Looking for self-paced training for Microsoft Dynamics CRM?
Check out the CRM Basics eBook for a quick run-down of essentials for new users. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Basics guide contains the essentials you need to know to navigate the system, enter data, and move your customers through the sales cycle or resolve a service issue successfully.
We only included just what you need to know to get productive right away, and we kept every topic as short as possible.
Get valuable learning even if your system has been customized
Even if your system has been customized to match your business (and you use different names or your screens look different), you’ll still find the CRM Basics guide useful, because we only included tasks that anyone using the system would do, no matter how the screens have been changed.
You can read the guide straight through in order, or only read the topics you’re interested in. Or, if you’re the person responsible for training people at your organization, you can walk through the topics in the training sessions you do with employees.
Use this guide to create your own training materials, if you want
To make it easier for you to create your own training materials, we’re even giving you a link to our editable files, so that you can replace screen shots, change the text, or use your own logo – whatever works to make the training materials match your system and style. You can use an editable Word version of the eBook as your starting point, and customize it to create your own instructor-led training.
The Training and Adoption Kit also includes other great content that you can customize to fit your needs.
Find more answers and training online
To find more eBooks, videos, and other great content to help you get the most out of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, check out the CRM Customer Center from a connected computer, tablet, or phone.
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.
Now you can spin up your own free 30 day trial of Dynamics Marketing - just go to http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/marketing-test-drive.aspx and we will get you started quickly.
Click either "Brand Manager" or "Campaign Manager" under "Microsoft Dynamics Marketing" (1) and then click "Start TestDrive"
You are presented with the TestDrive offering - a guided click-through showing some of the features in Dynamics Marketing. To start the test drive click the yellow dot (1) and follow the steps
After the test drive you can click "Start Free Trial" (1) to spin up a free 30 trial of Dynamics Marketing
Fill in the information (the below screens is from a danish trial experience, my native language - you'll be presented with dialogs according to your language)
When the information and authentication is done you are taken to the admin area of the Office 365 tenant.
IMPORTANT
You'll notice that the "Marketing" link in the blue navigation bar (2) is inactive. You will need to access the Dynamics Marketing Settings page to set a default currency and accept the license agreement in order to activate the "Marketing" link
To access the Dynamics Marketing Settings page, open a new tab in your browser and type:
https://(your tenant name).marketing.dynamics.com
A minimum requirement is for your to provide the currency (3), and accept the license agreement (4). When that is done you can click "Submit" (5) without being presented with warnings
You are now ready to pick the role you'll play in Dynamics Marketing (eg. Media Buyer) (1) and start your Dynamics Marketing experience (2)
For at series of blog posts to help you explore the features of Dynamics Marketing click here
As always I'd encourage you to contact your preferred Microsoft partner for a managed trial experience.
Enjoy.
Note:
Read more about Dynamics Marketing in this series of blog posts
One question I get a lot is - how do I set up users and security in Dynamics Marketing. In this blog post I'll cover user types, priveleges, and access levels in Dynamics Marketing
User Types
In Microsoft Dynamics Marketing there are three types of users that require an Office 365 user account:
A fourth user type is "Public" users, which are individuals that do not require being added to Office 365 to access select publically available Microsoft Dynamics Marketing functions.
"Regular User" and "Media Buyer" users are created by an Office 365 portal administrator and must be assigned a Dynamics Marketing license. "Regular User" is the default user type. You can change this to "Media Buyer" on the Microsoft Dynamics Marketing user form if the user requires advanced media buying or planning roles. The user Type defaults to Regular. "Web Portal" users are created by creating the user in Office 365 as well but not assigning a license.
Users without priveleges in Dynamics Marketing can not log into the application.
Setting up a user
1. Add a user record to the Office 365 admin portal (you'll need to be a portal Administrator to do this)
Next you must must assign a role or privileges to the new user before he/she can log into the application
2. Click Settings and then Users
3. Double click the user to open the priveleges dialog
4. In the upper right select the user Type. Note since I didnt provide the user any licenses in O365 I cannot select the user Type - its preset to "Web Portal"
For each of the areas in the left side of the dialog (eg "Media") you can set one or more priveleges (eg. to work with "Tear Sheets"). A privilege includes an access level associated with a specific function.
There are five access levels. Not all privileges have all five levels of security.
5. Set the priveleges and access level needed and then click Submit
When a user is created in Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics Marketing does two things. First, a contact record is created. Then, a user record is created and associated to the contact record. Data is associated with the contact record. If a user record is deleted from Office 365, the Microsoft Dynamics Marketing contact record remains intact along with the data. A contact record cannot be deleted if a user record is associated with it. User detail is edited in the admin portal, such as First Name, Last Name, and Display Name.
Contacts added through Office 365 are added to the Staff contact group in Dynamics Marketing
The following fields are read-only in Microsoft Dynamics Marketing and must be updated in Office 365: First Name, Last Name, Display As, Title, Address 1, City, State/Province, Zip/Postal Code, and Country/Region. Office Number and Mobile Number fields are added to the contact form for Users and are also read-only. Phone 1 (Primary) and Email 1 (Primary) are available to complete in Office 365 and are also editable in Microsoft Dynamics Marketing.
User Experience
In the above example I added the user "Anders" as a web portal user (which doesnt require a MDM license - note in the O365 screen its says No licenses). I can grant Anders a few priveleges, eg to Notes
When Anders logs into MDM his user experience will look like this
He sees no widgets, he has no ability to add widgets, and can only access "Notes" in the "Projects" area.
I can go on and provide Anders with priveleges to the "Files" area too
Now when Anders logs back into MDM his user experience will look like this
Now he has the widget "Site Favorite Files", and access to "Files", "File Libraries", and "File Usage" under "Assets & Media" too.
Licensed user
Lets look at another user, Jesper, who is a licensed user in Dynamics Marketing
Jesper has the "Regular User" role, and as such has (only) a few "Media" priveleges
Now if I change Jespers user role to "Media Buyer" I can provide Jesper with several additional "Media" priveleges
I hope this gives you an idea about how you can work with user types, priveleges, and access levels in Dynamics Marketing.
Note
See and manage which messages are reaching your contacts in the new Seller Portal
The Seller Portal in Dynamics Marketing gives you an overview of which marketing messages are reaching which specific contacts. This is important information for salespeople, making sure that they are well informed about which communications their customers have been receiving when they meet with them.
The portal also enables salespeople to remove specific contacts from campaigns and/or emails that they think will not interest those contacts. The display is similar to the marketing calendar in Dynamics Marketing and includes much of the same functionality, plus extra features designed for salespeople (see also Keep track of company-wide projects with the marketing calendar).
The seller portal is designed to be accessible by Microsoft Dynamics CRM users, with handy links and integrated functionality available inside CRM. If you are a CRM user or administrator, then see Dynamics Marketing for Dynamics CRM users for an overview of how to set up the integration and find those features of Dynamics Marketing that are most likely to be useful and available to you.
To open the "Contacts Seller Portal"
Use the "Contacts Seller Portal" to view and manage marking communications targeted at each contact. You can access it from Dynamics CRM as well as Dynamics Marketing
To open it, do one of the following:
If you are working in Dynamics CRMx
If you are working in Dynamics Marketing
The "Contacts Seller Portal" page opens.
You'll see a a Gantt chart with a linear calendar next to a column that lists the contacts you selected. See below for tips and details for working with the portal.
To open the "Accounts Seller Portal"
The "Accounts Seller Portal" looks very similar to the "Contacts Seller Portal", but focuses on companies rather than individuals. An important difference is that you can view all of the individual contacts associated with a given company and also choose which of them should be included in a given campaign.
Just like the "Contact Seller Portal" you can access it from Dynamics CRM as well as Dynamics Marketing
The "Accounts Seller Portal" page opens, which displays a Gantt chart with a linear calendar next to a column that lists the companies you selected. See below for tips and details for working with the portal.
Working with the seller portals
View, scroll and zoom the Gantt chart
Both the "Accounts Seller Portal" and the "Contact Seller Portal" display a Gantt chart showing a linear calendar next to a column that lists the companies or contacts you selected to inspect. Adjust the view options so that you can see all of the information you need as follows:
Drill down to view campaign and messaging details
Both the "Accounts Seller Portal" and the "Contact Seller Portal" provide the following features:
Special features of the "Accounts Seller Portal"
The "Accounts Seller Portal" focuses on companies, each of which may have one or more contacts working for them. However, not all campaigns targeted a given company are necessarily of interest to all of that company's contacts. Therefore, you are able to see a list of contacts working for each company and to block specific contacts from campaigns that have not yet started, thus preventing all associated mails and other initiatives from reaching them.
Each campaign includes an Edit block list button to the right of its name in the left column (the button also shows a number indicating how many contacts are blocked);
You can select this button to open a pop-up that displays all of the contacts from that company and campaign.
The window includes two columns: contacts in the left column will-receive/have-received communications about that campaign, while contacts in the right column will-be/have-been blocked. For future campaigns, you are able to move contacts between the columns; to do so, select a contact and use the arrow buttons between the columns to move contacts back and forth as needed.
To view a summary of all the ways a given contact has engaged with your marketing messages, select the contact's name in the blocked/not-blocked pop-up. A fly-out will open showing that contact's Marketing Engagement. See also See how contacts are engaging with your campaigns for more information about this display.
Special features of the "Contacts Seller Portal"
The "Contacts Seller Portal" focuses on individuals rather than companies, and therefore provides a more detailed engagement analysis for individuals while also enabling you to remove individuals from campaigns and/or messages that are unlikely to interest them.
Add alerts to track contact interactions
Once you have an overview of which contacts will receive which messages in connection with which campaigns, you might also like to receive alerts when key contacts interact with the messages by opening emails, claiming offers, registering for events, etc. See Work with alerts for details about how to configure alerts for these types of events and more.
The seller portal is an add-on solution for the Dynamics to CRM connector. After the connector is installed and set up, you can install the seller portal solution. Please note that MDM and CRM must be in the same tenant for the Seller Portal integration to work.
For more information see Install the Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Seller Portal solution for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
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Thanks to Dynamics CRM 2015 and Dynamics Marketing, Sales and Marketing are now closer than ever.
See also
Dual Use Rights allow CRM Online User Subscription Licenses (USL's) to access on-premises CRM servers - eg. CRM Online Pro includes Pro CAL rights, etc.
All server licenses are still required, as are all other Client Access Licenses (CAL’s) e.g. Windows CAL. Dual use rights are provided by the CRM 2015 Server license
Use Dual Use Rights to:
Microsoft Social Listening (MSL) is a powerful new service that your organization can use to monitor social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. Use Microsoft Social Listening to track products, brands, competitors, and campaigns globally and in real time to gain a true understanding of your customers and your business across the social web.
Dynamics CRM Online customers with 10 or more Pro USLs are eligible to Social Listening licenses for those Pro users.
If you'd like to see the MSL information in your CRM, you will need to configure your CRM to use MSL. Just navigate to Settings -> Administration and click Microsoft Social Listening Configuration (3) to open the Microsoft Social Listening Configuration dialog
In the Microsoft Social Listening Configuration dialog click to dropdown (1) and select your MSL subscription
If you do not see a subscription in the dropdown, it might be because you haven't assigned a Social Listening license to any user in your organization. Then you need to assign one or more users in your organization a Social Listening license and we will set up your solution
In other words - you need to toggle the eligibility criteria check box under licenses for a least one user
Steps in O365
See more blog posts on Microsoft Social Listening here
Business Process Flows were first introduced in Dynamics CRM 2013 as a new feature. With the release of Dynamics CRM 2015, this feature has been enhanced further to allow more complex and rich Business Processes.
Business process flows define a set of steps (2) divided in stages (1) for you to follow which leads you to a desired outcome. These steps provide a visual indicator that shows you where you are in the defined business process. For instance, you could be guided through the Lead to Opportunity sales process using Business Process Flows.
In Dynamics CRM 2013, the experience for Business Process Flow was unique to only Business Process flows. The UI gave a graphical view of what the process may look like but it required additional navigation to build the entire process.
The experience in Dynamics CRM 2015 has changed a bit. The UI now follows the same as Business Process rules giving you, as a System Customizer, the ability to create a Business Process Flow in a single edit experience. The stage and step configuration, branching rules and the selection for entity relationships are all done on the same Business Process edit window.
In CRM 2013, Business Process Flows were very linear. You waited until each stage was completed and then you were able to move on to the next stage.
With CRM 2015, it is now possible to have Business Process Flows change the next stage or future stages with your input from the current stage.
This allows Business Process Flows to be more relevant based on the details you has input. These changes are done in real-time so it allows you to get instant feedback on the data you've entered within the Business Process. This is done by rule branching and merging. To branch a Business Process, you can now use If/Else If/Else conditions for Business Rules Logic that was enhanced with CRM 2015.
In the screen shot below a new stage "Incubate" (3) is inserted after the "Qualify" stage if (2) the step "Purchase Timeframe" (1) in the "Qualify" stage is set to the value "This Year".
The condition is defined in a UI similar to the Business Rules UI
So when working the "Lead to Opportunity" process, if I pick "This Year" in the "Purchase Timeframe" step...
....a new stage "Incubation" is inserted after the "Qualify" stage and before the "Develop" stage
Previously in CRM 2013, you could only loop back to the primary entity once. This limited the flexibility for a process to work with other entities and then loop back to the primary entity multiple times. Within CRM 2015, a Business Process can go into and out of the entity loop as many times as it is necessary.
You can now choose any entity to be a part of the Business Process. There is one limitation here. The entity must be enabled for Business Process Flows (1)
Not all out of the box entities can have this option enabled. However, all custom entities can.
Unlike CRM 2013, there is no longer a limitation for Business Process flow steps to only be able to use entities that contain a 1:N relationship with the associated entity. Nor do you even need to define a relationship when defining other entities within a stage.
Other Limitations
I hope you'll enjoy this new capability and build yourself rich and powerful processes that will help you get the desired outcome.
If you (as a CRM Online customer) ever wondered if your organisation did receive an email from Microsoft, it might be helpful to know who is the administrator of your organisation (and hence is on the receiving end of communications from Microsoft). Hopefully these links will be of help: