Microsoft Dataverse: Key Update for Email Activities

The wait is finally over! A powerful new feature in Microsoft Dataverse recently became generally available: the ability to associate email activities with multiple related records. Initially introduced in preview, this enhancement is designed to significantly improve how businesses track and manage their email communications within Dataverse.

I have been eagerly awaiting this functionality so I am very excited to see this feature finally rolled out. The ability to link email activities to multiple tables has been a long-sought improvement, offering a more dynamic and interconnected way to manage email data in Dataverse.

From Preview to General Availability: What has Changed?

When this feature was first highlighted on Microsoft's Release Planner website, the plan was to allow the association of various activities (emails, appointments, phone calls, and tasks) with multiple records although initially limited to email activities only. However, as the feature moved from preview to general availability, it became focused solely on email activities.

It’s possible that Microsoft chose to narrow the scope to emails to ensure a more controlled and effective rollout before potentially expanding to other activity types in the future. While the exact reasoning behind this decision is not specified, starting with emails makes sense given their critical role in business communications.

What This Feature Does

Traditionally, Dataverse allowed activities such as emails to be associated with a single table using the 'Regarding' column. This limitation meant that if an email was relevant to multiple entities (like contacts, accounts, or cases), users had to choose just one or manually track these relationships.

With the new enhancement, an email activity can now be linked to multiple tables/records using the 'Related' column.

Unlike the 'Regarding' column, which limits the association to a single parent record/table, the 'Related' column enables an email to be connected to several records/tables simultaneously. This added flexibility is particularly useful for businesses that manage complex relationships and communications across various entities.

Practical Use Cases

To understand the practical implications of this feature, let’s look at some scenarios where it proves invaluable:

Customer Support: An email from a customer could be related to multiple cases and accounts. With the new feature, support teams can link a single email to both the specific customer account and the related support cases, providing a holistic view of customer interactions. Imagine a customer sending an email to a financial services organisation with complex instructions regarding different accounts/policies she holds - adding a beneficiary to one and changing the payout percentage on the other. With this new feature, that single email can now be tracked on a case, multiple affected contacts as well as all the affected accounts/policies.

Sales and Marketing: Sales representatives often deal with emails that concern multiple leads and opportunities. This feature allows a sales email to be associated with multiple opportunities and contacts, ensuring that all relevant entities are connected and tracked within Dataverse. For example, a single email to a corporate law firm from a prospective organisation seeking advice related to relocating offices can now be linked with multiple new opportunities for their Banking & Finance, Commercial Real Estate and Employment Law divisions respectively.

Project Management: Emails can pertain to several projects or tasks. By associating emails with multiple project records, teams can centralise communications across related projects.

How to Enable and Use the Feature

Microsoft delivered this functionality by introducing a new field/column in the email activity table called 'Related'.

The 'Related' column is a multi-lookup column of the 'party list' type, similar to the 'To' and 'From' columns in an email. This type of column can look up to multiple tables, allowing the 'Related' column to link an email to various entities.

To use this feature, you would simply need to add the 'Related' column to the email activity form.

To enable a table to be linked, you would need to have the ‘Can have a contact email’ option checked in the properties of that table.

'Related' vs. ‘Regarding'

It is important to note that the ‘Regarding’ and ‘Related’ columns are independent. Setting a value for the ‘Regarding’ lookup column doesn’t affect the values for ‘Related’. The ‘Regarding’ column establishes a parental relationship with the email activity. If the parent record associated with the email through the ‘Regarding’ column is deleted, the email activity also gets deleted.

The ‘Related’ column doesn’t create the same dependency as the ‘Regarding’ column. If a record linked to an email as ‘Related’ is deleted, the linked email or its association with other records is not deleted automatically. This means that other related associations remain intact, preserving the email's connections to other records.

Conclusion

The general availability of the 'Related' column in Dataverse represents a significant step forward in managing email activities. By allowing emails to be associated with multiple tables/records, Microsoft has provided a tool that can enhance how businesses track and utilise their communications. This feature supports a more integrated and comprehensive approach to managing data relationships across various entities.

For those who have been waiting for this feature, it is time to start exploring how it can improve your workflows. So, start by adding the 'Related' column to your email activity forms and you will soon discover new efficiencies and insights.

Stay tuned for potential future updates that may extend this functionality further to other activity types.