Retrieve Server Datetime on the client in CRM 4.0

There are many ways to achieve that, the following are he ways to do so.

1. Create custom aspx page.

2. Create custom webservice.

3. Use standard Microsoft CRM WebServices for this task.

The first and the second ways were not interesting for me because I had already used in some tasks I'd made. So I decided to implement the third idea.

So the points:

1. Create the plugin which will handle Execute message (Fetch from client side) and insert server datetime in the response XML.

2. Write client side JavaScript code which will execute this Fetch request, retrieve the result XML and parse it.

Plugin code (Registration: Message - Execute, Primary Entity - none, Secondary Entity - none, Stage of Execution - Post Stage, Execution Mode - Synchronous, Triggering Pipeline - Parent Pipeline):

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

using Microsoft.Crm.Sdk;

using System.Xml;

namespace TimePlugin

{

    public class ExecuteXMLParser : IPlugin

    {

        #region IPlugin Members

        public void Execute(IPluginExecutionContext context)   

     {

            if (context.MessageName == "Execute" && context.OutputParameters.Contains("FetchXMLResult"))

            {

                //I retrieve response XML

                string result = (string)context.OutputParameters.Properties["FetchXMLResult"];

                XmlDocument document = new XmlDocument();

                //Load this XML into XMLDocument

                document.LoadXml(result); 

                //Create and add attribute with current date time

                XmlAttribute timeAttribute = document.CreateAttribute("ServerDateTime");

                timeAttribute.Value = DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy.MM.dd.hh.mm.ss");

                document.FirstChild.Attributes.Append(timeAttribute);

                //Place modified result XML to context to be returned to client

                context.OutputParameters["FetchXMLResult"] = document.OuterXml;

            }

        }

      
#endregion IPlugin Members

    }

}

Client side JavaScript (You can use any fetch request you have): 

//Create simple Fetch xml request

var xml = "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>"+

"<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'"+

" xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'"+

" xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'>"+

GenerateAuthenticationHeader()+

"<soap:Body>"+

"<Fetch xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/crm/2007/WebServices'>"+

"<fetchXml>&lt;fetch mapping='logical'&gt;"+

"&lt;entity name='systemuser'&gt;"+

"&lt;no-attrs/&gt;"+

"&lt;filter type='and'&gt;"+

"&lt;condition attribute='systemuserid' operator='eq-userid'/&gt;"+

"&lt;/filter&gt;"+

"&lt;/entity&gt;"+

"&lt;/fetch&gt;</fetchXml>"+

"</Fetch>"+

"</soap:Body>"+

"</soap:Envelope>";

//Prepare the xmlHttpObject and send the request.

var xHReq = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");

xHReq.Open("POST", "/mscrmservices/2007/CrmService.asmx", false);

xHReq.setRequestHeader("SOAPAction","http://schemas.microsoft.com/crm/2007/WebServices/Fetch");

xHReq.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "text/xml; charset=utf-8");

xHReq.setRequestHeader("Content-Length", xml.length);

xHReq.send(xml);

//Capture the result

var resultSet = xHReq.responseXML.text;

resultSet.replace('&lt;','<');

resultSet.replace('&gt;','>');

//Create an XML document that can be parsed.

var oXmlDoc = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");

oXmlDoc.async = false;

oXmlDoc.loadXML(resultSet);

//Value the user is interesed in in string form

var datetime = oXmlDoc.selectSingleNode('resultset').getAttribute('ServerDateTime').split(".");

//And the result - Date object

var result = new Date();

result.setFullYear(datetime[0]);

result.setMonth(datetime[1] - 1);

result.setDate(datetime[2]);

result.setHours(datetime[3] - 1);

result.setMinutes(datetime[4]);

result.setSeconds(datetime[5]);

alert(result);