Previously Known As data for an Account

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Posted on by spxgp

In Dynamics Sales, Accounts are sometimes changing names, either for rebranding or as part of an acquisition. We are having difficulty finding a way of making this "previously known as" data searchable in an Account record.

Adding a new field for "Last known as" is of limited help because a company might make a small name change that is insignificant, while the first change was important and needs recording.

Ideally, we want an array-type field that adds to a list of previous account "Last known as" names (field could be called "Previously known as"). It does not make sense to create ghost/dummy accounts for these older entities because they do not exist anymore.

We tried using the Description box to share plain text of previous company names, but it does not seem to show up in searches.

How do others deal with historical logs of companies' former names?

(Note, I know there are many questions related to DBA names. These answers do not help with our issue because the DBA name field can be single dimension and be sufficient.)

Thanks in advance

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Amit Katariya007 10,409 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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RE: Previously Known As data for an Account

Hello,

You can easily make a new field which is Multiline of text or Use existing Description field.

For search, add that field in the Quick Find view of account.

then save and publish the view.

when you search the account with old name then use wild search i.e. mention the account name in between the asterisk just like below

Thank you,

Amit katariya

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spxgp 15 on at

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RE: Previously Known As data for an Account

Thanks, Amit. If I summarize your response, you are suggesting using an existing multi-line text field like Description.

Excuse me for not being clearer in my first post. We can use a free text field like Description, but strings of text in those fields are not *globally* searchable. They can, as you say, be used in filters.

If this is a fixed limitation, then we will ask our consultants to add a new free text field.

It is rather surprising that there is no array or other field type in Dynamics for holding a series of data within a record.

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Nya 29,060 on at

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RE: Previously Known As data for an Account

Hi,

How about creating a workflow to capture the original name and recording it with a custom field when the name is changed?

First, we create two new fields, Account Name Temp and Account Name Old (both single line of text). Whenever the value of Account Name changes within our workflow, we can start to copy information across.

Step 1 – copy Account Name Temp to Account Name Old

Step 2 – copy Account Name to Account Name Temp

It looks something like this:

Behind the scenes, it looks like this:

To test this process, I populated my 2 new fields into the account screen and played with the data. I created an account called "Happy Street School" and then changed it to "Sad Street School." I saved after changing the name. As you can see below, the workflow achieved its goal: the Account Name Old field will ALWAYS contain the previous name.

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Amit Katariya007 10,409 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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RE: Previously Known As data for an Account

Hello,

you can implement below solutions depending on your requirements.

1. I guess then you can create dedicated fields to store the old customer name. Using this solution you can directly search the account from old name on Account entity.

2. Also if you think that this fields will be not enough then you can create a new entity and link with the account, and create a new record when account name is changing. As we are creating the new entity user need to search for account using old account name in this entity.

From above 2 solution first one will store fixed number of changes and second solution will store the old name in dynamics way(Just like dynamics array).

Both have its advantages and its limitations.

Thank you,

Amit katariya

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spxgp 15 on at

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RE: Previously Known As data for an Account

Thank you, this is a very creative suggestion. I need to think about how we might need to change our normal behavior when updating Accounts so this works cleanly.

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