Sitecore 9.1 custom facets

Question

I am upgrading my Sitecore 8.2 code to work with Sitecore 9.1

WE have custom facets and few custom facets have collection field like below code.

 public IElementCollection<IJobPreferenceElement> Jobs 
    {
        get { return GetCollection<IJobPreferenceElement>(_jobs); }
    }
public interface IJobPreferenceElement : IElement
{

 Guid JobId { get; set; }
 string JobName { get; set; }
 int PriorityValue { get; set; }

}

How can we convert above code to work in Sitecore 9.1 (i mean to work with xconnect)?

Answer 1

Ones you want to extend your contact model with the facet above, a code will look like below:

JobPreference model:

using System;
using Sitecore.XConnect;
using Sitecore.XConnect.Schema;

namespace {your-namespace}
{
    [Serializable]
    public class JobPreference
    {
        public JobPreference(Guid jobId, string jobName, int priorityValue)
        {
            this.JobId = jobId;
            this.JobName = jobName;
            this.PriorityValue = priorityValue;
        }

        public Guid JobId { get; set; }
        public string JobName { get; set; }
        public int PriorityValue { get; set; }        
    }
}

JobPreferencesList facet definition:

using System;
using Sitecore.XConnect;
using Sitecore.XConnect.Schema;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace {your-namespace}
{
    [FacetKey("JobPreferences")]
    [Serializable]
    public class JobPreferencesList : Facet
    {
        public const string DefaultFacetKey = "JobPreferences";

        public JobPreferencesList()
        {
        }

        public Dictionary<string, JobPreference> Jobs { get; set; } = new Dictionary<string, JobPreference>();
    }
}

JobPreferenceModel builder:

using Sitecore.XConnect;
using Sitecore.XConnect.Schema;

namespace {your-namespace}
{
    public class JobPreferenceModel
    {

        public static XdbModel Model { get; } = JobPreferenceModel.BuildModel();

        private static XdbModel BuildModel()
        {
            XdbModelBuilder modelBuilder = new XdbModelBuilder("JobPreferencesList", new XdbModelVersion(1, 0));
                        modelBuilder.ReferenceModel(Sitecore.XConnect.Collection.Model.CollectionModel.Model);

            modelBuilder.DefineFacet<Contact, JobPreferencesList>(JobPreferencesList.DefaultFacetKey);

            return modelBuilder.BuildModel();
        }
    }
}

Then create a new console application project in your solution. This app will generate the JSON version of the model, which must be manually copied into your xConnect instance. Reference the following DLLs:

• Sitecore.XConnect.dll
• Sitecore.XConnect.Client.dll

• Sitecore.XConnect.Collection.Model.dll

    using System;
  using System.IO;
  namespace CreateJsonForCustomModel
  {
      class Program
      {
          static void Main(string[] args)
          {
              System.Console.WriteLine("Generating your model...");
  
              var model = JobPreferenceFacet.JobPreferenceModel.Model;
  
              var serializedModel = Sitecore.XConnect.Serialization.XdbModelWriter.Serialize(model);
  
              File.WriteAllText("c:\\temp\\" + model.FullName + ".json", serializedModel);
  
              System.Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue! Your model is here: " + "c:\\temp\\" + model.FullName + ".json");
              System.Console.ReadKey();
              Console.ReadLine();
          }
      }
  

Once the json-model file has been created, it should be deployed to:

• [YOUR PATH TO XCONNECT]\XConnect\App_data\Models\
• [YOUR PATH TO XCONNECT]\XConnect\App_data\jobs\continuous\IndexWorker\App_data\Models\

In the same time the dll which contains the facet (model) defenicion should be deployed to:

• [YOUR PATH TO XCONNECT]\XConnect\bin\
• [YOUR PATH TO XCONNECT]\XConnect\App_data\jobs\continuous\IndexWorker\

The more details example how to build custom facet is provided on Sitecore documentation: Create custom facets and events