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Lookup data from a related entity (Lookup) using JScript and the XrmServiceToolkit

Carlton Colter — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:22:56 +0000

Do you need the value from a related entity, like a lookup? I had written this for CRM 4 a while back, and people use it, but I occasionally get questions about looking up other values in CRM. This bit of code will help you find those values on a related object. Below are two options to do this. Option 1: using the REST SDK and JSON2, and then Option 2: using Jaimie Ji’s XRM Service Toolkit.

Jaimie Ji’s XRM Service Toolkit provides a comprehensive set of JScript libraries for interacting with the SOAP and REST SDK through JavaScript. While Option 1 in this particular use case is fairly simple, when you start needing to do more advanced things, you may want to look at using that kit. It is fairly comprehensive and he keeps it up to date.

Option 1: Using the REST SDK and JSON2

Using the REST SDK is great, and there are some really good examples in the CRM SDK help file. Now in order to use the below code-block, you need to use JSON.

JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a text format that is used to interchange data. JSON2.js is a lightweight javascript that convert the strings to javascript objects and vice-versa. The CRM REST SDK can return data in JSON format.

To get the code for JSON2, you can go here. You will need to embed this code into your javascript file or include json2.js along with the code below. Without it, you will not be able to parse the data properly, and the code below uses the JSON library in json2.js.

Ok, below we have 3 functions:

getServerUrl : which gets the server URL – taken from the CrmRestKit
Lookup_Changed : what you call when a lookup is changed
retrieveReqCallBack : the callback function that performs any actions

You would put Lookup_Changed in the change event of a lookup field and specify the attributes like one of the following:

‘contactid’,'Contact’,'contactlookup’
‘contactid’,'Contact’,'contactlookup’,['Telephone1']
‘contactid’,'Contact’,'contactlookup’,['Telephone1','FullName]

Then you’d put your actions inside the retrieveReqCallBack.

function getServerUrl() {
    // From CrmRestKit.js
    var localServerUrl = window.location.protocol + "/" + window.location.host;
    var context = parent.Xrm.Page.context;

    if (context.isOutlookClient() && !context.isOutlookOnline()) {
        return localServerUrl;
    }
    else {
        var crmServerUrl = context.getServerUrl();
        crmServerUrl = crmServerUrl.replace(/^(http|https):\/\/([_a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+)(:([0-9]{1,5}))?/, localServerUrl);
        crmServerUrl = crmServerUrl.replace(/\/$/, "");
    }
    return crmServerUrl;
}

function Lookup_Changed(attributeName, entityName, callbackId, columns) {
    var serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl();
    var ODataPath = serverUrl + "/XRMServices/2011/OrganizationData.svc";

    var lookup = Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get(attributeName).getValue();
    if (lookup===null) {
        return false;
    }

    var id = lookup[0].id;
    if (id == null) {
        return false;
    }

    var retrieveReq = new XMLHttpRequest();

    var url = ODataPath + "/"+entityName+"Set(guid'" + id + "')";
    if (columns !== undefined && columns !== null) {
        url = url + "?$select=" + columns.join(',');
    }

    retrieveReq.open("GET", url, true);
    retrieveReq.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");
    retrieveReq.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json; charset=utf-8");
    retrieveReq.onreadystatechange = function () {
        if (this.readyState == 4 /* complete */) {
            if (this.status == 200) {
                var data;
                var jData;
                jData = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
                if (jData && jData.d && jData.d.results && jData.d.results.length > 0) {
                    data = jData.d.results[0];
                } else if (jData && jData.d) {
                    data = jData.d;
                }

                if (data == null) {
                    return;
                }
                retrieveReqCallBack(callbackId, data);
            }
        }
    };
    retrieveReq.send();
    return true;
}

function retrieveReqCallBack(calltype, data) {
    var toLookup=function(data) {
        if (data==null || data=="" || (data.Id==null)) {
            return null;
        }

        var result=new Array();
        result[0] = {};
        result[0].id = data.Id;
        result[0].name = data.Name;
        result[0].entityType = data.LogicalName;
        return result;
    }

    switch (calltype) {
        case 'pricelookup':
            Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get("new_pricecategorylookup").setValue(toLookup(c.new_pricecategorylookup);
            break;
        case 'contactlookup':
            Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get("insp_poctelephonenumber").setValue(c.Telephone1);
            break;
        default:
            break;
    }
}

Option 2: Using the XrmServiceToolkit with similar functions

Ok, now let’s assume you are using the XRM Service Toolkit, and you want to do the same thing, using a Lookup_Changed function and the retrieveReqCallBack function. Instead of embedding JSON and a method to get the server url, you can use the following:

function Lookup_Changed(attributeName, entityName, callbackId, columns) {
    var lookup = Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get(attributeName).getValue();
    if (lookup===null) {
        return false;
    }

    if (lookup[0].id == null) {
        return false;
    }

	XrmServiceToolkit.Rest.Retrieve(
        entityName,
        lookup[0].id,
        columns,
		null,
        function (result) {
            retrieveReqCallBack(callbackId, result);
        },
        function (error) {
            throw error;
        },
		true
    );
}

function retrieveReqCallBack(calltype, data) {
    var toLookup=function(data) {
        if (data==null || data=="" || (data.Id==null)) {
            return null;
        }

        var result=new Array();
        result[0] = {};
        result[0].id = data.Id;
        result[0].name = data.Name;
        result[0].entityType = data.LogicalName;
        return result;
    }

    switch (calltype) {
        case 'pricelookup':
            Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get("new_pricecategorylookup").setValue(toLookup(c.new_pricecategorylookup);
            break;
        case 'contactlookup':
            Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get("insp_poctelephonenumber").setValue(c.Telephone1);
            break;
        default:
            break;
    }
}

The XRM Service Toolkit does a lot, and I would suggest checking it out.

CRM2011: Attachment Image Browser HTML Web Resource

Carlton Colter — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 03:59:32 +0000

Ok, a lot of people have been asking on the forums about how to display images that are attached to your CRM entity. To help with that, here is a web-resource that will display images and fit them to the area allotted. If you have more than 1 picture it will show some previous and next buttons below the photo. The general idea here is to not only display an image on the form, but work across multiple browsers (and systems). Leveraging JQuery and the REST SDK, this attachment image web-resource is a quick-and-easy image control, granted it doesn’t include all of the features the Silverlight CRMAttachmentImage control does.

Below you can see an example of what it looks like. YOu can download the managed solution here and the unmanaged solution here.

You can specify the height and width in the parameters.

height:200|width:100

The image will resize to scale.



  Image Browser
  
  
  
  



  
  
  No Pictures

Thanks to Willington’s Blog for the sandbox jquery function.

InfoPath to CRM: Accepting Emailed InfoPath Forms

Carlton Colter — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:05:51 +0000

Everybody loves to use InfoPath forms. And let’s face it, we all wish we could just take them and put them into CRM. What I’ve written is a simple way to do that without the hassle of figuring out how to bind the InfoPath form schema to a custom WCF service. It still doesn’t do everything I want it to, but it works, so I figured I’d go ahead and put it out there for everyone to look at, play with, and even use.

If you are interested in this solution, you can download the following:

Managed Solution (this is the only thing you need)
Unmanaged Solution (in case you want to modify mine, like add grid support, it is on my to-do list)
Source Code (this is in case you would prefer to use a WCF service or if you just want to play around with my code)

Once you’ve installed the managed solution, you’ll need to do the following to create / setup an InfoPath form:

For this particular InfoPath integration, you need to create InfoPath Forms that mirror a CRM Entity.
Note: You can always create a new entity for the form data.
Rename the default form Group to the name of the entity (ex: Contact)
Inside CRM create the InfoPath form (it is an entity included in the solution), select the entity and save the form.
Once it has been saved, you can copy the ID using the “Copy ID” link in the header.

Note: If you do not select the Allow Any CRM Field checkbox, you will need to add the individual Fields, which can be found in the left navigation.
In the InfoPath Form Designer, add a field named SubmissionCode with the Default Value as the ID you just copied.

Note: Using the submission code allows us to check and see if the form is valid, active, and allowed.
Add a field for each of the fields in CRM that you want to be available, selecting the appropriate data type.

Note: Unfortunately I have not had the time to test the fields and have been using the checkbox on the infopath form record to enable any/all CRM fields. However, I did not want to delay releasing the code and information as it currently is. If someone identifies a problem with this or any other section of the code, I’ll be happy to look into it and work on resolving the issue.
Layout the fields on the form, then click File > Submit Options > To Email
Enter the Queue email or where you want new forms to be submitted.
Click Next.
Click Finish.
Save and close the form designer.
Open the form and test submission.

Once the email comes into CRM, the process of reading the form is easy; you just open it up and click the Import InfoPath button on the ribbon.

Usually I would post the source-code and comment on how it works in great detail, but this time, it really depends on which component. There is a plugin and WCF service written in C# as well as two Jscript files, one for the buttons and one for the InfoPath form inside CRM that creates a drop-down of the entities in CRM. I would suggest downloading the unmanaged solution and source-code if you want to delve into those items.

Now, for complex situations or form conversions, binding the InfoPath schema is the way to go. Using that method (the one described in detail on Philo’s Weblog) you can import the InfoPath form schema into Visual Studio:

Create an InfoPath form and lay it out the way you want it.
Extract the form files (File | Extract Form Files) to a location you can find later.
Close the InfoPath form designer.
Open the Visual Studio command prompt.
Change to the directory where you extracted the files
cd c:\myinfopathfiles
Run xsd against the myschema.xsd in that directory, and specify the namespace you would like to use.
Note: My WCF namespace is CrmInfoPathService and my plugin namespace is InfoPathPlugin.
xsd.exe myschema.xsd /classes /l:cs /n:InfoPathPlugin
Then you can deserialize the xml into the object and store it in CRM or any other system using the logic embedded in your code.

The key point to my solution was not to do something that everyone does on occasion, but to make something so that I can leverage it in the future and not have to create a new integration every time I wanted to leverage a new form. Now, on that note, here are the list of things that if you delve into, I’d like to know, a.k.a. my to-do list for this project:

Add a button onto the grid for activities
Create a way to handle child entities.
Modify the plugin/WCF code to link the created entities to the form email using connections.
Change the button on the form to monitor for the results (success/failure) and report back to the user.
Any great ideas my readers think should be added!

Changing OptionSet Values on Yes/No Form Field Change

Carlton Colter — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:17:12 +0000

Recently I’ve received some questions on how to change the optionset (previously called picklist) values in CRM 2011 the same way I did in my previous CRM 4 post about using the OnChange event of a yes/no field to change the values of a picklist.

This technet page shows the methods available for the different types of controls.

Here is an example of how to change the optionset based on a yes/no field:

function BuildOptionSet(picklist, valuelist)
{
	picklist.clearOptions();
	for(var i=0; i
You just need to change the values of lista and listb and the YesNo and OptionSet lines to reflect the fields on your form, and add it to the onchange event of the dropdown Yes/No form field.

CRM 2011: Slider Form Control Web Resource

Carlton Colter — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:23:11 +0000

Here is another web-resource html control to expand your CRM forms. It is a slider control for CRM with step control.

Below is an example of the slider control in action, and you can click here to download a solution to import the web-resources into your CRM deployment (it is a managed solution with no entities, just like the star rating control). If you want the unmanaged solution you can download it here.

Ok, once you have the web-resource loaded into your CRM deployment, you’ll need to create a new field to store the slider value and put it on the form, but uncheck the visible box.

Add the Web-Resource to the form, check the box to display the label on the form, and then enter your parameters. I like using a pipe separator. The available parameters are:

min: minimum value
max: maximum value
field: the CRM field to store the value in
step: the step increase
stepoverride: don’t use the step when a value is manually entered

Make sure to click on the formatting tab and set the number of rows to 1, scrolling to Never, and uncheck the box to display the border.

Then move the hidden field down and out the way. If you have a lot of fields you are accessing through form scripts you could just drop them into a hidden section.

Here is the code for the slider control HTML web resource.



  Slider Control

Thanks to Manish Mistry comment on my star control for refreshing the iframe when you change the value, you could do the same on this control. However, you could also just set the value and update the position. The only reason I get the control’s object and it’s id is because I’m not 100% sure the id will always match, even though all my tests indicate it does.

var control = Xrm.Page.ui.controls.get('WebResource_Score');
var id      = control.getObject().id;
var frame   = document.frames[id];
frame.Slider.Value = 50;
frame.Slider.UpdatePosition();

One of my TODO’s is to join my web resources HTML form controls into a single library once I have enough of them so that people can leverage them in an easier manner. If anyone has any ideas for custom controls for Dynamics CRM, let me know and I’ll see if I can build it.

CRM 2011: Star Rating Form Control

Carlton Colter — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:06:14 +0000

To expand on the technique used for my previous post on making the state field a drop down here is a star rating field control so that you can get a nice visual star rating control that is configurable.

Below is an example of the star rating control in action, and you can click here to download a solution to import the web-resources into your CRM deployment (it is a managed solution with no entities).

Ok, once you have the web-resource loaded into your CRM deployment, you’ll need to create a new field to store the rating and put it on the form, but uncheck the visible box.

Add the Web-Resource to the form, and check the box to display the label on the form.

Then enter your parameters (I like using a pipe as a separator). The available parameters are:

min: minimum star rating – really should always be 1
max: maximum star rating – maybe 5 or 10
field: the CRM field to store the value in
showvalue: whether or not to display the numerical value

Make sure to click on the formatting tab and set the number of rows to 1, scrolling to Never, and check the box to display the border.

Then move the hidden field down and out the way. If you have a lot of fields you are accessing through form scripts you could just drop them into a hidden section.

Now that you know how to set it up, let’s go ahead and look at the code.



  Rating Control

These are the image files used:

(they are hidden in the managed solution)

Use Microsoft Translator to translate text in CRM (Button on Ribbon)

Carlton Colter — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:58:19 +0000

Do you have issues receiving request or information in various languages and need it translated to English (or another language)? I found the need to translate something from any language to english just so when someone submits a case or puts some notes in another language it can quickly be translated.

Here is what my bing translator integration looks like.

You can download an unmanaged solution to implement the bing translator for cases, letters, tasks, and emails, you can download it here: Translate_1_0.zip. It will not modify your forms, but if you have unmanaged ribbon buttons on those entities, it will remove them. So to avoid that problem you can install the unmanaged solution with the JScript (that you need to edit to set your bing api key) and the images, and then follow the RibbonDiff guide in the SDK to add the buttons, or install the managed solution to add the button to the ribbons for cases, letters, tasks, and emails.

To start, I created a JScript file to include as a web-resource that I could leverage when a button is clicked on the ribbon. This JScript file utilizes the Bing Translation WebServices to translate text.

YOU WILL NEED TO EDIT THE JSCRIPT FILE AND CHANGE ‘YOUR API KEY GOES HERE’ TO CONTAIN YOUR API KEY.

var bing = {};
bing.popup = {};
bing.language = {};

bing.appId = 'YOUR API KEY GOES HERE';
bing.language.text = '';
bing.language.from = '';
bing.language.to = 'en';

bing.language.detect = function (text,oncomplete)
{
  var src = "https://api.microsofttranslator.com/V2/Ajax.svc/Detect?oncomplete=" +
      oncomplete + "&appId="+ bing.appId + "&text=" + text;
  var s = document.createElement("script");
  s.src = src;
  s.id = "bingdetect";
  document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(s);
}

bing.language.translate = function(from,to,text,oncomplete)
{
  var src = "https://api.microsofttranslator.com/V2/Ajax.svc/Translate?oncomplete=" +
      oncomplete + "&appId=" + bing.appId + "&from=" + from +
      "&to=" + to + "&text=" + text;

  var s = document.createElement("script");
  s.src = src;
  s.id = "bingtranslate";
  document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(s);
}

bing.popup.show = function(text)
{
  var idiv = document.createElement('div');
  idiv.id = "bingtext";
  idiv.style.height = "265px";
  idiv.style.width = "306px";
  idiv.style.align = "left";
  idiv.style.textAlign = "left";
  idiv.style.backgroundColor = "white";
  idiv.style.overflow = "auto";
  idiv.style.padding = "2px";
  idiv.style.margin = "2px";
  idiv.style.border = "1px solid black";
  idiv.innerHTML =  ""+text+"";

  var iurl = Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl();
  iurl += "WebResources/tran_img/translatelogo.gif";

  var img = document.createElement('img');
  img.src = iurl;

  var div = document.createElement('div');
  div.id = "bingpopup";
  div.appendChild(img);
  div.appendChild(idiv);
  div.innerHTML += "  ";
  div.innerHTML += "";
  div.style.position = "absolute";
  div.style.backgroundColor = "#20415F";
  div.style.border="1px solid black";
  div.style.left = "50%";
  div.style.top = "50%";
  div.style.color = "black";
  div.style.padding = "5px";
  div.style.width = "320px";
  div.style.height = "340px";
  div.style.marginLeft = "-160px";
  div.style.marginTop = "-170px";
  div.setAttribute("align","center");
  document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].appendChild(div);
}

bing.popup.hide = function()
{
  var deleteElement = function(id) {
    var el = document.getElementById(id);
    el.parentNode.removeChild(el);
  }

  deleteElement("bingpopup");
  deleteElement("bingdetect");
  deleteElement("bingtranslate");
}

bing.popup.copy = function()
{
  var el = document.getElementById('bingtext');

  if (window.clipboardData && window.clipboardData.setData)
  {
    window.clipboardData.setData("Text", el.innerText);
  }
}

bing.getSelectedText = function (p)
{
  if (p.getSelection)
  {
    text = p.getSelection();
  }
  else if (p.selection)
  {
    text = p.selection.createRange().text;
  }
  return text;
}

// get current control
bing.language.toolbarClick = function (ctrl)
{
  var text = '';
  if (window.getSelection)
  {
    text = window.getSelection();
  }
  else {
    text = bing.getSelectedText(document);
  }

  if (text==null || text=='') {
    if (ctrl==null) {
      ctrl = Xrm.Page.ui.getCurrentControl();
    }

    var entityName = Xrm.Page.data.entity.getEntityName();
    if (ctrl==null && entityName.match(/letter|email|task/)) {
      ctrl = Xrm.Page.ui.controls.get('description');
    }

    if (ctrl==null) {
      alert('Please highlight the text to translate.');
      return;
    }

    if (ctrl.getControlType()!="standard") {
      return; // only standard
    }

    if (ctrl.getName()=="notescontrol") {
      text = bing.getSelectedText(document.frames['notescontrol'].document);
      if (text==null || text == "") {
        alert('Please highlight the text to translate.');
      }
    }

    if (text == null || text == "") {
      var attr = ctrl.getAttribute();
      if (attr!=null) {
        var t = attr.getAttributeType();
        if (t.match(/string|memo/))
        {
          text = attr.getValue();
        }
      }
    }
  }

  if (text == null || text == "") {
    // Nothing to translate
    return;
  }  

  text = encodeURIComponent(text);
  bing.language.text = text;

  bing.language.from = '';
  bing.language.detect(text,"translate");
}

window.translate = function (response)
{
  bing.language.from = response;
  bing.language.translate(bing.language.from,bing.language.to,bing.language.text,"translated");
}

window.translated = function (response)
{
  bing.popup.show(response);
}

The JScript uses the Bing Translate logo image (WebResources/tran_img/translatelogo.gif – you may need to change the path in the JScript):

I added some images for Microsoft Translate button images:

16×16 image
tran_icontranslate_16x16.png

32×32 image
tran_icontranslate_32x32.png

Then I added the buttons to the ribbons on the entities I wanted to have bing translation capabilities by following the SDK guidelines to add a button. Here is the RibbonDiffXml for a case. You can follow the guide to change it to be on different entities.