executionContext hits the big time!

You've seen the executionContext in the event registration dialog and you might even have used it on occasion. Well with the release of Dynamic 365 Customer Engagement Version 9, it has been elevated to be the replacement for Xrm.Page. The document describing the replacement for Xrm.Page details it... [More]

Not all Business Process Flow entities are created equal

As you probably know by now, when you create Business Process Flows in 8.2+ you'll get a new custom entity that is used to store running instances (if not then read my post on the new Business Process Flow entities). When your orgs are upgraded to 8.2 from a previous version then the business proce... [More]

Simplified Connection Management & Thread Safety (Revisited)

There is one certainty in the world and that is that things don't stay the same! In the Dynamics 365 world, this is no exception, with new features and SDK features being released with a pleasing regularity. Writing 'revisited' posts has become somewhat of a regular thing these days. In my previous... [More]

Option-Set, Lookup or Autocomplete

In the constant struggle to improve data quality it is common to avoid using free-text fields in favour of select fields. This approach has the advantage of ensuring that data is entered consistently such that it can easily be searched and reported upon. There are a number of choices of approaches ... [More]

Manage your SDK assemblies the easy way

NuGet has become the de-facto way of managing assembly references from within Visual Studio. Using the Package Manager you can easily download, install, update and uninstall referenced libraries automatically from the ever growing NuGet library repository. In the past there was an unofficial packag... [More]

Do you understand MergeOptions?

If you use LINQ queries with the OrganizationServiceContext then understanding MergeOptions is vital. At the end of this post I describe the most common 'gotcha' that comes from not fully understanding this setting. The OrganizationServiceContext implements a version of the 'Unit of Work' pattern (... [More]

Dynamics CRM DateTimes - the last word?

The subject of DateTimes in Dynamics CRM 2011 seems to always raises its ugly head on every project – I thought I'd try and create a guide for developers on future projects on how to deal with DateTimes in Dynamics CRM 2011. Time Zones Dynamics CRM stored Date/Time fields in the database ... [More]

CRM Developer ‘Must Know’ #2: Web Resource Caching

With the introduction of Web Resources in CRM 2011 the task of adding custom user interface functionality (beyond simple JavaScript) has become a whole lot easier to build and deploy. The fact that web resource are part of the solution means that there is no need to have custom deployment routines t... [More]