CRM 2016 Web API and plural names

The new Web API available for CRM 2016 is based on OData V4 protocol and the endpoint is /api/data/v8.0/

The MSDN contains several examples of the new endpoint, for example if we want to retrieve the top 3 accounts:

/api/data/v8.0/accounts?$select=name&$top=3

Simple, right? if you want to retrieve from account entity you write accounts, if you want to retrieve from contact entity you write contacts, if you want to retrieve from opportunity entity you write opportunities. You write the plural.

What a poor choice to use the plural form instead of the singular one, and let me say something, the root of the problem is an English-centered vision.

I'm not an expert of REST and OData protocols, maybe they suggest to use the plural forms but when you let users dynamically add entries to the endpoint (i.e. creating an entity) the use of plural forms is a mess.

A user on Dynamics Community asked a question: "my custom entity name is xxx_settings and I can't query using the endpoint /api/data/v8.0/xxx_settingss, which is the right syntax?"

Well, in this case the answer is simple, who designed the API decided to apply the exceptions, so if the noun ends with s the plural is es, in the user's case the correct endpoint is /api/data/v8.0/xxx_settingses, but if you want to be sure about the name you can check the metadata at this url: /api/data/v8.0/ or download the XML from the Developer Resources inside CRM UI.

Now let's play a game, how much are robust the exceptions they implemented in order to create the plural form? The answer is weak.
English is not my first language so I googled "plural exceptions english" and I landed in this page: A handout on irregular plural noun forms. I started to create some custom entities, here some results:
new_city become new_cities, English correct.
new_wolf become new_wolfs, English incorrect.
new_knife become new_knifes, English incorrect.
new_man become new_mans, English incorrect.

Now, I don't expect that all the irregular forms are covered, but if you decide to handle the final 's' and the final 'y' why not handle the final 'f'? However not big deal, You check the metadata and you can find the exact plural word to use.

BUT, and there is a BUT

Let's say we created our custom entity new_city and now the REST endpoint responds to /api/data/v8.0/new_cities, what will happen if we create a custom entity called new_citie?
The entity is not listed inside the REST endpoint!!! because the plural of new_citie is new_cities but it's already used by new_city.
The lesson is: pay attention when you name your entities if you need to query them using the new REST endpoint, if the plural form of a new entity is the same of the plural form of a previous entity, you can't query it.

Set Account's Primary Contact as Recipient when creating a new Phone Call

When a new Phone Call is created starting from an Account, the default recipient is the Account itself.
If we want to set the Primary Contact of the Account as Recipient, we need to call the following function inside the OnLoad event of the Phone Call entity.

function ChangePhoneCallRecipientFromAccountToPrimaryContact() {
    // check if is a new phone call
    if (Xrm.Page.ui.getFormType() == 1) {
        // get the Phone Call To Recipient
        var to = Xrm.Page.getAttribute("to").getValue();
        // if the Recipient is an account we continue
        if (to != null && to[0].entityType == "account") {
            // get the account Id
            var accountId = to[0].id;    
            // get the right url for the OData Query
            var serverUrl;
            if (Xrm.Page.context.getClientUrl !== undefined) {
                serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getClientUrl();
            } else {
                serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl();
            }
            // build the request
            var ODataPath = serverUrl + "/XRMServices/2011/OrganizationData.svc"; 
            var accountRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
            accountRequest.open("GET", ODataPath + "/AccountSet(guid'" + accountId + "')", false); 
            accountRequest.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json"); 
            accountRequest.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json; charset=utf-8");
            // execute the request
            accountRequest.send();
            if (accountRequest.status === 200) {
                var retrievedAccount = JSON.parse(accountRequest.responseText).d;
                // retrieve the primary contact of the account
                var primaryContact = retrievedAccount.PrimaryContactId;
                // if there is a primary contact we set as new To Recipient
                if (primaryContact.Id != null) {
                    var newTo = new Array();
                    newTo[0] = new Object();
                    newTo[0].id = primaryContact.Id;
                    newTo[0].name = primaryContact.Name;
                    newTo[0].entityType = primaryContact.LogicalName;
                    Xrm.Page.getAttribute("to").setValue(newTo);
                }
            }
            else {
                alert("error");
            }
        }
    }
}

Get current user's full name with a synchronous call

An AJAX request can be made also synchronous, this can be useful when we want to make a simple and fast request inside CRM 2011.
In this example we will retrieve the full name of the current user and set the value to a custom field called "new_userfullname".

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Dynamic navigation links using supported customizations

Consider for example the following scenario:
We need to add a link inside the left navigation panel to display an HTML Web Resource or an external URL, with CRM 2011 can easily done using the form editor as shown in the following figure



but is possible to build a dynamic URL? Yes, it is possible and more important can be done in a supported way.

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