Parent/Child Case relationships are just one of the numerous and exciting new features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM's new Spring '14 Wave. Check out PowerObjects' rundown of the Top 10 Features of Spring '14 Wave for a look at our favorites. Spring '14 Wave adds functionality to the case entity at every turn. Coming in at #9 on the aforementioned Top 10 features list is Parent/Child Case functionality.

Parent/Child case relationships help service departments better utilize cases. For instance, a user now has the ability to track a (or many) "Child" Case(s) against another "Parent" Case.This Parent/Child relationship allows for a Service Department to identify and track when repeat issues are filed by multiple organizations independently. In order to utilize this new feature users first need to configure their settings for Parent and Child Case relationships.

Parent and child case settings can be found under the Service Management section of the settings tile in CRM 2013. In this area a user can configure the parent/child relationship settings by:

1. Navigating to Settings > Service Management
2. Select Parent and Child case setting from the Case settings section, which will pop open a dialogue.

2. In the Dialogue window select which fields you would like the child case to inherit from the parent case by highlighting them in the left hand box and using the arrows in the middle to toggle the included fields. (Remove by doing the opposite from right to left).

3. Specify whether you would like the child cases to be resolved along with the parent case or require that child cases be resolved in order to resolve the parent case.

Some limits of case settings functionality include:

• Fields that are chosen to be inherited by the child case will not update dynamically upon the change of the coinciding field on the parent case. The fields will only be mapped upon creation of the child case.
• Only data contained within fields can be mapped; activities, notes etc. will not be inherited.
• Parent child case settings cannot be uniquely configured for business units or other delineations of CRM. They will be the same for the entire organization.

If you are interested in the new case functionality, and other Spring '14 Wave features, PowerObjects blog has you covered, check out our Install Spring '14 Wave blog post to learn how to update ones CRM, and be sure to visit the general PowerObjects Blog page for resources regarding previous case functionality as well as other new features of Spring '14 Wave.