Sending Emails Using the Office 365 APIs

Introduction

Developers now can send e-mails using Exchange Online as an SMTP server configured in the configuration file. Office 365 APIs also provide options to developers for sending e-mails from devices/applications. Microsoft Office 365 API Tools for Visual Studio enable developers to integrate Office 365 services into their applications. Office 365 APIs can be accessed by using libraries available for server-side .NET, client-side JavaScript, and SDKs. These libraries help developers to interact with the REST APIs from the device or platform of the developer's choice. To access these Office 365 APIs, developers have to register their apps with Microsoft Windows Azure AD.

In this article, I will create sample C# applications to demonstrate send e-mail functionality using Office 365 and Exchange Web Services APIs.

Sending E-mail Using the Exchange Webs Services API

The Exchange Web Services (EWS) API provides abstractions of XML messages, XML serialization of the HTTP requests, and responses that are sent between the client and server. By using the Exchange Web Services, developers now can control an Exchange mailbox from code. The following C# console application will demonstrate the send e-mail functionality using EWS.

Step 1

Create a new Visual Studio Console application and name it Email Client.

Figure 1: Create a new Console application project

Step 2

Add the Microsoft.Exchange.Webservices NuGet package reference to your console application project. Microsoft Exchange Web Services (EWS) is an interface to programmatically manage Exchange items such as calendar, contacts, and e-mail.

Figure 2: Add the Microsoft.Exchange.Webservices NuGet package

Step 3

Write the following code in the Main() method for send e-mail functionality.

ExchangeService myservice = new


   ExchangeService(ExchangeVersion.Exchange2010_SP1);


myservice.Credentials = new


WebCredentials(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings


   .Get("SenderEmailid").ToString(),


ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings.Get("Password").ToString());


 


try


{


   string serviceUrl =


      ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings


      .Get("Office365WebserivceURL").ToString();


   myservice.Url = new Uri(serviceUrl);


   EmailMessage emailMessage = new EmailMessage(myservice);


   emailMessage.Subject = "Test Subject";


   emailMessage.Body = new MessageBody("Testing Exchange Web


      Service API");


   emailMessage.ToRecipients.Add(ConfigurationSettings


      .AppSettings.Get("Recipients").ToString());


   emailMessage.Send();


}


catch (SmtpException exception)


{


   string msg = "Mail cannot be sent (SmtpException):";


   msg += exception.Message;


   throw new Exception(msg);


}


 


catch (AutodiscoverRemoteException exception)


{


   string msg = "Mail cannot be


      sent(AutodiscoverRemoteException):";


   msg += exception.Message;


   throw new Exception(msg);


 


}

Sending E-mail Using Office 365

Sending e-mail using Office 365 API is easy; developers just have to use the build feature in the SMTP client and the Mailmessage objects of .NET. You need to specify the host name, port, EnableSSL, and the credentials properties of the SmtpClient object. Both 587 and 25 ports are supported for SMTP operation; however, 587 is the recommended port. Both the username and password could be kept in a configuration file or in a database, in encrypted format. In the following code example, I have kept it in the app.config file.

MailMessage = new MailMessage();


mailMessage.From = new


   MailAddress(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings


   .Get("SenderEmailid").ToString());


mailMessage.To.Add(new


   MailAddress(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings


   .Get("Recipients").ToString()));


mailMessage.Subject = "Test Subject";


mailMessage.Body = "Testing Office365 Email";


mailMessage.IsBodyHtml = true;


SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient();


client.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("", "");


client.Port = 587;


client.Host = "smtp.office365.com";


client.EnableSsl = true;


client.send(mailmessage);

The following app settings entries are used in both the preceding examples:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>


<configuration>


   <appSettings>


      <add key="SenderEmailid" value="user" />


      <add key="Password" value="password" />


      <add key="Office365WebserivceURL"


           value="https://outlook.office365.com/ews


                  /exchange.asmx" />


      <add key="Recipients" value="samplemail@gmail.com" />


   </appSettings>


</configuration>

API Call Limitations

All Outlook APIs accessed via https://outlook.office.com/api or https://outlook.office365.com/api have a limit is 60 requests per minute, per user (or group), per app ID. So, for now, developers only can make limited APIs calls from the app. Read through the Microsoft Blog Post for more details on REST API call limitations.

Summary

I hope that you have learned how to access the Office 365 REST APIs and send e-mails by reading this article. Stay tuned and wait for my next article.

Addressing forms and views by URL

 Since MS Dynamics CRM is created as a single-page application, meaning that it does not reload at any point, URL does not change when you go from one view to another or when opening forms of different records. Therefore, it would seem that entity forms and views cannot be addressed through URL. However, since that property is quite handy, MS Dynamics CRM enabled addressing different parts through URL. There are numerous situations in which getting URL of specific view or form of specific entity record is needed: i.e. you want to send it to your colleague, you want to bookmark it etc. That is why, we are going to dedicate this blog post to creating URL which would address specific entity form or view.

Standard URL of the MS Dynamics CRM Online would be:

https://orgname.crm.dynamics.com/main.aspx

Adding “?” mark and different parameters at the end of this URL can get you to different parts of MS Dynamics CRM.

These parameters can be added:

• etn: specifying entity name of entity that is addressing (i.e. etn=account).
• extraqs: if the form is being addressed, instead of id, certain criteria may be passed through URL and the form of the first entity record that satisfies the criteria will be opened. This parameter is used for setting that criteria in following format: extrags=criteria, whereas the criteria must be encoded. Criteria is written as: field1=value1&field2=value2&field3=value3… Therefore, criteria consists of one or more conditions, each of them consisting of single entity’s field on the left side, “=” mark and certain value on the right side. If more than one record satisfies the criteria, first of them will be addressed. URL encoding means that all characters should be in valid ASCII format. For instance, marks “=” and “&” should be encoded as “%3D” and “%26” respectively.
• pagetype: whether view of form is being addressed. For the form, write pagetype=entityrecord and for the view, write pagetype=entitylist.
• id: if the form is being addressed, this parameter is used for specifying concrete record that is being addressed. Id is in the form of GUID and it is written in { } brackets (i.e. id={80221813-703B-4BDD-A910-35FG9E710417} ). Later, brackets are encoded in %7B and %7D respectively. If this parameter is omitted, form of a new record will be addressed.
• viewid: if the view is being addressed, this parameter is used for specifying concrete view that is being addressed. Same as Id of the form, it is in form of GUID and it is written in { } brackets (i.e. viewid={6FE93A1A-C24F-448A-BFA8-D642AA8F37D2} ). Later, brackets are encoded in %7B and %7D respectively. There are numerous ways how to obtain this id: it can be fetched from View entity or can be read from URL of the view editor (Open the view and click on “View” button on the command bar). The viewid works fine both with system views (saved queries) and with personal views (user queries).
• viewtype: if the view is being addressed, this parameter specifies whether the view is system view (savedquery) or personal view (userquery). If the view is system view, then write: viewtype=1039 and if the view is personal view, write: viewtype=4230.
• navbar: this parameter controls whether the navigation bar will be visible or not. It has three possible values: “on”, “off” and “entity”. Writing navbar=on would mean that the navigation bar will be visible. Since this is default value, if this is desired behavior, the navbar parameter can be omitted. Writing navbar=off would result in hiding navigation bar from the top of the page. Finally, nabar=entity would result in showing navigation bar, but instead of common set of areas and subareas with links to CRM entities, the navigation bar would only contain the list of links to related entities of the entity whose view/form is addressed.
• cmdbar: this parameter controls whether the command bar will be visible or not. It can have two values: true and false. The default value is “true”, so only if you want to hide command bar, you should write cmdbar=false. Otherwise, this parameter should be omitted.

Thing to have in mind is that addressing views and forms in this way cannot break security restrictions. The one who is not a member of the organization cannot access views nor forms. Also, the user who does not have privileges over certain entity record will not be able to visit URL addressing that entity record.

Let’s look at several common examples of using URL for addressing forms and views:

1. Addressing Contact’s view “Active Contacts” (system view)

https://organizationURL/main.aspx?etn=contact&viewid={00000000-0000-0000-00AA-000010001004}&pagetype=entitylist&viewtype=1039

2. Addressing Contact’s view “Ajdin’s Contacts” (personal view)

https://organizationURL/main.aspx?etn=contact&viewid={8A4CF3A8-2F1C-E611-80DC-5065F38BF1B1}&pagetype=entitylist&viewtype=4230

3. Addressing form of a new Opportunity

https://organizationURL/main.aspx?etn=opportunity&pagetype=entityrecord

4. Addressing form of Competitor with id = { d8e5d429-0cf3-e311-8701-6c3be5a8174c }

https://organizationURL/main.aspx?etn=competitor&pagetype=entityrecord&id={d8e5d429-0cf3-e311-8701-6c3be5a8174c}

5. Addressing form of the Account with the name “Kahrovic Company”

https://organizationURL/main.aspx?etn=account&extraqs=name%3DKahrovic%20Company&pagetype=entityrecord

CRM, forms, MS Dynamics CRM, URL, views

How to register Plugin programmatically?

Problem Definition

How to register the steps of the plugin Dynamically (programmatically).

Introduction

Generally, after the plugin development, users register the plugin and steps using plugin registration tool provided by the CRM SDK.

But, in certain cases it is possible that the user may need to register the step in the plugin dynamically.

For example: Whenever a new entity is added it should have an auto number step registered automatically for that entity.

Description

Here I have created a sample plugin with no logic. I will register this plugin programmatically using console app.

To register the plugin programmatically. We need the following steps to be executed.

1. Connect to CRM
2. Create a record of type “pluginassembly”
3. Create a record of type “plugintype”
4. Create a record of type “sdkmessageprocessingstep”

  class PluginRegister

    {

        public Guid RegisterAssembly()

        {

            CrmService.Initialize();

            IOrganizationService service = CrmService.GetOrganisationService();

            string filePath = @"C:\Users\fiveh\Documents\Visual Studio 2019\Project\MultiModalLogistics\MultiModalLogistics.WorkFlows\bin\Debug\MultiModalLogistics.WorkFlows.dll";

            Guid assemblyId = Guid.Empty;

            try

            {

                var assembly = Assembly.LoadFile(filePath);

                string[] props = assembly.GetName().FullName.Split(",=".ToCharArray(), StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

                Entity assemb = new Entity("pluginassembly");

                assemb["name"] = props[0];

                assemb["culture"] = props[4];

                assemb["version"] = props[2];

                assemb["publickeytoken"] = props[6];

                assemb["sourcetype"] = new OptionSetValue(0); // 0= database;

                assemb["isolationmode"] = new OptionSetValue(2); // 1= none, 2=sandbox

                assemb["content"] = Convert.ToBase64String(File.ReadAllBytes(filePath));

                assemblyId = service.Create(assemb);

            }

            catch (Exception ex)

            {

                throw;

            }

            return assemblyId;

        }

        public Guid CreatePluginType(Guid assemblyId)

        {

            CrmService.Initialize();

            IOrganizationService service = CrmService.GetOrganisationService();

            Guid pluginTypeId = Guid.Empty;

            Entity pluginType = new Entity("plugintype");

            pluginType["pluginassemblyid"] = new EntityReference("pluginassembly", assemblyId);

            pluginType["typename"] = "Territory.GetTerritorybyName";

            pluginType["friendlyname"] = "Territory by Name";

            pluginType["name"] = "Territory by Name";

            pluginType["description"] = "Territory by Name";

            pluginType["workflowactivitygroupname"] = "Logistics Workflow";

            pluginTypeId = service.Create(pluginType);

            return pluginTypeId;

        }

        public void SdkMessageStep(Guid pluginTypeId)

        {

            CrmService.Initialize();

            IOrganizationService service = CrmService.GetOrganisationService();

            Guid messageId = new Guid("9EBDBB1B-EA3E-DB11-86A7-000A3A5473E8");

            Guid messageFitlerId = new Guid("C2C5BB1B-EA3E-DB11-86A7-000A3A5473E8");

            Entity step = new Entity("sdkmessageprocessingstep");

            step["name"] = "Sdk Message";

            step["configuration"] = "Create account record";

            step["invocationsource"] = new OptionSetValue(0);

            step["sdkmessageid"] = new EntityReference("sdkmessage", messageId);

            step["supporteddeployment"] = new OptionSetValue(0);

            step["plugintypeid"] = new EntityReference("plugintype", pluginTypeId);

            step["mode"] = new OptionSetValue(0);

            step["rank"] = 1;

            step["stage"] = new OptionSetValue(20);

            step["sdkmessagefilterid"] = new EntityReference("sdkmessagefilter", messageFitlerId);

            Guid stepId = service.Create(step);

        }

    }

Conclusion

Even though we have plugin registration tool available to register the plugin using plugin registration tool we can also register the plugin programmatically in certain scenario.