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[Ben Morgan]

Hi All,

D365 comes with a standard projects data entity that  can be used for import/export of basic project data.  Among the fields within this entity are several tied to workers – project manager, project accountant, etc.  The entity surfaces the personnel number by joining the HcmWorker recid to the applicable worker field on the projects table.  We added a new worker related field to the projects table via an extension (named ‘cost controller’), and did the same for the projects entity. The custom entity field is modeled exactly on the delivered field.  For example, this is the delivered field: 

And this is the custom field: 

The only differences are which projtable field joins to hcmworker to create the appropriate data source (HcmWorker2 v. HcmWorker4).  The datasources are likewise identical other than the relations to the master table (projtable).  This setup works fine to export the field contents, and it also allows updating the field when no value currently exists – i.e. filling in a blank field.  The only thing it doesn’t allow is updating a field that already contains a value.  It handles this scenario by generating messages that seem to indicate success while actually ignoring the update entirely – i.e. 1) update the field by changing the personnel number (to another valid number), 2) publish, 3) Excel add-in / DMF indicate one record updated with no errors, 4) old value remains.

I have scoured the field and datasource settings in Visual Studio and can’t see any obvious difference that would account for the difference in behavior between the fields.  Microsoft has so far been unable to figure out why there is a difference.  Are there any developers that have had experience customizing an entity like this that know of any tricks or gotchas related to this sort of customization?

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Ben Morgan
M3 Engineering & Technology Corp
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