Insert data to custom object with relationship using external Id

Question

Good day everyone,

I have installed an npsp package and then I created a visual force that will save a new affiliation . I've tried to used an external Id to save the data. I've already tried saving data using external Id in account and contact. But when I tried in npsp affiliation I've encounter some problem "Illegal assignment from Account to Id". What am I missing ? Below is my sample code. Please help. Thanks.

npe5__Affiliation__c aff =  new npe5__Affiliation__c();

Account accReference = new Account();
accReference.DI_extId__c = 'acc_12345';
aff.npe5__Organization__c   = accReference;

Contact conReference = new Contact();
conReference.DI_extId__c = 'con_12345';
aff.npe5__Contact__c    = conReference;


Account accountList = new Account();
accountList.Name = 'TEST ACCOUNT 1';
accountList.DI_extId__c = 'acc_12345';

Contact contactList = new Contact();
contactList.Last = 'TEST CONTACT 1';
contactList.DI_extId__c = 'con_12345';

Insert accountList;
Insert contactList;
Insert aff;

Answer 1

Change:

aff.npe5__Organization__c   = accReference;

To

upsert accReference;
aff.npe5__Organization__c   = accReference.Id;

accReference is an Account sObject, you need the ID. Same thing goes for the contact record.

UPDATE:

After careful investigation and getting the idea of what you're actually trying to do, you need to set the __r relationship instead:

aff.npe5__Organization__r = accReference;

Answer 2

First issue: External IDs only work for an upsert operation, where you are performing inserts.

Second issue: for those lookup fields, __c holds an id value, __r points to another record via a relationship.

So, your code though it is incomplete, might look like this:

// create an affiliation
npe5__Affiliation__c aff =  new npe5__Affiliation__c();

// create an account instance
Account accReference = new Account();
accReference.DI_extId__c = 'acc_12345';

// connect the field to the Account via reference
aff.npe5__Organization__r   = accReference;

// upsert the account
upsert accReference DI_extId__c;

// get the id of the account after DML and set the id for the lookup reference on the affiliation by reaching through the relationship
aff.npe5__Organization__c = aff.npe5__Organization__r.id;

// upsert the affliation
upsert aff;