How do I set an OwnerId to a BusinessUnitId in MS CRM 2013 using REST interface?

Question

I have an MS CRM 2013 that I want to set the OwnerId on an Account to a Business Unit using the REST interface (and the VS2013 proxy class created).

I've tried a number of ways, but seems like something like this should work. However, it throws an "Invalid ownerIdType = 10" error message

var crmService = new CrmServiceReference.Context(crmUri);
var owner = crmService.BusinessUnitSet.First();
var newAccount = new CrmServiceReference.Account();
newAccount.AccountNumber = "123456";
newAccount.Name = "Hello World";
newAccount.Ownerid = new CrmServiceReference.EntityReference() { Id = owner.BusinessUnitId, Name = owner.Name, LogicalName = "businessunit" };
crmService.AddToAccountSet(newAccount);
crmService.SaveChanges();

I've also tried:

• sending just the Id (error: no system user)
• setting .OwningBusinessUnit = owner (which doesn't set the owner to the business unit)
• looked into .OwnershipCode (but wasn't able to set/determine what that is)
• removed .OwnerId = line and tried crmService.AddLink(newAccount, "ownerId", owner); (The closed type CrmServiceReference.Account does not have a corresponding ownerId settable property)
• removed .OwnerId = line and tried crmService.AddRelatedObject(newAccount, "ownerId", owner); (The closed type CrmServiceReference.Account does not have a corresponding ownerId settable property)

Answer 1

It looks like a team is created with each business unit and that the ownerId should be the team rather than the business unit, so ...

var owner = crmService.BusinessUnitSet.First();

becomes

var team = crmService.TeamSet.First();

and

newAccount.Ownerid = new CrmServiceReference.EntityReference() { Id = owner.BusinessUnitId, Name = owner.Name, LogicalName = "businessunit" };

becomes

newAccount.Ownerid = new CrmServiceReference.EntityReference() { Id = team.TeamId, Name = owner.Name, LogicalName = "team" };

Answer 2

Business Units can't own records. The owner of a record can be only a user or a team.

Just for your information, to change the owner you need to use AssignRequest message

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.crm.sdk.messages.assignrequest.aspx

Answer 3

To assign ownership of a new record to the default Team for a Business Unit use the following code:

        var biz = crmService.BusinessUnitSet.First();
        var owner = crmService.TeamSet.First(x => x.BusinessUnitId.Id == biz.BusinessUnitId && x.IsDefault == true);
        var newAccount = new Account();
        newAccount.AccountNumber = "123456";
        newAccount.Name = "Hello World";
        newAccount.OwnerId = owner.ToEntityReference();

You can a where clause to the first line to get a specific Business Unit, if necessary.

Obviously, you should add error handling and possibly change to FirstOrDefault to avoid errors. I'll leave how you manage those issues up to you.