Activity records displayed on multiple timelines

[Billy_C]

Hi there,

This might seem like a weird question, but I have this entity called reminders and a user can add a reminder to a project now is it possible to make it so that the reminder is also added to my related company record and related contact person record?

For example if I have a reminder made for project mic2101 and company is Microsoft and contact person is Michael then that reminder will be displayed at the project, the company Microsoft and the contact person Michael.

Is it possible to achieve something like this?

Thanks in Advance,

Billy Cottrell

[Mira_Ghaly]

@Billy_C

So reminder is an activity entity and should have one regarding which is your project entity, and hence it will appear only on the project timeline but if you want it to appear on contact you need to add a new lookup of type contact on your reminder table and add a sub grid on contact to show only related reminders.

[Billy_C]

Hi @Mira_Ghaly,

So basically you can only add an item on 1 timeline only, and it cannot appear on any other timeline. Then why even bother making it an activity if you can't display it on multiple timelines at once?

I mean If you receive an email from someone of a certain company about your project wouldn't it be logical if you could see that at the project, company and the contact person? Otherwise, information that belong to these groups would be scattered around which isn't ideal or efficient at all.

Anyway is there a method to make it so that it is shown on multiple timelines? Or can you have multiple regarding fields one for Project, one for company etc.?

If it isn't possible then I won't make it as an activity but as a regular entity for the time being. Just for the sake of viewing the same data in multiple locations.

Thanks in Advance,

Billy Cottrell

[Mira_Ghaly]

@Billy_C

If you checked there is some activities that can appear on multiple timelines like the Email activity but this doesn't happen through regarding but through the To and from fields and this is a special behaviour for the Email Out of the Box custom activity entity but for Custom entities of type activity unfortunately you can't do this. You can only link it to a single regarding field, I see you have a valid suggestion here and you can post this as an idea.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Ideas/idb-p/PowerAppsIdeas

[Fubar]

Activities will show on the timelines of the To, From and Regarding objects.

There is also special relationship between Contact and Account - where a Contact for an Account (i.e. has the Account populated in the Contact's parent  account field) has an Activity it will rollup to show in the Account timeline (i.e. the Activity shows on both the Contact and Account, and Regarding objects timelines even though the activity is only linked to the Contact). 

[Billy_C]

Thank you for your responses!

Good to know that there are special circumstances where activities do appear on multiple timelines, but that it isn't possible with custom entities.

I will definitely post it as an idea since it might be interesting to have access to these activities on multiple custom entities.

I do have one more question about these activities, I am using a custom-made solution without using any of the built-in entities meaning that I have built my own Company and Contact entity. Will, there be any issues with the activities because I don't want that these fields are being connected with the built-in entities as it might confuse users since I am not using these entities.

Kind regards,

Billy Cottrell

[Mira_Ghaly]

@Billy_C

No it does not matter if you are using custom entities and custom activities.

[Billy_C]

Hi @Mira_Ghaly,

I know that it doesn't matter for custom activities but what with the built-in activities like email and such they normally have connections with built-in entities which are not being used so they might confuse users as they might try to use these built-in entities.

For example I want to add an email to a company (custom entity) but they need to fill in the to and the from with a Contact person (custom entity) so they might confuse contact person with the built-in contact entity.

Is it possible to block these built-in entities to be used to make sure that users aren't confused?

Thanks in Advance,

Billy Cottrell

[EricRegnier]

Hi @Billy_C, the best way to block those out-of-the-box (OOB) entities if they're not used is to remove all privileges in the security roles to those and the users will not see or select them. If they are used, then there's is no way by configuration as in some scenarios the users need to reference OOB entities and in other cases use custom ones. You'll need JavaScript and use the "addPreSearch" method to filter the TO/CC/BCC: https://docs.microsoft.com/powerapps/developer/model-driven-apps/clientapi/reference/controls/addpre...

Hope this helps!

[Billy_C]

Hi @EricRegnier,

What you are saying seems logical, but what If I want to use OOB activities with custom entities and not the OOB entities. As in I want to use the OOB Email activity but I don't want any of the OOB related entities to be used but only my custom made entities.

If it is possible how can I make it so that the OOB entities are integrated in my solution because when I try to export that solution it says that these entities already exist and that way the solution can't be imported (which is one of the reasons im no longer using OOB entities). Or is it possible to make a custom Email activity which also has the TO/CC/BCC fields as the OOB Email Entity?

Kind regards,

Billy Cottrell