Returning list of entities from BizTalk orchestration

Question

I am using BizTalk 2013 and need to retrieve data from CRM 2011 using CRM's web service. I created a service reference to CRM, created an orchestration in BizTalk and published it as a WCF service. I have a schema defining a Contact entity and when I retrieve one contact from CRM I return it as this schema ... and all is good.

My orchestration has a Request-Response port, it accepts an input of type Contact (schema) and returns the same.

The problem is when i try to return multiple Contacts. I tried creating a List in code but when I return that I get null.

Does anyone know how to achieve this? Or if there is a better way of doing it?

Thanks

Answer 1

Our friends over at TechNet helped me resolve this.

Here's the link in case someone has the same problem in the future.

Answer 2

To solve this you'll need:

• a new schema that caters for multiple entries of Contacts *An envelope schema"
• a new multipart message type with it's 1st part set to the new envelope schema
• a new request-response port type that takes a message in (what you want), and responds with the new multipart message.
• a new port that uses the new porttype
• a Construct message which creates an instance of our new message type

Now hook it all up.

Hope this helps.