Self Referential Many to Many Relationship

I created a Many to Many relationship to and from the User entity- nothing out of the ordinary. I then tried to programmatically retrieve the records associated to this relationship (ie, to the intersect table). I specified the following intersect rule:


LinkEntity filteringLink = new LinkEntity();
filteringLink.LinkFromEntityName = relationshipName;
filteringLink.LinkFromAttributeName = secondaryEntityPK;
filteringLink.LinkToEntityName = secondaryEntityName;
filteringLink.LinkToAttributeName = secondaryEntityPK;
filteringLink.LinkCriteria = filter;

LinkEntity link = new LinkEntity();
link.LinkFromEntityName = primaryEntityName;
link.LinkFromAttributeName = primaryEntityPK;
link.LinkToEntityName = relationshipName;
link.LinkToAttributeName = primaryEntityPK;
link.LinkEntities = new LinkEntity[] { filteringLink };


But I kept getting an error saying: ” ‘geni_followedby’ entity doesn’t contain attribute with Name = ‘systemuserid’.\n Platform\n”.

Looking at the database revealed the obvious issue- because it’s a self referential relationship, both key’s have the same name (systemuserid), so they get renamed to systemuseridone and systemuseridtwo. So I changed my code as follows (quick hack):


LinkEntity filteringLink = new LinkEntity();
filteringLink.LinkFromEntityName = relationshipName;
filteringLink.LinkFromAttributeName = secondaryEntityPK + "two";
filteringLink.LinkToEntityName = secondaryEntityName;
filteringLink.LinkToAttributeName = secondaryEntityPK;
filteringLink.LinkCriteria = filter;

LinkEntity link = new LinkEntity();
link.LinkFromEntityName = primaryEntityName;
link.LinkFromAttributeName = primaryEntityPK;
link.LinkToEntityName = relationshipName;
link.LinkToAttributeName = primaryEntityPK + "one"
link.LinkEntities = new LinkEntity[] { filteringLink };


Microsoft CRM on Amazon EC2

Over the weekend I provisioned a Windows 2003 server on Amazon’s EC2 and installed Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (plus all the pre-req’s). The idea was to bundle it up as a base image when finished so that I can run up a CRM image for UAT/Test/etc purposes when needed. The installation went fine, in fact, no different to installing Microsoft Dynamics CRM on a ‘normal’ server however, I unfortunately didn’t do enough research before starting and have found out that the D drive isn’t going to be persisted when it’s turned off!! Grrr 😡

As I was installing CRM over the weekend, one of my colleagues was installing TFS 2010 and he has put together a post on his experience- worth a read if you’re planning on doing anything on EC2.

Microsoft CRM V.NEXT

A colleague of mine is at the PDC at the moment and he attended an xRM session yesterday. These are the things he’s fed back from the session:

CRM 5 due for RTM around May 2010

CRM 5 has rich data federation features for sharing data between instances as well as the upcoming Azure ‘Dallas’ platform

CRM 5 includes a plug-in extensibility model for running custom managed code in the cloud hosted environment, ie sandboxed safely

Multi-tenanting has been beefed up and is more powerful

I’ll post more details as I get them! Meanwhile, here’s a video from last year’s PDC where Humberto Lezama demonstrated a little bit of CRM 5.0. Browse to the 45 minute mark for the CRM 5.0 demo…

The Social Media Revolution

Great video explaining the social media phenomenon – what does it mean for the traditional CRM?

Microsoft CRM SDK updated

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 SDK has been updated and available for download.

Some of the additions include:

Using the Paging Cookie – Fetch and QueryExpression sample code to show you how to implement paging.

Using Pre-generated XmlSerializers – use these supplemental assemblies to increase performance.

Visualizations (Charts) – This exciting new charts are available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online only.

Walkthrough: Creating and Registering a Custom Workflow Activity – if you are new to custom workflow activities, this walkthrough will get you started.

Authentication with CRM Online – these samples have been updated to get the organization-specific CrmService Web service URL from the discovery service.

Using Filters in a Report – new information about enabling data pre-filtering on reports.

Stylesheet samples – added HTML, CSS, and image files that provide a starting point for creating Web pages that look similar to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Import/Export (Customization File) Schema – updated the customization schemas to be used with the latest releases.

PluginRegistration tool – includes the latest version of this tool used for plug-ins and custom workflow activities.

Choosing Between the WSDL and Assemblies – read this new topic to help you choose the best method for your project