Important:- You can use parent accounts and sub-accounts to record a link between two organizations. Specifying one account as the parent account automatically makes the other a sub-account. Each account can have only one parent account, but you can specify as many sub-accounts as necessary.
STEPS:-
1. On the ribbon, click the File tab, and then select the New Record menu and click Account. A new, blank account form opens.
2. In the Account Name field, enter Contoso.
3. Enter values in any other required fields marked by a red asterisk, and then click the Save & Close button.
4. In the application navigation pane, click Accounts, and then double-click the Sonoma Partners record.
5. In the Parent Account text field, enter Contoso, and then press the Tab key.Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically resolves the text you entered to the Contoso record, indicated by the underline and blue text color of the parent account name.
6. Click the Save button.
Tip : Alternatively, you also could have selected Contoso as the parent account by using the Lookup button located on the right side of the Parent Account text box. For a quick refresher on using lookups, see Chapter 2, “Getting Around in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.”
Creating a Contact
Contacts represent the various people with whom you do business. For each contact record, you can specify one (and only one) account as its parent customer. Most companies use the Parent Customer field to record the contact’s employer, but you are not
obligated to do so.
By specifying a parent customer for a contact, you create a relationship between those two records. When you create relationships between accounts and contacts, you can view all of an account’s contacts by clicking the Contacts link in the Account’s entity navigation pane. This list of contacts related to the account is known as the contact associated view.
Why Is It Called “Parent Customer”?
an account is being set as the parent customer of a contact. However, most companies running Microsoft Dynamics CRM use this field to track the employer of the contact. Why does Microsoft Dynamics CRM call this field the parent customer?
The customer field is special in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, because you can use it to select either an account or a contact record. The customer field appears in multiple places throughout the system (in cases and opportunities, for instance) in which you
might want to select an account or a contact, depending on how your organization tracks customers in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Your system administrator can rename this field to Parent Account if necessary.
In addition to viewing all of the contacts associated with the account, you can click the view selector to choose different contact filters. Each of the different views can have its
own unique filter criteria and display different columns of data. Note that the filter will only display contacts associated with the account you’re viewing. For example, if you select the
Inactive Contacts view, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will show you all of the inactive accounts associated with the account record you’re viewing.
Similar to linking sub-accounts and parent accounts, linking contacts to an account allows you to view the contacts related to an account, including a roll-up of the activities from the
related contacts to the parent account. Therefore, if you log a phone call activity with the Mike Snyder contact record, whose parent account is Sonoma Partners, you will be able to view that phone call record when you’re looking at the Sonoma Partners record.
As with accounts, there are several methods for creating a contact:
● Create a contact from the ribbon by clicking the File tab, and then selecting the New Record menu and clicking Contact.
● Create a contact by navigating to a contact view and then clicking the New button on the ribbon.
● Create a contact by clicking the Add New Contact button in the grid toolbar of the contact associated view of an account.
● Create a contact by clicking the New button in the contact Look Up Record webpage dialog box.
One benefit of creating a contact from the associated view is that Microsoft Dynamics CRM will automatically populate several fields on the contact record based on the account record
you’re currently viewing. For example, if you have the Sonoma Partners account record open and you then click the New Contact button in the associated view, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will fill out many of the fields on the new contact record—Street 1, City, State/Province, and others—with data from the Sonoma Partners account record. Microsoft Dynamics CRM will also automatically fill out the Parent Customer field of the new contact as Sonoma Partners. This concept of pre-populating data fields is known as field mapping. Your system administrator can determine how fields are mapped between two types of records.
Tip : Creating a new contact from the associated view will automatically fill out the mapped fields, such as the Parent Customer field and the address fields. Using this technique will save you time if the contact shares the same address information with the account.
Tip : If you create a new contact record by using one of the first two methods described above, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will not automatically fill out the mapped fields for you. This can be useful when the contact has different address information than the account (as could be the case when an employee works from home).
Attaching Files to Accounts and Contacts
In addition to entering information about accounts and contacts in the forms, you also can attach files (such as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or an Adobe Acrobat PDF file) with the record. Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows you to easily upload and save files related to accounts and contacts so that you can refer to them later.
In this exercise, you will save a file as an attachment to an account and download it for viewing. You can follow a similar sequence of steps to attach a file to a contact record.
1. Navigate to the accounts view and open the Sonoma Partners record.
2. On the ribbon, click the Add tab, and then click the Attach File button to launch the Manage Attachment dialog box.
3. Click Browse and navigate to the folder.
4. Select File and click Open.
The navigation window closes.
5. Click the Attach button to upload the file to the account.
6. Click the Close button.
7. On the Sonoma Partners record, click the Notes & Activities link in the entity navigation pane. If necessary, scroll down to the Notes section.
Deactivating and Activating Records
Most of the records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM include values for status and status reason.A record’s status defines the state of the record, and the most common status values are Active and Inactive. However, some types of records include additional status values. For example, case records can have a status value of Active, Resolved, or Canceled. Records that do not have a status value of Open or Active are considered to be deactivated (also referred to as Inactive). Microsoft Dynamics CRM retains deactivated records in the database; it does not delete them. However, inactive records will not appear in several areas
throughout the user interface, such as in Quick Find searches or in lookup windows.
Important :- Microsoft Dynamics CRM removes inactive records from parts of the user interface. In addition, you cannot edit an inactive record by using its form.
When working with accounts and contacts, you might want to deactivate records for multiple reasons. For example, you might want to deactivate a record if:
● A contact has changed companies or does not work for the account any more.
● An account has gone out of business.
● A duplicate of the account or contact record already exists in the system.
● You do not want to continue tracking interactions with the account or contact.
you will deactivate a contact record and then reactivate it.
1. In the Sales area, click Contacts.
2. In the Quick Find box, type Burton and then press Enter.
3. You will see the Ben Burton record in your results. Click the record to select it. On the ribbon, click the Deactivate button. When a dialog box opens, asking you to confirm the deactivation, click OK. Microsoft Dynamics CRM deactivates the record.
4. In the Quick Find box, type Burton and then press Enter.
You will not see the Ben Burton record in your results because you deactivated the record. Microsoft Dynamics CRM does not include inactive records in the Quick
Find results.
5. Now that you have deactivated the contact, you will reactivate it. In the view selector, select Inactive Contacts. You will see a list of deactivated contacts, including the Ben Burton record.
6. Double-click the Ben Burton contact record to open it. Note that Microsoft Dynamics CRM has made the fields on the form unavailable so that you cannot edit the inactive record.
7. On the ribbon, click the Activate button. When a dialog box opens, asking you to confirm the activation, click OK.
8. Microsoft Dynamics CRM activates the contact and enables the form fields so that you can edit the record.
Sharing Accounts and Contacts with Other Users
Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes a robust security model that allows administrators to set up and configure which users can view or perform actions on the different types of records in a system. For those times when you want to share a particular account or contact record with a user because he or she cannot access it, Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows you to easily share records, assuming that your system administrator has given
you permission to do so. Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows your organization to create teams of users, which can be beneficial when your organization wants to share records, because team members can belong to any business unit within your organization.
Important : Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows you to share records on an ad-hoc basis with a specific user or a team of users. When you share records, you can also determine which types of security privileges to grant for the shared record or records. You can grant privileges to other users only if you yourself already have those permissions for the shared record.
you will share a contact record with two users so that they can view and edit the record. You can follow a similar process to share account records.
STEPS :-
1. Navigate to a contact view and open the Ben Burton contact.
2. On the ribbon, click the Sharing button, and then click Share.
A new window opens.
3. In the Common Tasks pane, click Add User/Team.
A Look Up Records webpage dialog box opens.
4. Because you are sharing this contact record with a user, leave the Look for list value set to User. Select any two active users in your system, and then click the Add button.
5. Click OK.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM lists the selected users in the sharing window.
6. Within this window, you can decide what types of privileges to grant to each user for the Ben Burton contact record. Because you want these users to have permission to edit the contact record, select the Write check boxes for both of
the users you selected.
7. Click OK.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM updates the security permissions and closes the sharing window.
8. To view the current share permissions for a record, click the Sharing button on the ribbon, and then click Share.
A new window appears that displays the share information that you just configured.
Assigning Accounts and Contacts to Other Users
In addition to sharing records with other users, you can change the ownership of a record.
Most of the records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM (such as accounts, contacts, leads, cases, and opportunities) are “owned” by a user or a team, and the record owner is a key component of the security model within the system. Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows you to change the record owner (or assign the record) by using multiple techniques in the user
interface. For example, you can:
● Open the record and change the value in the Owner field.
● Open the record and click the Assign button on the ribbon.
● In views that contain lists of records, select one or more records and then click the Assign button.
Regardless of the technique you use, you will follow the same steps to assign account, contact, and most other records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
you will change the ownership of a contact record by using the second technique just mentioned to assign it to a different user.
1. Open the Ben Burton contact record.
2. On the ribbon, click the Assign button.
A new window opens.
3. Click Assign to another user or team.
4. Select a different user by typing the user name directly in the box or by clicking the Lookup button.
The window closes, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM updates the record owner to the Value you Select.
Tip : Inactive users can own records, but you can assign records only to active users. If a user record is deactivated, records already assigned to that user will remain assigned, but no other records can be assigned to the user as long as he or she is inactive in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Merging Account or Contact Records
When working with account and contact records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you might notice that two or more records appear very similar. For example, your database might contain multiple contact records for the same person in your system. Although you
obviously wouldn't knowingly enter two records for the same person, it is possible that your system might contain duplicate records.
NOTE:-
Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes multiple tools to help your organization avoid creating duplicate records in your database. For more information on configuring the duplicate check features, contact your system administrator to enable and configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s duplicate checking functionality.
Even though Microsoft Dynamics CRM contains powerful tools to help you avoid duplication, you will undoubtedly find a few duplicate records within your database. Fortunately, Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes a merge tool that allows you to consolidate two different records into a single merged record.
When merging two records, you specify one record as the master record, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM treats the other record as the child record. The software will deactivate the child record and copy all of the related records (such as activities, notes, and opportunities) to the master record. During the merge process, Microsoft Dynamics CRM presents you with a dialog box that allows you to select data from individual fields in the child record
so that you keep data from specific fields with the surviving master record.
By merging duplicate records, you will maintain a clean customer database, which will
help with sales, marketing, and service productivity.
1. On the ribbon, click the File tab, and then select the New Record menu and click Contact.
2. In the First Name field, enter Ben, and in the Last Name field, enter Burton. In the Fax field, enter (312) 555-1212.
3. In the Parent Customer field, click the Lookup button to launch the Look Up Record webpage dialog box.
4. In the Search field, enter Sonoma Partners, and then press Enter.
5. In the results, click the Sonoma Partners record.
6. Click the OK button to close the webpage dialog box.
7. On the ribbon, click Save and Close.
8. In the Sales area, click Contacts.
9. In the Quick Find text box, enter Burton, and then press Enter.
10.Holding the Shift key down, click both Ben Burton records in the grid so that they are highlighted. On the ribbon, click the Merge button. The Merge Records dialog box appears.
11. In this dialog box, you choose the master record by clicking the button next to the appropriate contact record. You can also select which data fields you want to keep from the child record and transfer onto the surviving master record. Click (312) 555-1212 in the Fax field. When you do so, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will keep this fax data on the final record.
12. Click the OK button.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM will merge the two records together by updating the master record and deactivating the child record. When the process is complete, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will display an alert window telling you that the selected records are merged and the subordinate record is deactivated.
13. Click OK to close the Merge Records dialog box.
Key Points
● You can create accounts and contacts by clicking the New button on the ribbon or by using the New Record option located by clicking the File tab on the ribbon on the main screen.
● You can link multiple accounts together by specifying one account as the parent account, which automatically makes the other a sub-account.
● Each account can have only one parent account, but accounts can have as many sub-accounts as you need.
● Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows you to upload file attachments to many records, such as accounts and contacts.
● Sharing accounts with other users or teams allows you to grant security privileges to groups that might not otherwise have access.
● Most records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, such as accounts and contacts, have a single user as the record owner. Record ownership helps determine security settings. You can change record owners by assigning a record to a different user or team.
● You can use the merge tool to consolidate duplicate records into a single record while preserving the history of both records.
.jpg)
