Establishing relationships between customer records that don't relate

Relationships

Fabrikam is a small company that constructs single family homes and frequently contracts with a roofing company Contoso, Ltd, which is a small company that employs many sub-contractors to do the roof installations.

Fabrikam uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM to manage and track business relationships and has Contoso defined as an account in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. However, Contoso has about a half-dozen sub-contractors that Fabrikam wants to track in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. To do this, Fabrikam can use relationship roles and relationships.

Fabrikam can then search on relationships or create views to display account, or contact, records that have relationships with other accounts or contacts.

For example, by using relationship roles, Fabrikam can create entity relationships such as:

• One Contact to many Contact relationships

• One Account to many Contact relationships

• One Account to many Account relationships

Relationships are managed in Relationships under Details on Account, Contact, and Opportunity forms. Relationship roles are managed in the Settings area of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Define the relationship role

To add clarity to the relationship, you should define roles and include definitions. It is possible to establish relationships without defining any relationship roles, however, there will be no clear indication of relationship type. Therefore, it is often better to define relationship roles that include at least one role name and a description.

To create or edit a relationship role requires the Relationship Role privilege. By default, the Salesperson, Scheduler, and Marketing Professional security roles do not have this privilege. If you do not have the Relationship Role privilege, contact your system administrator or system customizer for assistance in setting up your relationship roles. For more information about privileges and security roles, see the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Help.

For this example, Fabrikam will create a sub-contractor relationship role to relate contact records that are individual sub-contractors to the Contoso account. To define a relationship role, such as the sub-contractor role, follow these steps:

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Settings, click Business Management, and then click Relationship Roles.

2. On the Actions toolbar, click New, and then in the Role Name box, type Sub-Contractor.

3. In the Role Availability section, select the availability that you want. The availability determines the scope of the relationship role.

   To make the relationship role available only to contact-to-account relationships, in the Account column, check the Account Role for box. To widen the scope and make this relationship role available to other record types, check additional boxes.

4. Click Save and Close.

Establish the relationships

For the following steps, there is the assumption that you have established accounts in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. To establish a relationship, follow these steps:

1. In the Sales area, click Accounts. Select the account that you want, such as Contoso, Ltd.

2. Under Details, click Relationships, and then click New Customer Relationship. The Customer Relationship form appears with the account name, such as Contoso, Ltd, already filled in the Party 1 field.

3. In the Party 2 box, click the Lookup button.

4. In the Look Up Records dialog box, in the Look for list, click Contact, select the contact record that you want, and then click OK.

5. In the Role 2 list, select the role, such as Sub-contractor.

6. Type a description for the relationship in the Description box, and then click Save and Close.

   Notice that a value was not selected for Role 1. To identify this account-to-contact relationship we need a link that only goes in one direction. If necessary, a relationship role can be created to identify a bi-directional relationship. For example, you might establish bi-directional relationship roles for doctor-to-patient relationships.

7. Click Save and Close.

Create searches and views

As Fabrikam's business grows, more and more roofing contractors are added. To view all sub-contractors, you can create custom searches by using Advanced Find. Based on the results of the Advanced Find search, you can create views or run direct marketing campaigns.

To search for all contacts with the sub-contractor role, follow these steps:

1. On the Standard toolbar, click Advanced Find.

2. On the Advanced Find form, click the Look for list, and then select Contacts.

3. Click Select, and scroll down to Related, click Customer Relationships (Party 2).

4. In the next row, under Customer Relationships (Party 2), click Select, click Role 2.

5. Click Enter Value and click the Lookup button. On the Look Up Records form, click the Lookup button. Double-click to select a relationship record, and then click OK.

6. Click Find.

   A list of contact records appears, such as a list of contacts that have the Sub-Contractor role association.

7. To save the search, click Back to Query, and then click Save As. On the Query Properties dialog box, type a name in the Name field, such as All Sub-Contractors, and then click OK.

To share this search as a view, follow these steps:

1. On the Advanced Find form, click the Saved Views tab.

2. Click to select the view that you want, such as All Sub-Contractors, and then on the More Actions menu, click Sharing.

3. In Common Tasks, click Add User/Team.

4. In the Look Up Records dialog box, click the Lookup button. Double-click the name of a user or team to select it, and then click OK.

5. Select permissions and click OK.

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