Getting my head around entities and how I need to use them

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So I would like to set up the ability to record competitor device information, starting at the Lead &/Or Opportunity Stage and displayed on the Account Entity screen.

There can be multiple competitor devices in a suspect/prospect/customer account's business, and several fields of information I need to capture and record against each device.

So as I understand it, I can create a new entity, and call it say 'Competitor Devices'.

I intend to restrict the visibility of Leads, Opportunities and Accounts by who they are assigned to, so am I right to think this should be an organisational entity? or a User entity?

What is the primary field in my case? would it be say supplier? It only allows me to have a free text field not an option set which is then confusing me what the primary field is for?

I then go on to create a number of fields for the information I want to capture and create a new view, lets call it 'Quick View' for me to use on my forms.

I create a 1:N relationship in the lead entity relating to my new 'Competitor Devices'. Then on the lead view I create a sub grid and select only related records and select my new 'Quick View'.

I can then, from within creating a new lead, add a competitor product and record information against that record, however, when I create another lead, I can now select the same competitor product and over-write the detail from the first record. I can also delete the competitor device which then deletes it from the first lead record also.

I essentially want to record multiple competitor devices with detail against individual accounts and display this info on the accounts, leads and opportunities pages. Are entities the right way to go about this or have I got it all wrong, and if correct, please can someone help me with where I am going wrong. Many thanks in anticipation for your help.

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Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

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Just to be safe, always make entities user entities. Worst case, you can always assign them all to an admin and treat it like an org entity.

The primary field would likely be the name of the competitor product. Remember, the primary field can only be a string. So if you don't have a string field you want to use, make the primary field optional and name it something like "ZZZDoNotUse".

Your Lead relationship needs to be changed to Parental instead of Referential. That will make sure that you get the behavior you want with Leads.

you're on the right track, it's mostly just the details of 1:N relationships that are tripping you up.

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ashlega 34,477 on at

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If you want to restrict permissions depending on the ownership, those entities have to be user-owned.

For the primary field, it has to be a text as Wayne explained, but I'd probably make it a meaningful text simply because you have to display that field in the lookup view and you may want to show it in some other views (and, since it shows up as a link in the subgrids, it makes sense to have something in that field)

From the relationship standpoint, it seems you may, actually, need N:N. If you want to be able to link the same device to multiple leads and the same lead to multiple devices it sounds like N:N rather than 1:N

You might also consider having that relationship between accounts and devices rather than between leads/devices, opportunities/devices, etc.

In that case, you might create a quick view form for the account entity, add a subgrid there, and put that quick view on each of the related entity forms (lead & opportunity). In that case, you'd essentially be managing devices per account (and, I believe, you can use subgrids in the quick view forms to add/remove related records)

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Thanks Wayne, I've made more progress thanks to your help.

I've now got my 'Competitor Devices' Entity Set up and I Set up a 1:N relationship within the Accounts entity and created a sub grid to view and add new devices against the account.

I now want to be able to add competitor devices against the account from within the lead and opportunity entities. When I create a sub grid within those entities and select only related, it doesnt list my competitor devices as an optional entity to select. Where am I going wrong?

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Hi Alex, so I have used the 1:N relationship set up and created a subgrid directly onto the account form for the new 'competitor devices' entity. I am still unsure about 1:N N:1 and N:N. I have created a new form for the competitor devices and a new view that is displayed on the sub-grid within account form. I can add a competitor device against the account but I am unsure how to now create the ability to add to this from within the lead or opportunity pages. Can you help?

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Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

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Have you created a relationship between Competitor Devices and Accounts/Opportunities? There must be a relationship between every entity you want to be able to show up on subgrids. Plus, you're going to need to build some ind of workflow to make sure that when you qualify a lead, the relationship migrates to the Account or Opportunity. Otherwise you're going to have to manually re-add "Competitor Devices" every single time you qualify a Lead to an Opportunity.

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Thanks Wayne,

So at the moment I only have a 1:N relationship from Account to Competitor Product.

Are you saying that I should set up a 1:N relationship from Lead to Competitor Product & a 1:N relationship from Opportunity to Competitor Product?

I understand what you are then saying about creating a workflow to update opportunity from Lead, however I'm not sure this will work how I need it to.

What I am wanting to achieve is to create a competitor product from within the opportunity, lead or directly on the account page and it always appear against the account record. So like if I create a new opportunity and select the associated account it then always appears on the account screen, with the addition that it is associated with a lead &/Or an opportunity.

Will it work this way if I set it up the way you have described?

Thanks again for your help.

James

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Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

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Ok, so relationships don't really work that way. But there is a way to make something similar.

1. Make a1:N relationship between Accounts and Competitor Products.

2. Make a Quick View Form of the Account that includes a subgrid of Competitor Products.

3. Add that Quick View to the Lead and Opportunity forms.

4. Delete your current Leads/Competitor Products relationship.

Now, when you open a Lead or an Opportunity, you will see the Account quick view with all the Competitor Products attached to the ACCOUNT.

This means one data entry point for everything, which is nice. However, it means you will have to click through to the Account record to add more Competitor Products. But it's the best way to keep your data nice and clean.

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ashlega 34,477 on at

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I think subgrids work fine in the quick view.. (Meaning, you can use them to add records without having to go to the account)

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