Dynamics CRM 2013 Workflow C# Extract Field from Linked Entity

Question

I'm trying to get a field from a related CRM Entity in a Dynamics CRM 2013 Workflow. The below code returns the mapped entity but it isn't referencing the matching record in the entity.

How can I update it so it runs the below query against two matched entity Guids? Do I need to use EntityReference?

   QueryExpression FindAddressLots = new QueryExpression(context.PrimaryEntityName);
                    FindAddressLots.LinkEntities.Add
                      (new LinkEntity(context.PrimaryEntityName, "appdetails_data", "applicationdetailsid", "appdetails_dataid", JoinOperator.Inner));
        
             FindAddressLots.LinkEntities[0].Columns.AddColumns("appdetails_dataid", "suburb", "postcode");
    FindAddressLots.LinkEntities[0].EntityAlias = "lotdata";
        
    EntityCollection ec = service.RetrieveMultiple(FindAddressLots);
        
                    foreach (Entity act in ec.Entities)
                    {
        
                      if (act.Attributes.Contains("lotdata.suburb"))
                        {
                          FindAddressLots = act.GetAttributeValue<AliasedValue>("lotdata.suburb").Value.ToString();
                         }
                    }
                }

Any suggestions? This would be much appreciated. Thanks.

few observations/questions. Are you sure your main Entity schema name is` address_linked_view. If yes does your address_linked_view` have field addressStreet As the error mentioned in questions talks about addressStreet I would request for narrowing down issue do not add any linked entity to your queryexpression and try only with main entity and see if it still throws error. — AnkUser
Hi Ankuser. I removed the LinkEntity and ran with the primary entity. I got the same error with the primary entity. Thanks for the suggestion to check before Linked entity. Do I need to republish my organization web service? I haven't added any new fields (this is an existing field). — Michael
so we can narrow it down your address_linked_view entity does not have addressStreet field/attribute. You might have to go to your system and check whether such field exist. It can also be that schema name of your field is different. Also just for rechecking could you add your newly shredded code as well. — AnkUser
Hi AnkUser. the addressStreet is in the CRM Entity of address_linked_view. I checked in our CRM system and the entity and attribute are there. addressStreet does not exist in the main entity — Michael
What do you mean by not in main entity? I think you are missing some points here . I would highly recommend you add some screenshot of your address_linked_view entity and also your filed addressStreet field. I still feel field is not in the addrees_linked_view entity. — AnkUser

Guido Preite Guido Preite · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-02T10:20:28

Let's clarify one thing first: we don't know the type of field suburb, in my code I will assume it's a string but it can be something else.

Query code can be rewritten as the following (link properties, columns and alias are the same):

QueryExpression queryAddressLots = new QueryExpression(context.PrimaryEntityName);
LinkEntity linkDetails = queryAddressLots.AddLink("appdetails_data", "applicationdetailsid", "appdetails_dataid", JoinOperator.Inner);
linkDetails.Columns.AddColumns("appdetails_dataid", "suburb", "postcode");
linkDetails.EntityAlias = "lotdata";
EntityCollection collAddressLots = service.RetrieveMultiple(queryAddressLots);

According to the code there isn't a logic to retrieve a specific record (but usually there is) otherwise this will return all Address Lots joined with the details entity (I also wrote a comment before, nobody cares for the real entity names but they should be exact, when I read a field called applicationdetailsid people can assume there is an entity called applicationdetails and this entity does not exist)

Second part is how the value is fetched, that can be rewritten as (also here, variable names, something called act or ec should not be used):

foreach (Entity addressLot in collAddressLots.Entities)
{
    AliasedValue aliasSuburb = addressLot.GetAttributeValue<AliasedValue>("lotdata.suburb");
    if (aliasSuburb != null && aliasSuburb.Value != null)
    {
        string suburb = (string)aliasSuburb.Value;
    }
}

note that I did a cast to string, because as I wrote before I assumed the field is a string, if the field was a Whole Number I would probably do something like Convert.ToInt32(aliasSuburb.Value)

Now, the question mentions it isn't referencing the matching record in the entity, I assume it refers to the fact (as I wrote before) that no id was provided and all the records were returned. This can be easily solved by adding a condition just after the QueryExpression definition, something like:

queryAddressLots.Criteria.AddCondition("applicationdetailsid", ConditionOperator.Equal, context.PrimaryEntityId);

Of course we can't guarantee if this works, because we don't know the field names, hopefully the author knows. To be honest we can probably just query this appdetails_data entity and adding a condition to just match the applicationdetailsid (to me it looks like a N:1 relationship and not a 1:N relationship) and querying the suburb field without using a LinkEntity but I can't be 100% sure.

Hope it helps, and next time, please don't hide the entity and field names, just change the prefix.

Dynamics CRM 2013 Workflow C# Extract Field from Linked Entity

1 Answers