Dynamics 365 portals – Display Activities with Timeline

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A new feature launched at the inception of CRM portals but never really documented is the ability to display entity record related activities on the portal through a new timeline feature. This feature was created to enhance the portal case management functionality by allowing the display of any activities related to the entity record (using the regarding field). This functionality is actually configuration based through a new entity form metadata type of “Timeline”, which can also be used with your own entity forms with any entity that is activity enabled.

To add the timeline to your own entity form there are a couple configuration steps you will need to make to successfully setup. To use the timeline metadata type the entity your working with will need to be activity enabled otherwise the metadata option will not display. You can activity enable your entity by opening the System Customizer and navigating to the entity information, on the general tab under Communication & Collaboration ensure Activities is selected.

activity_enable

You can now create an entity form in either Edit or Read-Only modes where you can then add the timeline metadata type. Below is the minimum configuration for an entity form for edit mode:

entityform_general

Once you have your entity form created, we need to add the associated entity form metadata for the timeline. Scroll to the bottom of the entity form configuration or from the related entities navigation select Entity Form Metadata and create a new item. In the new metadata form, select the type as “Timeline”.

metadata_type

Once on the type “Timeline” the options panel below will update to reveal the new configuration options for activities. At this time it is mostly focused around the portal users ability to contribute content as an activity, and what file upload functionality they have. You can also select the “Advanced Options” to reveal a number of additional labels that can be modified.

timeline_options

The portal timeline feature utilizes the activitypointer entity in Dynamics to query for the related activities and supports the following activity entities. It does not support custom activities it appears at this time, however you can expose additional activity types (like task) or custom activities through sub grid functionality.

  • Portal Comment
  • Appointment
  • Phone Call
  • Email

For this configuration to properly function Entity Permissions need to be configured. We are going to assume you have already created an entity permission of the entity, in the case of mine, the entity Economic Development Sites (adoxio_economicdevelopmentsite), with the scope of contact (there is a related contact field that is a lookup to the contact entity), the privileges (read, write, create, append, append to), and with the desired web roles set.

There needs to be 2 additional entity permissions added, one for the activitypointer entity, and another for the Portal Comment activity. Both entity permissions should have the scope of parent and set the parent entity permission to the permission of the entity being viewed. This ensures that only the activities which are related to the record are accessible.

Activity (activitypointer) – Privileges: Read

activitypointer_permission

Portal Comment(adx_portalcomment) – Privileges: Read, Create, Append

portalcomment_permission

Portal Comment is a new activity entity that replaces the use of notes/annotations for user submitted content. This was done so that a entity relationship to contact was established and it would support native entity permissions. Annotations are still used to hold the contents of attachments on the portal comment activity record. Back office staff can create new Portal Comment activities within Dynamics regarding the entity record and once marked complete will be displayed on the portal.

Once all the configurations are complete, you can now view your edit or read-only entity form with an included timeline view of activities.

overview

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25 thoughts on “Dynamics 365 portals – Display Activities with Timeline”

  1. Hi Thank you for your very useful article.
    I’ve an issue with the formatting of the Portal comments (Timeline)
    – If I insert a comment on the portal and use some formatting (such as basic returns) it is replicated in the CRM but if I reopen the comment on the portal all formatting is gone.
    – if I create a comment in CRM I need to use some HTML tags in order to display the formatting on the Portal.

    Do you have any idea how I can make CRM remember the formatting and reuse it afterwards when displayed on the portal?

    Tks for your support

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  2. Hi ,
    I have an issue with this timeline feature. This timeline is not showing latest created activities in CRM. it is showing a day later activities. Any help to solve this issue.

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    1. It shows SYSTEM because of how the portal context is run under server-to-server authentication. So while it isn’t possible to change it in the backend, there is no reason you couldn’t write some JS to do a find and replace.

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    1. No, it is currently unsupported for team ownership. Microsoft is aware of this issue, but I would suggest you log a support request as the more that report it the higher the priority will be on this issue.

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  5. Hi Colin.

    Is there any way to restrict permission for all activities except Portal Comment? I need to show only Portal Comment on timelines and not any other activity.

    I could change the view ‘Portal Timeline View’ to manage the activities on the timeline view but I want to restrict it completely so that I can be 100 % sure that my emails will not be visible to portal user at any cost.

    Thanks,
    Ravi Kashyap

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  6. Hi Colin,
    When i see records in timeline, I can see all HTML tag in timeline if activity type is email. Is there a way to remove it?

    Thanks,

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  7. Friend, for kindness could help me because, a timeline does not display phone calls, e-mail. Why is it happening, did I forget something? Can you give me a light?

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  8. Friend. giving a return …
    We analyze the configuration parameters and found that after the update there is a new setting that was introduced in the new version of Portal: “CustomerSupport/DisplayAllUserActivitiesOnTimeline”.
    This was with the value FALSE, then changed to TRUE.
    now works correctly.

    Thank you.

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    1. Thanks Getulio! That really helped me! I’m so glad I scrolled all the way to the bottom haha

      And thank you Colin, this is an excellent feature. I really appreciate you documenting it.

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  10. Hi Colin,
    First of all, thanks for the wonderful post. One of my customer developers followed step by step of your blog and tried to set-up the portal timeline for account entity.

    However they updated me that it’s showing up in the portal in the Account entity form. I am still to visit them and see the nitty gritty of their configurations but I did actually had a screen sharing sessions and basic configurations looks fine as you suggested.

    Any pointers why it is not showing up? May be I can have a heads up before I visit them in person.

    Thanks in advance for your co-operation.

    Best Regards
    Debajit

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  11. hi All , i need to add multiple attachment with the comment itself. it allow only 1 (using pop up to add comment),
    Any idea which components i can modify to support multiple documents.

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    1. I have not tried custom activity types with the timeline but they very well might be restricted and you have to build your own timeline control.

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    1. Hi Sam, the timeline for portal isn’t really that customizable except what you see in the metadata configuration. The other option is to build your own timeline using liquid.

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  14. I am seeing the all the activities but not the notes/attachment associated with the activities. Am i missing any settings?

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