Custom Composite Lookups (multi-relationship in 1 lookup)

[D365Ideas_Admin]

MS Dynamics CRM has a few entities where it offers this functionality (for example customer on opportunity, partylist on email, regarding on activities).

It would be particularly handy if we could define these ourselves for use on any custom or system entity.

For example define a lookup on a custom entity which can contain multiple record types (like customer works) or define a party list on a custom entity and have it contain any system or custom record type (in line of how to/from works on email).

[D365Ideas_Admin]

Thank you for your feedback. This is a great suggestion! We will consider this in our roadmap.

Sincerely,

 Srikumar Nair

PM, Microsoft 

[PeB71]

Of course, this is a must have

[basneary]

It would also be particularly helpful if the customizer could select which entity from among the multiple allowed was the default one.

[D365Ideas_Admin]

I would like to see this implemented as a general customisation capability. The design I'd suggest is: A facility to design a composite entity (like Customer, or Person). The composite entity would comprise a list of entities it could reflect (e.g, Account and Contact), ideally in an ordered sequence, which would apply to the list of available entities in the 'Look For' dropdown of the Lookup Record dialog. When defining a relationship, the parent entity (or either entity for a N-N relationship) could be a composite entity. If this is a composite entity, then CRM would create an additional database field (e.g. personidtypecode) along with the lookup field to store the underlying entity type. I think the core CRM platofrm should be able to cope with this design. All Lookup controls and EntityReference types already accommodate a LogicalName component. Ideally, the current 'customer' composite entity would be reworked into this design, which would have 3 benefits: 1. It would be extendable, so that other entity types (e.g. lead) could be designated as a customer 2. It could be used for custom relationships (which is the subject of several other Connect suggestions, e.g. 678425) 3. It would prevent the occasional oddities in behaviour in the plugin pipeline, where different behaviour can occur when using the contactid or parentcustomerid attributes For clarity, I see this suggestion as separate from suggestions that relate to inheritance

[D365Ideas_Admin]

I concur. This is a must have.

[D365Ideas_Admin]

Giving us this ability would allow for mapping from OTB to custom entities. For example, mapping from the Campaign form Customer field (party list type) to a custom Expense entity Account field (account lookup) is currently not possible.

[D365Ideas_Admin]

One thing though, the partylist on the email seems different than the customerid field on opportunities/cases, etc. The customer field only allow one entry per field, but the user can select such entry from either an account or a contact. The ability to expand on such customer field to add further entities into it, or to create a new "virtual, top-level" entity altogether, in my view is a must to push the xRM framework further against the competition. The partylist field on the other hand also allow users to select entries from different entities. However the user can add multiple entries into the same field, from different entities. For example the "To" field on an email record can have multiple users, contacts, etc. I find such differences quite significant and I see the benefit of being able to create either type of field, as in different scenarios one type of field would be better than the other.

[D365Ideas_Admin]

I added a similar suggestion here, the ability to "jump to last page". In this fashion, the system won't query the count on every grid view, and only when attempting to jump to the final page of a list of records. https://connect.microsoft.com/dynamicssuggestions/feedback/details/794333/ability-to-view-total-coun...

[D365Ideas_Admin]

Thank you for your suggestion. We are considering this functionality for a future release of CRM. Mike Carter This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

[D365Ideas_Admin]

As a top 5 item on Connect that has been here now for nearly 3.5 YEARS I disappointed that this still hasn't been addressed in CRM 2015. What is the point of the new "rapid release cadence" if things like this are continuously ignored?