Hope this might be helpful:
The behavior you're describing, where changing the main customer's email address also updates the email addresses of all associated contacts, is standard Business Central functionality by design for the "Default" contact associated with a customer.
When you create a new customer in Business Central, a default contact record is automatically created and linked to that customer. This default contact is intended to represent the primary contact person for the customer, and its email address (among other fields) is designed to synchronize with the main customer record.
Why it happens:
- Data Synchronization: This linkage ensures data consistency. If the primary email for a company changes, it's assumed their main contact's email should also change.
- "Default" Contact: This behavior primarily applies to the contact designated as the "Default" for that customer.
Resolving this issue (i.e., preventing contacts' emails from changing when the customer email changes):
To prevent associated contacts' emails from automatically updating when the main customer's email changes, you need to ensure that the contacts you wish to remain independent are not marked as the "Default" contact for that customer, or you need to manage them differently.
Here are the key steps and considerations:
Understand "Default" Contact:
- Go to a Customer Card.
- Navigate to Related > Contacts > Contacts.
- You'll see a list of contacts associated with that customer. One of them will have a checkbox marked as "Default Contact". This is the contact whose information (including email) is synchronized with the main customer card.
Make Contacts Independent (Recommended):
- If you have multiple contacts for a customer and you want their email addresses to be managed independently of the main customer's email:
- Ensure the contact you want to keep separate is NOT the "Default Contact". If it is, either change another contact to be the default, or if there's only one, you might need to create a dummy default contact that you don't use for independent email management.
- Once a contact is not the default, changes to the customer's main email will no longer automatically update that specific contact's email.
- You can then manually manage the email addresses for these non-default contacts.
Create New Contacts Not as Default:
- When creating new contacts for a customer, be mindful of the "Default Contact" setting. Only mark a contact as default if you explicitly want its main information to sync with the customer.
Consider Contact "Type":
- While not directly related to email sync, ensure your contacts are set up with the correct "Type" (e.g., Person, Company). This helps in categorization.
The email change propagation from customer to contact is standard for the "Default Contact". To prevent this, ensure the contacts you want to manage independently are not designated as the "Default Contact" on the customer card.
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