Entity Priority for Email Tracking in Dynamics 365

Adam Murchison, 08 April 2020

When a user is tracking an email through Outlook using the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Outlook Application or Dynamics 365 app for Outlook, the From field is linked to a record in CRM if it exists. If there is no record that exists linked to the given email address, then CRM will create a new record.

What if multiple records have the same email address linked to them? The email will only link to a single record. The order this email will be tracked to is: 

User > Account > Contact > Lead > Queue > Custom entity

This is interesting as the From field will not link multiple records. Contrary to the From field, the email address populated in the To field will create an activity party for each matching record and the email will appear under activities for all records that have this email address.

To give an example, if I sent an email to: adam@test.com , and there was a Contact and a Lead with the same email address the email activity would show up for both records if it was tracked into the Dynamics 365 instance.

Note that this email will show under the Closed Activity Associated View due to the status change when it’s sent.

There are often issues when it comes to email tracking. One of these issues could be that people do not know what order an email activity tracks under and I hope this blog helps them overcome this issue! In summary, the entity tracking order is not obvious in Dynamics 365 but I hope this blog makes it a whole lot clearer for you!