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What’s happening?

When the owner of a case is changed in Dynamics 365, all email activities linked to the case have their modified dates updated to the timestamp when the case ownership change occurs. This results in the timeline displaying inaccurate timestamps, as all email activities reflect the same modified date, corresponding to the time of reassignment.

Reason:

This behavior is by design in Dynamics 365. When the ownership of an entity (such as a case) is updated, it triggers metadata changes on associated activities due to the configured cascading relationship behavior.

Resolution:

To prevent the modified dates of email activities from changing when the case owner is reassigned, adjust the relationship behavior settings in Dynamics 365 as follows:

  1. Navigate to Advanced Settings > Settings > Customizations > Customize the System.
  2. In the Solution Explorer, expand Entities.
  3. Find and expand the relevant entity (e.g., Opportunity or Case).
  4. From either 1:N Relationships or N:1 Relationships, locate the relationship between the entity (e.g., Opportunity or Case) and the associated activities (e.g., Task or Email).
  5. Open the specific relationship governing how activities are associated with the entity.
  6. In the Relationship Behavior section. change the Type of Behavior field to Configurable Cascading.
  7. For the Assign operation, change the behavior to desired option:
    • Cascade All: Changes in the parent record propagate to all child records.
    • Cascade Active: Changes only affect active child records.
    • Cascade None: No changes are propagated.
    • Remove Link: Disassociates the child records without deleting them or changing their ownership.
  8. After making the necessary changes, save the changes to the relationship.
  9. Publish all customizations.

Note: Similar steps can be used to modify relationships between other fields, this is just one specific example. 

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