Send an Email Asynchronously in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 using C# or Jscript

This illustration shows how to send an email asynchronously in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with BackgroundSendEmailRequest.  This example will be given in Jscript (SOAP) and in C# (.NET).

NOTE: Two days ago I covered creating the email activity in CRM in code (a prerequisite to today's tutorial).  Check it out if you are having trouble creating the entity: http://mileyja.blogspot.com/2012/02/create-email-activity-in-microsoft.html

Additionally, it's interesting to note that you can use a QueryExpression to filter on what non-sent email it will send.  It allows you to send more than one at once.

Ok, here is what the code looks like!

First in C#:

BackgroundSendEmailRequest req = new BackgroundSendEmailRequest();   
QueryExpression query = new QueryExpression()
{
    EntityName = "email",
    ColumnSet = new ColumnSet(true),
    Criteria = new FilterExpression
    {
        FilterOperator = LogicalOperator.And,
        Conditions = 
        {
            new ConditionExpression
            {
                AttributeName = "regardingobjectid",
                Operator = ConditionOperator.Equal,
                Values = { "AC946D36-3E41-E111-9D05-0050569838D6" }
            }
        }
    }
};

req.Query = query;
service.Execute(req);

If you need help instantiating a service object in .NET within a plugin check out this post:
http://mileyja.blogspot.com/2011/04/instantiating-service-object-within.html

Now here is the Jscript nicely formatted by the CRM 2011 SOAP formatter. Available at: http://crm2011soap.codeplex.com/

Now in Jscript


This example is asynchronous, if you want to learn how to make JScript SOAP calls synchronously please visit this post: http://mileyja.blogspot.com/2011/07/using-jscript-to-access-soap-web.html

if (typeof (SDK) == "undefined")
   { SDK = { __namespace: true }; }
       //This will establish a more unique namespace for functions in this library. This will reduce the 
       // potential for functions to be overwritten due to a duplicate name when the library is loaded.
       SDK.SAMPLES = {
           _getServerUrl: function () {
               ///<summary>
               /// Returns the URL for the SOAP endpoint using the context information available in the form
               /// or HTML Web resource.
               ///</summary>
               var ServicePath = "/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc/web";
               var serverUrl = "";
               if (typeof GetGlobalContext == "function") {
                   var context = GetGlobalContext();
                   serverUrl = context.getServerUrl();
               }
               else {
                   if (typeof Xrm.Page.context == "object") {
                         serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl();
                   }
                   else
                   { throw new Error("Unable to access the server URL"); }
                   }
                  if (serverUrl.match(/\/$/)) {
                       serverUrl = serverUrl.substring(0, serverUrl.length - 1);
                   } 
                   return serverUrl + ServicePath;
               }, 
           BackgroundSendEmailRequest: function () {
               var requestMain = ""
               requestMain += "<s:Envelope xmlns:s=\"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/\">";
               requestMain += "  <s:Body>";
               requestMain += "    <Execute xmlns=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts/Services\" xmlns:i=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\">";
               requestMain += "      <request i:type=\"b:BackgroundSendEmailRequest\" xmlns:a=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts\" xmlns:b=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/crm/2011/Contracts\">";
               requestMain += "        <a:Parameters xmlns:c=\"http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/System.Collections.Generic\">";
               requestMain += "          <a:KeyValuePairOfstringanyType>";
               requestMain += "            <c:key>Query</c:key>";
               requestMain += "            <c:value i:type=\"a:QueryExpression\">";
               requestMain += "              <a:ColumnSet>";
               requestMain += "                <a:AllColumns>true</a:AllColumns>";
               requestMain += "                <a:Columns xmlns:d=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays\" />";
               requestMain += "              </a:ColumnSet>";
               requestMain += "              <a:Criteria>";
               requestMain += "                <a:Conditions>";
               requestMain += "                  <a:ConditionExpression>";
               requestMain += "                    <a:AttributeName>regardingobjectid</a:AttributeName>";
               requestMain += "                    <a:Operator>Equal</a:Operator>";
               requestMain += "                    <a:Values xmlns:d=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays\">";
               requestMain += "                      <d:anyType i:type=\"e:string\" xmlns:e=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema\">AC946D36-3E41-E111-9D05-0050569838D6</d:anyType>";
               requestMain += "                    </a:Values>";
               requestMain += "                  </a:ConditionExpression>";
               requestMain += "                </a:Conditions>";
               requestMain += "                <a:FilterOperator>And</a:FilterOperator>";
               requestMain += "                <a:Filters />";
               requestMain += "              </a:Criteria>";
               requestMain += "              <a:Distinct>false</a:Distinct>";
               requestMain += "              <a:EntityName>email</a:EntityName>";
               requestMain += "              <a:LinkEntities />";
               requestMain += "              <a:Orders />";
               requestMain += "              <a:PageInfo>";
               requestMain += "                <a:Count>0</a:Count>";
               requestMain += "                <a:PageNumber>0</a:PageNumber>";
               requestMain += "                <a:PagingCookie i:nil=\"true\" />";
               requestMain += "                <a:ReturnTotalRecordCount>false</a:ReturnTotalRecordCount>";
               requestMain += "              </a:PageInfo>";
               requestMain += "              <a:NoLock>false</a:NoLock>";
               requestMain += "            </c:value>";
               requestMain += "          </a:KeyValuePairOfstringanyType>";
               requestMain += "        </a:Parameters>";
               requestMain += "        <a:RequestId i:nil=\"true\" />";
               requestMain += "        <a:RequestName>BackgroundSendEmail</a:RequestName>";
               requestMain += "      </request>";
               requestMain += "    </Execute>";
               requestMain += "  </s:Body>";
               requestMain += "</s:Envelope>";
               var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
               req.open("POST", SDK.SAMPLES._getServerUrl(), true)
               req.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/xml, text/xml, */*");
               req.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "text/xml; charset=utf-8");
               req.setRequestHeader("SOAPAction", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts/Services/IOrganizationService/Execute");
               var successCallback = null;
               var errorCallback = null;
               req.onreadystatechange = function () { SDK.SAMPLES.BackgroundSendEmailResponse(req, successCallback, errorCallback); };
               req.send(requestMain);
           },
       BackgroundSendEmailResponse: function (req, successCallback, errorCallback) {
               ///<summary>
               /// Recieves the assign response
               ///</summary>
               ///<param name="req" Type="XMLHttpRequest">
               /// The XMLHttpRequest response
               ///</param>
               ///<param name="successCallback" Type="Function">
               /// The function to perform when an successfult response is returned.
               /// For this message no data is returned so a success callback is not really necessary.
               ///</param>
               ///<param name="errorCallback" Type="Function">
               /// The function to perform when an error is returned.
               /// This function accepts a JScript error returned by the _getError function
               ///</param>
               if (req.readyState == 4) {
               if (req.status == 200) {
               if (successCallback != null)
               { successCallback(); }
               }
               else {
                   errorCallback(SDK.SAMPLES._getError(req.responseXML));
               }
           }
       },
       _getError: function (faultXml) {
           ///<summary>
           /// Parses the WCF fault returned in the event of an error.
           ///</summary>
           ///<param name="faultXml" Type="XML">
           /// The responseXML property of the XMLHttpRequest response.
           ///</param>
           var errorMessage = "Unknown Error (Unable to parse the fault)";
           if (typeof faultXml == "object") {
               try {
                   var bodyNode = faultXml.firstChild.firstChild;
                   //Retrieve the fault node
                   for (var i = 0; i < bodyNode.childNodes.length; i++) {
                       var node = bodyNode.childNodes[i];
                       //NOTE: This comparison does not handle the case where the XML namespace changes
                       if ("s:Fault" == node.nodeName) {
                       for (var j = 0; j < node.childNodes.length; j++) {
                           var faultStringNode = node.childNodes[j];
                           if ("faultstring" == faultStringNode.nodeName) {
                               errorMessage = faultStringNode.text;
                               break;
                           }
                       }
                       break;
                   }
               }
           }
           catch (e) { };
        }
        return new Error(errorMessage);
     },
 __namespace: true
};

To understand how to parse the response please review my post on using the DOM parser.

http://mileyja.blogspot.com/2011/03/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011-parsing.html

Now you can call the SDK.SAMPLES.BackgroundSendEmailRequest function from your form jscript handler.

Thats all there is to it!
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