field color in MS CRM 365?

Call an external WCF service from a custom workflow or a plugin in MS CRM

Call an external WCF service from a custom workflow or a plugin in MS CRM

As we know very well custom workflow and plugins are the class libraries and obviously there is no configuration file associated with class libraries projects and that is the reason we have to follow below approach to call an external WCF service from the plugin or workflow.

First of all a proxy file needs to be generated using svcutil.exe. This command needs to execute from the command prompt. To generate the proxy file, navigate to the location of the svcutil.exe on the machine (C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.7.2 Tools) and execute the following:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.7.2 Tools>svcut

il.exe /language:cs /out:proxy.cs /config:app.config <SVC Service>

After executing the command a proxy.cs file is generated at the location of the svcutil.exe. This proxy.cs should be included in the workflow or plugin solution. 

Once the generated proxy.cs file added into the project, for the bindings of WCF service below code should be written where you wanted to call the service.

 

  BasicHttpBinding serviceBinding = new BasicHttpBinding();

  serviceBinding.Name = "<Binding Name>";

  serviceBinding.Security.Mode = BasicHttpSecurityMode.None;

  serviceBinding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = HttpClientCredentialType.None;

  serviceBinding.Security.Transport.ProxyCredentialType = HttpProxyCredentialType.None;

  serviceBinding.Security.Message.ClientCredentialType = BasicHttpMessageCredentialType.UserName;

  EndpointAddress endPointAddress = new EndpointAddress("http:<ServiceURLPaTH>.svc");

  ServiceClient serclient = new ServiceClient(serviceBinding, endPointAddress);

Now you can use Serclient object to call the service methods.

Hope this will be helpful.

Assembly must be registered in isolation Error-

Recently my QA team has encountered the error – “Assembly must be registered in isolation” while importing the solution which contains the plug in assemblies, although everything was fine in development environment.

The reason behind the error is the user was not a Deployment Administrator, if the user is only a System Administrator in the organization, they will be forced to register plugins in the sandbox isolation mode.

Thank you.

Call After Save Event in MS CRM 365 Form

We have recently faced a problem while reloading the form after save MS CRM Entity form. Initial thought was like this is pretty simple functionality we have to achieve and will not take more time but unfortunately when we started implementing it we got stuck in iterative problems.

 We did tried using the below code which called onSave of the form-

onSave()

{

    Xrm.Page.data.entity.save();

    setTimeout(function () {

        Xrm.Utility.openEntityForm(Xrm.Page.data.entity.getEntityName(), Xrm.Page.data.entity.getId());

    }, 3000);

}

But unfortunately it did not worked, we even tried the same code on the success and failure callbacks of the Xrm.Page.data.entity.save() but there is no luck, most of the time it executed fail callback of the method.

After spending some time on the Google we found the below solution and it worked 100 percent-

First of all we have created a helper function to set or remove listener to internal CRM events:

function addAfterEventHandler(eventId, handler) {

    this.parent.Mscrm.TurboForm.Control

    .CommandService.get_instance()

    .addAfterCommandExecutionHandler(eventId, handler);

}

function removeAfterEventHandler(eventId, handler) {

    this.parent.Mscrm.TurboForm.Control

    .CommandService.get_instance()

    .removeAfterCommandExecutionHandler(eventId, handler);

}

After creating the helper function we have added the listener to the after save event-

addAfterEventHandler(this.parent.Mscrm.InlineCommands.Save, function () {

    Xrm.Utility.openEntityForm(Xrm.Page.data.entity.getEntityName(), Xrm.Page.data.entity.getId());

});

We created the web resource of the above code and loaded the same on the form of entity where we required, that's all whenever you will save the changes for the particular form it will reload the page.

MS CRM Owner Teams vs Access Teams

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, the Team concept that was used is now known as Owner Teams in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013. The new version of CRM also introduces a new team type called Access Teams. Two fundamental differences between an Owner Team and an Access Team involve ownership and sharing. As the name implies, a member of an Owner Team inherits permissions to the records because the team owns the record. Access Teams are different in that permissions are granted to the records via sharing.

Now that there are two team types, when should you use one over the other? Since owner teams are a known concept with the two previous releases of CRM, only the best practice of when to use them will be defined in comparison to access teams.

Owner Teams

• Best where teams access high volumes of data, via ownership or business unit access
• When a security role is required to access records scoped by a business need
• Teams used as service scheduling resource must be owner teams

Access Teams

• Rapidly changing team memberships
• Allows for >1,000 team memberships per user
• Individual record based access
• Owner of the record allowed to define access to other users
• Can accommodate varying levels of group access types to records