Understand the Data Context Passed to a Plug-In

IPluginExecutionContext contains information that describes the run-time environment that the plug-in is executing in, information related to the execution pipeline, and entity business information. The context is contained in the System.IServiceProvider parameter that is passed at run-time to a plug-in through its Execute method.

// obtain the execution context from the service provider.

IPluginExecutionContext context = (IPluginExecutionContext)

 serviceProvider.GetService (typeof (IPluginExecutionContext));

The execution context is passed to each registered plug-in in the pipeline when they are executed. Each plug-in in the execution pipeline is able to modify writable properties in the context. For example, given a plug-in registered for a pre-event and another plug-in registered for a post-event, the post-event plug-in can receive a context that has been modified by the pre-event plug-in. The same situation applies to plug-ins that are registered within the same stage.

All the properties in IPluginExecutionContext are read-only. However, your plug-in can modify the contents of those properties that are collections.

Access to the Organization Service

To access the Microsoft Dynamics CRM organization service, it is required that plug-in code create an instance of the service through the ServiceProvider.GetService method.

// Obtain the organization service reference.

IOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory = (IOrganizationServiceFactory) 

serviceProvider.GetService (typeof (IOrganizationServiceFactory));

IOrganizationService service = serviceFactory.CreateOrganizationService (context.UserId);

Input and Output Parameters

The InputParameters property contains the data that is in the request message currently being processed by the event execution pipeline. Your plug-in code can access this data. The property is of type ParameterCollection where the keys to access the request data are the names of the actual public properties in the request. As an example, take a look at CreateRequest. One property of CreateRequest is named Target which is of type Entity. This is the entity currently being operated upon by the platform. To access the data of the entity you would use the name “Target” as the key in the input parameter collection. You also need to cast the returned instance.

// The InputParameters collection contains all the data passed in the message request.

if (context.InputParameters.Contains("Target") &&

    context.InputParameters["Target"] is Entity)

{

    // Obtain the target entity from the input parmameters.

    Entity entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters["Target"];

Similarly, the OutputParameters property contains the data that is in the response message, for example CreateResponse, currently being passed through the event execution pipeline. However, only synchronous post-event and asynchronous registered plug-ins have OutputParameters populated as the response is the result of the core platform operation. The property is of type ParameterCollection where the keys to access the response data are the names of the actual public properties in the response.

Pre and Post Entity Images

PreEntityImages and PostEntityImages contain snapshots of the primary entity's attributes before and after the core platform operation. Microsoft Dynamics CRM populates the pre-entity and post-entity images based on the security privileges of the impersonated system user. You can specify to have the platform populate these properties when you register your plug-in. The entity alias value you specify during plug-in registration is used as the key into the image collection.

There are some events where images are not available. For example, only synchronous post-event and asynchronous registered plug-ins have PostEntityImages populated. In addition, the create operation does not support a pre-image and a delete operation does not support a post-image.

Note: - Registering for pre or post images to access entity attribute values results in improved plug-in performance as compared to obtaining entity attributes in plug-in code through RetrieveRequest or RetrieveMultipleRequest requests.

Only entity attributes that are set to a value or null are available in the pre or post entity images