Get accountID when creating lead in Dynamics CRM

Question

I have a plugin that triggers when I'm creating a lead and want to get the ID for the account the lead is related to parentaccountid . I'm able to print "subject" for the lead but when it comes to "parentaccountid" I get the message "Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.EntityReference" , I'm guessing it's null ? Weird thing is that when I'm looking at the lead record in FetchXML Builder there's a value in parentaccountid .

Guid leadId = new Guid(context.OutputParameters["id"].ToString());

ColumnSet cols = new ColumnSet(
new String[] { "subject", "parentaccountid" });

var retrievedLead = service.Retrieve("lead", leadId, cols);
tracingService.Trace(retrievedLead["subject"].ToString());

var accountId = retrievedLead["parentaccountid"];

tracingService.Trace(accountId.ToString());

Answer 1

Use the below syntax to get the value.

EntityReference lookupRef = retrievedLead.GetAttributeValue<EntityReference>("parentaccountid");

if (lookupRef != null) 
      Guid accountId = lookupRef.Id;

Or

var accountId = ((EntityReference)retrievedLead["parentaccountid"]).Id;

Answer 2

You could use the below code

Guid ContactId = ((EntityReference)retrievedLead.Attributes["parentaccountid"]).Id;
string PrimaryContact   = ((EntityReference)retrievedLead.Attributes["parentaccountid"]).Name;