Release Notes for Bulk Data Updater

It’s no big thing, but it’s still better than any previous release!

Small stuff

• Aligning icons in colors 🟦🟡🔷 and style. Commit 3acf4ca
• Issue 239: During the 2024 Release Wave 2, focusing on the feature Bypass Business Logic is now in GA status!

Internal stuff

• Updated packages to avoid vulnerable things. Commit 24eeb41

Bug fixes

• Issue 240: Trying to open a Job file from any previous releases failed badly. Now it works again. Thanks, my colleague @mialindvall, for the report!
• Issue 241: Saving Job file may get duplicated suffix, e.g. Smart Stuff.bdu.bdu.xml. Now it won’t.

New feature – Logging!

All execution in BDU will log what happened, a very technical in an XML file.
It can also be saved as a CSV file to be easily opened in Excel. Issue #200. Read more: New-but-not-new feature

More helping

• Added option to not ask for execute options Commit f32ef6d
• Fixing “How to bulk update team entity” by @stonekw in Discussion #233 and Issue #224
• Handling query limited “Fixing error if no attributes in the query” in Commit fe3d4f7
• Don’t suggest attributes not available in new entity Issue #230

Small stuff

• Fixing error if no attributes in the query
• Only enable request that are supported Issue #228
• Now a bigger progress panel
• Friendly/Raw is NOW remembered Issue #214
  

Internal stuff

• More efficient code, less refreshing records grid
• Small improvements in Update Attribute
• Cleaning About form
• Even more use of general url opens
• Added BDUEntity with OldAttributes plus – prep for #200

An ugly bug is now fixed

I got a nice, polite discussion in #221 from @rodmarialvas, informing me that setting lookup fields didn’t do anything. I transferred it to a bug, and Issue #222 is now fixed.

That’s all!

Smallest update, but huge bugfix for some

• Opening from a View in Dataverse crashed badly if your environment contained more than 5000 views. Now it’s fixed.
• Retrieving records from a view didn’t make it possible to Stop loading. Now it is.

That’s all folks!

Purer and cleaner interface

Read more about these changes in my blog post Tools can always be improved.

• Removing Big Buttons in the main window and moving them to the menu Fetch Data
• Extracted Execute Options to a form for step to Execute
• Extracted Add/Edit Attributes to update into a separate form
• Removed radio box to work on all records or only the selected; now it’s always the selected records
• Added a Select All button to easier – ehh – select all records

Extracting into separate forms can be read about it – if you are curious. Dig down at Commit

💥 New features

• Support new options on Bypass Custom Business Logic. Issue #219. Note: This is currently available in a Preview state.
• Auto-use of Import Sequence Number attribute. A big thing, at least for me! Read the documentation of the ISN feature!

🚀 Improvements

• Stolen the Open View form from FetchXML Builder. It’s better, it’s faster, it’s nicer!
• It shows fewer ugly errors when trying to save jobs, and it fails. Thanks to @bwmodular for reporting on Issue #202

😬 Bugfixes

• Now supports to update Multi Choices – again. During some update releases, this feature was lost… Oops 🙄 Thanks to my colleague Alessandro @lsnprt at CRMK for reporting on Issue #213
• Fixes restore of Friendly/Raw setting. Issue #214
• Probably fixed some ugly UI error. Issue #217

🤔 Internal

• Using a general feature to open URL-links, delivered by Rappen.XTB.Helper which is available in the shared project. It’s available for every tool developer! Details found here UrlUtils.cs

🤓 Now working on…

• I’m still trying to add a feature to CREATE records. Not only UPDATE and DELETE, as they currently exist.
  Why? To be able to generate records, maybe for testing data, it could be using the Random feature in XRM Tokens maybe…? The sky is the limit! 🚀
  Join the discussion in Issue #169!

Read more details on my blog: More work ➡️ More features

🤹 UpdateMultiple can now be used

New API method to update many records by only one request.
The old version method ExecuteMultiple is still available. Issue #195

🔢 More and more info on the Progress Panel

If it takes time, you need more info, e.g., “When will it be done?”

Pro Tip: Use Time per record to test different settings of Batch size, UpdateMultiple vs ExecuteMultiple, and Bypass Custom Business Logic – to see which settings will be done fastest.

💡 Smarter filters of which columns to show

Why filtering? It is easier to find what you are looking for. Issue #196

↗️ Update feature can now update State, Status, and Owner

Previously, that has only been available in specific features in Bulk Data Updater, which is now changed.
A good example by @MscrmTools in Issue #204 is we can now use XRM Token to dynamically set all of these three columns.

🚀 More improvements

• It will now highlight if a query does not return the Id for records, which would make it impossible to update them. Issue #174 by @scottgolightly and Issue #211 by TarogStar
• Warning if there are 50000 records returned and there are orders on linked entities. Limitation of the platform, read here.
• It is now possible to Save Job even before it has been executed. Issue #207
• Double-clicking on a record in the list opens that record in Power Platform. Now, it also respects which browser and which profile to open it. Issue #208
• When connecting to a new connection, the user asks whether the existing setting for the new connection will be loaded or if we should just keep all the settings we have from the previous connection, as requested by @bwmodular. Issue #203
• 🔃 Refresh button to query from the Dataverse again. I just missed that small button…
• Easier – and more beautiful – setting to show columns and data “Friendly” or “Raw“.

😬 Bugfixes

• Errors were swallowed if the Batch was > 1. Related to Issue #211 by TarogStar
• The execute options and the Update button are now enabled more easily, as they should be.

🤔 Internal

• A lot of improvements here and there, and a lot more common code used by all features (Update, Assign, Set State, and Delete)

🤓 I’m still working on…

• Adding a feature to CREATE records, not only UPDATE and DELETE as exists currently.
  Why? To be able to generate records, maybe for testing-data, it could be using the Random feature in XRM Tokens maybe…? The sky is the limit! 🚀
  Join the discussion in Issue #169!

Calculate with Microsoft Power Fx

This is a pretty cool feature…

The XRM Tokens have been there for a while, to calculate values for updating columns.

From this version, both this Bulk Data Updater and the XRM Tokens Runner can use the Microsoft Power Fx formulas, inside the XRM Tokens!

A few examples:

<PowerFx|Round({price|<value>}*(1+({pricelist.yearlyincrease}/100)); 2)>
Result: 10,35   // from price = $9,95 and increase = 4%

<PowerFx|Round( Pi() * Sqrt({rapp_diameter} / 2); 1 ))
Result: 22,2    // from diameter = 100

<PowerFx|Year("<system|now>")>
Result: 2022

Read more in the docs for XRM Tokens here!

Layouts

• When opening a View from Dataverse, it will lay out just as in Dynamics!
  See from FetchXML Builder new feature, from the Rappen.XTB.Helpers #22 feature.

XRM Token feature

• Added Lower and Upper cases. See Rappen.XTB.Helpers #19.
• Added RecordURL XRM Tokens. See Rappen.XTB.Helpers #21.
  Thanks for the idea by @s1m0nj!
• Will never implement recurrency XRM Tokens. See Rappen.XTB.Helpers #6 and #20.
• Bug fixes for format <Math|Round> and <Math|Abs>. See Rappen.XTB.Helpers #23 and also the question:
  “Is there a way to update Money fields by a percentage?” from @DomSaunders73.

Read all details: New Release – Bulk Data Updater 1.2022.8

• New feature: Open and Save “BDU Jobs“. See #167 from the idea by @Rasmus Peterson in discussion #164.
• Stores all options (FetchXML, Update attributes, Attributes actions, Assigning, SetStatus, and all execution options) between sessions.
• Supports Random features in Calculations. See docs in XRM Tokens here. Asked about @k-Jithesh in discussion #163.
• Supports Choices (MultiOptionSets) in Calculations. See note on XRM Tokens here and this about how to use it. Asked about @Suxsem in issue #166.
• Supports Trim features in Calculation. See note on XRM Tokens here and request by @MscrmTools in #102.
• Using XrmToolBox metadata cache if available. It takes a bit to load it, but then superfast. See the code.
• A bit less risk of double-clicking on buttons. See code here and here.
• Minor fix: Handling changing the connection while using BDU.
• Fixing a bug in XRM Tokens – handling format order as it’s written, not any more hard-coded order. See issue #18.

Read all details: New Release – Bulk Data Updater 1.2022.4

• Calculations are now possible for almost all types of columns! #148
• Bypass Custom Business Logic feature added #79
• Handle min version 9.2 is available for the BypassPlugin feature. Fixed #159
• Use Lookup instead of ComboBox for User/Team. #65
• Layout for status text
• Link to Release Notes are aiming for this specifical version

• Using DB version “old” had a problem, is now fixed. See #156 issue and this commit.
• Release Notes moved to this website.
• Show release notes when a new version is running.

• Minor fixes – gets a bit better!
• Using XrmToolBox error messages.