Several-out-of-the-box entities in Dynamics CRM (including Case, Lead, and Opportunity) contain a field that represents a customer, which can either be an Account or a Contact. In CRM, these fields have the Customer data type, which is a special kind of lookup field for these two specific entities. Previously, system customizers couldn’t add a Customer field to their own entities. As part of this feature, Customer is available as a custom field data type that can be added to any entity, system or custom.

One of our MVP’s Shan McArthur, now with Microsoft leading the the Microsoft ADX Portal development as been fighting for this feature for a long time. In memory of that fight, we will refer to these field type as a “ShanMC Field.”. Thanks for your support throughout the years Shan!