The way the address associations are handled today create tremendous gaps in
the structure of CRM records compared to the structure of integrated
backoffice financial systems records. What should be trivial integration
tasks lead to a LOT of workarounds and customers frustration. Here is how we
can improve.

Abandon the idea of hardcoding first 2 address records on the account form.
Add 2 address lookup fields on the account (relationships) that could be used
to select any of the account addresses and expose them on the account form
(still show individual address fields on the account along with the lookup
link).
This will allow straightforward integration to the backoffice systems
without the headaces of different address info displayed on the customer
record in CRM vs backoffice and inability to change the primary address in
CRM once it is set.

Add Address lookup field on the service call.
The vast majority of the customers that use service calls need to track
service calls against customer sites and they do not setup an account for
each customer site, they setup addresses.
Currently we are forced to essentially do account to address integration to
deal with this gap.

Add Address lookup field on the sales order (Installation address) and
display all 3 addresses on the sales order as lookups (just like on the
contract, except still show individual address fields).

Add search and view functionality for address records - expose address as a
real entity in the areas/suareas.

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http://www.microsoft.com/Businesssol...oft.public.crm

Hello,

I am currently having this problem, is the only way to record the customer
site to create an Account for each Address? have you found anyother method
around this?

"Sergei Bespalov" wrote:

You can try introducing bit fields on the Address entity in CRM (BillTo,
ShipTo, etc.) and you would need to build logic to map them to GP lookup
fields for addresses on the customer form.
You would also need logic to deselect the current selection for BillTo if a
different address is selected as BillTo.
One way to get around the hardcoded address1_ in CRM is to always populate
address1_ fields with whatever is in the primary address on GP.
If you do that you would want to make sure you create the address1_ record
as an additional address in CRM as well.
You would then map
address1_ to Primary Address field on GP Cust
Primary Address field on GP Cust to address1_ AND the additional address
representing this GP address
You would want to have the GP ignore user disabled so that changes sent to
GP would come back to CRM.
Quite cumbersom, but should work.
CRM4 might make it quite a bit easier if it supports creating Address to
Account relatioships, I have not had a chance to check.
Thanks.
Sergei

"chrisbelfast" wrote:

You can try introducing bit fields on the Address entity in CRM (BillTo,
ShipTo, etc.); you would need to build logic to map them to GP lookup fields
for addresses on the customer form.
You would also need logic to unselect the current selection for BillTo if a
different address is selected as BillTo, etc.
One way to get around the hardcoded address1_ in CRM is to always populate
address1_ fields with whatever is in the primary address on GP.
If you do that you would want to make sure you create the address1_ record
as an additional address in CRM as well (duplicate record from the user
perspective, you might want to append the name of the one in the address1_
with "-DO NOT USE" so users do not select it on Quotes).
You would then map
address1_ to Primary Address field on GP Cust
Primary Address field on GP Cust to address1_ AND the additional address
representing this GP address
You would want to have the GP ignore user disabled so that changes sent to
GP would come back to CRM.
Quite cumbersom, but should work.
CRM4 might make it quite a bit easier if it supports creating Address to
Account relatioships, I have not had a chance to check.
Thanks.
Sergei


"chrisbelfast" wrote: