In Dynamics 365 Business Central, contacts can represent both companies and the individual persons associated with those companies. Since contact persons are often located at the same address as their company and may share other company attributes, Business Central includes a feature that allows specific information to automatically flow from a company contact card to a person contact card. This feature helps to maintain data consistency and saves time when entering contact information.
Here's how it works:
1. Marketing Setup Configuration: First, you need to configure the application to define which fields should be automatically copied from company contacts to person contacts. This is done in the "Inheritance" section of the "Marketing Setup" page.
2. Field Selection: Within this setup, you can select fields such as:
- Salesperson Code: The default sales representative for the contact.
- Address Details: Includes fields like the address, city, postal/ZIP code, and province/state.
- Communication Details: Such as the fax number, phone number, and other communication-related fields.
3. Creating Contact Persons: When you create a new contact person and link them to a contact company, the system will automatically populate the selected fields on the person's contact card with the information from the company's contact card.
4. Modifying Company Information: If at any point the information on the contact company card is modified, these changes will also be reflected on the contact person card for the fields that are set to be inherited. This ensures that the contact persons' details are always up-to-date with the latest company information.
5. Manual Overrides: It's important to note that if a field on the contact person card has been manually altered, the system will respect this manual entry and not overwrite it with company data. This allows for individual differences among contact persons to be maintained where necessary.
6. Documentation and Further Reading: For detailed instructions, including how to set up these inheritance rules and how to create contacts, you should refer to the "Create Contacts" section of the Business Central documentation. This can provide step-by-step guidance and any additional context you might need.
The automatic copying of information from company contacts to person contacts is a feature designed to streamline data entry and improve data integrity within Business Central’s CRM functionality.
