How to log a discussion/meeting easily from Outlook against a Contact AND their parent Account? Add a Note?

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Posted on by Pauleec

Hi there,

Newbie to Dynamics so bear with me if this is a stupid question.

We have a - so far - out of the box installation of the Outlook App that our users have started using. There is a requirement to to be able to log the outcome of a discussion or meeting, not necessarily against the email a user may be looking at, that will be logged against both a Contact AND their parent Account.

This seems nearly there in as much as logging an Appointment for example against a Contact does show up that Appt against the Contact and their parent Account, same for tracking Emails. So far so good. Ideally I would just enable users to create a Note the same way they create an Appointment or Email and have that show up against a Contact and Parent Account. However, I can't see how to enable a Note as an option from the + menu in the App, where you add Activities. Looking at the Note (annotation) entity in the system the option to 'Define as an activity entity' is greyed out.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? We could ask everyone to log their output as an Appointment, or email themselves their thoughts and then track the emails, but they are inelegant solutions. Would I be better off creating a custom entity that can be defined as an Activity? Called Feedback or something?

Would really appreciated any thoughts or signposts in the right direction, I have looked online already, honest!

Paul

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Wouter Madou 3,392 on at

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RE: How to log a discussion/meeting easily from Outlook against a Contact AND their parent Account? Add a Note?

Sure, here is a great tutorial for embedding powerapps:

www.linkedin.com/.../

(Be aware that working with attachments can be difficult in regards of encoding.)

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Pauleec 35 on at

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RE: How to log a discussion/meeting easily from Outlook against a Contact AND their parent Account? Add a Note?

Hey Wouter,

This is great information, thanks so much for taking the time.

Can I ask one more favour? I like the sound of 'create a powerapp control showing the notes and attachment of related contacts', can you share a link that points me in the right direction for getting started? I have used PowerApps in various ways, and I'm not sure what you mean by control in this instance.

Thanks again, you've saved me lots of time, and given me lots to think about!

Paul

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Wouter Madou 3,392 on at

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RE: How to log a discussion/meeting easily from Outlook against a Contact AND their parent Account? Add a Note?

It is not possible to add notes to the + sign.

(If you do an advanced find for notes, you will notice you cannot create a new note from the view.)

In the old days I would have tried to edit the customizations xml to check the quick create button for the notes entity (not supported) but nowadays in online I would stay clear from this.

For the rollup I always thought notes had the same functionality, but you are correct, they are not displayed on the parent account.

Phonecalls however should be visible. Are they added to the timeline control on the account form and the app?

Here a screenshot of a phonecall created on a related contact.

What you could do for the note (excluding the attachment) :

- create a powerapp control showing the notes and attachment of related contacts

- duplicate the notes and attachment with power automate

- create a workflow that creates a post on the account stating a note is added to the contact

On the other hand, you could of course also (didn't thought of that yesterday) start using SharePoint integration combined with Onenote?

If you make sure the setup is done with the account as primary entity, related documents (and therefore also onenotes) are shown on the parent account under files.

Create a onenote against the appointment or in my case contact:

And on the files tab from account:

A lot of different options, just need to use what makes you comfortable :)

Good luck!

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Wouter Madou 3,392 on at

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RE: How to log a discussion/meeting easily from Outlook against a Contact AND their parent Account? Add a Note?

Let me do some quick research, I'll come back to it.

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Pauleec 35 on at

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RE: How to log a discussion/meeting easily from Outlook against a Contact AND their parent Account? Add a Note?

Hi Wouter,

Thank you for this really useful (and comprehensive!) answer :)

So, the first few steps are already setup and I can see Note in the options on the Timeline, as in your image. So far so good! However:

1. Is it possible to add Note as an option from the + menu in the top navigation in the App? Currently the options I have are those in the attached 2 images...

2. Even if I add a Note via the Contact form in the Outlook App it isn't rolling up to the Parent Account for me. It DOES roll up for Appointments, Tasks, and Emails, but not Notes (or Phone Calls). Is there something I haven't set?

Apart from that I like the sound of Alternative Solution 1 since it would mean my users could log their visit reports (good name) against the Appt entity from the top nav, without having to search for a Contact first or be in an email that contained the relevant Contact. If that makes sense.

Thanks again for your help, much appreciated!

Paul

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Wouter Madou 3,392 on at

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RE: How to log a discussion/meeting easily from Outlook against a Contact AND their parent Account? Add a Note?

Hi,

Make sure notes are enabled on the contact entity.

(Should be by default.)

Next, make sure notes as an entity is added to the outlook model driven app and enabled for mobile.

Finally, make sure on the timeline of the contact form you are using in the outlook app, you have added notes.

That should do the trick. Screenshot of outlook app with notes:

In regards of visibility on the parent account; if on a contact the parent account field is used, a rollup feature enables viewing all related activities on related contacts/accounts on the parent account record.

So set the regarding to the contact and it will be visible on the account record. (Of course if you move the contact, the activities are no longer visible on the account.)

Alternative solutions:

1.

Adjust the appointment form with a new multiline field 'internal comments'.
Let users change this field with comments. Since it is a custom field, it is not updated towards the required attendees.

2.

Create a new activity entity 'visit reports' and set a lookup to appointments. Allow users to create a visit report against the appointment.

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