DID YOU KNOW? Fields rarely touched in Dynamics CRM

We all know that whenever we create an entity in CRM, CRM creates few fields by default. Some of these like Owner, Owning Business Unit, Created On, Modified On, etc. are used extensively while working with Dynamics CRM. But there are some fields that we use very rarely or even never; thus we tend to forget about them. But some of these fields are really important and can save a lot custom work, it’s just that we should be aware of them.

Recently there was a question on Dynamics Community regarding use of same fields which inspired me to search for them and have it documented. Few fields can be understood from their name but some fields don’t even have proper description in CRM. For such fields, below table can help. Links against the fields has more explanation and scenarios where these can be used.

Field Name	Description
CreatedBy	User who created the record.
CreatedOn	Date and time when the record was created.
CreatedOnBehalfBy	To create records on behalf of another user. Used for impersonation in CRM 2011
ExchangeRate	When I create a record, such as an opportunity, and use a non-base currency, such as GBP in this hypothetical scenario, this is what happens: I set the Currency field to GBP I put a value in the money field, called Estimated Revenue I save the record. During the save operation, the following occurs: The Exchange Rate field is populated with the value 0.61300000000 The Estimated Revenue_base field is populated with the value from the Estimated Revenue field converted to its inflated USD value Both of these updates occur whether the Exchange Rate and Estimated Revenue_base fields are exposed on the form or not Afterwards, when the dollar makes that incredible comeback, I need to update my exchange rate on the GBP currency. I do so – it’s now 1, reflecting a 1:1 conversion rate. What happens to my opportunity? Nothing, at least not immediately. The Exchange Rate field on my opportunity is not automatically populated with the new value of 1. However, as soon as I change the value of ANY money field on the opportunity and save the form, the Exchange Rate field is updated with the new value from the GBP currency record, and the Estimated Revenue_base field is updated with the new converted value (and any other _base fields for other money fields on the form – remember, there is only 1 Currency and 1 Exchange Rate field, so these values apply to all money fields on the form). This also happens if I change the state of the record, such as closing the Opportunity as won or lost, activating or closing a quote, etc. http://andrewbschultz.~exchange-rate-updates/
ImportSequenceNumber	The import sequence number is a whole number field. The range can be customized if needed. The basic idea behind this field is to store the sequence number (ID) of the source record during data import to CRM. If this field is mapped during migration package/script design, it provides a one-to-one link between source row and destination CRM record.   http://www.powerobjects.com/~-number-field/
ModifiedBy	User who modified the record.
ModifiedOn	Date and time when the record was modified.
ModifiedOnBehalfBy	To create records on behalf of another user. Used for impersonation in CRM 2011
OverriddenCreatedOn	Date and time that the record was migrated. http://www.magnetismsolutions.~_crm_2011_part_1
TimeZoneRuleVersionNumber	The definition of a recurrence pattern of how local time is converted to/from Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). This includes information about Daylight Savings Time (DST) versus Standard Time. Time zone rules can change over time, thus a time zone can have multiple rules from a historic point of view, but can have only one rule that is current and in effect.   http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crm/archive/2008/05/14/time-zones-in-microsoft-dynamics-crm-4-0.aspx
TransactionCurrencyId	Currency associated with the entity.
UTCConversionTimeZoneCode	Time zone code that was in use when the record was created.
VersionNumber	This column is used mainly for concurrency support. The VERSIONNUMBER field is a unique value that gets incremented as records are updated – it can be very useful.