Yay! Finally, the good folks on the Dynamics CRM team have added the ability to log errors that occur in plugins and custom workflow activities.

Plug-In Trace Log

This is a new entity that we can access from the Settings, Customization area:

Setup

You need to enable the logging of exceptions to the plug-in trace log entity. Navigate to Settings, Administration, System Settings, then select the Customization tab.

Change the Enable logging to plug-in trace log setting to Exception.

Usage

Any time you have an unhandled exception in your plug-in or custom workflow activity, a log will be written to the trace log:

The detail looks like this:

Final Thoughts

This is a huge advance for those of us who develop with Dynamics CRM. Prior to this feature, we found I very difficult to record exception information, especially in CRM Online because any record we recorded to a logging entity was erased and when the transaction was rolled back, which was the common occurrence when exceptions were encountered.

This new entity and feature will be a most welcome addition.