Model Driven App Contact form - Timeline logic

[ghdunn]

Building a Model Driven App with Contact/Activity entities.

The Timeline sub-form on the Contact form seems to have a different logic to my Related Activities views - typically there will be activities which don't appear on the Timeline. 

If I try to expose the Timeline sub-form to see how the filter works, it tells me I can edit in Classic view, but I can't then see anything to expose the logic of the filter.

[HSheild]

@SeanHenderson the difference between CDS and Dynamics for the Timeline control seems to be that that CDS doesn't have the Posts entity available in the Timeline.  Both environments have Activities and Notes in the timeline.

[HSheild · Accepted solution]

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Hi @ghdunn , responses below in blue.  It can be really confusing and sometimes the Microsoft documentation doesn't explain it fully.

@ghdunn wrote:

1.  I am somewhat confused about 'Regarding' (and I have raised a question on this previously and not really got to the bottom of it).  If I generate an email, or an appointment, I would really expect the event to show on the Timelines of all addressees or invitees, driven by the 'To' field, or even the 'cc' or 'bcc' field.  After all, the event does involve those people to them.  But 'Regarding' allows only one item to be selected.  What are your thoughts?

The Regarding will get set automatically if you create the activity from within the Contact record.  If you create an activity from the Activities section of the system then you have to manually set the To and Regarding fields.

2. If I wanted to extend the filter of Timeline to include not just Regarding, but all those above, how would i do that?

I don't think this is possible. In CDS it is best practice to always set Regarding and it you can do that by always creating the activity record from within the entity form that you want the Regarding to be set to.

3. There just seem to be too many different terms being used here for it to be clear.  'Timeline' suggests timeline of 'events' but it doesn't really clearly suggest what those events are.  'Regarding' is a clear field..though sadly allows only one entry.  You then have 'Associated' and 'Related'.  What do those two terms actually mean.  Is associated that broader definition of To/cc/bcc etc

Timeline only shows records where the Regarding is set.

Related means that the Contact is in the To/cc/bcc

Associated means that if you were looking at the parent Account record for the Contact then you would see the Contact's activities where Regarding = Contact on the Account record's Associated Activities view.  This is because the Account and Contact have a special Parent / Child relationship.

However, I have noticed that in my CDS environment the Associated Activities view is not working properly.  It is showing all Activities in the system, even if they are not related to the Contact in any way. Very strange.  I don't use the Associated Activities view normally.

4. Finally comes 'Include Related=On'  What does related mean...does it broaden it to not just the regarding and to/cc/bcc but also every item that was sent by the user, even if it doesn't relate to the Contact in question?  That just seems counter intutitive that setting that to 'on' tightens the filter not loosens it.  It perhaps would better say say 'includes related only', perhaps?

Include Related = On is meant to include Activities that are related through the to/cc/bcc fields.  When it is Off it's meant to not include Activities that are related through the to/cc/bcc fields.  I think that makes sense.  However, in my comment above I think there is an issue where all activities in the system are being included.  This might need a support case to Microsoft.

5. As for your point about Posts entity etc.  My MDA has brought in Account, Contact and Activity entities, but I assume makes use of any necessary dependencies in the broader CDS core schema.  Are we suggesting that this full activity functionality has dependencies outside of that schema that are therefore missing? 

Don't worry about Posts.  They are a completely different entity that can also appear in the Timeline along with Notes and Activities.  Post are only available with Dynamics 365 apps and are not related to Activities.

Thoughts?

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[ghdunn]

Thanks @HSheild 

Ok...this is starting to fit into place for me..especially when you say you think the associated activities view may not be working...explains a lot!  I need a day or so to work through some testing and then i will look to close this off....very many thanks!!!

In the meantime, though, could you just comment on my thoughts about Regarding.  I understand that if you create an activity from within a contact then it defaults regarding to that contact...useful as far as it goes.  But what do you think of my premise that Regarding should allow multiple items.  If I am writing an email to Fred and Bob, wouldn't I want it to appear in BOTH timelines as Regarding both of them?

ged

[HSheild · Accepted solution]

Hi @ghdunn ,

Good point  about "If I am writing an email to Fred and Bob, wouldn't I want it to appear in BOTH timelines as Regarding both of them?"

Yes I would.  I just took a look at my Dynamics 365 instance (which is essentially a special type of MDA) and the Timeline in Dynamics 365 behaves differently to standard MDA with CDS.  It shows the Regarding but also the related records through To, CC and BCC.  For example, if there is an email to Fred and Bob and they are from Company (Account) XYZ.  I set the Regarding of the email to XYZ so that it appears on the Account's timeline and when I look at the Contact records for Fred and Bob the email appears on the Timeline too.  I come from a Dynamics 365 background and I've never had an issue with the Timeline not showing info.  But working through this post with you there is clearly a difference between the Timeline control in MDA and Dynamics 365 apps.  Either there is a bug in MDA or we haven't got some configuration set properly.  If this is a real issue for you in your CDS environment I would raise a support case with Microsoft at this stage.