With new updates come’s new bugs and this one certainly caught us off guard when we realised that we could no longer set the ‘From’ field of emails in our Dynamics system. This article will go over the details of a workaround to this issue until the problem is resolved with a future update.

The Problem

The problem will appear as a locked or read-only ‘From’ field on the email entity.

The Solution

The solution, in this case, is to create a solution which will contain a modified version of the ‘From’ field.

1. Navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Solutions’.
2. Create a ‘New Solution’ and name it something descriptive.
3. In the ‘Components’ tab, select ‘Add Existing’ and click ‘Entity’.
4. Scroll down and double-click the ‘Email’ entity to select it.
5. In the new window, go to the ‘Fields’ Tab, scroll down and select the ‘From’ field.
6. Once done, save and then export the solution as an ‘Unmanaged Solution’.
7. Extract the downloaded zip file containing the solution.
8. Open ‘customizations.xml’ found in the extracted folder.
9. Locate the line containing ‘<LookupTypes />’.
10. Replace that line with the code below the ‘Code to paste’ heading below these steps.
11. IMPORTANT: Locate both the fields below and change to the values indicated –
    • CHANGE FROM – <entity Name=”Email” unmodified=”1“>
    • CHANGE TO – <entity Name=”Email” unmodified=”0“>
    • CHANGE FROM – <attribute PhysicalName=”from” unmodified=”1“>
    • CHANGE TO – <attribute PhysicalName=”from” unmodified=”0“>
12. Save the file and then zip up all three files you initially extracted into a Zip file.
13. In CRM, click ‘Import’ and select the new zip file, go through the wizard which will import the modified solution.
14. Click ‘Publish All Customizations’ to ensure the fix is available to all users and once done close the window.

Code to paste

<LookupTypes>
     <LookupType id="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000">8</LookupType>
     <LookupType id="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000">2020</LookupType>       
</LookupTypes>

Extra

I’ve included a full copy of my customization.xml file below containing the fix. I would suggest following the steps above as I make no guarantees the code below will work in your environment.

<ImportExportXml xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
 <Entities>
 <Entity>
 <Name LocalizedName="Email" OriginalName="E-mail">Email</Name>
 <ObjectTypeCode>4202</ObjectTypeCode>
 <EntityInfo>
 <entity Name="Email" unmodified="0">
 <attributes>
 <attribute PhysicalName="from" unmodified="0">
 <Type>partylist</Type>
 <Name>from</Name>
 <LogicalName>from</LogicalName>
 <RequiredLevel>none</RequiredLevel>
 <DisplayMask>ValidForForm|ValidForGrid|RequiredForForm</DisplayMask>
 <ImeMode>auto</ImeMode>
 <ValidForUpdateApi>1</ValidForUpdateApi>
 <ValidForReadApi>1</ValidForReadApi>
 <ValidForCreateApi>1</ValidForCreateApi>
 <IsCustomField>0</IsCustomField>
 <IsAuditEnabled>1</IsAuditEnabled>
 <IsLogical>1</IsLogical>
 <IsSecured>0</IsSecured>
 <IntroducedVersion>5.0.0.0</IntroducedVersion>
 <SourceType>0</SourceType>
 <IsGlobalFilterEnabled>0</IsGlobalFilterEnabled>
 <IsSortableEnabled>0</IsSortableEnabled>
 <LookupStyle>single</LookupStyle>
 <LookupTypes>
 <LookupType id="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000">8</LookupType>
 <LookupType id="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000">2020</LookupType>
 </LookupTypes>
 <displaynames>
 <displayname description="From" languagecode="1033" />
 </displaynames>
 <Descriptions>
 <Description description="Enter the sender of the email." languagecode="1033" />
 </Descriptions>
 </attribute>
 </attributes>
 </entity>
 </EntityInfo>
 <RibbonDiffXml>
 <CustomActions />
 <Templates>
 <RibbonTemplates Id="Mscrm.Templates"></RibbonTemplates>
 </Templates>
 <CommandDefinitions />
 <RuleDefinitions>
 <TabDisplayRules />
 <DisplayRules />
 <EnableRules />
 </RuleDefinitions>
 <LocLabels />
 </RibbonDiffXml>
 </Entity>
 </Entities>
 <Roles></Roles>
 <Workflows></Workflows>
 <FieldSecurityProfiles></FieldSecurityProfiles>
 <Templates />
 <EntityMaps />
 <EntityRelationships />
 <OrganizationSettings />
 <optionsets />
 <Languages>
 <Language>1033</Language>
 </Languages>
</ImportExportXml>