Dynamics 365 – Pre-validation Plugin

As per the Event Execution Pipeline for plugins in Dynamics 365, here we will look at a pre-validation plugin.

These plugins execute before the main system operation and outside the database transaction. Pre-validation runs before validation occurs. You can also modify values at this stage, though this may be generally done in pre-operation. If you are creating a record, as the record is not created at this point, you will not have a record GUID.

In Visual Studio, create a new Class Library:

Through NuGet, add the latest Microsoft.CrmSdk.CoreAssemblies:

Add:

using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;

We will call our class UpdateAccount, IPlugin with an Execute method:

Add the code. We will update the fax number of the account:

[sourcecode language=”CSharp”] using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;

namespace Carl.PluginPreValidationSample
{
public class UpdateAccount : IPlugin
{
public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
{
IPluginExecutionContext context = (IPluginExecutionContext)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));

if (context.InputParameters.Contains("Target") && context.InputParameters["Target"] is Entity)
{
Entity entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters["Target"];

if (entity.LogicalName == "account")
{
if (entity.Attributes.Contains("fax") == false)
{
entity.Attributes.Add("fax", "1112221111");
}
}
}
}
}
}

[/sourcecode]

Sign the assembly:

Now open the Plugin Registration Tool and register:

Click Register Selected Plugins:

Click Register New Step. We make this an update to account, pre-validation:

Note as this is pre-validation, it needs to be synchronous and cannot be asynchronous.

Now we can test this. On an account record, insert a fax number:

After saving and refreshing, we can see the fax has been overwritten by our plugin:

We can see if we run this in the debugger, the Execution Pipeline stage is 10 (pre-event, pre-validation). As this executes outside the database, the IsInTransaction is false: