Query and detect table definitions changes

This sample shows how to retrieve and detect changes in table definitions using RetrieveMetadataChangeRequest method. You can download the sample from here.

Note

Unsure about entity vs. table? See Developers: Understand terminology in Microsoft Dataverse.

How to run this sample

  1. Download or clone the Samples repo so that you have a local copy.
  2. (Optional) Edit the cds/App.config file to define a connection string specifying the Microsoft Dataverse instance you want to connect to.
  3. Open the sample solution in Visual Studio and press F5 to run the sample. After you specify a connection string in cds/App.config, any sample you run will use that connection information.

If you do not specify a connection string in cds/App.config file, a dialog will open each time you run the sample and you will need to enter information about which Dataverse instance you want to connect to and which credentials you want to use. This dialog will cache previous connections so that you can choose a previously used connection.

Those samples in this repo that require a connection to a Dataverse instance to run will include a linked reference to the cds/App.config file.

What this sample does

The RetrieveMetadataChangeRequest message is intended to be used in a scenario where it contains the data that is needed to retrieve a collection of table definitions records that satisfy the specified criteria. The RetrieveMetadataChangesResponse returns a timestamp value that can be used with this request at a later time to return information about how table definitions have changed since the last request.

How this sample works

To simulate the scenario described in What this sample does, the sample will do the following:

Setup

Checks for the current version of the org.

Demonstrate

  1. The MetadataFilterExpression method creates the filter expression to limit tables returned to non-intersect, user-owned tables not found in the list of excluded tables.
  2. The MetadataConditionExpression method returns the choice column.
  3. The MetadataPropertiesExpression method limits the properties to be included with the columns.
  4. The LabelQueryExpression method limits the labels returned to only those for user's preferred language.
  5. The RetrieveMetadataChangeRequest method retrieves the table definitions for the query.

Clean up

Display an option to delete the sample data that is created in Setup. The deletion is optional in case you want to examine the tables and data created by the sample. You can manually delete the records to achieve the same result.