Add Custom Entity to Activity Party list

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We are using the following activities: Fax, Phone Call, Letter, Appointment, and Recurring Appointment. On these activities there is a "To" field. This field is a party list and has the following OOB entities in the list: account, contact, lead, and user. Is there a way to add a custom entity to this party list. We have a custom entity for employees and we need to be able to set the "To" to an employee. I have been looking without success to see if there was a way to add out custom entity to the party list. I haven't been able to find out how the party list is set to in include the OOB entities. I am looking for a supported or unsupported way to do this. If that is not possible I wanted to figure out how the party list works so I can effectively explain why this request is not possible.

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Mahendar Pal 45,095 on at

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Hi,

It depends on activity to activity, for example let's say you wan to to see your custom entity under To field while creating email activity, then you can enable "Sending email....." option under communication and collaboration setting in Entity definition, save and publish your changes and you will be able to see your entity under To.

But for other entity you refer this work around using connections :community.dynamics.com/.../66104

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gdas 50,091 Moderator on at

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Hi ,

As far as I know there is straight forward way you can do this.

I would recommend not to customize regarding field as this is OOB.

Your can refer below msdn reference.

msdn.microsoft.com/.../gg309626.aspx

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Inogic 703 on at

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Adding custom entities in the “To” field is not possible and not supported for activities other than email. We can have custom entities in the “To” field only for the Email activity. The “Activities” and “Sending Email” option enables that entity to display in the To field of only Email.

You may need to rethink about “Employee” entity. You need decide if it is really needed to have separate entity for Employee. If you want to take benefit of OOB activities you could use Contact entity for keeping the information of Employees. You could have a optionset field on Contact entity to differentiate between your Customer and Employees. For example, Contact Type: Employee, Client. You can show/hide fields on the form base on the selected option.

Hope this helps!

Thanks!

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Community Member on at

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[quote user="jhoran1046"]

We are using the following activities: Fax, Phone Call, Letter, Appointment, and Recurring Appointment. On these activities there is a "To" field. This field is a party list and has the following OOB entities in the list: account, contact, lead, and user. Is there a way to add a custom entity to this party list. We have a custom entity for employees and we need to be able to set the "To" to an employee. I have been looking without success to see if there was a way to add out custom entity to the party list. I haven't been able to find out how the party list is set to in include the OOB entities. I am looking for a supported or unsupported way to do this. If that is not possible I wanted to figure out how the party list works so I can effectively explain why this request is not possible.

[/quote]

In this case, the way the system is set up we need the employee entity and we are using it currently. We are utilizing all the OOB entities as well. I have dug through all the resources online and I cannot even find information on how the party list actually work. I have tried to pick apart the database to see how it works and I haven't been able to piece it together. We have implemented several unsupported workarounds. If I could figure out how the party list work I feel certain I could come up with something. At this point, I feel like I would have to talk to a CRM engineer to get the info I need.

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[quote user="Mahender"]

Hi,

It depends on activity to activity, for example let's say you wan to to see your custom entity under To field while creating email activity, then you can enable "Sending email....." option under communication and collaboration setting in Entity definition, save and publish your changes and you will be able to see your entity under To.

But for other entity you refer this work around using connections :community.dynamics.com/.../66104

[/quote]

This is a feature that CRM no longer supports, this link is from 2011.

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Community Member on at

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[quote user="Goutam Das"]

Hi ,

As far as I know there is straight forward way you can do this.

I would recommend not to customize regarding field as this is OOB.

Your can refer below msdn reference.

msdn.microsoft.com/.../gg309626.aspx

[/quote]

I have seen that documentation. I have been through the database and it seems like something is resolving the lookup and putting the email in the "to" field. Our employee entity has an email as a required field. I am trying to figure out how the party list actually work. The thought is if there was a way to get the employee entity in the lookup it would work since it has the email.

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Mahendar Pal 45,095 on at

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Ok, I have not tried that but you can still see your custom entity in email activity if you will enable send email options.

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moko33 1,788 on at

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Inspired by the comment from Inogic I want to add some details here:

Custom Entity, in Entity metadata the following is enabled: Notes, Activities, Sending email.

Works in those fields: Regarding, Email.To, Appointment.Required, Appointment.Optional, Appointment.'Required Attendees', 'Booking Alert'.Assignees, 'Custom Activity'.'Required Attendees'

Doesn't work: 'Phone Call'.'Call To', 'Phone Call'.'Call From', Letter.To, FAX.To, 'Custom Activity'.To, 'Custom Activity'.From

If you're using Disabled Users instead for Employees, you're not having these restrictions. If that's an option you might want to take a look here: community.dynamics.com/.../316744.

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