Gotchas with Dynamics 365 Record Creation and Update Rules

Zoe Sands, 31 July 2017

Working with Dynamics 365 Record Create and Update Rules (RCUR) can be a useful user friendly way of creating workflows based on items that are added to a Queue. Here are some things I found helpful when developing a set of RCURs for a project.

1.    If you rename a RCUR step, the background workflow that was created is not renamed as well. This does not pose a problem to the users however it can be problematic if you are trying to debug a problem by searching the system jobs, as the name of the RCUR step and the name of the system job will not be the same.

2.    Re-ordering RCUR steps does not come across in a solution deployment. You must do it manually before activating the rule. So, plan the order you want things to be done in before you start creating steps. See below where steps 1.5 and 3.5 were moved to happen before 1.0 and 3.0. After importing the solution into a test environment, the steps have been ordered into their original sequence.

3.    When adding a RCUR to a Dynamics CRM solution you need to add required components. This adds the background workflows to the solution which you cannot otherwise see.

4.    When you create records in the Actions section of the rules (as opposed to the Specify Other Actions) they will try to default some of the fields to null(Channel Properties). For example, cases will default Customer, Origin and Contact to null(Channel Properties). If you change this, it cannot be manually reset and you must recreate your step.

5.    If your rules are failing when receiving messages from unknown senders, try unticking the Create records from unknown sender’s option on the RCUR. Instead, enable create contacts from unknown senders on the Email Router user (through Personal Options) or if you are using Server Side Sync the SYSTEM user can create contacts.

Keep these in mind when developing your Dynamics 365 Record Create and Update Rules and you will find building them and troubleshooting goes much smoother.