Dynamics CRM: More than one cascading relationship between two entities? - dynamics-crm

In Dynamics CRM Online, I have an entity "Account" and an Entity "Order Confirmation". Account can be related to the Confirmation by the following fields: Confirmation as Invoice Recipient OR Confirmation as Customer (Because an order can be sent to one customer, while another company recieves the invoice).
If the account is shared with a team / user, this user has to not only see the account, but also the account's order confirmations, but BOTH as invoice recipient AND customer.
Dynamics CRM allows me to configure only one cascading relationship between two entities, which has the effect, that after a share, the other user can only see either confirmations as invoice recipient OR confirmations as customer.
How can I work around this limitation?

Unfortunately the only way to solve your issue is usage of plugins/workflows.

Related

Setting Activity Category on Email tracked from Outlook to CRM

I'm using Dynamics CRM 2015 (7.0.2.53) and Outlook 2016 (16.0.7766.7080) with the CRM for Outlook (7.1.1.3113) addin.
What I am trying to achieve is to give users the ability to specify an Activity Category against an email which they Track and Set Regarding from Outlook.
Currently, upon tracking and setting regarding on an email in Outlook, an Email Activity is created against the specified Entity record (let's say an Opportunity) in CRM, which is fine. The problem is that I cannot find any way to allow the user to specify an Activity Category for that created Activity either during the Track/Set Regarding process, or even after the Activity is created in CRM.
Is what I'm trying to achieve possible and if not, is there any other way to achieve a similar result, so that users can specify some value from a set of options against an email when they track it from Outlook to CRM, so that value can then be used for reporting purposes?
Basically there is no way of adding some custom functionality to Tracking Emails from Outlook. So you cannot add anything in Outlook plugin that will allow you to perform some operation on CRM side to set the Category right.
You can always make a plugin/workflow on Email creation in CRM and based on some email properties (topic, content, recipients etc.) set this category by youself - but of course users still will be unable to change it.
When email is created in CRM, it's disabled (because it usually already has been sent), but you can still modify it using workflows and dialogs. So you can always create a Dialog (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg509010.aspx) and there you can prompt for proper category and set it on the email. So I can see a scenario like that - you have a view of Emails that are not categorized (or a Queue, where you put them in a plugin when user is tracking email from outlook). You pick Email, click "Start Dialog" which will be called "Set Category" or whatever, and set the category. Of course after this operation Email will vanish from the view. You can always create a reminder for the users to set the category for their mails, this should be included in new users training etc. Without any hardcore custom coding I think that's the only thing you can do (because if you don't mind writing more complex stuff you can always prepare some custom HTML5 control on Email form that will allow you to set the category field).

Get related Campaigns On Account

I am trying to add Subgrid on Account entity that would show Campaigns that have this Account record on Marketing list.
There is only a way to do this by showing Campaigns related to Account by responses, but i need to get Campaigns related to Account by common Marketing List.
Is there a way to do this?

Is it possible to limit the ToRecipient partylist to Account and Contact?

When sending emails from Dynamics CRM, we want to send e-mails to only accounts and contacts. However, the built-in e-mail activity entity allows for users and leads to be added to the recipients as well.
According to Dynamics CRM Activity Parties, there are 12 types of activity parties. The ToRecipient type "specifies the recipient in the To field" and you can select Account, Contact, Lead and User. On the same page, there is a Customer party type from where you can select only Account and Contact.
According to Activity Party Entity, the Customer party list is not available as a party list for the e-mail entity. We'd prefer to use the built-in e-mail entity instead of customizing our own, so it seems to me that the remaining option is to limit the ToRecipient party list to Accounts and Contacts. Can this be done, and have I missed other ways to get around this issue?
I have gotten the same request before, but couldn't find a great way to limit this. You could throw an error upon creation through a plugin if they add a party of a different type. See the link below for an example that could get you started.
How to get the Contact Guids from a PartyList in a Plugin?
You can add a CustomView to a lookup field. The partylist is a lookupfield, so this should work, although I think it will need some thought.
Sorry for not being able to provide a full answer but maybe the addCustomView will give you some light.

Grid of sent emails on an entities form in Dynamics CRM 2013

I would like to add a subgrid to a custom entity's form that shows the sent emails that background workflows have sent when certain actions occurred on the form.
How do I do this? Are emails already related to their entities or do I have to create a lookup relationship to the email entity?
You could use the regarding (regardingobjectid) field in the email entity. To use this lookup, you need to set the "Activities" checkbox in the configuration of the entity.
When a background workflow (CRM UI) send email for an entity, it automatically sets the RegardingObject as that entity record.
Associated views: You can see the Open items (Draft emails) in Activity & finished items (Sent emails) in Closed Activities.
You can show the same view or only outgoing emails in a subgrid with little efforts.

Addressing the customer by their first name in CRM 2011 email templates triggered by Service Activity workflows

If a customer schedules a service activity using my web application and I want to send them an automated confirmation email, it seems I have two options:
Have the workflow create and send a new email message. On this view (see below), you can use fields from related entities on the service activity (e.g. the customer's first name).
Have the workflow use an email template. It seems that email templates do not allow you to access fields from a related entity, like first name, so the only option here is to address the customer by their FULL name.
Are there any solutions that I missed, or am I stuck with the first option if I want to address the customer in a personal, natural way on this automated email?
Unfortunatly, the CRM is pretty limited on that aspect. The best workaround is to add the firstname to the Service Activity entity. May suit you or not. Otherwise, it is achievable through a the SDK, but that's much more complicated if you don't already use it.

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