Why can I not use Continuation when using a proxy class to access MS CRM 2013? - dynamics-crm-2013

Question

So I have a standard service reference proxy calss for MS CRM 2013 (i.e. right-click add reference etc...) I then found the limitation that CRM data calls limit to 50 results and I wanted to get the full list of results. I found two methods, one looks more correct, but doesn't seem to work. I was wondering why it didn't and/or if there was something I'm doing incorrectly.
Basic setup and process
crmService = new CrmServiceReference.MyContext(new Uri(crmWebServicesUrl));
crmService.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
var accountAnnotations = crmService.AccountSet.Where(a => a.AccountNumber = accountNumber).Select(a => a.Account_Annotation).FirstOrDefault();
Using Continuation (something I want to work, but looks like it doesn't)
while (accountAnnotations.Continuation != null)
{
accountAnnotations.Load(crmService.Execute<Annotation>(accountAnnotations.Continuation.NextLinkUri));
}
using that method .Continuation is always null and accountAnnotations.Count is always 50 (but there are more than 50 records)
After struggling with .Continutation for a while I've come up with the following alternative method (but it seems "not good")
var accountAnnotationData = accountAnnotations.ToList();
var accountAnnotationFinal = accountAnnotations.ToList();
var index = 1;
while (accountAnnotationData.Count == 50)
{
accountAnnotationData = (from a in crmService.AnnotationSet
where a.ObjectId.Id == accountAnnotationData.First().ObjectId.Id
select a).Skip(50 * index).ToList();
accountAnnotationFinal = accountAnnotationFinal.Union(accountAnnotationData).ToList();
index++;
}
So the second method seems to work, but for any number of reasons it doesn't seem like the best. Is there a reason .Continuation is always null? Is there some setup step I'm missing or some nice way to do this?

Answer 1

The way to get the records from CRM is to use paging here is an example with a query expression but you can also use fetchXML if you want
// Query using the paging cookie.
// Define the paging attributes.
// The number of records per page to retrieve.
int fetchCount = 3;
// Initialize the page number.
int pageNumber = 1;
// Initialize the number of records.
int recordCount = 0;
// Define the condition expression for retrieving records.
ConditionExpression pagecondition = new ConditionExpression();
pagecondition.AttributeName = "address1_stateorprovince";
pagecondition.Operator = ConditionOperator.Equal;
pagecondition.Values.Add("WA");
// Define the order expression to retrieve the records.
OrderExpression order = new OrderExpression();
order.AttributeName = "name";
order.OrderType = OrderType.Ascending;
// Create the query expression and add condition.
QueryExpression pagequery = new QueryExpression();
pagequery.EntityName = "account";
pagequery.Criteria.AddCondition(pagecondition);
pagequery.Orders.Add(order);
pagequery.ColumnSet.AddColumns("name", "address1_stateorprovince", "emailaddress1", "accountid");
// Assign the pageinfo properties to the query expression.
pagequery.PageInfo = new PagingInfo();
pagequery.PageInfo.Count = fetchCount;
pagequery.PageInfo.PageNumber = pageNumber;
// The current paging cookie. When retrieving the first page,
// pagingCookie should be null.
pagequery.PageInfo.PagingCookie = null;
Console.WriteLine("#\tAccount Name\t\t\tEmail Address");while (true)
{
// Retrieve the page.
EntityCollection results = _serviceProxy.RetrieveMultiple(pagequery);
if (results.Entities != null)
{
// Retrieve all records from the result set.
foreach (Account acct in results.Entities)
{
Console.WriteLine("{0}.\t{1}\t\t{2}",
++recordCount,
acct.EMailAddress1,
acct.Name);
}
}
// Check for more records, if it returns true.
if (results.MoreRecords)
{
// Increment the page number to retrieve the next page.
pagequery.PageInfo.PageNumber++;
// Set the paging cookie to the paging cookie returned from current results.
pagequery.PageInfo.PagingCookie = results.PagingCookie;
}
else
{
// If no more records are in the result nodes, exit the loop.
break;
}
}