Skip to main content

Notifications

Announcements

No record found.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

Posted on by 555

Is the only way to associate a contact to multiple accounts through 'Connections'?  Doing this doesn't make the contacts appear in the 'Contacts' sub grid of additonal accounts.  Does anyone have a better solution?

*This post is locked for comments

  • Suggested answer
    mrvduijn Profile Picture
    mrvduijn 10 on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    Another solution would be to add custom entity 'Person', which has a 1:N relationship with Contacts. So now you can be employed by one organization, and at the same time volunteer for another. And, also very helpful to capture and understands someone's career moves... (is employeed by, was contracted by, etc.). You actually create a N:N relationship between People and Organizations through the Contact entity.  

  • RogerChen Profile Picture
    RogerChen on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    Microsoft CRM 2011

    In the contact page, there is a field to add the accounts, but can only add one account.

    So I guess this is 1:1 relationship.

    I did not quite get it what is the loss of functionality with 1:N contact:account relationship?

    A contact can be directors of many companies.

    If the GUI contact page could be changed to allow adding multiple accounts to Parent Account?

    6712.crm_5F00_contactaccount.jpg

  • crm_caser Profile Picture
    crm_caser 555 on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    Thank you Tom.  Your answer is the most accurate.

  • Verified answer
    Thomas Lampert Profile Picture
    Thomas Lampert 210 on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    hi,

    you can use a custom n:n relationship between contact and account and replace the standard relationship. but in this case you will loose the standard funcionalities (e.g. show activities of related contacts in accounts, qualify a lead) because you cannot use the standard parent account lookup anymore if you want to see all contacts in one related subgrid (you cannot show different relationships in one subgriid or related view).  if you use both, standard 1:n and n:n on the same form it's difficult for the user to decide which one is the correct and it can result in a bad data quality. in my experience if a user has more the ine clear path he will find ten others to enter data.

    so i would recommend the connections too.

    i have the same challenge at a currently running project. in our case we should connect the contact to multiple accounts (one account directly working for - the "strong connection" and  some other accounts where the contact is e.g. in the management - the "soft connection"). now we train our users to identify the "strong connection" and put this information in the parent account field. for all the other "soft connections" the user has to create connections where we have created custom connection roles for. if e.g. an email has to be seen in the strong and the soft connection the user has to set the regarding field to the soft account. the strong account will display the emails of its contact through the standard tools.

    we know that it's not perfect but in our case it's working.

    tom

  • Aileen Gusni Profile Picture
    Aileen Gusni 44,522 on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    Hi,

    Why you don't create Native N:N relationship between Contact and Account if you don't want to create Connection. It will appear in the same place.

    Thanks.

  • crm_caser Profile Picture
    crm_caser 555 on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    Yes I know about the Connection... The issue with this is that connections do not appear in the 'Contacts' sub-grid... you will have to go to the Connections area to reference this.

    It would be ideal if we could have all Contacts appear in the same place.

  • Suggested answer
    Karth Profile Picture
    Karth on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    Go to the Contact entity and use the Connection feature to add multiple Accounts there.

  • crm_caser Profile Picture
    crm_caser 555 on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    Hi Karth,

    Currently we can associate multiple contacts to an Account.  The problem is the reverse... we cannot associate a contact to multiple accounts.

    Would creating a custom entity work here?

  • Suggested answer
    Karth Profile Picture
    Karth on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    You don't have to create a custom contact entity. You can create a N:N relationship between Account and Contact entity. This will allow you to associate multiple Contacts to an Account.

    Using Connections could be a better option for you. You will have an option to specify the type of relationship the Account has with each of the Contacts along with some description. You wont have this advantage when you configure a N:N relationship.

  • crm_caser Profile Picture
    crm_caser 555 on at
    RE: Associating a Contact to Multiple Accounts

    Hi first of all thank you both for responding.  I have to admit I am a little confused though...

    Are you both saying a solution to this would be to a create a new custom "contact" entity that has a many to many relationship (N:N) and replace to replace the native contact entity that already exists?

    If this were to be created would the replacement be an easy fix?

Under review

Thank you for your reply! To ensure a great experience for everyone, your content is awaiting approval by our Community Managers. Please check back later.

Helpful resources

Quick Links

December Spotlight Star - Muhammad Affan

Congratulations to a top community star!

Top 10 leaders for November!

Congratulations to our November super stars!

Tips for Writing Effective Suggested Answers

Best practices for providing successful forum answers ✍️

Leaderboard

#1
André Arnaud de Calavon Profile Picture

André Arnaud de Cal... 291,280 Super User 2024 Season 2

#2
Martin Dráb Profile Picture

Martin Dráb 230,235 Most Valuable Professional

#3
nmaenpaa Profile Picture

nmaenpaa 101,156

Leaderboard

Featured topics

Product updates

Dynamics 365 release plans