CRM 2011 Convert Activity to Case - Populate Case Details

When converting an activity (such as Phone Call) to case, we can only specify the Customer and the Subject on the popup dialog. What if we want to auto-populate the case details with the information from the activity?

At first I thought we can write a plugin that triggers on the post-create of a case. However this is not possible since CRM creates the Case before it sets the Regarding field on the Activity.

The workaround for this is to create the post-update plugin on the Activity itself. This way when the Regarding field is assigned by CRM, it will look for the Case and update its details.

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using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk; using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Messages; using System.ServiceModel; using Org.Entities.Crm;   namespace Org.Crm.Plugins {     /// <summary>     /// This plugin is intended to:     /// 1. Hook up to post-update message of phone call entity.     ///    Update Case Details if any     /// </summary>     public class PhoneCallUpdateCaseDetails : IPlugin     {         ITracingService tracingService = null;           public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)         {             // Extract the tracing service.             tracingService = (ITracingService)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(ITracingService));             if (tracingService == null)                 throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException("Failed to retrieve the tracing service.");               // Obtain the execution context from the service provider.             IPluginExecutionContext context = (IPluginExecutionContext)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));               // 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 parameters.                 Entity entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters["Target"];                   // Get a reference to the Organization service.                 IOrganizationServiceFactory factory = (IOrganizationServiceFactory)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IOrganizationServiceFactory));                 IOrganizationService service = factory.CreateOrganizationService(context.UserId);                   try                 {                     // Plug-in business logic goes below this line.                     // Invoke organization service methods. #if DEBUG                     tracingService.Trace("{0} Plugin started.", this.GetType().Name); #endif                       OrgServiceContext serviceContext = new OrgServiceContext (service);                     PhoneCall retrievedPhoneCall = serviceContext.PhoneCallSet.Where(x => x.Id == entity.Id).SingleOrDefault();                       if (retrievedPhoneCall.RegardingObjectId != null)                     {                         PopulateDetails(retrievedPhoneCall, serviceContext, tracingService);                     } #if DEBUG                     tracingService.Trace("{0} Plugin completed.", this.GetType().Name); #endif                 }                 catch (InvalidPluginExecutionException iex)                 {                     tracingService.Trace(iex.Message);                     tracingService.Trace(iex.StackTrace);                       throw iex;                 }                 catch (FaultException<organizationservicefault> ex)                 {                     tracingService.Trace(ex.Message);                     tracingService.Trace(ex.StackTrace);                       throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException(string.Format("An error occurred in the {0} plug-in.", this.GetType().Name), ex);                 }                 catch (Exception e)                 {                     tracingService.Trace(e.Message);                     tracingService.Trace(e.StackTrace);                       throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException(string.Format("An error occurred in the {0} plug-in.", this.GetType().Name), e);                 }             }         }           /// <summary>         /// Populate Details         /// </summary> private void PopulateDetails(PhoneCall retrievedPhoneCall, OrgServiceContext serviceContext, ITracingService tracingService)         {             Incident incident = serviceContext.IncidentSet.Where(c => c.Id == retrievedPhoneCall.RegardingObjectId.Id).SingleOrDefault();               if (incident != null)             {                 var phoneCalls = serviceContext.PhoneCallSet.Where(p => p.RegardingObjectId == new EntityReference(incident.LogicalName, incident.Id)).ToList();                   //check if this is the first time creation                 if (phoneCalls.Count <= 1)                 {                     incident.Title = retrievedPhoneCall.Subject;                     incident.new_accountid = retrievedPhoneCall.new_accountid == null ? null : retrievedPhoneCall.new_accountid;                     incident.new_accountnumber = String.IsNullOrEmpty(retrievedPhoneCall.new_accountnumber) ? null : retrievedPhoneCall.new_accountnumber;                     incident.CustomerId = retrievedPhoneCall.From.FirstOrDefault().PartyId;                     incident.CaseOriginCode = new OptionSetValue(1);                       serviceContext.UpdateObject(incident);                     serviceContext.SaveChanges();                 }             }         }     } }

Be careful though because this might not work when converting Activity to Case from Outlook. I read somewhere that when converting Email to Outlook, the Regarding field is set to the Parent Customer of the Case rather than the Case itself.

Hope this helps,
Andreas