ReadyXRM

The Question

If you have questions regarding Dynamics 365 there are plenty of resources online to help out.  A couple of places I recommend is the Microsoft Community or the D365UG/CRMUG forums.

Sometimes a post/answer can be 6 years old and still relevant.  Today I got a message out of the blue from a community member who wanted further clarification on determining when a contact was added to a Marketing list in Dynamics CRM.

It was a question I answered in 2012.  The answer still applies to Dynamics 365 v9 so I though I would provide the steps as part of a blog posting.

The Answer

The solution utilizes Dynamics 365 Auditing feature.  It is an example of how some simple configuration can go a long way to gain some insights on your data.

In Dynamics 365:

Go to Settings -> Auditing -> Global Audit Settings

In the System Settings Window, click on “Start Auditing” click OK

Back in the Settings -> Auditing window, click on Entity and Field Audit Settings

You will be in the configuration area, if using v9 it will say PowerApps

1. In the list of Entities, find Marketing List and click on it.
2. Scroll down to Data Services, click on “Auditing” check box
3. Save
4. Publish

Add some contacts to a Marketing List

Go back to Settings -> Auditing

Click on Audit Summary View

You will see “Add Member” events, open that up and you will see when that contact was added to the marketing list.

A couple of notes:

You will need System Administrator role to perform these steps.

This applies on a “go forward” basis only.  This cannot go back in time and tell you at what point in 2012 the contact was added to a particular Marketing List.

Like all things Auditing related, keep tabs on the storage used.

Summary

While this posting showed a pretty simple solution, it highlighted that even questions from 6 years ago may still be valid.  It also highlights that the Auditing feature can be used more than just for “adds” and “deletes” but can track other key information in your Dynamics 365 system.

Hope you found this helpful!

References

Auditing Overview

Nick Doelman is a Microsoft Business Applications MVP.  Nick will be speaking at D365 Saturday on May 5th and also a panelist on the MB2-716 exam study group on CRMUG.