Start writing Dynamics CRM Plugins Today with PluginBoilerplate

Right now, this post is just a helper page for my YouTube vid series about CRM Plugin Development. If you want to learn how to develop Dynamics CRM Plugins, you might want to visit my channel.

Writing Dynamics CRM Plugins is complicated already, here’s a little help to get you started fast. The same class is also available on GitHub.

using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;

namespace LS.Utils
{
    /**
     * A boilerplate class to simplify plugin bootstrapping and enhance testability 
     */
    public abstract class PluginBoilerplate : IPlugin { 
    
        public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
        {

            IPluginExecutionContext context = (IPluginExecutionContext)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));
            IOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory = (IOrganizationServiceFactory)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IOrganizationServiceFactory));
            IOrganizationService service = serviceFactory.CreateOrganizationService(context.UserId);

            ITracingService trace = (ITracingService)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(ITracingService));

            if (context.Depth > 10) {

                throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException("Prevented infinite loop. This may cause some other problems. Please inform the CRM team.");
            };

            Action(context, service, trace);
        }

        public EntityReference GetTargetRef(IPluginExecutionContext context, string pluginname)
        {
            if (context.InputParameters.ContainsKey("Target") 
                && context.InputParameters["Target"] != null
                && context.InputParameters["Target"] is EntityReference)
            {
                return context.InputParameters["Target"] as EntityReference;
            }

            throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException($"[err. {pluginname}] Target is not present, null or not an EntityReference.");
        }

        public Entity GetRawPostEntityImage(IPluginExecutionContext context, string pluginname)
        {
            if (context.PostEntityImages.Keys.Count == 0)
            {
                throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException($"[err. {pluginname}] Could not get PostEntityImage. There are none present.");
            }

            string key = context.PostEntityImages.Keys.First();
            return context.PostEntityImages[key];
        }

        public Entity GetRawPreEntityImage(IPluginExecutionContext context, string pluginname)
        {
            if (context.PreEntityImages.Keys.Count == 0)
            {
                throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException($"[err. {pluginname}] Could not get PreEntityImages. There are none present.");
            }

            string key = context.PreEntityImages.Keys.First();
            return context.PreEntityImages[key];
        }

        public T AttributeOrDefault<T>(Entity entity, string attributeName, T defaultValue)
        {
            if (entity.Attributes.ContainsKey(attributeName) 
                && entity.Attributes[attributeName] != null)
            {
                return (T)entity.Attributes[attributeName];
            } 
            else
            {
                return defaultValue;
            }
        }

        public T GetInputParameter<T>(IPluginExecutionContext context, string parameterName)
        {
            if (context.InputParameters.ContainsKey(parameterName))
            {
                return (T)context.InputParameters[parameterName];
            }

            throw new Exception($"Input parameter {parameterName} was not provided.");
        }


        public abstract void Action(IPluginExecutionContext context, IOrganizationService service, ITracingService trace);
    }

}