June 4, 2007

How to debug callouts?

First, here are two points, that I would like to express:

  1. I want to debug callouts directly and not with log files.
  2. .NET 2.0 rulez

What now? Callouts use .NET 1.1 and just forget about remote debugging or something like that.

Why not create callouts that use some web service? If you have it installed on the same machine, then you can easily use impersonation etc.

So here's how I do it: I develop a web service that uses CRM web services, test it with normal win32 application and then just insert those 2 lines of code in callouts that call my web service. Use of dynamic entities is very very strongly recommended. You can serialize and deserialize them easily and if the structure of CRM entity model changes, you don't have to worry. Even callouts can have config files.

Web service is running in .NET 2.0 environment and I can debug it freely!

This is how I do it. What about you?