Overwrite customizations when deploying a patch solution

Solution segmentation has greatly improved since Dynamics CRM 2016. You are able to deploy small fixes to your production environment by the use of a patch solution. This reduces the risk of unintentionally modifying objects on the target deployment. More information and getting started with patch solutions can be found on msdn. Unfortunately an important …

Debug your custom code (plug-ins & custom workflow activities) using the plug-in profiler

I'm a big fan of unit testing your custom code to prevent errors from ever occuring in the system. However it is not unlikely that QA can still report an issue that is related to your custom code. You will have to ask QA for a replication log, the replication log should describe the specific steps …

LINQPad and Dynamics CRM

I recently came across a program called LINQPad and decided to give it a try. What is LINQPad LINQPad is a software utility targeted at Microsoft .NET development. You can use the tool to write C# code without the need for an IDE (Visual Studio for example) and quickly prototype your code. On their website they state: Put …

Update status (statecode & statuscode) of a CRM record using C#

Prior to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 (update 1) we had to use special messages when updating special fields. Those special fields include the record’s status (statecode, statuscode), the owner of the record (ownerid), etc. The full list of those special messages can be found on msdn, here. Now since those special messages are deprecated we …

Plugin Registration Tool: Could not load file or assembly

When registering a new assembly in the Plugin Registration Tool you might encounter the error "Could not load file or assembly". The reason you are receiving this error message is because the file is blocked. When downloading dlls from external recources, Windows might automatically block the file(s) as a security measure. When you are sure the file …

Create record with related record(s) in a single request using C#

Creating a record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM using C# is pretty straightforward. When you try to create a record together with some related records in the same request, you should use the RelatedEntities property of the parent entity (msdn). The RelatedEntities property requires the relationship name and a collection of entities. To acquire the correct relationship name you should check your customization: …

Execute a Dynamics CRM Workflow from C#

Executing a Workflow from code requires a different approach than executing a custom action from code. This post describes why.