Activity Timeline

Note

This tool is available by default on the following MCP servers: Dynamics 365 Customer Service. The tools and examples in this documentation illustrate current capabilities. Tool names, descriptions, parameters, response formats, and available functionality can change over time.
When you build agents, integrations, or orchestration logic, don't hard-code dependencies on specific tool names, parameter structures, tool metadata, or response schemas. Instead, design your solution to discover and use available tools at runtime.
As the platform evolves, Microsoft might add, remove, rename, or modify tools and tool metadata. Designing against capabilities rather than specific tool identifiers helps maintain compatibility across service updates.

Use this capability when you want to see the full history of interactions on a case, account, or other record - including emails, phone calls, tasks, notes, and appointments.

What it does

The assistant shows a chronological feed of all activities on a record. You can filter by activity type (for example, only emails or only tasks), search by keyword, filter by date range, or filter by state (open, completed, canceled). By default, the most recent activities appear first.

Try prompts like

• "Show the timeline for this case"
• "What's the activity history on this case?"
• "Show me all emails on this case"
• "List the recent phone calls on this account"
• "Show completed activities on this case"
• "Search the timeline for billing"
• "Show the oldest activities on this case"
• "What happened on this case last week?"

What you'll see in chat

The assistant displays an interactive activity timeline as an app-in-chat component. Activities are shown in chronological order with type icons, subjects, dates, and owners. You can expand entries to see full details.

Helpful tips

• Say "show only emails" or "just the notes" to filter the timeline by activity type.
• Use date filters by saying something like "show activities from last week."
• The timeline shows the 30 most recent activities by default. Ask for more if needed.
• For a quick AI-generated summary of the case instead of the raw timeline, say "summarize this case."

Tip

You can take action directly from the timeline. Click an email to read it, or use prompts like "reply to the last email" or "create a follow-up task."

What happens next

After the timeline appears, you can continue with prompts like:

• "Open the latest email"
• "Create a task based on the last phone call"
• "Summarize what happened this week"
• "Reply to the customer's email"
• "Add a note about the follow-up"

Does this change data?

No, viewing the timeline does not change data.

The timeline is read-only. Actions you take from the timeline (creating activities, replying to emails) may change data through separate tools.

What you can do from the app-in-chat component

From the timeline in chat, you can:

• Browse activities in chronological order
• Filter by type (emails, tasks, notes, phone calls, appointments)
• Expand an activity to see its details
• Open an email to read its full content
• Create new activities (tasks, phone calls, notes) directly from the timeline
• Open the full record form in Dynamics 365

Prerequisites

This tool is available on the Dynamics 365 Customer Service MCP server. See the availability note at the top of this page for details. No additional configuration is required.

Tool summary

Property	Value
User-facing name	Activity Timeline
Internal tool name	get_activity_timeline
Purpose	Returns the raw chronological feed of emails, tasks, notes, phone calls, and appointments for any Dynamics 365 record

Tool behavior

Returns the raw chronological feed of emails, tasks, notes, phone calls, and appointments for any Dynamics 365 record. Supports filtering by activity type, state, date range, free-text search, and pagination. Use when the user asks to see the activity feed, recent activity, history, or all touchpoints on a record.

Annotations

Annotation	Value	Meaning
readOnlyHint	true	This tool does not modify data.
destructiveHint	Not set	Not applicable (read-only tool).
idempotentHint	Not set	Not applicable (read-only tool).
openWorldHint	Not set	Uses default (queries Dataverse).

Input concepts

Record context

Input	Description	Required
entityId, entityType, incident, account	entityId (record GUID, required), entityType (entity logical name such as incident or account).	Yes

Pagination

Input	Description	Required
top, skipActivities, skipAnnotations	top (maximum records per type, defaults to 30), skipActivities (number of activities to skip), skipAnnotations (number of annotations to skip).	No

Sort order

Input	Description	Required
sortOrder, newest, oldest	sortOrder (newest or oldest - defaults to newest).	No

Type filter

Input	Description	Required
typeFilter	typeFilter (array of activity types to include, e.g. ['email', 'task', 'note']). Omit for all types.	No

State filter

Input	Description	Required
stateFilter, open, completed, canceled, scheduled	stateFilter (array of states: open, completed, canceled, scheduled). Omit for all states.	No

Search

Input	Description	Required
searchText	searchText (free-text search across subject, description, and owner fields).	No

Date range

Input	Description	Required
dateFrom, dateTo	dateFrom and dateTo (ISO 8601 dates).	No

Advanced

Input	Description	Required
additionalFilter	additionalFilter (OData filter conditions merged with AND).	No

Response and UI behavior

This tool renders an interactive activity timeline.

This MCP tool is supported by an MCP App.

Response type

Interactive component (app-in-chat)

The timeline widget displays activities in chronological order with type icons, subjects, dates, and owners. Users can expand entries to see details, filter by type, and navigate to individual activities.

Routing notes

Use get_activity_timeline for:

• "Show the timeline", "activity history", "recent activity", "what happened on this case"
• Viewing the full chronological feed of all activity types
• Filtering by type, state, or date range

Don't use get_activity_timeline when:

• The user wants the case form with a pre-filtered Timeline tab (with form context) - use get_case
• The user wants an AI prose summary - use summarize_case
• The user wants triage signals - use get_case_highlights
• The user wants only emails - use list_emails for search or view_email for a specific email

Related tools

Tool	Relationship
get_case	Opens the case form with a built-in Timeline tab
summarize_case	AI-generated prose summary of case activity
get_case_highlights	Activity digest and triage signals
create_activity	Creates a new activity on the timeline
create_note	Creates a note on the timeline
view_email	Opens a specific email from the timeline
list_emails	Searches emails by subject or sender

Data mutation classification

Read-only.

This tool only reads and displays timeline data. No data is modified. Follow-up actions from the timeline widget (creating activities, opening emails) may trigger write operations via separate tools.