Category: CDS

Hi Learners,

Using this approach we can update any field from a Record without actually impacting Modified By & Modified On values.

Please Note: It is not best practice to suppress Modified By & Modified On auto calculation by Dynamics, but this approach helps in scenarios like below

1. Scenario -1 : We introduced a new filed and want to set a default value for all the existing records, but don’t want to touch Modified By for reporting / downstream integration purposes.
2. Scenario – 2 : We missed updating some information during data migration and want to update the information later without Modified On/Modified By being updated.

Approach:

We will be using Pre-Operation plugin to set “modifiedon” & “modifiedby” to the existing values (fetched from Pre-Image). Same Approach can be for overriding Modified By / Modified On / Created By / Created On with some custom values.

Step-By-Step process:

1) For the Entity you want to use (Account for this example), Create a new boolean field called “Override Modified On” (new_overridemodifiedon), set default value as NO.

2) Create a new Plugin with below code.

public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
{
IPluginExecutionContext context = (IPluginExecutionContext)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));
Entity targetEntity = (Entity)context.InputParameters["Target"];
Entity preImage = context.PreEntityImages.Contains("PreImage") ? (Entity)context.PreEntityImages["PreImage"] : null;
bool _override = targetEntity.Contains("new_overridemodifiedon") ? (bool)targetEntity.Contains("new_overridemodifiedon") : false;    
if (preImage != null && _override)
    {
        targetEntity["modifiedon"] = preImage["modifiedon"];
        targetEntity["modifiedby"] = preImage["modifiedby"];
        //Set Override Modified On to false for future use.
        targetEntity["new_overridemodifiedon"] = false;
    }
}

3) Register the plugin and add step as shown below.

Message = Update;
Primary Entity = <<Entity you want to use >>
Filtering Attribute = new_overridemodifiedon (created in 1st step)
Pipeline Stage = Pre-Operation.

4) Register an Image under the step as below

Image Type = Pre Image
Name = PreImage
Parameters = modifiedby, modifedon

5) Now whenever you want to Update something without “Modified On” being touched, Check the checkbox “Override Modified On” along with your other changes.

The changes are tracked under Audit History.

But you can observe that, even after the fields are updated, Modified On doesn’t change and retains its old value.

6)It works even if you are making updates through SDK / any other integration platform. You just need to set “Override Modified On” = true, along with the update that you perform.

Example:

References:

1) https://community.dynamics.com/365/b/learncrminfingertips/posts/preserve-or-ovverride-createdon-createdby-modifiedon-modifiedby-fields