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c#crmmicrosoft-dynamics
Deroude
Deroude

Reputation: 1112

How do you set OptionSet Values in Microsoft CRM 2011, based on the text or label?

I am implementing a web service that receives information and needs to map them on the MS Dynamics CRM.

So, when it comes to setting OptionSet values, since I am not the one who implemented the CRM, I have no idea what indices are set up. All I know are the labels. Naturally so do the ones consuming my service. e.g. I call an Opportunity Warm or Cold, not 10033004 and 10033005. But I still need to set this value on the Opportunity entity.

I have found this link - but I think it's really overkill and if that's the only way I can access the OptionSet, then that's just sad.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4505

Answers (1)

James Wood
James Wood

Reputation: 17562

Couple of options here.

  1. Use the metadata services e.g. Your link, I agree this feels like a bit of an overkill, but you could add caching to reduce the overhead of multiple service calls. If you really don't know what the value is going to be at run time then this is probably the best way.
  2. Just hard code it, if you know at compile time what the values will be then this is probably the quickest option. I've done this before and its usually fine. However this will obviously break if someone changes CRM.
  3. Use the strongly typed classes, this is effectively hard coding just the system does it for you. However you will have regenerate them if CRM changes.

So none of these are a perfect option I'm afraid, but they all get the job done.

Edit

Re: option 3; I mean the early bound entities described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328210.aspx. I'm not sure how much they will help in this situation. They are strongly types classes which are used instead of the entity class. E.g. contact.firstname instead of entity["firstname"]. I suppose you might be able to use them as a form of metadata - never tried it myself though. Also it has the same problem as option 2, when CRM changes they need to be updated and then compiled.

In this case I'm veering towards option 1 and querying the metadata services, if you do this once and cache the results at the beginning of your process you will always have the most up to date information. This example shows how to get all the metadata in the system http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj603008.

Upvotes: 1

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