If you are using Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE) in the cloud, then read on...

Microsoft announced that the legacy web client for Dynamics 365 CE won't be available after December 1, 2020. It is recommended that subscribers begin to transition now with the intent to start using the Unified Interface by October 1, 2020. This ensures that any wrinkles are ironed out ahead of time.

To ease a major concern you may have, this transition will not impact the data in your system. Think of it more as a major update.

To prepare our clients we have developed transition documentation to take you through the end to end process.

Click here to check out the transition plan!

Have a dashboard that is the envy of your colleagues? Created a view that would benefit your office mate? Is there a Dynamics 365 User that cannot access a record of yours and needs to, but security provisions are preventing him from doing so? If any of these apply, I encourage you to read on.

Sharing personally created views, charts, dashboards, and even records in Dynamics 365 could not be easier. Follow the steps below, and within seconds you will see just how simple it is to grant and give access to components within D365.

To Share Records:

1. Navigate to the entity that contains the records you want to share.

2. Select the records to share.

You can now brand your Dynamics 365 environment! Themes allow you to apply your distinct logo and color scheme to your Dynamics 365 environment. Three simple clicks and you are well on your way to a D365 environment with a look all your own.

1. From the Navigation Bar, select Settings

2. Select Customizations

3. Select Themes

Running a well-oiled support desk is not for the faint of heart. There are so many moving parts…Does the customer have a support agreement? Does the contacting party have authority to open a support ticket against the agreement? What is the issue? Is the issue covered under the support agreement? What is the expected turn-around time? How does this relate to its priority in the queue? Which support resource should be assigned the ticket? Is the support resource staying on top of the ticket? 

Did you know there is a whole area inside your Dynamics CRM environment that is fitted with tools to manage your support operations? It is neatly tucked away in Settings under Service Management and contains a slew of menu items to manage the many facets of the support process. 

Through the combined forces of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Entitlements you are armed with a pairing which allows for a flexible support model. SLAs offer variable levels of support, with varied turnaround times and price points, while Entitlements allow you to define the variable by which support is measured (time vs count), who can open support tickets against the agreement, the products/services covered under the agreement, and the channels by which a support ticket can be submitted.

Depending on how support tickets are received, Automatic Case Creation & Update Rules may prove to be a mighty ally. This feature automates the process of creating/updating records based upon predefined settings and conditions. One such condition is whether an Entitlement exists for the submitting customer. Take your automatically created cases, and make use of Routing Rule Sets, which read the properties of the Case and route the records to your various Support Queues to be picked up by your Support Resources to be worked on. It is worth noting that Routing Rule Sets can also be applied manually if your support tickets reside in a “bucket” for assignment.

For in depth details about Service Management, tune into this webinar.

Being part of the help desk support team affords me the opportunity to learn about little idiosyncrasies in Dynamics CRM. And I like to pass along these sweet nuggets to our loyal blog readers in case you find yourself in a similar pinch.

Have you ever wanted to add ‘Company’ to an existing Lead view, and the field is nowhere to be found?

In order to see the field, you need to perform a bit of trickery…

ü  Choose any other entity from the ‘Record Type’ dropdown,

ü  Then switch back to the Lead entity

The newest mobile app released by Microsoft for Dynamics CRM takes the user experience to a whole new level. The newest release is compatible with Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1 and above. Below are some notable tips and tricks for navigating the mobile app.

Choose your app carefully.When you search in your mobile device’s app store, the familiar, Dynamics CRM for phone express, and the newbie Dynamics CRM for Phones, will be available to select from. The simplest identifier is their distinct logos.

You want to choose Dynamics CRM for Phones.

This app exemplifies the catch phrase, “Write once, deploy everywhere.” The experience you have grown so used to in your web client is essentially replicated in your mobile experience. As you navigate the mobile app, screens intuitively reformat, making it far more conducive to the smaller real estate, without losing a bit of functionality, including business process flows. As you swipe right and left, you are presented with all the data and all of the fields that are relevant to the entity you are working within.

The main navigation in the CRM 2016 ribbon not only altered its look, it also made functional changes, vastly improving the end user experience. The Main Menu Button now replaces the CRM logo. Clicking this button enables the user to switch between each of the functional areas without waiting for the page to reload. 

To add, a functional area can be selected where sub-areas are neatly organized in rows by category to easily view and select from. The fluid transition and absence of endless scrolling make for ease of navigation.

A sleek button, aptly referred to as MRU (Most Recently Used) presents the user with up to 30 of their MRU Records and Views.

You can now brand your CRM! Themes allow you to apply your distinct logo and color scheme to your Dynamics CRM environment. Three simple clicks and you are well on your way to a CRM environment with a look of your own.

1. From the Main Menu button, select Settings

2. Select Customizations

3. Select Themes

Upon navigating to Themes, you will find the out of the box CRM Default Theme. The default theme cannot be modified, but it can be cloned, should you want a head start on designing your theme. Otherwise, you can put your designing skills to the test and get theming. 

I was recently speaking with some like-minded CRMers in the community and we were discussing what we find to be at the top of the list for help desk inquiries. The overwhelming consensus was CRM for Outlook.

Do you ever find yourself faced with CRM for Outlook just not cooperating? Whether it be that you are having undesirable or unresponsive behaviors, the CRM tab is greyed out, or the CRM tab has vanished. Have no fear, you are not alone, and with a few checks and few clicks, more often than not, one of the following suggestions will be your golden nugget for resolution.

Check the following machine related roadblocks for starters...

ü  Ensure that your CRM for Outlook version matches up with your CRM server version. It could be that you are out of sync.

ü  Could you possibly have add-ins that are not playing nicely with one another? Begin to disable your add-ins one by one and see if CRM for Outlook is positively affected.

No programming knowledge? No problem!

Business Rules, which are delivered right out-of-the-box with Dynamics CRM, tackle client side logic in a user friendly way, allowing virtually anyone that is responsible for managing their company’s CRM to get off and running with this fantastic tool in no time. 

In a nutshell, this little gem allows you to create and add form design functions to the system and custom entities without a lick of development. Through “If…Then…Else” conditional statements, you too can create rules which monitor the behaviour of fields and subsequently define an action or actions to be taken upon the conditions being met.

Gone are the days of reaching out to developers for JavaScript and plug-ins each and every time a requirement rears its head. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not some sort of magic potion that will make all your wishes come true. But, you are bound to dazzle your users (and your boss), with fields that seamlessly appear just when they need them; field values which auto-complete right before their very eyes; field requirements changing on the fly, ensuring the most relevant data is always captured; and error messages, or what I prefer to call ‘reminder messages’ which prompt users to conform to best business practices. With a little creativity and some business logic in tow, Business Rules can do all that and so much more!

Here’s a quick guide to find the Business Rules section: