Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations – Global Address Book – Merging Party Records
Ever have duplicate vendor accounts created because someone spelled out the word “Street” and someone else abbreviated it? Ever have customer accounts that have consolidated or been purchased by another customer and now only need a single account? Ever have two worker records for the same person and somehow managed to record transactions for both?
There is a solution for that, inside the Dynamics 365 Global Address Book (GAB) called Merging. The structure of the GAB makes the process of merging party records pretty straight-forward. However not every Party ID can be merged. The functionality validates to make sure the merge can be performed without breaking any data rules, which can get complex when the GAB spans multiple entities and Party ID’s take on multiple roles.
Merging Party records
The Global Address Book is a shared entity, and the merge can be performed from any company or legal entity.
Navigate to the Global Address Book: Common > Common > Global Address Book.
Locate and select the party records, using the SHIFT key to select multiple records. Multiple records can be selected to be merged together at the same time.
Once the party records to be merged are selected, navigate to Party > Maintain > Merge records.
Select the party to retain, by choosing one of the Party ID’s displayed in the drop down.
***Best Practice Alert*** Enter a reason for the merge.
Click the Validate button to validate the merge of the selected records can occur.
If the record merge is not a valid merge, an error message will appear explaining the violation.
Example 1:
In this example, the party records being merged are of different types (Person, Organization), which is not allowed.
Example 2:
In another use case, there is a conflict with a Party ID associated with multiple workers causing the merge to not be allowed.
If validation was not successful, and OK was selected, an error will appear in the user’s Action center.
If the merge validates successfully, a message will indicate it as such.
When validation is successful, click OK.
The Results
The merge process will combine the history of the two parties into the Party ID selected to be retained. The Party ID not selected is removed from the GAB grid.
When the Party ID detail is reviewed, the Addresses are now collective and the address of the party selected to be retained is the Primary:
And remember that reason for the merge? Click on the document handling icon,
To review the merge notes:
