MICROSOFT SYNC FRAMEWORK WITH MSCRM 4.0 / MSCRM 2011
Sync Framework enables synchronization
between databases. It provides an intuitive and flexible API that enables you
to build applications that target offline and collaboration scenarios. The API
enables you to use all or only some of the components that are provided,
depending on the architecture and requirements of an application. Sync
Framework supports client-server, client-to-client, and mixed topologies. In
client-server topologies, all clients synchronize with a central server. In
client-to-client topologies, each client can synchronize with another client
without changes having to go through a central server. Mixed topologies consist
of a combination of client-to-client and client-server topologies.
Sync Framework features technologies and
tools that enable roaming, data sharing, and taking data offline. By using Sync
Framework, developers can build synchronization ecosystems that integrate any
application with data from any store, by using any protocol over any network.
Architecture:
Sync Framework uses a provider-based architecture. Providers shield
other synchronization components from the complexities and specific implementation
of each data store. This architecture, coupled with the use of specialized
synchronization metadata, enables Sync Framework to synchronize any type of
data store for which a provider is written. Sync Framework includes providers
for common data stores, such as databases and the NTFS file system, and lets
you write providers for other types of stores. The provider is the main
integration point into Sync Framework.
The following illustration shows the high-level architecture of Sync
Framework. Synchronization always occurs between two replicas (or nodes) as
shown in the illustration, but synchronization communities (or topologies) can
be of any shape, such as hub-and-spoke, peer-to-peer, and so on. With some
exceptions, each pair of participants can synchronize over a 2-tier
architecture or an n-tier architecture, as application requirements dictate.
The documentation for each Sync Framework component provides more detailed
information about appropriate architectures and security considerations.
- Elements that are written by the developer.
- Elements that are provided by Sync Framework.
- Elements that are either written by the developer or provided by Sync Framework, depending on the scenario.
Supported Operating Systems:
|
Operating
system
|
Edition
|
Processor
type
|
|
Windows XP Service Pack 3
|
Home and Professional
|
32-bit, 64-bit, WOW64
|
|
Windows Vista
|
Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium,
Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate
|
32-bit, 64-bit, WOW64
|
|
Windows 7
|
Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium,
Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate
|
32-bit, 64-bit, WOW64
|
|
Windows Server 2003 and R2
|
Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter
|
32-bit, 64-bit, WOW64
|
|
Windows Server 2008 and R2
|
Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter
|
32-bit, 64-bit, WOW64
|
Configuring CRM and
Custom Database:
Configuring Databases
1. You can configure a CRM database from the
CRM installed server that will be used by the Sync Service. In our case, we are
syncing the data with “Account”
entity
2. You can configure Custom Database that
will be used by the Sync service. In our case, we are syncing data for
DEV_DATA(database) with “SyncAccount” table.
You have to create a table with specific set of columns that needs to be
sync with CRM database.
Defining Scope and Provisioning a CRM database
To prepare the
server database for synchronization, you will need to describe a sync scope and
provision the server database with scope related artifacts.
By describing a
sync scope, you define what you want to synchronize. A sync scope is a set of
tables that must be synchronized as a single unit. The tables can already exist
in the database or they can be described by using the Sync Framework object
model and then be generated at runtime when the underlying store is
provisioned. The provisioning of a
database involves adding sync scope related artifacts such as tracking tables,
triggers, and stored procedures to the database. These artifacts are used by
the synchronization process at runtime.
1.
Launch
Visual Studio 2012: Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Visual
Studio 2012, and then click Microsoft Visual Studio 2012.
2.
Click
File on menu bar, point to New, and click Project.
3.
Select
Visual C# from Project Types, and select Console Application from Templates.
4.
Type ProvisionServer for the project name,
C:\ for Location, and ProvisionServer
for Solution Name.
5.
Click
OK to close the New Project dialog box.
6.
In
the Solution Explorer window, right-click ProvisionServer, and click Add
Reference.
7.
Select
Microsoft.Synchronization, Microsoft.Synchornization.Data,
Microsoft.Synchronization.Data.SqlServer on the .NET tab. These are the
assemblies shipped with Microsoft Sync Framework.
8.
Click
OK to close the Add Reference dialog box.
9.
Add
the following using statements to the beginning of the Program.cs file after
the existing using statements. These namespaces contains the classes that you
will be using in the code for this console application.
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using Microsoft.Synchronization;
using Microsoft.Synchronization.Data;
using Microsoft.Synchronization.Data.SqlServer;
using Microsoft.Synchronization.Data.SqlServerCe;
10.
Add the following statement to the Main method
to create a connection to the MSCRM server database.
SqlConnection serverConn = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["serverCon"]);
11.
Add
the following code to the Main method to define a sync scope. This code creates
the AccountScope sync scope, gets the description of Products table in the MSCRM
database, and adds the description to the AccountScope. The high level steps
for defining a sync scope are:
1.
Create
an instance of the DbSyncScopeDescription class. The DbSyncScopeDescription class is used to specify the name of the
sync scope and the list of tables to be synchronized. The tables are specified
using the DbSyncTableDescription class.
2.
Create
an instance of the DbSyncTableDescription class based on the schema of Products
table retrieved from the MSCRM server database. The DbSyncTableDescription class is used to specify the name of the
table, columns of the table to be synchronized, data types of the table, and
other information that is required for the sync. This information can be
specified explicitly or it can be obtained by querying the database using the GetDescriptionForTable (String, SqlConnection) method.
3.
In
this walkthrough, you will use the GetDescriptionForTable(String, SqlConnection) method of the SqlSyncDescriptionBuilder class to retrieve the description of the
table.
4.
Add
the DbSyncTableDescription object to Tables collection of the DbSyncScopeDescription object using the Add method.
SqlConnection serverConn = new SqlConnection(serverCon);
//
define a new scope
DbSyncScopeDescription
scopeDesc = new DbSyncScopeDescription(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"] + "Scope");
// get
the description of the Products table from SyncDB dtabase
DbSyncTableDescription tableDesc = SqlSyncDescriptionBuilder.GetDescriptionForTable(entityName[0],
baseColumns, serverConn);
DbSyncTableDescription tableDesc1 = SqlSyncDescriptionBuilder.GetDescriptionForTable(entityName[1],
exBaseColumns, serverConn);
tableDesc.GlobalName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"];
tableDesc1.GlobalName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"];
// add
the table description to the sync scope definition
scopeDesc.Tables.Add(tableDesc);
scopeDesc.Tables.Add(tableDesc1);
12. Add the following code to
the Main method to provision the MSCRM server database with sync related
artifacts. This code creates a SqlSyncScopeProvisioning object, skips the
creation of Products table on the server since the table already exists, and
provisions the MSCRM database with scope related artifacts. The high
level steps for provisioning the server database with sync scope related
artifacts are:
1.
Create an instance of the SqlSyncScopeProvisioning class based on the DbSyncScopeDescription object and a connection
to the server database. The SqlSyncScopeProvisioning class represents the
provisioning of a SQL Server database for a particular scope that is
represented by a DbSyncScopeDescription object.
2.
Invoke the SetCreateTableDefault(DbSyncCreationOption) method by specifying the DbSyncCreationOption value as Skip because the
Products table already exists in the server database. The SetCreateTableDefault(DbSyncCreationOption) method is used to specify
whether to create base tables when a scope is configured.
3.
Invoke the Apply() method on SqlSyncScopeProvisioning object to start the
provisioning process, which creates the change-tracking infrastructure in the
server database.
// create a server scope
provisioning object based on the scope
SqlSyncScopeProvisioning serverProvision = new SqlSyncScopeProvisioning(serverConn,
scopeDesc);
serverProvision.PopulateFromScopeDescription(scopeDesc);
//
skipping the creation of table since table already exists on server
serverProvision.SetCreateTableDefault(DbSyncCreationOption.Skip);
// start
the provisioning process
serverProvision.Apply();
13.
In
Solution Explorer, right-click ProvisionServer, and click Build.
14.
Press
Ctrl+F5 to execute the program.
15.
Press
ENTER to close the command prompt window.
16.
In
SQL Server Management Studio, expand MSCRM node, expand Tables, and you
should see the following additional tables created by the provisioning process:
AccountBase_Tracking,AccountExtensionBase_Tracking, schema_info, scope_config,
and scope_info. There are also other database objects such as triggers and
stored procedures created by the provisioning process.
Defining Scope and Provisioning a Custom database
You can continue with the same project “ProvisionServer” or create a new project if needed. You can create a new function and call the
same in the Main method of the Console Application. Repeat the same steps as
mentioned in CRM database but need to replace the Connection string and table
name. The following changes will get affected in the Custom DB after
provisioning. There are also other database objects such as triggers and stored
procedures created by the provisioning process.
Executing Synchronization
You can continue with the same project “ProvisionServer” or create a new project if needed. You can create
a new function and call the same in the Main method of the Console Application.
In this Function, copy the below code. Make sure that the scope name should be
same as you mentioned in the Client and Server Provisioning(i.e ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"] + "Scope"
in our
case).
// create a connection to the custom database
SqlConnection
clientConn = new SqlConnection(clientCon);
//
create a connection to the CRM database
SqlConnection
serverConn = new SqlConnection(serverCon);
//
create the sync orhcestrator
SyncOrchestrator
syncOrchestrator = new SyncOrchestrator();
// set local provider of orchestrator to a sync provider
associated with the AccountScope in the custom database
syncOrchestrator.LocalProvider
= new SqlSyncProvider(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"] + "Scope",
clientConn);
// set the remote provider of orchestrator to a server
sync provider //associated with the AccountScope in the Custom server database
syncOrchestrator.RemoteProvider = new
SqlSyncProvider(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"] + "Scope",
serverConn);
// set
the direction of sync session to Upload and Download
syncOrchestrator.Direction = SyncDirectionOrder.UploadAndDownload;
//
subscribe for errors that occur when applying changes to the client
((SqlSyncProvider)syncOrchestrator.LocalProvider).ApplyChangeFailed
+= new EventHandler<DbApplyChangeFailedEventArgs>(Program_ApplyChangeFailed);
((SqlSyncProvider)syncOrchestrator.LocalProvider).ChangesSelected
+= new EventHandler<DbChangesSelectedEventArgs>(Program_ChangesSelected1);
((SqlSyncProvider)syncOrchestrator.RemoteProvider).ChangesSelected
+= new EventHandler<DbChangesSelectedEventArgs>(Program_ChangesSelected);
//
execute the synchronization process
SyncOperationStatistics
syncStats = syncOrchestrator.Synchronize();
In the above code, the ChangesSelected
event of LocalProvider will get the
data from Custom Database table. The logic is written inside this event in such
a way that the datatable (which we got it from the ChangesSelected event) has
modified to get the specific set of data to create/update/delete the CRM
records. The following sample piece of code is get the datatable of
LocalProvider.
static void Program_ChangesSelected1(object sender, DbChangesSelectedEventArgs
e)
{
if(e.Context.DataSet.Tables.Contains(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"]))
{
var
dataTable = e.Context.DataSet.Tables[ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"])];
// Logic to push the data from Custom DB table to CRM DB
table
}
}
Also, the ChangesSelected event
of RemoteProvider will get the data
from CRM database table. The logic is written in such a way that the datatable
has modified to get a specific set of data to create/update/delete the Custom
database records. The following sample piece of code is get the datatable of RemoteProvider.
static void Program_ChangesSelected(object sender, DbChangesSelectedEventArgs
e)
{
if(e.Context.DataSet.Tables.Contains(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"]))
{
var
dataTable = e.Context.DataSet.Tables[ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["globalName"])];
// Logic to push the data from CRM DB table to Custom DB
table
}
}
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