ASP.Net Show Assembly Build Date

When creating an about page for a web application, we often add the build date information. To get the build date, we can query the executing assembly file and get the last write time property.

/// <summary>

/// returns the file write date

/// </summary>

/// <returns></returns>

private static string GetAssemblyDate()

{

string date = string.Empty;

try

{

var assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();

var fileInfo = new FileInfo(assembly.Location);

var writeTime = fileInfo.LastWriteTime;

date = String.Format("{0} {1}", writeTime.ToShortDateString(), writeTime.ToShortTimeString());

}catch(Exception ex)

{

//log exception info

}

return date;

}

This helper method reads the file properties of the assembly and returns the date and time information. This is the same date-time information that we would find when using Windows Explorer.  The date time information return by this method has this format:

                MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm am/pm

I hope this helps some of you.

MSCRM Adding Notes With JavaScript

In Dynamics CRM, users can add notes to make comments about certain changes that were made to a record. In some instances, there may be a requirement to automate the creation of notes based on certain field information changes.  

The challenge with notes is that it is not a field on the entity. It is actually a 1:N association which is displayed on the form with an embedded IFRAME. This means that we can’t just populate a field, but instead, we need to call the REST web services on dynamics to request the creation of the note.

To handle this, we can create a simple JavaScript object that handles the web service call (NoteManager) and another object to the handle the test of the creation of the notes (TestNotes):

NoteManager Script:

if (typeof (OGBIT) == "undefined") { OGBIT = {}; }

OGBIT.NoteManager = {

    AddNote: function (params, entitySet, onComplete, onError) {

        var self = OGBIT.NoteManager;

        var serverUrl = self.GetServerUrl();

        var ODataURL = serverUrl + entitySet;

        var json = JSON.stringify(params);      //MUST CONVERT TO JSON STRING

        $.ajax({

            type: "POST",

            contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",

            datatype: "json",

            url: ODataURL,

            data: json,

            beforeSend: function (XMLHttpRequest) {

                XMLHttpRequest.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");

            },

            success: function (data, textStatus, XmlHttpRequest) {

                if (onComplete != null)

                    onComplete(data.d.results);

            },

            error: function (XmlHttpRequest, textStatus, errorObject) {

                var msg = textStatus;

                try {

                    msg = JSON.parse(XMLHttpRequest.responseText).error.message.value;

                } catch (e) { }

                if (onError != null)

                    onError(msg);

            }

        });

    },

    GetServerUrl: function () {

        var serverUrl = '';

        if (typeof (Xrm) != 'undefined' && Xrm != null) {

            serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl();

            //test that server name is not coming back instead of the domain name

            //otherwise we get a Cross-Origen (CORS) 400 error           

        }

        if (serverUrl.match(/\/$/)) {

            serverUrl = serverUrl.substring(0, serverUrl.length - 1);

        }

        return serverUrl + "/XRMServices/2011/OrganizationData.svc/";

    },

}

The above script implements two main methods:

Method Name	Description
AddNote	This method handles the interaction with the Dynamics CRM web service. It takes the following parameters: Name Description Params JSON structure that contains the note information entitySet This is the name of the entity where the record needs to be added. For notes, the name is AnotationSet onComplete This is a callback handler onError This is a callback handler for errors Note the following attributes on the request: The Dynamic CRM web services are RESTFul. For the creation of a new note, we to set the verb to POST. Since we pass a JSON structure we set the content and data types to JSON The data parameter contains the JSON data in string format which is generated after calling the stringify function
GetServerUrl	This method resolves the server URL and current organization name.

TestNotes Script:

OGBIT.TestNotes = {

   AddNotes: function () {

      var self = OGBIT.TestNotes;

      var note = {};

      var ref = {};

      note.NoteText = "This is the content of the notes";

      note.Subject = "Note Unit test";

      ref.LogicalName = Xrm.Page.data.entity.getEntityName();//returns the entity name

      ref.Id = Xrm.Page.data.entity.getId();             //returns the primary id/guid

      note.ObjectId = ref;                              //associate the note to an entity

     OGBIT.NoteManager.AddNote(note, 'AnnotationSet', self.onComplete, self.onError); //AnnotationSet is the notes entity set 

    },

    onError: function (msg) {

        alert(msg)

    },

    onComplete: function (data) {

        alert(data);

    }

}

The above script creates the following JSON structures:

Name	Description
Note	This is the note object notation. It is created with the following attributes: Name Description NoteText This is the content for the note Subject This is the subject ObjectId This is the object associated to the notes. I.E. A note can be associated to an account or other custom entity that support notes.
ref	This is the associated object. It needs the following attributes: Name Description LogicalName This is the name of the entity Id This is the primary id (GUID) These values can be fetched by using the Xrm client object model. It uses the current context to retrieve the entity information.

After creating the JSON references, the script uses the NoteManager method to post the request to the web services. The callback handlers are called after the web service call has completed. 

og-bit.com
CodeProject

I hope these scripts can help you get more understanding of the Dynamics CRM web services and how to interact with them via JavaScript.