Capturing and Storing Case Resolution Fields in The Case Form

Recently I had this question from the Community fellows and I think there are many people also need this requirement since you know this is very difficult to display the fields from the Case Resolution. They are stored in the different entity and included as Activity entity which is considered as Child record to the Case so that you cannot show the fields value as the displayed column through View or Advanced Find.

Let’s get started..

Objective

Our objective here is to capture the information that User Inputted through this system form and store the values to the Case entity.

Create Fields in the Case Entity

Now, I create the fields that I need in the Case entity

- Resolution
- Total Time
- Billable Time
- Remarks

*Resolution Type is already defined in the Status Reason of the Case, in case you want to create new field, it is also possible to do!

What If I Want To Have Another Status Code?

You can go to Status Reason field of the Case entity and Add New Item

*Status Reason Field



I create a new item: ‘Enhancement Requested’

Then I put those fields in the Form and make them as read-only

Problem

The challenge here is this entity is a special Entity that seems to be ‘hidden’ in CRM and included as Activity in CRM, thus, considered as Child record of the Case, we should take note on that list to make the proper solution.

Solution

Of course as the Consultant we need to give the best solution and the best solution that comes up to the CRM professional is thinking the Out of the box first or the most effortless customization if inbuilt function is not there, Should I create Workflow or Plugin?

#1 Can I use Workflow for Case Resolution?

The answer is ‘No’ because the Case Resolution is one of the unsupported entity in Workflow.

#2 Can I use the Workflow and use The Case as The Entity?

Okay if you are using the OOB Workflow, the answer is ‘No’ as the solution here, it is not possible because as mentioned before Case Resolution is a child entity, as we know the OOB Workflow cannot get the related record from the 1:N Relationship so you cannot get the Case Resolution entity record through parent Case using Out of The Box CRM Workflow

#3 Can I use Plugin?

Yes, of course, but what kind of Plugin?

#4 What about Plugin on The Case Resolution Entity?

Surprisingly it works! I tried it.

I thought it would not work if I register to the Case Resolution entity on Post-Create Event because at the time Case Resolution Entity is created by the time the Case has been Resolved (status that makes the Case Read-Only).

After some research I see that in the Case the status is still 1 or In Progress





This is possible because CRM has another message Close for Case Entity.

#5 What is the difficulty?

The difficulty here is to retrieve the Total Time here because you need to sum up the times spent in each activity related to the Case.



Another difficulty here is to get the Status Code to become the Resolution Type because mentioned before CRM only gives status = 1 (In Progress) not yet Resolved, so that you might need another plugin in the Case entity to capture that, but I recommend you to use the Status Reason field in the Case entity. I you really need this field you can contact me for further development.

#6 So, What Is The Plugin Code?

Here is the Plugin Code

public class CaseResolution : IPlugin
    {
        public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
        {
            #region must to have

            IPluginExecutionContext context = (IPluginExecutionContext)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));

            IOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory = (IOrganizationServiceFactory)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IOrganizationServiceFactory));

            // Create service with context of current user
            IOrganizationService service = serviceFactory.CreateOrganizationService(context.UserId);

            //create tracing service
            ITracingService tracingService = (ITracingService)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(ITracingService));

            #endregion

            #region Variable

            Entity targetCase = new Entity("incident");
            string strResolution = string.Empty;
            int intTotalTime = -1;
            int intTotalBillableTime = -1;
            string strRemarks = string.Empty;

            #endregion

            if (context.InputParameters.Contains("Target") && context.InputParameters["Target"] is Entity)
            {

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

                if (entity.LogicalName != "incidentresolution")
                    return;

                try
                {
                    if (entity.Contains("incidentid"))
                    {
                        //get the related Case
                        targetCase.Id = ((EntityReference)entity["incidentid"]).Id;
                        
                        //capture the Case Resolution Fields                      
                        strResolution = entity.Contains("subject") ? entity["subject"].ToString() : string.Empty;
                        intTotalBillableTime = entity.Contains("timespent") ? (Int32)entity["timespent"] : 0;   
                        strRemarks = entity.Contains("description") ? 
                            (entity["description"] != null ? entity["description"].ToString() : string.Empty) : 
                            string.Empty;

                        //get the total time from Activities
                        intTotalTime = GetTotalTime(service, targetCase.Id);
                        
                        //update Case with the fields
                        targetCase["new_resolution"] = strResolution;
                        targetCase["new_totalbillabletime"] = intTotalBillableTime;
                        targetCase["new_totaltime"] = intTotalTime;
                        targetCase["new_remark"] = strRemarks;
                        service.Update(targetCase);
                    }
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException(ex.Message);
                }

            }
        }

        private int GetTotalTime(IOrganizationService service, Guid guidRelatedCaseId)
        {
            //count the Activity Actual Duration Minutes for this Case
            //need to sum time spent of each activity (cannot directly using the actualtdurationminutes) 

            int intSumTotalTime = 0;

            //Retrieve all related Activities by Case
            QueryExpression query = new QueryExpression("activitypointer");
            query.ColumnSet.AddColumns("actualdurationminutes");

            query.Criteria = new FilterExpression();
            query.Criteria.AddCondition("regardingobjectid", ConditionOperator.Equal, guidRelatedCaseId);

            // Execute the Query 
            EntityCollection results = service.RetrieveMultiple(query);

            foreach (Entity entity in results.Entities)
            {
                int intActivityTime = 0;
                intActivityTime = entity.Contains("actualdurationminutes") ? (Int32)entity["actualdurationminutes"] : 0;
                intSumTotalTime = intSumTotalTime + intActivityTime;
            }

            return intSumTotalTime;
        }
    }

#5 How to Register The Plugin

Here is the Plugin Registration Tool Setting for this Step

Result

And Here is your Result

I resolve the Case with following information



And here is the captured Information in my Case entity form.

Summary

Here is the summary

1. You cannot capture using the Out of the box Workflow because the entity is not supported

2. You can achieve it by creating a plugin updating the Case fields and register the plugin on the Post-Create of the Incident Resolution entity

3. Just be careful, in CRM a case can be closed and can be-reactivated again so every time CRM close the case it will keep updating the field and keep the latest position/value and will create another activity-close case to the related Case



This is how CRM treats the Case Resolution as the Case Activities.

4. CRM stores the total billable time in the 'Time Spent' field, while the Total Time for all activities are not stored in any field, you need to manually count the SUM from each related Case Activities, then store it somewhere else if you want to display it.

5. Once you save those fields in the Case, you will able to see the fields in the Case entity, either through Form, View, or Report of Case entity, while if you are not, you can still show but you need to query agains the Activity entity with type = Case Resolution.

Hope this helps you!

Thank you.