FetchXML ordering results and pagination based on linked entity's attributes

Question

I am writing a FetchXML query to retrieve a list of persons to be displayed in a table. This table should be able to provide search, pagination and sorting on all columns. The problem here is that the person entity has the father as a link-entity, and the father's "firstName" is already a column in the table that I am currently building. I need a query that gives me the ability to retrieve the results sorted by the father's "firstName", filtering the results based on the same attribute and applying pagination (skip and take) not having to get all the rows and applying filtering afterwards. What I tried so far is every possible thing derived from the method mentioned in this post: https://nishantrana.me/2012/04/27/sorting-on-link-entitys-attribute-in-fetch-xml-crm-2011/

Unfortunately, not working. Any suggestions?

Where are you displaying this table? Web, winform, xamarin...? The solution is most likely dependent on the platform where you are trying to accomplish this. — Jonas Rapp
– Jonas Rapp, Commented May 18, 2018 at 10:04
Though I don't find anything related to the platform on which I should be displaying the table, anyway, it's an Angular 5 app. — Eyad Haddad
– Eyad Haddad, Commented May 18, 2018 at 10:13
Maybe I should be providing a bit of more detail. There is a C# based REST API that provides an Angular 5 web app with data. — Eyad Haddad
– Eyad Haddad, Commented May 18, 2018 at 10:27

Jonas Rapp · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-21 11:57:27Z

0

I'm guessing you have a query like this (though this is simplified):

<fetch count='50' returntotalrecordcount='true' page='2' >
  <entity name='contact' >
    <attribute name='firstname' />
    <attribute name='lastname' />
    <filter>
      <condition entityname='father' attribute='firstname' operator='like' value='Jonas%' />
    </filter>
    <link-entity name='contact' from='parentcustomerid' to='contactid' alias='father' >
      <attribute name='firstname' />
      <order attribute='firstname' />
    </link-entity>
  </entity>
</fetch>

The filter condition can be applied as above using the alias of the link-entity to father, or by adding a filter/condition under the link-entity element.

The order element added under link-entity in this example is valid to specify, however it does not seem to have any effect.

So to be able to sort by information on link-entities you have to do it client side.

answered May 21, 2018 at 11:57

Jonas Rapp

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2 Comments

Eyad Haddad Over a year ago

exatly, the order element in the link-entity does not have any effect. Ordering in the client side is unfortunately not possible, because in this case I will be having to get all of the results in order to be able to sort them, and this is a huge amount of data. Any other helpful thoughts?

Jonas Rapp Over a year ago

The only other option I see then is the painful method of overloading the father firstname on the contact entity... :( Register a plugin or a workflow with custom activity to push the name to children when firstname is changed, and register a workflow to update the overloaded field when the father is changing.

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