MS CRM 2013 Attribute parentcustomeridtype must not be NULL if attribute parentcustomerid is not NULL - web-services

Question

Dear smart developers out there,
I encounter a problem when I want to create a contact belonging to an organization in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 via web services
client = new OrganizationServiceClient("CustomBinding_IOrganizationService");
var newContactProperties = new Dictionary<string, object> {
{ "lastname", "TestContact"},
{ "firstname", "A"},
{ "fullname", "A TestContact"}
};
/* organizationType is a CRM.CRMWebServices.OptionSetValue
* with ExtensionData null, PropertyChanged null and a valid Value
*
* orgReference is a CRM.CRMWebServices.EntityReference
* with a valid Id
*/
newContactProperties.Add("parentcustomeridtype", organizationType);
newContactProperties.Add("parentcustomerid", orgReference);
var entity = new Entity();
entity.LogicalName = "contact";
entity.Attributes = new AttributeCollection();
entity.Attributes.AddRange(newContactProperties);
client.Create(entity);
This gives me error 'Attribute parentcustomeridtype must not be NULL if attribute parentcustomerid is not NULL'
I am puzzled why this happens and how I can solve this problem. Please help me if you can.
Thank you,
AllWorkNoPlay

Answer 1

You don't need to set "parentcustomeridtype" attribute separately. It's a system field, will be set by platform and in parentcustomerid exists for legacy reason, when it was Customer type in earlier versions of Dynamics CRM.
You need to specify only EntityReference in lookup field.
newContactProperties.Add("parentcustomerid", new EntityReference("account", new Guid("{accountid guid}")));
Also it's not clear what type you use in "orgReference" field. For contact valid entity types should be "account" or "contact".

Answer 2

thank you for the answers, I did not manage to get it right using web services this way.
I tried using Early Bound access with success:
Generated proxy objects using https://xrmearlyboundgenerator.codeplex.com/
Added line [assembly: Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Client.ProxyTypesAssemblyAttribute()] to assemblyInfo to have Intellisense available (even for customized fields)
Now I manage to create a contact and assign it to an organization (something like this):
var contact = new Contact()
{
FirstName = "Bob",
LastName = "Dobalina",
Address1_Line1 = "123 Strasse",
Address1_City = "Berlin",
Address1_PostalCode = "32254",
Telephone1 = "425-555-5678",
EMailAddress1 = "bob.dobalina#germany.de"
};
var account = new Account()
{
Name = "Siemens Germany",
};
context.AddObject(contact);
context.AddObject(account);
context.AddLink(account, "contact_customer_accounts", contact);
context.SaveChanges();
}