OOB Auto Number Field in Dynamics CRM (for custom and OOB entites)

Auto Number field was the long-awaited feature in Dynamics CRM. Earlier in CRM auto-number feature was supported for some of the limited OOB CRM entities (ex: Case, Quotes, Order etc.). I still remember earlier if we had to implement Auto number feature for a custom entity, we generally used to build a custom solution for this.

From Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement App 9.0 version, Auto number feature is an in-house OOB feature & now we can generate Auto Number for custom and OOB entities, however currently Microsoft has not given any UI to create an Auto number field directly, however, in this blog I will demonstrate how we can create auto number field programmatically and leverage the SQL cluster indexing.

Note: As per Microsoft in future they will also provide CRM interface to directly create auto number field in database.

Below is the C# .Net code though which you can create Auto Number programmatically.  In the below code I am createing a custom auto number field on Account entity. 

Namespace

using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;

using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Messages;

using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Metadata;

Method

public void Create_AutoNumberField(IOrganizationService service)

        {

            try

            {

                CreateAttributeRequest widgetSerialNumberAttributeRequest = new CreateAttributeRequest

                {

                    EntityName = "account",

                    Attribute = new StringAttributeMetadata

                    {

                        //Define the format of the attribute

                        AutoNumberFormat = "ACC-{SEQNUM:4}-{RANDSTRING:4}-{DATETIMEUTC:yyyyMMddhhmmss}",

                        LogicalName = "new_accountnumber",

                        SchemaName = "new_AccountNumber",

                        RequiredLevel = new AttributeRequiredLevelManagedProperty(AttributeRequiredLevel.None),

                        MaxLength = 100, // The MaxLength defined for the string attribute must be greater than the length of the AutoNumberFormat value, that is, it should be able to fit in the generated value.

                        DisplayName = new Label("Account Number", 1033),

                        Description = new Label("Account number for account.", 1033)

                    }

                };

                service.Execute(widgetSerialNumberAttributeRequest);

            }

            catch (Exception ex){

                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);

            }

        }

After running the above code one time, it will create an Auto Number field (new_accountnumber) in Account entity, you need to place this field (new_accountnumber) on CRM entity form and you might would like to also lock it from form customization.

After placing the field on the form publish the customization and create a record an Account record in CRM.

Other Auto Number Format Options are below

Note:

• You can also convert an existing CRM text field to Auto Number field.
• You cannot create an auto number field in CRM with other special type field data types (for ex: Phone, URL ) . It should be a simple text field.

Reference MS Documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customerengagement/on-premises/developer/create-auto-number-attributes