Custom Links – Adding Custom Links for Customers

As part of a Custom Link blog series (which can be found here), we will discuss adding custom links to specific areas in Dynamics GP.

Creating Custom Links for Customers

Custom Links for customers is based on Address Types and the values in the fields on the Internet Information Window for the address ID, assigned to the specific address type. Deep Breathe, we will walk through this. 🙂 Each address ID provides several data locations to store links. We can add custom links to email addresses, websites and more! Let’s look at this more together.

Customer Custom Link Background Info

Before we get started on this, we need to understand what options are available and where they come from.
Customer Custom Links can be based on data stored in the internet information fields for 4 address types. Primary, Bill To, Ship To, Statement To. What do you mean Internet Information fields? More on that in just a bit…

Address Types

Address types ‘live’ on the customer maintenance window. (see screenshot below)
Primary is a little tricky, it’s the main Address ID selected on the Customer Maintenance Window. Mine is called “Primary” in the example below – the word primary in the example below is JUST the address ID, not the address type…

In theory, the Address ID could be called anything, but as long as it is set here (below), it becomes the ‘primary’.

As for Ship To, Bill To, and Statement To, the same rules apply – the address ID can be anything, as long as it is assigned to the address type (see below).

Each Address ID and Customer ID combination (regardless as to which address TYPE it has been assigned to – if at all) has a setup window called Internet Information.

Internet Information

The best way to see this is to access the Address button on the Customer Maintenance Window (bottom right). Once that window is open, select the appropriate address ID and then the little ‘globe’ next to the address ID.

This is where the data is stored that can be used for Custom Links.

Now that we know where the data is stored for customer custom links, let’s build an easy one.

Creating Customer Custom Links

The information stored in the Internet Information window can be accessed as the custom link… providing the address ID is assigned to one of the 4 address types available for custom links 🙂
I am going to just setup an email address so that we can quickly start an email from any of the Customer ID link fields, BUT, remember, there are other options as well! Why would I do this instead of the email button?
Websites, Files, Images, and more!
In my example, my Customer is setup with the address ID WAREHOUSE set to the address type, Ship To.

The Internet Information window has a field called Email Address, I am going to put in my email address there and use this field as my link that I want to establish. Note that I included mailto: in the email address – I tried this with just the email address and I was given an error but mailto:emaill@domain.com works fine.

Now that I have the data where I need it to be, I’m going to create my custom link.
Custom Links are setup under Administration/Setup/Company/Custom Links
By selecting the “Ship To” type (matched to the setup above) and then the email field, I am now establishing a Custom Link to the email field.

Now anywhere that the Customer ID is available for a link, we will now see this as an option. NOTE – the link will ONLY work if the email field is setup, for the address type listed above.

A little advanced?

Remember how I added mailto:email@domain.com to the email line for my customer in the internet information window? You can also add a subject to the email automatically. Instead of just typing the mailto:example@email.com, you can add to it – mailto:example@email.com?subject=Email%20Subject%20Goes%20Here
Replace ‘example@email.com’ with the actual email address and replace ‘Email%20Subject%20Goes%20Here’ with your email subject separated by %20 instead of spaced. Here is what mine looks like:

Pretty cool huh?
Do you have any Custom Link examples for Customers? Share them in the comments below!
Be sure to check out the series main page for links and examples of creating custom links for other areas of Dynamics GP!
Thanks for reading!
Shawn