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Linking Records to Your Selected Record

In Oracle CRM On Demand, you can link one record to another. Linking records gives you access to all related information from the records that you view. As an example, you can see a complete view of customer information by linking contacts, opportunities, and activities to an account record. Linking records is referred to as smart associations in Oracle CRM On Demand.

Linking associates records with each other so that you and others who have access rights to the record have a full view of the information.

About Single and Multiple Associations

There can be single or multiple associations between records. For example, if your company administrator has enabled multiple associations, you might link multiple contacts with a task, as you are creating or editing the task. On the Task Edit screen, when you click the Lookup icon on a Contact fields, the Lookup window is pre-filled with contacts associated with the account that was specified for the task. You can then select one or more contacts in this Lookup window to associate those contacts with the task. This capability is not available for all associations; it only exists for certain configured association controls. For example, if the Account field in a Task record has a valid value, and you click the Lookup icon for Opportunities, the window is not pre-filled with records, but you can select a list of opportunities from the drop-down list.

Automatic Resolution of Field Values

When you are searching for records, and where there is a single association, you can type in the name of the associated record and the application automatically attempts to resolve the association. For example, when creating a task, you can type in the account name field. When you save the field, the application automatically searches for accounts that match. If a unique match is found, the appropriate account is used. If no matches or multiple potential matches are found, you are presented with a Lookup window where you can perform additional searches, and select the appropriate account.

Linking Records from the Detail Page

From a record Detail page, the application lets you do one of the following:

• Link (associate) an existing record or records.
• Create a new record that is automatically linked to the main record.

New records are added to the database at the same time that they are linked to the selected record. For example, an activity you create from the Lead Detail page is linked to the lead, and then appears in the Activities pages.

NOTE: You can also edit some fields on linked records from the main record Detail page (if inline editing is enabled). For information about editing linked records from the main records, see Updating Linked Records from Main Records.

To link an existing record to your selected record

1. Select the main record (the record that you want to link new records to).

   For more information about selecting records, see Finding Records.

2. On the record Detail page, scroll down to the appropriate section, and click Add.
3. Click the Lookup icon next to the field.
4. The Lookup window appears containing a list of the available records.
5. In the Lookup window, you can:
   • Use a Quick Filter search to filter the list, see Filtering Lists.
   • Click the Advanced link to filter the list, which is similar to Using Advanced Search.
   • Click the navigation icons at the top or bottom of the list page to move to the next page, previous page, first page, or last page in the list.
   • Click New to create a new record, which will be added to the list.
6. Click the Select link to select the records you require, and click OK.

   In cases where you can select more than one record, click Select for each record that you require. The records are moved from the Available Records list to the Selected Records list.

   The selected record or records appear appears in the Detail page.

To create a new record and link it to your selected record

1. Select the main record (the record that you want to link new records to).

   For more information about selecting records, see Finding Records.

2. On the record Detail page, scroll down to the appropriate section, and click New.
3. In the Edit page, create a new record that is linked to the main record.

To remove or delete a linked record

1. Select the main record.

   For more information about selecting records, see Finding Records.

2. On the record Detail page, scroll down to the appropriate section.
3. In the row whose link you want to remove or delete, select one of the following options from the record-level menu:
   • Remove. This option disassociates the records without deleting either of the records.
   • Delete. This option deletes the linked record. A deleted record is moved to the Deleted Items page and is permanently removed from the database after 30 days.