Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online (CRMOL) and Microsoft Social Listening (MSL) are Better Together – you can add MSL data into CRMOL Dashboards and record forms for convenient and proactive social insights

In this blog post I'll take you through the steps needed to setup the integration between the two services.

Pre-requisites

• In CRMOL you must have the security role of System Customizer or Systems Administrator
• MSL must be deployed in the same tenant as CRMOL (Important)
• MSL is setup with Search Topics (please see my blog post "Are you listening?" for how-to)
• Your CRM org is configured with Spring Wave Updates (Click Settings > Administration > Install Product Updates)
  

One time Setup

1. Login to Dynamics CRM Online
2. Click Settings > Administration
   
   
3. Click Microsoft Social Listening Configuration
   
   
4. Select the MSL Solution to connect to in the drop down (1) and then click Select (2)
   
5. Now you are all set to use MSL widgets in CRMOL

Configuring a CRM Online Dashboard

You can easily configure a CRM Online dashboard to display information from MSL.

Create a new dashboard

1. Click Settings > Customizations > Customize the System
   
   
2. Dashboards > New
   
   
3. Choose a Layout > click Create
   
4. Click the MSL widget "Insert Social Insights" (note: this widget will only appear, once you have performed the setup above)
   
5. Setting each MSL widget in the dashboard up is a three step guided process. First step is to decide between a Search topic (1) or a Search topic category (2) - for definitions please see notes at the end of the blog post
   
6. In this example I'll pick a Search Topic and click Next (in the above screen) to step ahead to step #2 - "pick a seach topic" (the below screen). I pick the search topic "CRM Online" in the list and click Next
   
7. Finally MSL prompts you for how you want your widget displayed in CRM. Click the drop-down to pick a visual. In my example I'll go for the "Sentiment Share of Voice"
   
   
   
   
   
8. Click Finish to finalize the widget, and repeat for the rest of the widgets in the dashboard.
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   The completed dashboard could end up looking like this
   
   You see the sentiment distribution, the sentiment history, the sources history (Twitter, Facebook etc) and a nice summary. Any part of the dashboard is clickable and will take you to MSL for further analysis.

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Configuring CRM Entity Forms

Its equally easy to configure a CRM Online form to display information coming from MSL. In this example I'll create a new entity and modify the form to display a social insights widget

Create an entity and edit the form. Once you are in the Insert tab, you will see the new Social Insights control.

1. Click the Social Insights control to display the "Add Social Insights" dialog
   
   
   
2. Optional: change settings for the control (eg # lines)
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   Click OK
   
   
   
3. The control is inserted to the form
   
4. Click Save and Publish
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5. The configuration is completed the first time you bring up a new record
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   Create a new record
   
6. Click Configure Social Insights
   
7. The steps for configuring Social Insights on a form are similar to the steps on adding social insights to a dashboard
   
8. The form could look like this
   
    
   Note: The user who is accessing CRM needs to have a MSL license assigned or else they will get an error on the page.

Notes

• Search Topic = the individual search term in MSL
• Search topic category: When you create a search topic in MSL you are placing that under a category and the entire category will be summarized
• A sentiment can only be specified for a search topic, so if you select search topic category no sentiment analysis will be displayed in CRM

More blog posts on Microsoft Social Listening

• Are you listening - link
• Are you learning? Analyzing using Microsoft Social Listening - link
• Understanding Average in Microsoft Social Listening - link
• New in Microsoft Social Listening - Location Analysis - link