如何在托管解决方案中解决CRM 2011多对多关系中的错误？

Question

I made a mistake in a many-to-many relation. I made it point to the wrong entity due to bad naming.

How can I correct this relation when it's already imported as an unmanaged solution?

A many-to-many relation seems to be fixed forever when it's imported from an unmanaged solution. All my changes are ignored in every import. For now, my workaround has been to create a relation with a new name, but then I have to update and deploy my plugins and other clients as well.

Answer 1

Importing a managed or unmanaged solution will won't delete anything from the target system. Solutions are additive.

I would suggest either, deleting the relationship manually on the target systems, or marking it as redundant (in the description or name) as you would with a publically released API.

Answer 2

I have learned that this is a shortcoming in CRM 2011. One workaround is to:

1. Correct the relation in the source organization
2. Export the corrected solution and unzip
3. Change the unique solution name and zip to a new file. This will be the holding solution
4. Import the holding solution into the target system
5. Uninstall the erroneous solution from the target system
6. Import the corrected solution into the target system
7. And, finally, uninstall the holding solution

This works, because nothing in CRM is deleted if it's referenced from a solution. In this case, the bogus reference is the only thing not referenced, hence it should be the only thing deleted.

The holding solution is there just to reference all the valid pieces we don't want to delete.

I haven't gotten around to test it myself, but I trust the individual who informed me of this workaround.