Are Dynamics CRM plugins registered as "post operation" run inside or outside the DB transaction?

Question

I'm working on plugin registration for custom C# plugins for Dynamics CRM (2015 and CRM Online).

When you create a new plugin using the Visual Studio CRM Explorer, you get the standard "Create Plug-in" dialog:

Under "Pipeline Stage", there are three options:

1. Pre-Validation
2. Pre-Operation
3. Post-Operation

Selecting Post-Operation here results in this code being added to the XML registration file:

    <Plugin Description="..." FriendlyName="PostContactCreate" Name="Cacheron.PostContactCreate" Id="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" TypeName="Cacheron.PostContactCreate">
      <Steps>
        <clear />
        <Step CustomConfiguration="" Name="PostContactCreate" Description="Post-Operation of Contact Create" Id="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" MessageName="Create" Mode="Synchronous" PrimaryEntityName="contact" Rank="1" SecureConfiguration="" Stage="PostOutsideTransaction" SupportedDeployment="ServerOnly">
          <Images />
        </Step>
      </Steps>
    </Plugin>

The key part there is that middle line, where it says Stage="PostOutsideTransaction"

The corresponding C# code that's generated by the tool includes the line:

base.RegisteredEvents.Add(
  new Tuple<int, string, string, Action<LocalPluginContext>>(
    40, 
    "Create", 
    "contact", 
    new Action<LocalPluginContext>(ExecutePostContactCreate)
  )
);

That magic number 40 in the plugin registration appears to correspond to the "pipeline stages" documented at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/gg327941.aspx, which says

Post-Event

Post-operation

40

Stage in the pipeline for plug-ins which are to execute after the main operation. Plug-ins registered in this stage are executed within the database transaction.

So I've got registration XML generated by the tool that clearly says PostOutsideTransaction, and C# code generated by the same tool that specifies stage 40, which is "executed within the database transaction"

So which is it? Is the XML registration syntax using a misleading name, or is this a bug in the plugin creation tool, or is the execution pipeline doing something clever that I don't understand?

Answer 1

It depends on the message your post operation plugin step is registered for. For the most common messages the step executes inside a database transaction:

• Create
• Update
• Delete
• SetState
• Assign

Some other messages may be executed outside a database transaction, e.g. Publish and PublishAll, and for other it varies (Retrieve, RetrieveMultiple).

In the IPluginExecutionContext object you can check the IsInTransaction property.

Answer 2

40 is definitely post-operation and inside the transaction. You can easily tell that's the case because if your stage 40 plugin step throws an exception, the entire operation that triggered the plugin gets rolled back.

On an unrelated note, I highly recommend abandoning the developer toolkit from the SDK. It is buggy and very annoying for a number of reasons. I highly recommend the free and open-source CRM Developer Extensions, it is eons better.