How to add a value to a lookup field?

Question

I have a entitiy "account "in which it has some name_field in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Other than lookup field , every other fields values can be inserted. how to select an existing value in look up????

I used the following code to add value to the lookup field.. However I don't get any error..

Account acc = new Account();
acc.Attributes["name"] = "Ram"; // this values got inserted
acc.Attributes["age"] = "22"; // this values got inserted
acc.Attributes["lookupfieldid"] = "Sampletext";

service.Create(acc); // to create account

How I need to change my code in order to select "primary" value in the lookup field?

Answer 1

Lookup fields in CRM 2011 are EntityReference , this means you need to know the LogicalName of the entity the lookup is pointing and the Id of the record.

so your code wil be:

Account acc = new Account();
acc.Attributes["name"] = "Ram"; // this values got inserted
acc.Attributes["age"] = "22"; // this values got inserted

acc.Attributes["lookupfieldid"] = new EntityReference("contact", contactId); // if lookupfieldid is pointing to contact entity

service.Create(acc); // to create account

One consideration: you wrote

Account acc = new Account();

I don't know if you are using early bound (means the classes generated by crmsvcutil.exe ) or late bound (in this case you will write Entity acc = new Entity("account"); )

but if you use early bound, the syntax will be something like:

Account acc = new Account();
acc.Name = "Ram"; // this values got inserted
acc.Age = "22"; // this values got inserted
acc.LookupFieldId = new EntityReference("contact", contactId); // if lookupfieldid is pointing to contact entity
service.Create(acc); // to create account

using early bound you will know before the right type expected by the field.

Answer 2

Based on what you have described, account type is an entity (lets assume it is called new_accounttype) with a name field (new_name) and there are three instances named "Primary", "Secondary" and "Other." Lookupfieldid is a foreign key that links to the new_accounttype table. This means that in order to set the account type lookup to "Primary" you need to know the guid of the account type instance where new_name = "Primary".

//Retrieve "Primary" account type
QueryExpression query = new QueryExpression("new_accounttype");
query.Criteria.AddCondition("new_name", ConditionOperator.Equal, "Primary");
Entity accountType = service.RetrieveMultiple(query).Entities.First();

//Set the lookup as Guido described above
Account acc = new Account();
acc.Attributes["name"] = "Ram";
acc.Attributes["age"] = "22";
acc.Attributes["lookupfieldid"] = new EntityReference("new_accounttype", accountType.Id);
service.Create(acc);

Answer 3

Get Value of Lookup fields

EntityReference entref = (EntityReference)item.Attributes[attributeName];

var LookupId = entref.Id;

var logicalName = entref.LogicalName;

Set Value of Lookup fields

newAccount[attributeName] = new EntityReference(logicalName, LookupId);