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Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

best practice set up account for use by multiple departments with different addresses and phones

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Looking for the best way to set up accounts so that multiple departmental groups can see 'global' address and phone information (with restricted update access) and have sales departments have their own address/phone attached to account. Activity data will not be shared across sales departments and each sales department will have its own sales contacts/activities/opportunities/etc. I know this can be done using parent company type of setup and defining departmental accounts as children but think this can be cumbersome when a child account could logically have multiple children of its own withing a departmental sale group. 

Sales groups are currently defined by a regional area currently as well with security set up to restrict access by team and business unit. Thus restriction must also be carried over into whatever new scheme is identified.

Is there a good way to have a common high level account outside of the parent account method ? I am thinking of creating a new type of entity but want the functionality of an account as defined by CRM. Migrating to CRM 2016 and later to 365. Currently running 2013.

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  • Michel van den Brink Profile Picture
    4,697 on at

    Hello kwojnar,

    There is no best practice that really stands out here, outside of the usage of hierarchy in Accounts.

    I'm curious as to what areas you find cumbersome in the use of an Account hierarchy. Dynamics 365/CRM is designed with the 'Account' in the center of everything and the hierarchy mechanism is especially aimed at a scenario you are describing,

    It would require some creative customization to introduce an additional level, in the form on an additional entity especially.

    Going forward to later versions as CRM 2016, 365 v8.2 and 365 v9, the Account entity and the hierarchy remain a focal point.

    Could you elaborate a little more about what you are running into with an Account hierarchy setup?

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    on at

    The main issue is if we should use parent/child relationships in a multi tiered arrangement  (child of a child) as opposed to adding departmental specific fields to the account entity. At the moment, we have basically 5 different departments all of which establish their own account/contacts. Each department cannot see the accounts from any other department.  From an administrative standpoint, maintaining all 5 accounts with the most current data is the biggest issue - one department may update theirs but do not communicate to other departments.

    The real difference between parent and child at the top level is department specific - there typically is a different address or phone for departmental account needs as opposed to a generic 'main' number for the business. Was thinking from an entity standpoint we could lock the parent info to an administrative user and add dept 1 phone, dept 2 phone, ... fields. This would require a little more action to maintain by IT vs user base. (We in IT maintain the customization).

    We then need to restrict views of acitivties by user since each department does not want the other departments to see the activity/opportunities/campaigns/etc they own.

    Make sense ?

    --  k  --

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