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List within an account
List within an account
- I would like to create a list of individuals and firms to be included within a certain account. This list will include individuals and firms who are not contacts of the account and are not clients of ours.
This list will constantly be updated with Names, contact information and descriptions so I do not want to just attach an Excel document that cannot be edited within CRM.
I am new to this program and I am lost for an answer.
Answers
- hi, some clarification questions:
1. The 'individuals' that you wish to link to an account - are these individual recorded in your CRM? if yes, what are they recorded as - contacts, or something else?
2. Same question as 1 for 'firms' - are these recorded in your CRM? if yes, what are they recorded as - accounts, or something else?
3. if neither of these individuals and firms are not recorded in your CRM, do you plan to record them as accounts and contacts? I am assuming not since you said these individuals and firms are not your clients.
if 3 is true, then you might want to explore the option of tracking these individuals and firms in their own custom entities (create a custom entity called say 'individual' and create a custom entity say 'firm' that tracks the details you want to record for these individuals and firms). You can then relate these firms and individuals to the accounts by creating a relationship between the account entity and these custom entities by creating the right relationship on the custom entity (there are various types of relationships you can create - 1:n, n:1, n:n - depending on how your accounts relate to firms and individuals.).
and if 3 is not true, and you are indeed willing to have these individuals tracked as contacts and firms tracked as accounts, you can create n:1 relationship on accounts with related entity as contacts, name the display name under primary entity for that relationsihp as say 'accountindividuals'. now you'll be able to see 'accountindividuals' section under an account and you can link existing contacts there. and then you'd want to do the same with 'firms' - by creating a circular relationship for accounts and naming it as 'firms' to see a 'firms' section show up in the left nav for accounts.
which of the above approach to choose depends on what your data model is and how you intend to track the individuals and firms (you said above that the individuals are not contacts of the account, but that didn't explain whether you've tracked these individuals as contacts in MSCRM - hence questions 1,2 and 3 above). with either of these options, once you update the individuals/firms, the updated information will show up in the accounts since all that accounts are doing is referring to the data.
All this said, relationships are not easy (no pun intended. ok.. may be a little bit :).
If you have multiple individuals relating to multiple accounts, then picking the type of relationship is easy - create an n:n relationship on either contact or account, and pick which entity you want this relationship to show up in the left nav of (you can make it show up under accounts, or under contacts, or under both!).
Now about 1:n and n:1 - Relationship customizations is a very powerful concept and it will let you do a lot more than just referring some data of one list in another record! but as a starter, i *think* it will solve what you're looking for. so here's a bit of my sauce on this relationships business. If I'm building a relationship in which one of my customers (accounts) need to communicate with many individuals, then I need to build a one to many (1:n) relationship between the account entity and the 'individual' entity - by customizing the account entity, or n:1 relationship between individuals and accounts by modifying the 'individuals' entity. Now, the "one" section of this relationship is called "Primary Entity" and the "many" section will be referred to as "Related Entity" in all the help articles that you'll read about CRM Customizations, as well as in the relationship form that you'll fill when you try to create these relationships (the section in the relationship form that says "Navigation Pane Item for Primary Entity" is what you'll want to use to select how you want your 'many' individuals' (or contacts - depending on whether you go with the custom entity approch or track your individuals as contacts) list to show up on each 'one' account that refers to those individuals).
Hope this makes sense. Find out more about customizations here (customizing entities and relationships is #5 on this list): https://rc.crm.dynamics.com/rc/regcont/en_us/live/articles/thingstoknowaboutcustomization.aspx. Also, once you go through the articles, please help provide feedback to the resource center and help team by submitting feedback at the bottom of the articles - we strive to make these articles useful for our customers.
MSCRM has some very powerful customization capabilities that are enabled without writing a single line of code! Please ensure you take a backup of your current system state by backing up customizations.xml before attempting these changes - so that you can go back to it if need be. Hope you find this useful and are able to create a data model and customization that works for your org.
Thanks, Manisha Powar [MSFT]- Marked As Answer byFrank Lee WorkopiaMVP, ModeratorFriday, November 20, 2009 1:47 AM
All Replies
- hi, some clarification questions:
1. The 'individuals' that you wish to link to an account - are these individual recorded in your CRM? if yes, what are they recorded as - contacts, or something else?
2. Same question as 1 for 'firms' - are these recorded in your CRM? if yes, what are they recorded as - accounts, or something else?
3. if neither of these individuals and firms are not recorded in your CRM, do you plan to record them as accounts and contacts? I am assuming not since you said these individuals and firms are not your clients.
if 3 is true, then you might want to explore the option of tracking these individuals and firms in their own custom entities (create a custom entity called say 'individual' and create a custom entity say 'firm' that tracks the details you want to record for these individuals and firms). You can then relate these firms and individuals to the accounts by creating a relationship between the account entity and these custom entities by creating the right relationship on the custom entity (there are various types of relationships you can create - 1:n, n:1, n:n - depending on how your accounts relate to firms and individuals.).
and if 3 is not true, and you are indeed willing to have these individuals tracked as contacts and firms tracked as accounts, you can create n:1 relationship on accounts with related entity as contacts, name the display name under primary entity for that relationsihp as say 'accountindividuals'. now you'll be able to see 'accountindividuals' section under an account and you can link existing contacts there. and then you'd want to do the same with 'firms' - by creating a circular relationship for accounts and naming it as 'firms' to see a 'firms' section show up in the left nav for accounts.
which of the above approach to choose depends on what your data model is and how you intend to track the individuals and firms (you said above that the individuals are not contacts of the account, but that didn't explain whether you've tracked these individuals as contacts in MSCRM - hence questions 1,2 and 3 above). with either of these options, once you update the individuals/firms, the updated information will show up in the accounts since all that accounts are doing is referring to the data.
All this said, relationships are not easy (no pun intended. ok.. may be a little bit :).
If you have multiple individuals relating to multiple accounts, then picking the type of relationship is easy - create an n:n relationship on either contact or account, and pick which entity you want this relationship to show up in the left nav of (you can make it show up under accounts, or under contacts, or under both!).
Now about 1:n and n:1 - Relationship customizations is a very powerful concept and it will let you do a lot more than just referring some data of one list in another record! but as a starter, i *think* it will solve what you're looking for. so here's a bit of my sauce on this relationships business. If I'm building a relationship in which one of my customers (accounts) need to communicate with many individuals, then I need to build a one to many (1:n) relationship between the account entity and the 'individual' entity - by customizing the account entity, or n:1 relationship between individuals and accounts by modifying the 'individuals' entity. Now, the "one" section of this relationship is called "Primary Entity" and the "many" section will be referred to as "Related Entity" in all the help articles that you'll read about CRM Customizations, as well as in the relationship form that you'll fill when you try to create these relationships (the section in the relationship form that says "Navigation Pane Item for Primary Entity" is what you'll want to use to select how you want your 'many' individuals' (or contacts - depending on whether you go with the custom entity approch or track your individuals as contacts) list to show up on each 'one' account that refers to those individuals).
Hope this makes sense. Find out more about customizations here (customizing entities and relationships is #5 on this list): https://rc.crm.dynamics.com/rc/regcont/en_us/live/articles/thingstoknowaboutcustomization.aspx. Also, once you go through the articles, please help provide feedback to the resource center and help team by submitting feedback at the bottom of the articles - we strive to make these articles useful for our customers.
MSCRM has some very powerful customization capabilities that are enabled without writing a single line of code! Please ensure you take a backup of your current system state by backing up customizations.xml before attempting these changes - so that you can go back to it if need be. Hope you find this useful and are able to create a data model and customization that works for your org.
Thanks, Manisha Powar [MSFT]- Marked As Answer byFrank Lee WorkopiaMVP, ModeratorFriday, November 20, 2009 1:47 AM
