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Authenticating .NET applications

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This topic provides guidance when developing applications coded and built using .NET.

.NET Framework applications

If you are using the .NET Framework when developing your application you can use classes within the Xrm.Tooling namespace to easily authenticate and connect to the Microsoft Dataverse web services.

Xrm.Tooling classes in the SDK assemblies use the IOrganizationService interface methods. This is the same style of programming used by plug-ins and workflow activities, making it one style that you can use everywhere for .NET Framework applications. We recommend using the Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.Connector.CrmServiceClient class for web service connection.

The Xrm.Tooling classes provide many benefits including:

  • You can define connection information using a connection string.
  • Supports both OAuth and Microsoft 365 claims-based authentication.
  • Thread safety for actions performed in a multi-threaded environment.
  • Provides a common Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) login control for a consistent sign-in experience from your Windows client applications.
  • Support for secure storage of the sign-in credentials and reuse of the stored credentials to automatically sign in after initial sign in.
  • Built-in diagnostic tracing and performance reporting of the actions performed, which you can configure based on your organization’s requirements.
  • Support for X.509 certificate authentication.

The Xrm.Tooling classes are optimized to use the IOrganizationService interface methods.

If you want to use the Web API, you can use the Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.Connector.CrmServiceClient.ExecuteCrmWebRequest method to compose requests using the Web API with all the other benefits provided with the Xrm.Tooling classes as long as you use OAuth.

More information: Build Windows client applications using the XRM tools

.NET Framework versions

Use .NET Framework version 4.6.2 or higher when you create client applications. Only applications using Transport Level Security (TLS) 1.2 or better security can connect. TLS 1.2 is not the default protocol used by .NET Framework 4.5.2, but it is in .NET Framework 4.6.2 or later.

.NET Framework applications without using SDK assemblies

If you prefer to not have a dependency on any SDK assemblies, you can also use the patterns described in Use OAuth with Microsoft Dataverse without taking a dependency on any SDK assemblies. Without the SDK assemblies, you can only use the OData Restful web services (Web API and OData Global Discovery Service). The Web API Data operations Samples (C#) demonstrate this approach.

.NET Core and .NET 6 applications

The SDK APIs available in Microsoft.CrmSdk.XrmTooling.CoreAssembly and other "crmsdk" owned NuGet packages do not support .NET Core code development.

For .NET Core application development there is a DataverseServiceClient class, that is patterned after the CrmServiceClient class mentioned previously. You can download the Microsoft.PowerPlatform.Dataverse.Client package from Nuget.org to begin using this new service client class in your applications. Documentation and sample code for the DataverseServiceClient and related classes will be made available in a future documentation release.

To update existing .NET Framework based application code that uses CrmServiceClient, begin by substituting the DataverseServiceClient class for CrmServiceClient in your code. You will need to set the project type to build a .NET Core application, remove any .NET Framework specific references and NuGet packages, and then add the Microsoft.PowerPlatform.Dataverse.Client package to the project.

See also

Authentication with Dataverse web services
Use OAuth with Dataverse