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With every new release of Canvas apps, Microsoft add new features to it’s kitty. Today I will explain one of these features. And that is the ability to associate records in Canvas apps. I am going to walk you through on how we can associate and disassociate entity records in 1:N and N:N relationship.
One to Many
For this demo I have built a small canvas application. The application shows both the Accounts and Contacts list.
When the “Associate” button is clicked, it will associate a contact to the account record. And we can do this using the Relate() function in canvas apps.
In “OnSelect” event of the associate button, I use the below formula.
It’s pretty easy I guess to understand what the function does. I take the selected item from Account gallery and then specify the relationship name. The second parameter of the function take the child record. Hence I have used the selected contact from Contacts Gallery in the second parameter.
When I click the Associate button, magic happen. The contact record is now associated with the account.
Similarly to disassociate, we need to use the Unrelate() method. The Unrelate function has a similar nomenclature like the Relate function. Below is the formula to disassociate contact from the account record.
Many to Many
The syntax for many to many relationship is actually the same as one to many. The only difference is with many to many, we can use the Relate function and Unrelate function with both the participating entities. So for an account and contact in N:N relationship, to associate a contact with the account, I use the below code.
Relate(<AccountRecord>.'Contacts', <ContactRecord>)
Similarly to associate an account with the contact, I use the below code
Relate(<ContactRecord>.Accounts, <AccountRecord>)
Hope this helps!
Debajit Dutta
Debajit Dutta
Solutions Architect
XrmForYou Consulting Private Limited
Email : info@xrmforyou.com