Dynamics 365 – Pre-Operation Plugin

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

These plugins execute before the main system operation and within the database transaction. They run after the pre-validation has occurred. This is used for modifying/updating any attributes (note you can also technically do this in pre-validation). If you are creating a record, as the record is not created at this point, you will not have a record GUID (that is where post-operation comes in).

Create a new class library in Visual Studio:

Add Microsoft.CrmSdk.CoreAssemblies through NuGet:

Add IPlugin with Execute method:

Add the code. In this example, we will update the Ticker Symbol field of the account. When a ticker symbol is entered, we will user what the user entered and change it to NYSE: <user entered ticker symbol>, just for the demo.

You can use get and set the attributes in two ways. Way 1:

// Get the current attribute value
var tickersymbol = entity["tickersymbol"].ToString();

// Update the attribute
entity["tickersymbol"] = "NYSE: " + tickersymbol;

Or way 2:

// Get the current attribute value
var tickersymbol = entity.Attributes["tickersymbol"].ToString();

// Update the attribute
entity.Attributes["tickersymbol"] = "NYSE2: " + tickersymbol;

Full code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;

namespace Carl.PluginPreOperationSample
{
    public class UpdateAccount : IPlugin
    {
        public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
        {
            try
            {
                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("tickersymbol") == true)
                        {
                            // Get the current attribute value
                            var tickersymbol = entity["tickersymbol"].ToString();

                            // Update the attribute
                            entity["tickersymbol"] = "NYSE: " + tickersymbol;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (InvalidPluginExecutionException e)
            {
                // catch exception
                throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException("An error has occurred: " + e.Message);
            }
        }
    }
}

Register the plugin. Note this needs to be Synchronous and it cannot be async as it is PreOperation:

Running this, if we enter a ticker symbol and save the record, it will update based on the code:

Debugging this, we can see we are in stage 20 (pre-operation), inside a transaction (IsInTransaction=true):

ABOUT CARL DE SOUZA

Carl de Souza is a developer and architect focusing on Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power BI, Azure, and AI.

carldesouza.com | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube

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