How to create master detail object that is attached to both a lead and contact

Question

Using an Ajax email handler we have created an object that contains the transcript from a mibew.org chat.

If the contact exists in our database the transcript is attached as an object (and on the contact record as a related list)

If the contact is not in the database the transcript is attached as an object to a new lead.

But upon conversion of that lead, how do we insure that the transcript moves from the lead to the contact?

Or to put it another way -

We want to create a lead that is linked to a chat transcript object & when it is converted the transcript remains linked to the record.

Any suggestions?

does it have to be master detail? You could do it with lookups to both objects. I haven't tried with master-detail to both though.
thanks jonathan! right now we are working on using both look ups and master-detail fields. master for the contact and look up for the lead. we've got a lot of orphaned objects in our SFDC instance do to an over use of lookups.
It can't be architected with using master-detail to both due the first requirement where if the contact already exists it associates only to a contact. The master-detail requires that the record be associated to a lead also. You could create a new lead for all then convert the leads that are created for contacts that already exist and see if you can associate the converted lead id in the master-detail. To avoid the orphaned record in junction objects I'd use a validation where either the lead or contact relationship is required.
yes, @JonathanJenkins, it looks like we have to use lookup fields on both contact and leads.
This is not ideal by any means what-so-ever but did you consider about having 2 different chat transcript objects, one detail for contact and lead each? On convert, copy/move from lead detail to contact detail.

Jia Hu · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-23 02:44:49Z

Basically, you cannot create a master-detail relationship in which the User or Lead objects are the master, see,

Relationships Among Objects

Also, a idea about this,

Ability to create Master-Detail relationships from Custom Objects to Leads

Yep, we ended up having to go with lookup fields for this little project. thanks to all over here at the stack exchange!

1 Answer