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Scenario Overview

In this scenario our business requirement is that when an accounts address is updated you need to update all the related contact addresses with the same data. The scenario involves the synchronization of fields between entities where a one to many (1:N) relationship exists.

However there are up to 200+ contacts and the syncing will take too long to process in real-time, therefore we want to run this process asynchronously in the background. 

North52 Decision Suite Solution

The North52 Decision Suite solution works like this:

  • We create a formula that fires for just updates on the account entity where any of the address fields change
  • The formula itself retrieves all the contacts associated via the parentcustomerid field on the contact entity
  • It will then loop over all the contacts and update the address information with that of account entity

        

               

North52 Decision Suite Steps

The following set of steps assumes you are just using the out of the box Dynamics 365 setup. But its easy to enhance if you have extra fields/requirements.

  • Create a new formula of type 'Save - Perform Action'
  • Set the Event field to just 'Update'
  • Set the Source Entity to 'Account'
  • Set the Source Entity Property (hold down control key to multi-select) to 'Address 1 : Street 1 , Address 1 : Street 2, Address 1 : Street 3, Address 1 : City, Address 1 : Zip/Postal Code, Address 1 :Country/Region'
  • Under Deployment Settings , set Pipeline Stage to 'Post-Operation (Asynchronous)'
  • Copy & paste the formula below into the formula description field & click save
  • You are ready to test

Formula 

ForEachRecord(

  FindRecords('contact','parentcustomerid',[account.accountid],SetFindSelect('contactid'),'1000','true') , 

   UpdateRecord('contact',
                         CurrentRecord('contactid'),
                          SetAttribute('address1_line1', [account.address1_line1]),
                          SetAttribute('address1_line2', [account.address1_line2]),
                          SetAttribute('address1_line3', [account.address1_line3]),
                          SetAttribute('address1_city', [account.address1_city]),
                          SetAttribute('address1_postalcode', [account.address1_postalcode]),
                          SetAttribute('address1_country', [account.address1_country])
                       )

)

You can see the process executing under Settings > System Jobs. However, note that the system job will disappear when completed. 

Wizard - FindRecords

Please see below the wizard you can use to create the FindRecords() function call used in this formula. 

Note for the Equals Value, you will need to look up the account under the Source tab

Did you know?

You can easily schedule recurring processes or CRM record updates

Every business has recurring processes and tasks that need to be done on repeatable and scheduled basis. Microsoft Dynamics 365 users are often surprised to learn that it is difficult to achieve using standard functionality. The North52 Scheduler makes it easy to trigger workflows and/or advanced business logic for specific entity records on a scheduled basis. 

Key features include:    

  • Create Recurring Schedules within Dynamics CRM
  • Powerful Record Targeting - easily create queries to target a specific set of records
  • High Performance - can process 100,000+ records on a scheduled basis
  • Execute Workflow/Action or Update Entities
  • Native to Dynamics 365

Learn more about the Scheduler

Keywords: SetFindSelect, FindRecords, ForEachRecord, CurrentRecord, UpdateRecord, SetAttribute, Formula Manager