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Billy_C
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Activity records displayed on multiple timelines

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

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Accepted Solutions
EricRegnier
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Yes that’s possible and it's even a common scenario. You need to configure your custom entity/table to have activities and send email option enabled. The send email option will automatically create an email field/column to be used when sending/receiving email.

You can also add the timeline control to your custom entity's form to conveniently see and manage the related activities in one place.

 

The solution export seems to be another issue. I would definitely not recommend to re-create custom email entity, you will lose lots of OOB current and future capabilities. How are you exported unmanaged or managed? Make sure you only include the sub-component level of the changes you made to OOB entities (like email) to your custom solution. If you didn’t make any, remove those entirely. You can also try one of these things:

  • In your target environment (env), make sure it is clean without those custom entities. OOB entities (like email) will exists because they are installed by default. These are part of CDM. The easiest would be to cretae a new target env and my recommendation if you solution/app is not live yet.
  • If you can't try with a vanilla/clean environment, then it's failing because you imported those entities with a managed solution and different publisher. You have these options:
    1. New custom solution and use the same publisher as they were originally imported. Again ensure you only include the changes.
    2. Continue to use you current solution (with the different publisher) but do not include the whole entity in your solution, include only the changes from when they were 1st imported into the target env. This might be difficult to determine.

Hope this all makes sense!

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12 REPLIES 12
Mira_Ghaly
Multi Super User
Multi Super User

@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.

 

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Billy_C
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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
Multi Super User
Multi Super User

@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

 

 

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Fubar
Multi Super User
Multi Super User

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
Post Patron
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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
Multi Super User
Multi Super User

@Billy_C

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

 

If this post helps you with your problem, please mark your as Accepted solution.If you like my response, please give it a Thumbs Up.

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Billy_C
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Post Patron

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
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

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
Post Patron
Post Patron

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

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