Trialing CRM Online has never been easier. Just click http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=252780 and your are only minutes away from a great trial experience
Once you've provided the info the trial should be up and ready for you in one or two minutes. Try it now.
Free eBooks
Below you'll find a list of FREE eBooks to get you started with your trial experience
Recommended reading
I've organized the links in sections
Getting Started
Service
Better Together
Mobile
Connectors
Administration
Social Listening
Come join us - CRM Online is there to help your business objectives.
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing (MDM) is great for generating Leads and Microsoft Dynamics CRM (CRM) is great for working the Lead-to-Opportunity process.
So why not have the two sync Contacts, Leads, Opportunities and more between them?
Enter the "Dynamics Marketing Connector for Dynamics CRM".
The Dynamics Marketing solution is installed using the normal solution installation process for CRM. It customizes entities (see table below) and add a Security Role - "Dynamics Marketing Connector" - which you must assign to a user for the purpose of Dynamics Marketing Connector Integration
The following table outlines the changes made by the solution.
Synchronizing MDM with CRM
In order for the synch to happen automatically, you need to complete three steps
To download the connector resources (the "Microsoft Dynamics Marketing - CRM Connector.msi") and more click here
The files will be downloaded to your PC in the folder you specify, eg. "Downloads"
Installing the Connector
1. Navigate to where you downloaded the files, right-click the file "Microsoft Dynamics Marketing 16.1 - CRM Connector.msi" (1) and click Install
2. In the dialog click Next
Note
3. Optional - Browse to a new location for the installation files
Click Next
4. Click Finish
To install the solution in your CRM
1. Click Settings and then Solutions
2. Click Import
3. Click Choose File
4. Navigate to the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics Marketing\Connector for Microsoft Dynamics CRM and select the file DynamicsMarketingConnectorSolution_managed.zip
5. Verify you selected the correct file and click Next
5a. Optional - click View solution package details
5b. Optional - have a look at the entities etc being synchronized
6. Click Close and verify the solution has been installed
To be able to configure the connector the so called "Integration Services" need to be enabled. These services are only deployed in your MDM instance by Microsoft upon request
You can check whether the services are enabled by navigating to Settings -> Integration Options in MDM
Requesting the Integration Services to be deployed
If you require the "Integration services" to be deployed, you must file a Service Request through your Office 365 portal.
In the "Office 365 admin center" click Support in the left navigation panel
Select "Service Requests"
Click "+" to create a new Service Request (SR) with the following settings:
A member of the support team might call you to verify the request details. As soon as the connector service has been deployed, you will see the blue checkmark and then you can complete step #3 - configuration of the Connector.
The remaining steps for configuring the connector are
After the "Dynamics Marketing Connector for Dynamics CRM" solution is installed in your CRM, you must create a 'connector user' in CRM. This user must be assigned the “Dynamics Marketing Connector” security role. The "Dynamics Marketing Connector" security role is created when the Dynamics Marketing solution is installed in Dynamics CRM.
Create a new user
1. Log in to Office 365 as an admin, click Users and Groups, Active Users and then "+" to create a new user
2. Provide the required information and finish. In my example I call the user "MDM Connector"
Assign Sercurity Role to User
After creating the user in O365, you must next navigate to CRM and assign the security role “Dynamics Marketing Connector” to the user
1. Click the "..." menu and then CRM
2. Click Settings -> Administration -> Users
3. Click the Connector user and then Manage Roles
Assign the role "Dynamics Marketing Connector" to the user.
Configure a CRM Endpoint
To facilitate access to CRM from MDM via the Connector Service you must define a CRM Endpoint in MDM. The account you enter for the endpoint is used by the "Integration services" to create and change entities in the CRM system.
1. Navigate to MDM
2. Click Home -> Settings -> click Integration Options to open the "Integration Settings" page
3. In the "CRM Endpoint" section (1) click the Configuration button (2) to open the "Configure CRM Account for Access by the Connector Service" dialog
4. Provide the URL for your CRM Service (1) and the credentials of your Connector account (2). You can click Verify (3) to test that the credentials you have entered are valid. Click Submit to save and close
Configure an Azure namespace to serve as the transportation channel
In order to complete the Connector configuration you need to provide an Azure Namespace that you own.
Note:
With your Azure Subscription in place all you need is a Service Bus Namespace and the associated Management key.
1. Log in to Azure, click Service Bus and then click Create to create a new namespace
2. Provide a name for your namespace (eg. "MyNameSpace110").
Make a note of the namespace name as well as the generated management key ("DEFAULT KEY") - you'll need them later
4. Return to MDM and the "Settings" page
In the "Service Bus" section (1) click the Configuration button (2) to open the "Configure Windows Azure for Microsoft Dynamics Marketing" dialog
5. In the "Configure Windows Azure for Microsoft Dynamics Marketing" dialog
IMPORTANT september 2014:
The above confuration dialog has changed since the original post - authenticating through the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Access Control (also known as Access Control Service or ACS) is not longer facilitated throught the interface as shown above (the "Configure Azure ACS" button has been removed).
You need to use PowerShell now. Please see comment by Christian Abeln below, the 'See also' section, and the december update at the very end of this post.
6. In the "Provide Credentials for configuring the Azure Service Bus" dialog you must provide a number of administrative credentials in order to setup the secured trust relationship between the integration service and your CRM system through your Azure service bus. None of these administrative credentials will be ever stored. They will be used for an automated configuration, which eases the configuration immensely.
7. Click OK to save and close the "Provide Credentials for configuring the Azure Service Bus" dialog and return to the "Configure Windows Azure for Microsoft Dynamics Marketing" dialog (Azure service bus configuration is now done)
8. Click Submit to save and close the "Configure Windows Azure for Microsoft Dynamics Marketing" dialog (the configuration of the communication channel is now complete)
9. Verify in the "Services" sections in the Integration settings page that you now have three service roles running:
Initial Synchronization
The final step for your configuration is the initial synchronization.
On the "Settings" page, scroll down to the "Initial Synchronization" section (1) and click the arrow button (2) - and wait until this step has completed.
You might need to refresh the "Settings" page a few times until the step is marked as complete.
I wont go into details about the entity mapping between MDM and CRM here, but to get an indication about some of the synchronized entities please refer to the below bullets (MDM left - CRM right):
So Accounts and (Marketing) Contacts you can create in either MDM or CRM and the new entity will sync to the other. Leads 'born' in MDM will sync to CRM (and then updates to fields will flow either way). Opportunities 'born' in CRM will sync to MDM (and then updates to fields will flow either way).
To test you can create a Marketing Contact in MDM and verify its created in CRM as well
1. Create a marketing contact in MDM - eg. Michael Schmidt from the company MSDAS
2. Open CRM and verify the contact has been created there too - please note that the Owner of the contact is "MDM Connector" (3) - the user you created above
3. Now to test the opposite synch direction add the (missing) title of the contact in CRM
4. Open MDM and verify that the title is synchronized from CRM to MDM
I hope you are as exited as I am about the wonderful services from Microsoft Dynamics and what they can do for your business
See also
Update November 2014
For the creation of the Azure ServiceBus using PowerShell, please make sure to use the argument 1 for the parameter –CreateACSNamespace
> New-AzureSBNamespace -Name YOUR_NAMESPACE -NamespaceType Messaging -Location "YOUR_LOCATION" -CreateACSNamespace 1
For the parameter –CreateACSNamespace using ‘1’ means is True and using ‘0’ means False (see also "Service Bus Authentication and Authorization" - link)
Thanks to my collegue Mihail Cretu for pointing this out
Note December 12
If you are having trouble getting the MDM Listener and MDM Publisher services to work (start) in a brand new MDM Organisation please check if you have set the Default Currency (Settings -> Site Settings -> "Financial Options" -> "Default Currency") for your MDM Organisation (thanks to my collegue Rodrigo Cristelli Lugarinho for the input)
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing is an online cloud service that can be purchased through the Microsoft Dynamics Online Portal as a paid instance.
To begin you must sign in to your Office 365 account and go to "Purchase Services" and select "Microsoft Dynamics Marketing".
Once your MDM instance is provisioned, you'll see “Marketing” in the navigation header of your Office365 Portal
When you first access your new instance of Microsoft Dynamics Marketing you’ll be routed to the Site Settings page of Microsoft Dynamics Marketing where you’ll need to define a few required settings such as the default currency for the organization to get started.
Scroll down to the bottom of the "Site Settings" page and click the checkbox to agree to the terms of the agreement and click Save or Submit.
Get Access to Microsoft Dynamics Marketing’s Functions
The first time you sign in as the site administrator you will have limited privileges to only access the administrative options (more noticeably you'll only see the "Settings" tile when you click "home")
User privileges are defined for each User ID and determine the Microsoft Dynamics Marketing features available to your user. User Privileges that are available are different depending on the User Type.
To update your user privileges, from the main navigation panel click Home - Settings - Users
Click the user you want the adjust permissions for. The Default user will be "MPADMIN"
You can then select the appropriate “Role” permissions from the "User" screen.
As an example lets add "View All" and "Edit All" priveleges to "Landing Pages", "Lead Management" and "Marketing":
This will add the "Marketing Execution" tile to your navigation.
If you need access to all areas of Dynamics Marketing you can click Grant All
If you have more users who'll need access to Dynamics Marketing, you can go ahead and create them, and assign priveleges to them like described above. A user wont be able to login to Microsoft Dynamics Marketing without User privileges assigned.
Part of Microsoft Dynamics Marketings (MDM) Digital Asset Management system includes the ability for you to work with files, file folders, and file libraries.
In this blog post I'll talk about
File and Folder Structure
MDM includes powerful functions to help manage all types of electronic Files, including
MDM organizes files in a recursive folder structure the same way Windows does. The recursive folder structures enable you to create an unlimited number of folders within folders to facilitate organizing files.
MDM has two types of Folders
At the top of the file structure there is a root folder called "Files". This root folder contains all files and folders and cannot be deleted. MDM automatically creates a folder for each entity which can be accessed from the "Files" section of the entities dashboard or from within the "File" window.
The "File" Window
MDM stores all the files that marketing and creative teams need to do their jobs in one place, the "File" window. This enables files to be easily linked to the projects that use them or the jobs that created them.
To view files and folders through the "File" window in the main navigation panel
The "File" window will open in the folder you last worked with
The top of the window shows the path to the file folder being viewed (1). You can click any of the folders in the path to display the contents of that folder, or click the sections in the file navigation tree to display the contents of the folder selected. Click the arrows to the left of the folder to expand or collapse the navigation tree (2)
Files and folders can be displayed in a grid view, or you can use the display slide tool (3) to change the display to small or large thumbnails.
When you upload files, the system will create a thumbnail of the file (4). The thumbnails are small graphical representations of the file that are stored in the MDM database.
MDM can thumbnail many types of files including
Using Search to Find Files Across Folders
You can search for files directly or apply filters to help with navigation to find files.
Type your search string, eg "Nokia" and click Go
You see resulting files across folders
The "File Maintain" Page
When you click on a file in the "File" window or from the "Files" dashboard of the entity it is on, MDM will bring up the "File Maintain" page.
The "File Maintain" page displays metadata and icons for a uploading version etc
In the upper right corner of the page you'll see four check boxes (1)
The Icons in the upper right corner of the page allow you to quickly
Important:
Clicking the "Details" button (1) will expand the "Details" section in which you find additional fields and descriptive attribute sections about the file
The "Created By" and "Create Date" fields (2) are populated automatically based on the contact record of the user who uploaded it and the date and time it was uploaded.
The "File Location" field (3) is hard coded as the MDM Database.
You can enter in additional descriptions and attributes about the file, they are not generated automatically.
If comments have been added to the file (during the Markup process - see later below), an additional "Comments" button will be displayed below the "Details" button to allow you to expand and see comments made on the file.
The lower part of the File Dashboard include options to:
Version Control
MDM provides version control features to help protect files. Site-wide version control settings enable the MDM administrative user to require version control for all files stored in MDM.
Under Settings -> File Options, check the "Version Control" checkbox, and click Save or Submit. When version control is on for a file, MDM displays all the versions together on the File profile, so you can open and work with each version if necessary.
Once a version has been stored in MDM, the version cannot be changed or deleted. By preventing users from overwriting versions, MDM can ensure that there is a clear trail of changes that were made to each file and that files are not overwritten or modified accidentally.
If version control is turned off, MDM replaces the current version of the file with the new one. The old version is permanently deleted.
Important
Adding Files to Favorites
You can flag files as either "My Favorites" (1) or "Site Favorites" (2) for quick access to files that you frequently use (click the down arrow to expand the vertical toolbar)
You can also right click the file and mark it as a favorite
The "My Favorites" folder can also be accessed from the "Files" section of your Contact Dashboard.
When you flag a file as a "My Favorite", the file will be added to your "My Favorites" folder which can be accessed from the "File" window by clicking on the "View My" (1) button.
When you flag a file as a "Site Favorite", the file is added to the "Site Favorite Files" which can be added as a Widget to your Home Page.
Dragging and Dropping Files into Folders
You can upload files directly from your desktop to MDM by simply dragging and dropping them into a MDM file folder. Files can be added from within the "File" window, or by navigating directly to the "Files" section of the entity dashboard you want to add the file to.
Click the "Upload" icon (1) to display the "Upload" dialog
Navigate to the file in your Windows file system (1), drag the file to the "Upload" dialog (2) and click Upload (3)
The uploaded file now in the MDM folder
You can
Adding and Moving Files
Files that are already uploaded to MDM can be added to multiple folders within the "File" window as well by dragging and dropping the file into the new location in the folder tree.
Working with Folders in the "File Maintain" page
You can copy, move, and delete files using the "Folders" section of the "File Maintain" page
The "Add" icon will bring up a search box.
Marking Files Up
Once a file has been uploaded into MDM, you can add comments, shapes, boxes, circles, arrows, post it notes, etc. using visual tools right on top of the file.
If you click the "Process File" icon to thumbnail the file image and the file has been Marked Up, you will receive a warning notifying you that reprocessing the file image will permanently delete all Markup notes. You have the option to click OK to Process the file or Cancel to not process the file.
Click the "Mark Up" icon (1) to access the "Mark Up" screen for the file you want to mark up.
Or right click and click "MarkUp" directly in the "File" window
If the file you are going to mark up has multiple pages, a thumbnail image for each page is displayed.
You can only use the markup tools in the maximize view. Click the upper right corner of the image (1) to maximize or minimize the image.
The file name and version are listed at the top along with the "Mark Up" toolbar options.
Click on the dropdown next to the arrow to access the "Mark Up" tools available; comments, arrows, highlights, post it notes, callouts etc.
To mark up a file
Mark Uup comments are displayed in the "Comments" panel on the right side of the "Mark Up" page (1) with the user contact information that made them and the page they are on if there is more than one page.
A pushpin is seen in the picture (2) to indicate what part of the file the comment is regarding
Comments are in bold for the current page being viewed, comments made on other pages are greyed out to distinguish them.
The comments added to the "Mark Up" image are linked to the version of the file so that you can quickly see any comments that have been made in the "Comments" section of the "File Maintain" page.
You can click on the mark up comment to edit or view the comment.
There are several options for displaying mark up comments that can be applied from the toolbar on the "Mark Up" page. You can choose to set the view to
In the "View All" mode you can click on the "All" dropdown and select to only show comments made by specific users (in my example I'm the only editor):
The toolbar in the markup page lets you do a lot of thing with the file
Here is how a marked up file would look as a PDF. Comments will be displayed with icons (1) and you can display the text by clicking the icon (2)
Comments are also listed in the Comments section to the right (1)
Mass Updating Files
Users who have adequate security privileges can update multiple files in a single operation.
The "Mass Update" window is displayed:
Specify the changes you want applied to the selected files and click OK to update the files with the changes.
x
Working with Folders
MDM’s recursive Folder structure enables you to create an unlimited number of folders within folders to facilitate organization.
MDM has two types of folders
System folders are created automatically for each entity and can be accessed from the Files section of the entity dashboard or from within the File Window.
User folders are created by users and are created from within the system file folders or other user created file folders.
To create a file folder, from within a system folder in the file window or the "Files" section of an entity dashboard click the "New Folder" icon (1) to display the "Add – Folder" dialog
The folder "Name" field (1) is a required field. You can also enter a "Description" for the folder, the "Created By" and "Create Date" (2) will populated automatically based on the logged in user’s contact record and date and time that it was created.
Click Save to create the folder - and the "Security" access panel is displayed. Depending upon the user privileges in "Files" you can grant or remove "Can Read" and "Can Update" rights to the folder.
Click Submit and the file folder you created is displayed where it was created.
You can click on the folder to open it, or click on the name of the folder in the file structure. Click the "Properties" icon (2) to edit the folder and access the security panel for the file folder.
Working with Libraries
Libraries are folders that are outside of the MDM file folder structure, but inside of the MDM database
Libraries are used to create folders that can be published to the Internet or your Intranet so files that need to be made available to non-MDM users can be accessed from a public URL.
Libraries can only be created in two ways, from within
Creating Libraries from the Files Window
When created from within the "Files" window, libraries can be created either from the root of the File navigation tree, or from within existing Library folders. This way they are outside of the file folder Structure, but within the MDM database.
To create a new Library from within the "Files" window
If you check the "Publish" checkbox, a public library URL is created specific to that library and displayed at the top of the page (I've hidden most of the URL behind a black bar in the screenshot above). If a Library is not public, no URL is generated and it can only be accessed by a logged in user with the corresponding security privileges.
Users with the corresponding privileges and permissions can add files to library folders through the "Files" window by drag and drop or browse and upload.
When accessed through the "Files" window, the files in libraries are able to be uploaded, downloaded, and edited by users with corresponding security access in the same way as non-library Files.
When you click on a file in a library folder that is accessed from within the "Files" window, MDM displays that file in the main browser.
MDM organizes Libraries in a recursive Folder structure in the same way as the files folder structure. This enables you to create an unlimited number of library folders within other library folders. To create a new Library folder from within an existing library, click into the existing library folder and click the "New Folder" icon.
Creating Libraries from within the File Libraries Window
To create a new library from within the "File Libraries" Window, from the main navigation panel
Existing libraries are displayed in the "File Libraries" window, but the MDM file folder structure navigation tree is not displayed.
To create a new library folder from within the "File Libraries" window, click the "New Folder" icon and give it a name, check the "Library" checkbox, and if you wish to make it public, select the "Publish" checkbox and click Save.
Users with the corresponding privileges and permissions can add files to library folders through the "File Libraries" window by drag and drop or browse and upload.
Files accessed from the "File Libraries" window can only be downloaded or uploaded depending on the user privileges. They cannot be edited and the "File Maintain" page cannot be accessed through the "File Libraries" window. If you want to change a file, you must access the file from the "File Maintain" page or from the "Files" window.
Public Libraries
Public libraries and the files in them can only be accessed from the public library URL that is provided by a MDM user with the corresponding privileges and permissions.
Each public library created at the root level of the file folder structure has a separate public URL (1), so that you can have separate branches of public library URLs.
There is no restriction on navigation and access within the specific public library URL branch, so any files or library folders or library sub folders (2) within that specific public library url branch can be accessed by a non-user who has the public library URL.
When accessed through the public url the files can only be downloaded, they cannot be edited or overwritten and no new files can be uploaded through the public URL.
If you want to change a published file, you must login to MDM and access the file from the File Maintain Page to modify the file.
Security
Access to Files, Folders, and Libraries is controlled by "Security" settings.
Security settings are determined by the user type and the user privileges. You can click the "Properties" icon while in a folder or library to display the security settings for that folder or library.
To check security for an individual file, click the security section from the file maintain page to display the security settings for that file.
User Privileges
You can control security settings for files, folders, and libraries using User "Privileges".
Options include
in "Files", "Libraries" and "Markup".
So this concludes my first post on Digital Asset Management in Dynamics Marketing. In my next post we'll take a look at managing Equipment.
In Dynamics Marketing you can generate Leads from visitors to a landing page. You can score the leads using lead scoring models, allowing you to prioritize which leads to target first.
In this blog post I'll explain a bit about Lead Scoring Models and Landing Pages, and then take you through an example of using those to generate and score leads.
Lead Scoring Models
A Lead Scoring Model (LSM) contains Lead Scoring Rules that are applied to Leads generated by one, several or all of your Marketing Campaigns or Programs. The Lead Scoring Rules are displayed in the "Rules" section of the Lead Scoring Model.
Rules are separated into two sections, "Condition" and "Action".
"Condition" section
In the "Condition" section of the rule you can choose from a variety of Fields, Operators, and Values.
The Field option that you select will determine the Operator and Values that are available as well as the corresponding Actions that can be applied.
Field options are eg "Name (Lead)" so you can act upon the name of the visitor, or "Landing Page" so you can act upon which Landing Page the visitor submitted info fromOperator options are determined by Field type
and will enable additional Condition qualifier values to suit the rule.
"Action" Section
In the "Action" section you define the score value that will be applied to the Lead that meets the Conditions defined.
Certain Condition Fields have corresponding Action Devaluation Fields that will allow for score deprecation to occur based on recency of the action.
Lead Grades and Sales Ready Grade
If you prefer to show lead quality using words, phrases or symbols, Dynamics Marketing can generate Grades in addition to scores.
To add Grades to a Lead Scoring Model, enter the Grade Name (such as a letter grade, or word such as hot or cold), enter the From and To score range for the Grade and continue through to the next line until you have a set of Grades to match your Lead Scoring Model range.
You can identify certain Grades as Sales Ready by selecting the grades and clicking the "Sales Ready" icon. You can also remove the Sales Ready grade by selecting the Remove Sales Ready Grade icon.
The Sales Ready Score will be identified on Leads that the scoring model applies to and Leads that are Sales Ready will be marked accordingly in the Scoring section on the Lead. The lead header will show a score indicator and the grade associated to the score is displayed at the end of the Lead name.
Landing Pages
Landing Pages are used to collect information from visitors to a web site.
They are commonly used to collect information about leads and prospects, to register for an event, or to get a visitor to join a distribution/mailing list.
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing enables you to collect information without writing any HTML code or computer programs. The information can be gathered and added to Microsoft Dynamics Marketing’s marketing database.
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Landing Pages work in conjunction with Lead Management to enable you to create forms that can be embedded into web pages that result in the automatic creation of Marketing Contacts, Companies and Leads in Microsoft Dynamics Marketing.
To help format the Landing Pages are organized into three sections
Landing Page "Behavioral Analysis" section
In the Behavioral Analysis you associate the Landing Page with the marketing entities that the Landing Page is being created to promote; an existing Program and/or Campaign, a Source Code, a Phone Number, and/or an Offer that will associated with the Landing Page. If the Landing Page is being used to generate Leads, depending upon Lead Creation Strategy of the Client or Site Company that the Landing Page is for, a Program or Campaign selection may be required.
Landing Page "Lead Management" section
In the "Lead Management" section you can enable the Landing Page to automatically generate leads. In order to generate geads from your landing page you need to check the "Generate Leads" checkbox.
The "Lead Management" section holds several prepopulated, required, and optional fields
Landing Page "Content" section
In the "Content" section of the Landing Page you define the content and design options of your Landing Page.
To help structure your Landing Page this section is organized into three additional sections:
"Form Details" sub section
In the "Form Details" sub section you define which fields you want to have available for visitors to fill out when submitting the Landing Page form.
"Requirements" are the fields that you select to comprise what will be displayed on the Landing Page form for the visitors to fill out, and have options for
The "Subscribe" field is a type ahead field that displays all lists for the Landing Page company that are specified as Subscription lists. Only one list can be specified, the list name is not shown to the visitor and is not displayed by default.
The Iframe URL is the string that needs to be placed on a web page using an Iframe tag. This allows you to embed the Landing Page where ever you want to place it on the page. ve entered all of the details of your Landing Page you can click Preview to see what it will look like.
Every Landing Page form will automatically have a security code generated on each visit that must be entered in order for the form details to be submitted to help prevent automated submissions.
Example of using a landing page to generate and score leads
In this example we will
pic 1: Click Home - Marketing Execution - scroll to "Lead Management" - click Landing Pages to open Landing Page grid
pic 2: Click "+" (New) to open the "New Landing Page" dialog
pic 3: Type a name for the landing page, set the Start/End Date and then click Submit to save and close the new landing page
We will return to the landing page later and do some further settings - but before that we'll create Lead Scoring Model for scoring future visitors to the landing page.
pic 4: Click Home - Settings - scroll to "Rules and Models" - click Lead Scoring Models to open the Lead Scoring Models grid
pic 5: Click "+" (New) to open the "New Lead Scoring Model" dialog
pic 6: Type a name for the model and then click Save (to display the lower dashboard)
pic 7: Click "+" (New) to display the "New Rule" dialog
pic 8: In the "New Rule" dialog
pic 9: Click "+" (New) to display the New Rule dialog
pic 10: In the "New Rule" dialog
pic 11: Having defined the rules we can now create entries for the Grades (Grades is a way to show the lead quality using words, phrases or symbols)
pic 12: Create three grades, eg "Cold", "Luke Warm", and "Warm" - and set their intervals to respectively 0-10, 11-49, and 50-100
pic 13: Check the checkbox to the left of "Warm" and then click the "Set Sales Ready Grade" icon
pic 14: The grade "Warm" is now displaying a "Yes" in the "Sales Ready Grade" column, indicating that leads with a score of 50 or higher is sales ready. Click Submit to save and close the Lead Scoring Model
pic 15: The new model now listed in the grid of Lead Scoring Models
Since our lead creating strategy is tied to campaings (by default) we'll now create a new (simple) Campaign to hook the lead scoring model up to, and after that connect the landing page and the campaign
pic 16: Click Home - Marketing Execution - Campaigns to show the Campaigns grid
pic 17: Click "+" (New) to display the "New Campaign" dialog
pic 18: leave Template blank and click Submit
pic 19: In the "New Campaign" page
pic 20: Select Landing Pages in the dashboard drop down
pic 21: Select your new Landing Page in the grid, and then click Submit to save and close the campaign
Now its time to return to the landing page, connect it to the campaign, and define the fields we want the landing page to display
pic 22: Click Home - Marketing Execution - scroll to "Lead Management" - click Landing Pages. Then open your new Landing Page and expand the "Behavioral Analysis" section
pic 23: Verify that your new landing page is now connected to your new campaign
pic 24: Expand the "Lead Management" section, and check the "Generate Lead" check box
pic 25: Type a name for the Lead Management model
pic 26: Expand the "Content" section, and note the Landing Page iFrame URL (The Iframe URL is the string that needs to be placed on a web page using an Iframe tag. This allows you to embed the Landing Page where ever you want to place it on the page - we'll not touch on that part in this example)
pic 27: In the "Content" section expand the sub section "Form Details", and scroll down a bit to see all the fields you can define for the Form (aka the Landing Page)
pic 28: Uncheck all fields but "First Name", "Last Name", and "Subscribe" (the "Subscribe" field is a special field allowing a visitor to the landing page to add him/her self to our subscribers list)
pic 29: In the "Subscribe" drop-down select a marketing list
pic 30: Scroll down to the bottom and click Save
pic 31: Now scroll up until you see the iFrame URL. Click the URL to test the Landing Page - does it show the fields you selected? does it create a Lead with the correct score? Does it add the visitor to the marketing list if the Subscribe field was checked by the visitor?
pic 32: The Landing Page iFrame is displayed. Note that all field are present, including the "Subscribe" checkbox
pic 33: Provide an email address, first name, last name, check the "Subscribe" check box, and then click Submit to save and close the submission
pic 34: MDM acknowledges your submission
pic 35: In the lower dashboard of your Landing Page, select Leads in the drop-down - and verify that there is now a new Lead submitted via the Landing Page. Click the Lead to open the Lead.
pic 36: Note the score in the upper left corner is 55 as expected (5 point from submitting via the landing page, 50 point for the last name), and note under Interactions that the Lead is related to the Lead Model
pic 37: Expand the "Scoring" section. Note the "Sales Ready" fields is set to "Yes", and note the (currently flat) timeline for the lead score (at 55 points). Since we did put a weekly devaluation rule in place, the timeline will show a lower lead score one week from creatíon (55-2=53)
pic 38: Lastly we want to check if the "Subscribe" field did its job; that is, added the visitor to the correct Marketing List. Click Marketing Execution - scroll to "Marketing Lists" - click Marketing Lists to open the Marketing Lists grid
pic 39: Click the Marketing List you selected when setting the "Subscribe" field to open the Marketing List
pic 40: Verify that the information the visitor submitted is added to the list of Contacts for the Marketing List
So with Landing Pages, Lead Scoring Models and Campaigns you have a perfect toolbox for generating Leads - Leads with a Lead Score, enabling you to prioritize and decide which Leads you should work with first.
Your MDM Leads can be synchronized with your Dynamics CRM (free connector) for your to work them through the Leads-to-Opportunity process there and (when done) return the Opportunity to MDM
In Dynamics Marketing you can use Events to manage and plan marketing activities such as trade shows, conferences, exhibits, etc. that take place at a specific venue or location.
Events are the center of which many other functions revolve, and can be simple or complex depending upon what other functions you want to utilize to manage your Events.
Event Templates
In Dynamics Marketing you can create events from 'scratch' or from pre-built Event Templates. You will make it much easier and consistent for your users to create events if you build Event templates for them to utilize.
In this blog post I'll walk you through how to build an Event Template for a "Three Day Product Launch", including
Building an Event Template
Click Home - Marketing Execution - "Event Management" - Templates to open the list of Event Templates
Click "New" (the "+" icon) to open the New Event Template dialog
Give your new Template a name and set start/end dates (actual dates are not important - its more the date span, indicative of how many days of planning is to be expected)
Clic Save to display the dashboard
In the dashboard click the arrow to expand the drop-down to display a list of related entities
In the drop-down click Brief to display the Brief question list (currently empty)
Click "New" (the "+" icon) to open the Brief questions dialog (where you pick the questions to include in the Brief)
Click "Attendance" and note the question below (questions are set up in Settings by your admin) - and then click Submit to return to the dashboard
Note that the Brief now displays your question about Attendance ("How many attendees are we expecting?")
Click "New" (the "+" icon) to open the Brief questions dialog
Then click "Audience" and note the question below - and then click Submit to return to the dashboard
Note that the Brief now displays your question about Audience ("Who are we targeting?")
Repeat the above for "Goals"
In the drop-down click Team to display the Team list (currently empty)
Click "New" (the "+" icon) to open the Team grid
Add a placeholder role (Account Manager) to the Team (later we'll replace the placeholder with an actual person
Add a another placeholder role (Graphical Designer) to the Team (later we'll replace the placeholder with an actual person
In the drop-down click Task to display the Task grid (currently empty) and then click "New" (the "+" icon) to open the Task dialog
In the New Task dialog
Note the Task grid now displays the two new tasks
Last but not least help your users with at short guidance in the Description text box, eg. "Please 1) Answer Brief questions 2) Assign Tasks to Contacts 3) Add additional tasks" and then click Submit to close the Event Template and return to the list of Event Templates
Note your new template is listed in the list of Event Templates
Using the Event Template
Now your users can create new events based off of your new Event Template.
Click Home - Marketing Execution - "Event Management" - Event to display the list of Events
Click "New" (the "+" icon) to open the Template dialog
Expand the list of Event Templates
Pick your Event Template
Then click Submit to open the new event
Provide
Click Submit to save and close the new event and return to the list of Events
Verify that your new event is listed.
In my next blog post I'll walk you through how you can add venue, facilities, sessions, staff, equipment, registrants and more to the event - and how to handle travel for the speakers.
In Dynamics Marketing you can create automated rule-based marketing campaigns using intuitive flowcharting tools to automatically send email messages, queue outbound calls, assign tasks, create leads, send collateral, etc.
You can assign triggers to specific events such as
And you can set actions to occur on a recurring schedule or based on passage of time.
The Campaign Automation possibilities are endless, for example:
To create a new campaign
Click Home - Marketing Execution - Campaigns
In the list of Campaigns click "+" (New)
Select a Template/blank and then click Submit
Your new campaign opens
You are now ready to click the Automation tab and start automating you campaign. Click the Automation tab to display the campaign automation flowchart
Campaign Automation Flowchart
The Campaign Automation Flowchart is a graphical flowchart that displays all of the Operations that are included in an automated campaign. It is the user interface that enables you to create and modify the Campaign Automation actions.
The canvas for creating the Campaign Automation Flowchart occupies the majority of the page and the panel on the right has the various Activities (Action Types, Marketing Lists, Response options) that you select to structure the Campaign Automation. Flowchart.
Dynamics Marketing allows you to build the campaign automation process by using a drag and drop editor to build a variety of automated actions that can be triggered based on the flowchart you define.
Add a Static or Dynamic Marketing List by clicking on the corresponding icon and dragging and dropping it into the "Add marketing list" field.
Once you’ve added your Activity additional flowchart activity sections are created so that you can fully develop the flowchart.
Adding a Trigger action will create flowchart options that allow you to define (1) a direct Activity result based on the previous action and (2) a Scheduled one based on the action not occurring.
If you drop an activity onto an existing one (eg a "Landing Page" onto an "Email") it will display the interlocking symbol to indicate they are directly interlocked.
Right-click on an Activity that you added and you can select to Delete, Copy, or Paste the Activity.
Click on the Zoom icon to change the display of the Campaign Automation Flowchart to provide a larger overview, click it again to return to the detailed view.
You can enable the "Multi-Selection" icon to select multiple activities at once to copy, delete, and paste to quickly add or remove highlighted sections in the flowchart.
Click the Multi-Selection icon, left-click and drag to capture the Activities.
Once selected, right-click at the root of the selected Activities and choose your editing option. If you’re copying the Activities right-click on the Activity that precedes where you want to paste the copied items and select Paste to add them in.
Activities Panel
The Activities Panel of the Campaign Automation page provides the "Action Types", "Marketing Lists", and "Response" actions that can be incorporated into the Automation Flowchart.
The Activities Panel is where you can select or create the specific Properties or Entities that are the Activities of the campaign, define what Responses will occur based on the Actions, and outline the steps that should occur next as result. You can also define specific Goals that you are hoping to achieve from the marketing campaign.
Action Types
The Action Types available are listed in the following table. Select from existing ones or create new ones directly from the Activities Panel.
Marketing Lists
The Marketing Lists options you can select are Static (Lists) or Dynamic (Queries). Select from existing Lists/Queries or create new ones.
Response
The Response actions that you can use to drive the Automation Actions are Scheduler or Trigger. These allow you to define specific Responses to occur based on the preceding Action Type and behavior that it produced. You can also setup an Automation Action to occur at a specific date and time, reoccur based a set interval, or to wait to occur after a set period of time has passed.
Activity Properties
The Properties are driven by the Activity selected.
Click on the Activity in the flowchart that you want to define, and click Properties in the Activities Panel to see the available Operations specific to the Activity Properties.
You can click the New icon "+" to create a new item directly in the Automation page to add as the Operation for the Activity.
If there are existing selections available, you can click on the item listed to see the details of that option.
Click the Full Editor icon to open the item in the Full Editor page to review or make changes (not show here, but please see my previous blog post for details).
Click Select to select the mail
The mail place holder in the flow chart now displays the selected mail
Repeat this process for each Activity in your Campaign Automation Flowchart until you have set Operations for all of the Activity steps you defined
You can monitor direct results and see the metrics displayed in the Activity field for each Operation of the flowchart so you can easily see how your campaign is performing. You can then make modifications in place to help improve the success of your campaign.
The available Operation item selections displayed in the Properties panel are custom to the Activity that is selected from the flowchart.
Trigger
The Trigger Type Operations are driven by the Activity type(s) that precede the Trigger and will provide relevant Operation action selections accordingly.
Scheduler
The Scheduler Response is utilized in two ways in the Campaign Automation Flowchart. The Scheduler Activity is automatically included as an alternate action to all Trigger Operations, or can be used as a stand-alone Response to define a future Activity Operation.
If a Trigger Operation is not met, the Scheduler Response provides the continued workflow options of the next Activity to occur at a specific time and date, or after a set number of days.
Goal
You can define and customize the Goals specific to the Campaign Automation Flowchart by clicking on Goal in the Activities Panel. Click the to see New icon to add additional Result types to the existing Goals, select the Result type and click the Delete icon to remove.
Validate and Activate
When you are done setting up your Campaign Automation Flowchart you can use the Validate action to verify and review the automation process workflow that you’ve defined.
Click the Validate in the upper right corner of the Automation page to run the Validation check of your Campaign Automation Flowchart.
If there is an issue with the workflow, the Activity field that did not pass the Validation process will be identified with a warning sign. You can mouse over the warning to see a description of the problem that needs to be corrected.
Once you’ve gone through and Validated that your flowchart is ready, you can click Activate in the upper right corner of the Automation page to start the Campaign Automation process.
Thats it - building automated campaigns in Dynamics Marketing is as easy as drag and drop.
Stay tuned for more post on Dynamics Marketing
With Microsoft Dynamics Marketing you can unleash your marketing potential. You can easily plan, execute, and measure campaigns from start to finish. Bring your marketing vision to life—engage customers across channels, build pipeline, and demonstrate the impact of your marketing.
In a series of posts I'll take you around the corners of Dynamics Marketing, starting with the Email Designer. With the Email Designer you can design powerful personalized Email Marketing Messages.
To open a new email message in the Email Designer
1. Click Home – Marketing Execution – Email Marketing Messages to open the list of email messages
2. Click "+" (New) icon to open the Template dialog
3. Pick a template (or leave blank) and then click Submit
A canvas for designing your email opens At the top of the canvas you specify various metadata for the email, including its type. In the lower part of the canvas you'll find the designer
Three types of Email Marketing Messages
At the top right you can pick between three types of Email Marketing Messages that you can send - Commercial, Transaction, and Campaign Automation messages.
The difference between Campaign Automation Messages and other Commercial Email Marketing Messages is that they are Active messages for the duration of a specific campaign and are triggered to send based on Automation Actions (more about that in my next post)
Commercial Email Marketing Messages are sent at a specific point in time and are not actively running messages.
Four Tabs
In the lower half of the Email Designer you can do your primary email designing work in one or more of four tabs
Insert Field Drop-Down
The "Insert Field" drop-down gives you the ability to merge fields into your message from contact records on your Marketing List such as First Name, Last Name, Company, and Phone Number to allow you to make the message more personal.
Position your cursor in your message where you want to insert the field, and select the field from the Insert Field drop-down menu.
Insert Plug-In drop-down
The "Insert Plug-In" drop-down allows you to choose from the Plug-Ins that have been created for the company that the Email Marketing Message is for. The Plug-In options are
A Subscription Center and Sender Address are required to be placed in the body of the Email Marketing Message if you are sending a Commercial message.
To insert a plug-in you position the cursor in your message where you want to insert the Plug-In, and select the Plug-In you want from the Insert Plug-In drop-down.
Image Manager
If you plan to add Images to your Email Marketing Message, you must first place the image into the Image Manager. You can open the Image Manager by clicking on the Image Manager icon in the tool bar of the editor.
In the Image Manager you can
Once you’re ready click the image that you want and click Insert to merge the image into your Email Marketing Message.
Segment specific Dynamic Content
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing allows you to make the email message more relevant to the receiver by adding Segment-specific Dynamic Content to your Email Marketing Message.
You can use dynamic content to customize the
In order to utilize the Segment-specific Dynamic Content in your Email Marketing Message you must add Marketing Lists to the email message to define the segments of recipients that you are marketing to.
You could define a segment for eg. "Strawberry Lovers" and another segment for "Banana Lovers"
The Lists/Queries that you add will appear in the Content Segment drop-down box of the Email Marketing Message.
Dynamic Content that is common to all recipients in the segment you pick in the Content Segment drop down is added to the body of the message.
To add dynamic content that's specific for a marketing segment
Just click the box to arrange the layout and shape that you want it to take for the Dynamic Content.(eg. insert a picture of a strawberry etc)
All other segment parts of the message become un-editable while you edit the contents of the segments placeholder, just like the placeholder is un-editable after you select other segments in Content Segment drop down
You can also specify a different From contact and Subject of the Email Marketing Message to be specific to that segment.
Code Blocks
You can include Code Blocks in your messages to further customize it for recipients based on recipient preferences or location.
In the example below I'll drop the static "Dear" prefix and make it language specific - I'll use the french word "Cher" if the recipient is french, otherwise use "Dear"
1. To add a Code Block place your cursor in an editable field in the body of the message and click Add Code Block.
2. A blue colored block is added, double-click in the block and the Edit Code Block dialog box appears. Insert your code (eg. If Contact.Country == France; then use “Cher”; else use “Dear”)
3. Click OK to apply the code block
Performance
Once you've put your Email Marketing Messages into work (more on that topic in later posts) you can analyze the email marketing performance using a broad range of Performance metrics in Dynamics Marketing:
In the Spring Wave press release June 2nd 2014 Microsoft reinforced that its contractual commitments for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online meet the requirements of the European Union’s “model clauses” (1) and the high standards of European Union (EU) privacy law as acknowledged by the “Article 29 Working Party,” (2) making Microsoft the first — and so far the only — company to receive this recognition.
Notes
Microsoft partners with access to PartnerSource can now make use of the below Learning Plan for the Microsoft Dynamics Marketing integrated marketing management solution.
Learning Plans can help your employees focus on specific goals and access the training they need to gain in-depth product knowledge and obtain certifications for Microsoft Dynamics Marketing applications. By becoming trained and certified in various disciplines, your employees can document their knowledge on Microsoft Dynamics Marketing and showcase their expertise to your customers.
Read more here
With Dynamics CRM Online, we offer a free non-production instance if you have 25 or more Professional User Subscription Licenses (USLs)
A non-production instance is an add-on instance that is separate from your production instance(s). Its not a trial instances so its doesnt expire. All users in your production instance(s) are also licensed for all your non-production instances, unless you want to restrict access using a security group.
A question I get a lot, is "how do I know I have been granted a free non-production instance?"
After you have been granted a free non-production instance, when you log into CRM Online, you will see a yellow message bar with the message "Congratulations, You have qualified for a free non-production instance" and a "Configure" button.
Clicking "Configure", will take you to the following page where you can configure your newly provisioned non-production instance.
You can always purchase non-production instances, currently at approximately a quarter of the price of production instances.
Microsoft Social Listening (MSL) is coming - and you can read more in my previous blog posts "Are you learning? Analyzing using Microsoft Social Listening" and "Are you listening?"
In the last few weeks I've gotten a few questions about the average curve(s) in MSL, so I'll explain.
In this example I'm monitoring the posts on the "AX 2012 R3 Launch" (note the upper left corner in the screenshot below) and looking at the volume history for the last week (note the upper right corner). The day I'm writing this article i May 13th, hence my chart is from Tuesday May 6th till Monday May 12th (="Last Week").
The red curve is the number of posts per day of the last week (25, 23, 14, 27, 1, 1, 6)
The chart also displays a grey curve for reference; the average curve (5, 5, 15, 31, 12, 2, 13). The average curve is always in terms of the current time frame, and calculated for the last five time frames. Since my current time frame is "Last Week" this grey curve is for the last five weeks.
So the first "5" on the grey curve is the average of the number of posts in the last five Tuesdays (May 6th, April 29th, 22nd, 15th, and 8th) - eg. (6+4+5+7+3) divided by 5 = 5
Reading the chart
So what does this chart tell me? The number of posts this past Tuesday (25) and Wednesday (23) was higher than the 'average' Tuesdays (5) and Wednesdays (5) in the last five weeks (left side of chart). Friday apparently is the 'peak' day (center of chart) of the week when it comes to number of posts regarding the "AX 2012 R3 Launch" whereas weekends is more 'silent' (right side of chart).
Exporting
In case you need to export the above chart (or any chart in Microsoft Social Listening) you can click the arrow in the upper right area of the chart
And your exported file (jpeg in my example) would look like this (ready for your PowerPoint presentations). Note, you can also export the numbers and greate your own charts)
I hope you'll enjoy MSL once its here :-)
Updated
Many customers start their journey towards CRM Online with a 30 day free trial, with 25 users.
The "easiest" way for your trial to be a waste of time is creating the trial in day 1 and then at day 28 click here and there randomly in the interface. This experience probably will answer no questions for you in terms of what CRM Online can do for your business.
From the many, many successful trialing customers we have seen on CRM Online, we've compiled five steps to a successful trial
The next iteration of the Get Ready page is now up; I encourage you to visit to learn more about what’s coming with the spring releases.
For this version of the page, we added a new section describing how customers get access to the new services and updates, something critical to ensure our current customers get on the latest version and get going on the new services we are making available to them. You’ll also see a new video and eBook on Microsoft Social Listening, a section describing an often-overlooked feature on social insights in conjunction with InsideView, improved information on pricing and licensing of the new services, a few new FAQs, and more.
Get Ready page serves as a centralized page to where you can get links to the latest information about the upcoming releases of CRM, Social Listening, Dynamics Marketing and Parature.
The Release Preview Guide (RPG) for the Spring Wave of products from Microsoft Dynamics CRM is here.
The RPG describes the capabilities we are bringing to enable marketers to understand how their customers feel about their brand through Microsoft Social Listening. With Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, we give them a reprieve from the fragmented solutions all too common today by providing a service that allows them to carefully plan their campaigns, deliver qualified leads to their sales teams and subsequently measure their return on their marketing investment.
For sales professionals, we’ve broadened the offering of our sales mobility solution to include a version for Android devices. At the same time, we’ve made it even easier to take advantage of Insights powered by InsideView within your CRM system.
We are also enabling a full range of functionality for service professionals—from the powerful self-service capabilities in our recently acquired Parature offering, to the multi-channel capabilities coming in CRM including the Unified Service Desk to empower contact center agents to resolve customer issues with ease.
Market smarter. Sell effectively. Care everywhere.
Download the RPG today! http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=395005
At the recent SharePoint Conference Jason Bullock of Microsoft held a fine session about how Office 365 and CRM Online is better together (including a 30 min demo).
You'll see how SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Lync Online, Project Online, Visio Online, Skype and Yammer works with CRM Online to give you the best productivity experience on the planet.
You can watch (and download) a recording of the session on Channel9 here
Just published "Integration Guide: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365" - link
Microsoft CRM 2013 Update Rollup (UR2 released.Many fixes including providing support for Windows 8.1 and IE11
Information on CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2
Downnload link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42272
In yesterdays blog post "Are You Listening" I talked about how to set up Search Topics in Microsoft Social Listening to listen in on the social networks.
Now that I have my searches in place I can start analyzing and learning.
Say I want to learn whats going on with Dynamics CRM. I can ask myself questions like
To start investigating I bring up the home view (see below) - simply by clicking the House icon in the navigation bar.
In this view I see an aggregation graphic of all my search topics, languages, buzz, I see that the orange bar (blogs) and the turquoise bar (Twitter) are equal in size (same amount of posts), I see that English is the dominant language etc.
Fig. 1: home view
To drill into the seach topic "Dynamics CRM" I click the search term in the graphic (see below)
Fig. 2: navigating to search topic Dynamics CRM
The Overview opens (see below) and I get a lot of valuable information divided into sections
Fig. 3: Overview
In case I want to see how the Sources share of voice by language in procentage per language would look like if I take the dominant Twitter out for a moment, I can simply click the Twitter legend to deselect Twitter. I see that in French there are posts originating from Youtube and Blogs, whilst in the other languages its from Blogs and Facebook
Fig. 4: Sources share of voice by language in procentage per language if I take Twitter out
If I click the Twitter part of the English column (Fig 3) I can drill into details about the english Twitter posts resulting from my search topic Dynamics CRM last week (see below).
I see close to a 1,000 posts, from a little more than 600 authors, and sentiments are mostly neutral (grey color in donut char) and a little positive, and a peak of 200 posts march 14th.
Fig. 5: english Twitter posts resulting from my search topic Dynamics CRM last week
To learn more about what the tweets are actually saying I can click eg the "post" icon (Fig 5), and on the resulting list of posts (see below) I can apply additional filters, eg for Sentiment=Postive and Reach=5 (significant author)
Fig. 6: positive tweets in english from significant authers
The green part of the above tweets are what Microsoft Social Listening has interpreted as positive, and the yellow part is the seach topics. I can now read the posts and learn what makes the authors feel good about Dynamics CRM, just like I do :-)
See also:
Social listening can be vital in understanding how your messaging, products, and brand are resonating with your customers so you can adjust them before you’ve spent your entire marketing budget on a campaign customers don’t care about.
Are you ready to hear what consumers are saying about your products and services? Then Microsoft Social Listening (MSL) is the service for you. The service will be part of the upcoming Spring Wave, and was showcased at the recently held Convergence 2014 conference in Atlanta, GA
In MSL you setup searches to listen to social media conversation and learn the sentiment (how people feel about your brand on social).
As a natural next step you might decide for one or more campaings to execute in Microsoft Dynamics Marketing to influence the sentiment and generate more leads, and subsequently work with those leads in Dynamics CRM to bring in more revenue. A brilliant closed loop.
In this blog post I'll show you how to set up search terms in MSL, and help you understand what MSL can do for you in terms of sentiment analysis.
Set up searches to listen to social media conversations
Using MSL you can listen to conversations on social media around your brand, business, products, and competitors. The first step in successful social listening is setting up your search topics to ensure you’re capturing the right conversations. Once you’ve captured these conversations, you can fine-tune your searches, analyze your data, and drill into the information that matters most.
Available sources for search topics
MSL covers a set of sources where public posts are published.
The following sources are available:
To create a search topic
It’s important to start with a clear idea of what you want to listen to. Then proceed to set up a new search topic and add at least one search query to your topic.
Here is an example of one of my running Search Topics ("CRM Online"), with three queries in it
And here is the result of the above Search Topic; Buzz (# posts), Trend, Share of voice, Sentiment, Languages (majority of posts in English), and Buzz history in my time frame.
Note that the Sentiment Indicator (grey/red/green donut chart) tells me that the majority of posts I've picked up about CRM Online are positive (more about Sentiment later in this blog post). I can click eg the red part of the Sentiment Indicator to drill into the negative post and perhaps learn whats behind the sentiments and improve.
About keywords
Keywords define the words and phrases you want MSL to listen for. Keywords are exact but not case sensitive.
I suggest you include variations of the keywords (eg singular and plural form of the word) to ensure you get the desired result from your query. Separate each keyword with a comma to invoke an “OR” condition.
If you have added more than one search term, your query looks to find at least one of the listed terms. It’s important to review keywords regularly. If your keywords yield too many results, think about narrowing the query by adding inclusions and exclusions or reduce the number of keywords.
Sentiment analysis in Microsoft Social Listening is target-specific. A post’s sentiment value always refers to the keywords of a search query only. If you are looking for sentiment values about your brand, you must add your brand name as a keyword.
About Inclusions
Inclusions narrow down your search so you get a much higher quality selection of posts and results. Think of inclusions as an “AND” conditiion. Your search will be filtered so that posts are selected only if they contain both the keyword AND the inclusion. Inclusions aren’t case-sensitive.
When you set up your search query, you can choose from the following options to decide how close a keyword and an inclusion must appear in a post:
I recommend starting with the default option (paragraph). If your search topic yields too many irrelevant results, try narrowing it to the proximity in a sentence. Note that this may also remove relevant posts because all combinations of inclusions and keywords outside of a sentence will no longer be picked up by the application.
Inclusions are an efficient way to reduce the number of posts resulting from your search, and are a great way to make sure you stay within your quota.
Example:
If you in the Keyword field put X1, X2 and in the Inclusiion field put Y1, Y2 then you have in fact built the query (X1 OR X2) AND (Y1 OR Y2)
About Exclusions
Sometimes a specific word can flood your results with irrelevant posts. Exclusions enable you to narrow down your searches and improve your results. Enter the words to exclude separated by commas and your searches will ignore posts containing these terms.
Exclusions aren’t case-sensitive. For every term you add to the exclusions, your search will be filtered so that posts won’t be selected if they contain both the search term AND the exclusion in the same paragraph.
Exclusions are an efficient way to reduce the number of posts resulting from your search, and a great way to make sure you stay within your post quota. Choose your exclusions carefully to avoid missing relevant posts.
Understand sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis determines the attitude of an author towards the context of a topic. It reflects the public perception of a post’s content in relation to the keywords that were used to find the post.
Sentiment calculations only work if you select a search topic because sentiment values are always related to a certain keyword. section.
Select a search topic from the drop-down menu in the top left corner of the filter
After you’ve selected a search topic, you'll get a "Sentiment" page with several Sentiment sections.
The "Sentiment summary" appears at the top of the page and displays the total number of posts and the sentiment index for your chosen search topic. You’ll also see the percentage of posts where you either confirmed or edited the sentiment.
The "Sentiment summary by sources" shows an overview of the sentiment index on all active sources.
It provides the total number of posts per source, the sentiment index for your time frame, and the change in sentiment index, compared to the past five time frames (the reverse colored numbers inside the bars). The bar below the sources indicates the relative distribution of sentiment values in your data set.
The "Sentiment history" diagram visualizes the sentiment index over time. The black line indicates the sentiment index while the green line shows the average sentiment index in your time frame.
In the "Sentiment volume" section you see the sentiment values of the posts in your time frame, separated by day, By default, neutral posts aren’t displayed. To see the neutral posts, click Neutral in the legend.
I can even drill down to post to see whats actually written (eg by clicking the bars in the above chart).
In the below screen shot I've drilled down into a (positive) post in which the author has tweeted about (my keyword) "Microsoft Social Listening". The green part of the sentence is what MSL has interpreted as a positive statement
I can filter posts in a variety of ways, eg to see only post where the author has a high "Reach" (similar to Klout score). Access the filters using the "+" icon in the upper left corner.
In the result set, I can even open the original post (in this case on Twitter)
About Sentiment value
Each post that results from your defined search queries is processed by the sentiment algorithm in the original language and annotated with a calculated sentiment value. Sentiment values are provided for the following languages:
The sentiment value results in a positive, negative, or neutral sentiment for a post.
Occasionally, the algorithm identifies positive and negative parts of a sentence and still rates the post as neutral. This happens because the amount of a post’s text identified as positive or negative cancel each other out. A post is also classified as neutral if there are no positive or negative statements detected in it. Note that the sentiment algorithm is not a self-learning system, even if you can edit any post’s sentiment value in the post list.
The sentiment values from posts with positive or negative sentiment that match your defined filters are normalized and result in the sentiment index for your search topic.
About Sentiment index
The sentiment index represents the general perception of the active search topic. It indicates the ratio of positive and negative posts over all posts that match your filters. Neutral posts aren’t taken into account. Sentiment values are calculated in relation to the keywords that define a search topic. That’s why you need to provide context for the calculations by defining the focus of your analysis as the target for sentiment. In analytics, you need to focus on a search topic to provide a target for the sentiment index.
For example, you maintain two search topics: Your Brand and Your Competitor. A blog post mentions your brand and your competitor. The author writes a negative statement about your competitor and a positive statement about your brand. If your target for sentiment calculation is your brand, the sentiment value of the post is positive. If your target for sentiment calculation is your competitor, the sentiment value of the post is negative.
The sentiment index is normalized to a value between -10 and 10. All your active filters and parameters are taken into account to define the data set for which the sentiment index is calculated.
A sentiment index of:
You can calculate the sentiment index with the following formula:
Sentiment index = (Positive posts – Negative posts)/(Positive posts + Negative posts) * 10
You find the change in trend next to the sentiment index. Microsoft Social Listening compares the sentiment index of the five previous time frames to the current value of the sentiment index in your time frame.
To see more about the analyzing features of MSL, please see "Are you learning? Analyzing using Microsoft Social Listening" - link
In Exchange Online you can protect your intellectual property (IP) from being sent (leaked) in emails - commonly referred to as Data Loss Protection (DLP).
To define what you want to block from being sent usually involves a bit of work; eg defining patterns of say credit card numbers etc.
But DLP just got easier with what we call "Document Fingerprinting". In the same way that a person’s fingerprints have unique patterns, documents have unique word patterns.
When you upload a file, the DLP agent identifies the unique word pattern in the document, creates a document fingerprint based on that pattern, and uses that document fingerprint to detect outbound documents containing the same pattern.
Example
To understand how this works, let’s take a look at an example scenario.
Contoso Pharma is a pharmaceutical company with a research division. Employees in the research division collaborate with their peers across the company to create new products and services, and file patents to protect their intellectual property. The law firm used by the company for patent filing uses a standard template for patent applications as shown below.
The patent template shown above contains the blank fields “Patent title,” “Inventors,” and “Description” and descriptions for each of those fields—that’s the word pattern.
When you upload the template the DLP agent uses an algorithm to convert this word pattern into a document fingerprint, which is a small Unicode XML file containing a unique hash value representing the original text, and the fingerprint is saved as a data classification in Active Directory. As a security measure, the original document itself isn’t stored on the service; only the hash value is stored, and the original document can’t be reconstructed from the hash value.
The patent fingerprint then becomes a sensitive information type that you can associate with a DLP policy.
After you associate the fingerprint with a DLP policy, the DLP agent detects any outbound emails containing documents that match the patent fingerprint and deals with them according to your organization’s policy (transport rules).
For example, you might want to set up a DLP policy that prevents regular employees from sending outgoing messages containing patents. The DLP agent will use the patent fingerprint to detect patents and block those emails. Alternatively, you might want to let your legal department to be able to send patents to other organizations because it has a business need for doing so. You can allow specific departments to send sensitive information by creating exceptions for those departments in your DLP policy, or you can allow them to override a policy tip with a business justification.
How to create a Document Fingerprint
Say you’re an administrator at Contoso Pharma. You can use Document Fingerprinting to define a customized sensitive information type called “Sensitive Information” (or whatever your prefer)
To do so, you use the administrative interface in the Exchange Admin Center (EAC) to create a new document fingerprint.
1. Open EAC from your Office 365 portal
2. Click Compliance Management -> Data Loss Prevention -> Manage Document Fingerprints to open the "Document Fingerprints" dialog
3. Click "+" to open the "New Document Fingerprint" dialog
4. Type a name for the new fingerprint (e.g. "Sensitive Information", and a description
5. Click "+" to upload a document template
6. In the Explorer navigate to and select the file you want to fingerprint and click Open
7. Verify that the file is fingerprinted (uploaded) and click Save
8. Click Close to return to EAC
How to create a Transport Rule to take action on the fingerprinted document
Now that I have the Document Fingerprint "Sensitive Information" in my service, all I need to do next is create a Transport Rule to define what action I want to take if one of my users accidently tries to send a document matching that template
1. In EAC click Mail Flow -> Rules
2. Click "+" -> "Apply Rights Protection to Messages..." to open the "New Rule" dialog
3. Type a name for the new rule, and then click the "Apply This Rule If..." drop down to define the condition
4. Click "The Message.." -> "Contains Sensitive Information" to open the "Sensitive Information Types" dialog
5. Click "+" to open the list of sensitive information types on record
6. Scroll down in the list and select your recently created type (in this example the "Sensitive Information" type)
7. Click Add
8. Verify the new sensitive type is now listed
9. Click the "Do the Following" drop down -> "Notify the Sender with a Policy Tip" (or any other action that suits your needs)
10. Complete the actions in the "New Rule" dialog and click Save
From now on if any of the users tries to attach a patent document to an outgoing email they get a warning.
Although the scenario above refers to patents, you can easily imagine document fingerprinting being used to detect sensitive information in many other circumstances, like a hospital fingerprinting custom forms that contain personal health information etc
Since my blog post from mid november last year "Prepare for your CRM 2013 certifications - New MOC material" many if not all the Iinks in the blog post have changed, and a lot of people have been asking for an update.
Basically when you wish to train for and certify in a CRM official curriculum exam you can train via an eLearning course or - if you Microsoft Agreement includes the rights - download the materials and study at your own offline convenience.
Below I'll show you how to go about in both scenarios, using the course 80542 (Exam MB2-703: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration) as an example
Train online with eLearning
1. Open the site for Microsoft partner learning paths on Microsoft Partner Network (MPN):
2. Expand the "Business Applications" section
3. Click the "Customer Releationship Management" link
4. Notice the four CRM 2013 exams
5. Expand the "MB2-703: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration" section
6. Click the "Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013" box to access the Digital Learning course
7. Click the "Start Course" button to open the course player
8. Click the arrow in the lower right corner to start the course
(when ready you can contact one of your local ProMetric centers and register for the exam)
Download Training Materials
1. Open Partner Source (North America):
2. Enter the search string "MB2-703" (the exam number for "Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration") and hit enter
3. Click the top search result "Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration Certification Exam (Prometric Exam #MB2-703) Preparation Guide"
4. Scroll down to - or click - the "Exam Preparation Tools" link
5. Click the "80542: Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013" link under "Training Materials"
6. Click the "Download Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013" link to download the course materials
Note: Your use of the content on this site is governed by your Microsoft services agreement. Please contact your local Microsoft services account manager if you have any questions regarding your current Microsoft Services Agreement.
The guide - "Integration Guide: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365" have been updated in June 2014 to include the new CRM Online Spring Wave capabilities
You can extend the power of your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online with the freedom to work where and when you choose with the online services of Microsoft Office 365. Office 365 delivers the power of cloud productivity to businesses of all sizes, helping to save time and money, and simplifying cross-application integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.
The guide is intended for administrators and technical decision makers in your company who want to gain experience with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Office 365 to evaluate better their benefits for your company.
In the guide you'll find helpful information about the following topics:
Download the guide here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35776
Today Bob Stutz of Microsoft wrote a blog post "Transform your business with Microsoft Dynamics CRM", kicking of what will be a series of highly interesting releases this spring - what we call our Spring Wave
In his blog post Bob talks about Microsoft Dynamics Marketing (formerly MarketingPilot), Microsoft Social Listening (formerly NetBreeze) and our most recent acquisition, Parature, and how this new comprehensive set of marketing, customer care and social listening capabilities will help Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers match their customers to the right products and services, engage with them in the right way, at the right time, and nurture their relationships.
These new capabilities include, the ability for people to:
Few people like to key in passwords all the time.
Once you've logged into your local Active Directory (AD) you probably dont want to provide another set of credentials for your Microsoft Online Service (Windows Azure Active Directory - WAAD) to access eg. your CRM Online data
If you dont want to implement full Directory Synchronization, you can use the password sync to sync passwords between your AD and the WAAD.
When password sync is enabled on your directory sync computer, you will be able to sign into Microsoft cloud services, such as Office 365, Dynamics CRM, and Windows InTune, using the same password as you use when you log into your on-premises network. When you change your password in your corporate network, the change is synchronized to the cloud.
If you run in to trouble setting up password sync between your AD and WAAD, you can check this article outlining common issues that you may encounter when you use the WAAD Sync tool together with password synchronization. It covers the following topics:
Read more here: "How to troubleshoot password synchronization when using the Windows Azure Active Directory Sync tool" - link
With Dynamics CRM Online 2013, you start out with one production instance and 5 GB of storage.
We offer a free non-production instance if your CRM subscription includes 25 or more professional USLs (User Subscription Licenses). A non-production instance is an add-on instance that is separate from your production instance. All users in your production instances are also users in all your non-production instances, unless you want to restrict the access using a security group.
You can always buy non-production instances. Non-production instances are roughly 70% cheaper than production instances. For the most up to date pricing and licensing information, please refer to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online pricing and licensing guide here
We also offer free storage. For every increment of 20 professional USLs, you will be granted 2.5 GB of free storage until your storage capacity reaches 50 GB. You can always buy extra storage at roughly $10 GB/month.
So how do you know if you been granted a free non production instance, free storage and how to buy more? All these questions and more are answered in this blog post from the CRM Team