Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1 has introduced a new capability to create a customer field on any system or custom entity.

Until now, “customer” has been a special polymorphic relationship that only existed in a limited number of places in CRM. Such as the customer field on cases. Polymorphic because a customer could be an account or contact, so we can have one field that can relate to either entity.

It is now possible to create a customer field on any entity. Below you can see I have created a custom field called “new_customer”. Notice that the data type has been set to a new type of “Customer”. Once done you need to provide two names for relationships to account and customer.

Once created I can now add a customer field to the form just like any other field! Below you can see I have a customer field on a custom entity that allows me to select either an account or a contact.

This is a very simple change and a quick post, but one I hope you’ll find useful. J