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Extend Universal Resource Scheduling with Universal FetchXML

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UFX is an advanced query language that allows you to query data using dynamic FetchXML, shape, and prepare the resulting data for consumption by the Universal Resource Scheduling (URS) solution. This query language enables you to create custom queries to customize and extend the schedule board and schedule assistant filters to meet the unique business needs of the organization.

UFX consists of two components UFX Bag and UFX Query.

Simple UFX Bag

A UFX Bag contains static typed data. In memory, it's represented as a dictionary with keys and values. It can be serialized to JSON and XML. Having the data typed allows a UFX Query to query data from it, and client UI to bind to it.

For practical and performance reasons the in-memory bag is implemented on top of the Dynamics 365 apps SDK Entity object.

Sample bag containing two values.

In memory:

key value type
name John string
age 36 int

In JSON:

{
    "name": "John",
    "age": 36
}

In XML:

<bag>
    <name ufx-type="string">John</name>
    <age ufx-type="int">36</age>
</bag>

UFX supported types

A UFX Bag can contain values of many types. They are categorized in three type classes:

Category Value
Simple types bool (Boolean), int (Int32), long (Int64), double (Double), decimal (Decimal), datetime (DateTime), guid (Guid), string (String)
Dynamics 365 specific simple types: money (Money), option (OptionSet), lookup (EntityReference)
Other Bags bag (Entity)
List of Bags list (EntityCollection)

Here's a sample JSON bag containing more types:

{
    "citizen": true,          // implicit bool
    
    "age": 36,                // explicit int
    "age@ufx-type": "int",

    "name": {                 // nested bag
        "first": "John",
        "last": "Doe"
    },

    "children": [             // list of bags
        { "name": "Sam" },
        { "name": "Judy" }
    ]
}

The same bag in XML:

<bag>
    <citizen ufx-type="bool">true</citizen>

    <age ufx-type="int">36</age>

    <name ufx-type="bag">
        <first ufx-type="string">John</first>
        <last ufx-type="string">Doe</last>
    </name>

    <children ufx-type="list">
        <bag>
            <name ufx-type="string">Sam</name>
        </bag>
        <bag>
            <name ufx-type="string">Judy</name>
        </bag>
    </children>
</bag>

Introduction to UFX Queries

UFX Queries are written as XML-based UFX Bags. Properties in the bag can contain UFX directives to query data dynamically. A UFX Query executes on in-memory objects, not XML. Only the directives are written in XML. Its output can be serialized to JSON or XML.

The following UFX Query defines the accounts property in the bag with the source UFX directive. This results in the inline FetchXML to be executed by Dynamics 365 and the accounts property to become a list of bags, or an EntityCollection, with each bag being an instance of an account record from Dynamics 365.

<bag xmlns:ufx="https://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2017/universalfetchxml">
    <accounts ufx:source="fetch">
        <fetch top="10">
            <entity name="account" />
        </fetch>
    </accounts>
</bag>

A UFX Query is processed sequentially and can contain many FetchXML queries.

Here's a snippet of the result of the previous UFX Query serialized to XML. Observe some values have metadata further describing them.

<bag>
  <accounts ufx-type="list">
    <bag ufx-id="166e39dd-34a1-e611-8111-00155d652f01" ufx-logicalname="account">
      <accountid ufx-type="guid">166e39dd-34a1-e611-8111-00155d652f01</accountid>
      <accountnumber ufx-type="string">ABSS4G45</accountnumber>
      <name ufx-type="string">Fourth Coffee (sample)</name>
      <statecode ufx-type="option" ufx-formatvalue="Active">0</statecode>
      <websiteurl ufx-type="string">https://www.fourthcoffee.com/</websiteurl>
      <primarycontactid ufx-type="lookup" ufx-formatvalue="Yvonne McKay (sample)" ufx-logicalname="contact">7c6e39dd-34a1-e611-8111-00155d652f01</primarycontactid>
      ...
    </bag>
    <bag ufx-type="bag" ufx-id="186e39dd-34a1-e611-8111-00155d652f01" ufx-logicalname="account">
      <accountid ufx-type="guid">186e39dd-34a1-e611-8111-00155d652f01</accountid>
      <accountnumber ufx-type="string">ACTBBDC3</accountnumber>
      <name ufx-type="string">Litware, Inc. (sample)</name>
      <statecode ufx-type="option" ufx-formatvalue="Active">0</statecode>
      <websiteurl ufx-type="string">https://www.litwareinc.com/</websiteurl>
      <primarycontactid ufx-type="lookup" ufx-formatvalue="Susanna Stubberod (sample)" ufx-logicalname="contact">7e6e39dd-34a1-e611-8111-00155d652f01</primarycontactid>
      ...
    </bag>
    ...
  </accounts>
</bag>

The select UFX directive takes an XPath expression that selects values from the current bag.

<bag xmlns:ufx="https://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2017/universalfetchxml">
    <accounts ufx:source="fetch">
        <fetch top="10">
            <entity name="account" />
        </fetch>
    </accounts>

    <first_account_name ufx:select="accounts/bag[1]/name" />

    <!-- null values remove properties from the bag -->
    <accounts ufx:select="$null" />
</bag>

The resulting bag in XML:

<bag>
    <first_account_name ufx-type="string">Fourth Coffee (sample)</first_acount_name>
</bag>

Certainly the most powerful aspect of a UFX Query is its ability to dynamically generate FetchXML based on input data.

In the sample below, we search for accounts by a value supplied by the user and available as a UFX Bag through the XPath $input variable. Notice the UFX if and value directives on the condition element.

<bag xmlns:ufx="https://schemas.microsoft.com/dynamics/2017/universalfetchxml">
    <accounts ufx:source="fetch">
        <fetch top="10">
            <entity name="account">
                <filter>
                    <condition attribute="name" operator="like" ufx:if="$input/NameFilter">
                        <ufx:value select="$input/NameFilter" attribute="value" />
                    </condition>
                </filter>
            </entity>
        </fetch>
    </accounts>
</bag>

If the NameFilter property in the input bag contained %city% the produced FetchXML condition executed by Dynamics 365 would look like this.

<condition attribute="name" operator="like" value="%city%" />

Keys, values, and metadata

A UFX Bag contains keys and values, with some values having additional metadata further describing them.

An example might be a value of type lookup (EntityReference). When queried from Dynamics 365 through FetchXML, it will return the logical name of the entity as well as the formatted display name of the record. The UFX Bag preserves these additional information as metadata attached to the primary value.

Serialized to JSON, a lookup with metadata looks like this:

{
    "primarycontactid": "7e6e39dd-34a1-e611-8111-00155d652f01",
    "primarycontactid@ufx-type": "lookup",
    "primarycontactid@ufx-logicalname": "contact",
    "primarycontactid@ufx-formatvalue": "Susanna Stubberod (sample)"
}

In XML:

<primarycontactid ufx-type="lookup" ufx-formatvalue="Susanna Stubberod (sample)" ufx-logicalname="contact">7e6e39dd-34a1-e611-8111-00155d652f01</primarycontactid>

XPath over Dynamics 365 data

Having the data in a UFX Bag typed, allows a UFX Query to see it in a structured format and use XPath to traverse over the data and select values from it.

An XPath expression specified in a UFX directive sees the data in the bag similar to the structure of the bag in XML-serialized form. However, the data is stored in in-memory .NET objects (in instances of Entity and EntityCollection types) and not in XML documents.

Appendix A: UFX type reference

Note: All UFX Types support the ufx-type and ufx-formatvalue metadata. Additional metadata are described next to each type in the table below.

UFX Name Attribute Type Code .NET Name UFX Metadata
bool Boolean Boolean
int Integer Int32
long BigInt Int64
double Double Double
decimal Decimal Decimal
datetime DateTime DateTime
guid Uniqueidentifier Guid
string Memo String
money Money Money
option Picklist OptionSetValue
lookup Lookup EntityReference ufx-logicalname
bag N/A Entity ufx-id
ufx-logicalname
list N/A EntityCollection
N/A N/A AliasedValue ufx-aliasentity
ufx-aliasattribute

Appendix B: UFX Query directives

UFX directives can be used on bag properties and on XML elements of a FetchXML query.

UFX Bag directives

Attribute Value Description
ufx:if XPath Tests the XPath expression and only processes the property if the test returns true
ufx:source fetch Executes the inline <fetch> XML element and assigns the result to the property
ufx:select XPath Executes the XPath expression and assigns the result to the property
When querying for a bag or list an optional child bag in XML form can be specified to transform the result of the XPath expression

UFX FetchXML directives

Element Attribute Value Description
All elements ufx:if XPath Tests the XPath expression and only emits the XML element if the tests succeed
ufx:apply select XPath Loops over the nodeset returned by the XPath expression and outputs the child XML elements once for each node
ufx:value select XPath Executes the XPath expression and outputs the result in the current XML element
ufx:value attribute attribute name Assigns the XPath expression result to the specified attribute name on the current XML element

Appendix C: UFX XPath functions

UFX adds a number of new functions in addition to the ones available natively in XPath.

datetime()

  • datetime(): Returns the current time in UTC

list()

  • list(bag | list, ...[bag | list]): Takes a number of bag or list values as input and flattens them into a single list

lookup-to-list()

  • lookup-to-list(lookup, ...[lookup]): Takes a number of lookup values, converts each of them to a bag with the ufx-id and ufx-logicalname metadata set, and flattens them into a single list

option-to-list()

  • option-to-list(option, ...[option]): Takes a number of option values, converts each of them to a bag with a single option property, and flattens them into a single list

order()

  • order(list, string, bool): Orders a list by a property in each bag. The property is specified in argument 2, descending is specified in argument 3.
  • order(list, list): Order a list by multiple sort orders specified as a list in argument 2. Each bag in the second list can have a name and descending property

iif()

  • iif(any, any, any): If argument 1 is true, returns argument 2, otherwise returns argument 3

Appendix D: UFX XPath variables

Name Description
$input A bag available to the UFX Query with input values
$null A null constant. Selecting $null on a property removes the property from the bag
$current Reference to the current bag being processed by the UFX Query

See also

Understanding and customizing resource matching in Universal Resource Scheduling

Universal Resource Scheduling extensibility release notes