Managing relationships in Dynamics 365 Sales is usually straightforward: each Contact is associated with an Account (aka the company they work for). Simple, effective, efficient.
But what happens when you need to track people in advisory boards, trade associations, or non-profit councils that cut across multiple companies? Suddenly, the tidy “Contact-to-Account” model breaks down like a chocolate teapot.
In this blog, we’ll walk through the best ways to handle these multi-affiliation relationships using Marketing Lists instead of adding custom fields. We’ll also briefly touch on a few alternative approaches.
The Challenge of Managing Groups in Dynamics 365 Sales
Dynamics 365 Sales is brilliantly optimized for B2B sales, “People who work for companies” is its bread and butter. But many organizations need to track group memberships that span across companies.
When Bob from Big Corp, Ally from Contoso, and Carlos from Startup Zone all serve on the Future Tech Advisory Board, how do you keep track?
Spoiler alert: It’s not with extra Accounts, because their employer isn’t the advisory board.
The solution needs to:
- Track membership cleanly
- Be easy to update
- Work nicely with views
- Avoid breaking the built-in relationships between Contacts and Accounts
Why Marketing Lists Work Best for Group Memberships
Enter the humble Marketing List, originally designed for, you guessed it, marketing. But its versatility makes it a hidden gem for membership tracking, too.
- Purpose-built for grouping Contacts without changing their primary Account.
- Easily visible and reportable with views and dashboards.
- Expandable to support email campaigns or events if needed later.
- No custom development or awkward workarounds required.
Marketing Lists are a native, simple, and straightforward way to track many-to-many relationships in Dynamics 365 Sales. They let you group contacts across accounts without disrupting the core contact-to-account model, and they work seamlessly with views, dashboards, and reporting.
Step-by-Step: Track Group Memberships with Marketing Lists
Let’s break it down so you can put it into action faster than you can say “Advisory Board.”
Step 1: Create the Marketing List
1. Go to Marketing Lists in Dynamics 365 Sales
2. Click New
3. Fill in the fields:
Name: Enter a name like “Future Tech Advisory Board”
List Type: Choose Static
Targeted At: Choose Contacts
4. Click Save
Step 2: Add Contacts to the Marketing List
You have a few ways to add Contacts, but here’s a simple one right from the Contact record:
1. Open a Contact record
2. From the command bar, select Add to Marketing List
3. Search for and select your newly created “Future Tech Advisory Board” list
4. Save (and bask in your organizational glory!)
Step 3: Create a View to See Group Members
You have a few ways to add Contacts, but here’s a simple one right from the Contact record:
1. From the Contact list, select Edit filters
2. Delete all filters to start fresh
3. Click Add > Select Add related entity
4. Choose the Marketing List entity
5. Add the field: Marketing List → Equals → Choose your list (e.g., Future Tech Advisory Board).
6. Click the Apply button
7. From the dropdown of Contact Views, select Save as a new view and give it a name
Now you’ve got a handy, always-up-to-date view of everyone in that group. No sticky notes or no rogue spreadsheets.
3 Alternatives for Tracking Group Memberships in Dynamics 365
If you’re the curious sort (and you should be!), here are a few other options to consider based on your needs:
- Connections: Allow you to create flexible relationships between records, but harder to report on in bulk. This can be suitable if, for example, you want to track “Future Tech Advisory Board” as an Account with its own Contacts, and related Contacts connected to the account itself.
- Segments in Customer Insights – Journeys (CIJ): Great for dynamic, criteria-based lists. Requires licensing and integration with CIJ.
- Custom Fields: Add a “Group Membership” field (or many-to-many table) on the Contact. Possibly the simplest approach for the user, but hard to scale and requires an administrator to set up and maintain.
Start Using Dynamics 365 Sales Marketing Lists
Marketing Lists make it easy to organize memberships, scale for the future, and even prepare your data for marketing campaigns.
If you need more advanced segmentation rules (e.g., “All Contacts with X role or Y experience”), CIJ Segments or custom fields may be a better fit. But for most organizations, Marketing Lists strike the right balance of simplicity and flexibility.
Want to get more out of Dynamics 365 Sales? Contact C5 Insight to learn about our D365 Sales Hub Starter Kit and how we support Dynamics 365 Sales implementations, migrations, customizations, and more.