How can I add in Dynamics CRM custom field on Activities Views?

Question

In Dynamics CRM 2013 I use standard activities and custom activities. For all of them I have custom field Account which I automatically fill in with account (if it is possible) from Regarding object. Is there a way to display this field on general activities views (not for particular activity)? May be there is a way to add custom fields directly to Activity entity?

Answer 1

Adding fields to the "All Activities" view

There are a number of system entities in CRM for which you cannot add custom fields or relationships. These include the base activity entity, templates and reports as well as many other tables.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg334739.aspx

I am not aware of any way for you to extend your base activity view to include custom columns. However, you could achieve similar functionality using a custom application that runs within an iframe or popup in CRM. Since you asked for potential workarounds I figured I would post some more information about how you might do this. This is NOT out of the box stuff and would require a CRM developer to implement.

Relating fields and entities to non-customizable entities:

One solution that I have worked with in the past for associating reports with other entities is to create a custom report entity that is linked to the system reports by GUID. When a system report is created, plugin logic creates a custom report with the same GUID, and this custom report then contains the custom relationships you need. Unfortunately while this then gives you tools to use within plugin or custom application code it doesn't directly give you useful relationships within CRM.