In this blog i am going to share some very common functions used in dyamics 365.After the deprecation of javascript utilities like Xrm.Page all the javascript implementations needs to be updated with executioncontext .I will demonstrate first example in brief to explain you how to use these functions .Lets discuss these functions one by one below.

1. Get Value of an attribute GetValue()

function GetValue(formContext, formAttr) {
        try {
            return formContext.getAttribute(formAttr).getValue();
        } catch (e) {
            Alert(e.message + " - " + formAttr);
            return null;
        }
    }

The above function takes two input parameters formcontext and formAttr . Formcontext is executionContext.getFormContext(); where executioncontext is the passed parameter on function call.As shown in below screenshot check the execution context flag.

function performsomeaction(executionContext) {
var formContext = executionContext.getFormContext();
var namevalue=Getvalue(formContext,"formAttr");
// logic to lock fields on the basis of value 
}

In the above code i have demonstrated the use of Getvalue function in performsomeaction function. This will return us the value of the attribute passed.

2.Set Value of an attribute SetValue()

 function SetValue(formContext, formAttr, value) {
        try {
            formContext.getAttribute(formAttr).setValue(value);
        }
        catch (e) {
            Alert(e.message + " - " + formAttr);
        }
    }

The above function takes three input parameters formcontext ,formAttr same as the first function and value contains value to be set for the given attribute. This function will set the value of the atribute as per the value provided in the parameter.This is not used for lookup values as lookup values takes array as an input.

3. Set value of a Lookup SetLookupValue()

function SetLookupValue(formcontext, fieldName, id, name, entityType) {
             if (fieldName != null) {
            if (id.indexOf('{') === -1)
                id = '{' + id;
            if (id.indexOf('}') === -1)
                id = id + '}';
            id = id.toUpperCase();
            var lookupValue = new Array();
            lookupValue[0] = new Object();
            lookupValue[0] = {};
            lookupValue[0].id = id;
            lookupValue[0].name = name;
            lookupValue[0].entityType = entityType;

            formcontext.getAttribute(fieldName).setValue(lookupValue);

        }

The above function takes 5 input parameters that is formcontext,fieldname,id,name and entitytype. First two parameters are common as above where as id is the lookup record guid to set,name is the name of the lookup record with corresponding id and entitytype is the name of entity of which the lookup record belongs to. SetLookupValue(formcontext,”lookupname”,GUIDoftherecord,”Record name”,Testentity);

4.Set filter to a Lookup Addfilter()

function Addfilter(formContext, fetchquery, formAttr) {
        try {
            formContext.getControl(formAttr).addCustomFilter(fetchquery);
        } catch (e) {

            Alert(e.message + " - " + formAttr);
        }

    }

The above function takes 3 input parameters formcontext,formAttr and fetchquery.
Formcontext and formattr are the common parameters that is the executioncontext and attribute name where as fetchquery is the filter condition for that lookup.

5.Hide / Show Field HideShowField()

function HideShowField(formContext, formAttr, bool) {
            try {
                formContext.getControl(formAttr).setVisible(bool);
            }
            catch (e) {
                Alert(e.message + " - " + formAttr);
            }
        }

The above function is used to hide or show a particular field. It takes 3 input parameters
formcontext,formAttr and bool . The first 2 parameters are common parameters where as bool is the true or false value used to hide or show the attribute. Pass true in case you want to show a hidden field and pass false if you want to hide a field.

6.Hide or Show Section HideShowSection()

 function HideShowSection(formContext, section, tab, bool) {
        try {
            formContext.ui.tabs.get(tab).sections.get(section).setVisible(bool);
        }
        catch (e) {
            Alert(e.message + " - " + section);
        }
    }

The above function is used to hide or show a section on the form.It takes 4 input parameters formContext which is the formcontext ,section is the name of the section,tab is the name of the tab under which the section is and bool has true or false.If you want to hide the section you can pass false and and if you want to make the section visible you can pass true. HideShowSection(formContext, sectionname, tabname, true) will be used to hide .

7.Hide or Show Tab hideshowtab()

function hideshowtab(formContext, tab, bool) {
        try {
            formContext.ui.tabs.get(tab).setVisible(bool);
        }
        catch (e) {
            Alert(e.message + " - " + section);
        }
    },

The above function is used to hide a tab on form. It takes 3 input parameters fromcontext, tab which will be the name of the tab and bool that is true or false.

8.Lock Unlock Fields Lockfields()

function Lockfields(formContext, fieldAttr, bool) {
        try {
            formContext.ui.controls.get(fieldAttr).setDisabled(bool);
        }
        catch (e) {
            Alert(e.message + " - " + fieldAttr);
        }

    }

The above function is used to lock or unlock fields on form.It takes 3 input parameters formcontext, fieldAttr and bool which will be the true or false.Use true to lock the fields and false to unlock the fields.

9.Set fields Mandatory/Non Mandatory

  function setrequiredlevel(formContext, formAttr, level) {
        try {
            formContext.getAttribute(formAttr).setRequiredLevel(level);
        }
        catch (e) {
            Alert(e.message + " - " + formAttr);
        }

    }

The Above function is used to set the requiredlevel of the field.It takes 3 parameters as input formcontext,formAttr and level where level can be as below three –

• none – It is used to set a field non mandatory
• required-It is used to set a field mandatory
• recommended-It is used to set a field business recommended

You can use the above parameters in level to set the required level of the field.

10.Alert function Alert()

Alert(displayMessage) {
        Xrm.Navigation.openAlertDialog(
            {
                confirmButtonLabel: "OK",
                text: displayMessage
            },
            {
                height: 150,
                width: 300
            });
    }

The above function is used for Alert Pop . It takes on input parameter displayMessage which is the message which is to be displayed.
As you can see all the functions above i have used this Alert function in catch block for exception.
The above function can used in one global javascript file and can be used in all the forms as per your requirement.
Hope this helps you and Thank you for reading ……………. 🙂
You can connect me on LinkedIn.

In this blog I will try to demonstrate further steps after connecting our dynamics CRM instance to Azure functions using webhooks. You can refer my first blog to get step by step guide on Azure functions with dynamics 365 here.Now we have the json request of CRM in httprequestmessage req Object as parameter as per the previous blog. The question arises how can we execute azure function under CRM context like we do in plugin?

Read JSON data from the Httprequestmessage :

When plugin triggers and invokes a WebHook, three types of data received in the request i.e. Query String, Header Data and Request Body. The Request body contains a string that represents the JSON value of the RemoteExecutionContext class. This class defines the contextual information sent to a remote service endpoint at run-time. Below code snippet reads the content from the HttpRequestMessage and converts the received JSON string to proper deserializable JSON string.

Parse JSON string to RemoteExecutionContext object:

Below code snippet deserialize the JSON string to RemoteExecutionContext object.

#r "bin/Newtonsoft.Json.dll"
#r "bin/Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.dll"
#r "bin/System.Runtime.Serialization.dll"

using System.Net;
using System.Dynamic;
using System.Text;
public static async Task<HttpResponseMessage> Run(HttpRequestMessage req, TraceWriter log)
{
   string jsonContext = await req.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
   log.Info("Read context: " + jsonContext);

   jsonContext = FormatJson(jsonContext);
   log.Info("Formatted JSON Context string: " + jsonContext);

   Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.RemoteExecutionContext remoteExecutionContext = DeserializeJsonString<Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.RemoteExecutionContext>(jsonContext);
}

/// <summary>
/// Function to deserialize JSON string using DataContractJsonSerializer
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="RemoteContextType">RemoteContextType Generic Type</typeparam>
/// <param name="jsonString">string jsonString</param>
/// <returns>Generic RemoteContextType object</returns>
public static RemoteContextType DeserializeJsonString<RemoteContextType>(string jsonString)
{
    //create an instance of generic type object
    RemoteContextType obj = Activator.CreateInstance<RemoteContextType>();
    MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(jsonString));
    System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer serializer = new System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer(obj.GetType());
    obj = (RemoteContextType)serializer.ReadObject(ms);
    ms.Close();
    return obj;
}

In the above code snippet when we pass deserialised json string to the remocontexttype function it returns the remoteexecutioncontext of the plugin depending on which message webhook was registered.
Please Note: Add reference of following dlls,

• Xrm.Sdk.dll
• Runtime.Serialization.dll

Now we have the execution context we can read the values as we do for plugins.

//read Plugin Message Name
    string messageName = remoteExecutionContext.MessageName;
    //read execution depth of plugin
    Int32 depth = remoteExecutionContext.Depth;
    //read BusinessUnitId
    Guid businessUnitid = remoteExecutionContext.BusinessUnitId;
    //read Target Entity 
    Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Entity targetEntity = (Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Entity)remoteExecutionContext.InputParameters["Target"];

    //read attribute from Target Entity
    string phoneNumber = targetEntity.Attributes["telephone1"].ToString();
    log.Info("Message Name: " + messageName);
    log.Info("BusinessUnitId: " + businessUnitid);
    log.Info("Plugin Depth: " + depth);

    log.Info("TargetEntity Logical Name: " + targetEntity.LogicalName);
    log.Info("Phone Number: " + phoneNumber);

The steps given above describes how to Parse JSON string that represents the Dynamics 365 plugin execution context received in Azure Function.Hope this helps and thank you for reading .All the best 🙂