Harness the power of Dynamics 365 within Outlook

By Rebecca Cardenas

User adoption of any software can be slow at best. Often as a CRM Admin, you struggle with users who want an easier, faster way to provide data and to connect to existing data. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 App for Outlook may be the tool your organization needs. It brings many of the features found within Dynamics 365 right into Outlook — a tool most users interact with multiple times per day. Users can not only synchronize their contacts, emails, appointments and tasks between Outlook and CRM, but also add Accounts, Opportunities and Leads right from the comfort of their email inbox. 

Deployment

Deployment of the app is conducted through the CRM, requiring no additional software installation on the user’s computer or personal device. Once the user launches Outlook 2016 (or higher) or the Outlook web version, they have the power of the CRM at their fingertips. An added benefit is that most of the app features are also found on a mobile device with Outlook installed.

Click here for complete deployment instructions.

Using the app for the first time

To display the app, known as Customer Engagement, select an existing email and click on the Dynamics 365 button found on the ribbon.

Or, if using Outlook on the web, the Customer Engagement button appears in the email pane.

The Customer Engagement pane appears to the right of the email and shows information found in Dynamics CRM about the recipient(s), phone number, associated account, opportunities, etc 

Need to update the contact’s phone number or title, or add more information? From the Customer Engagement pane, select the contact’s name that is in blue. The complete contact form opens, and you can update any field.  

Two of my favorite features are the ability to quickly create and search for records.

Click here to learn about all the features with the Customer Engagement app.

Contact management 

Within the Customer Engagement app, any contact that is not in Dynamics 365 will have a plus symbol (+) after their email address.

Simply click on the plus symbol to add them into Dynamics 365 as a contact or a lead. 

Another option to add existing contacts to Dynamics 365 is to use the app Add-in (available only in the desktop version of Outlook). The Add-in allows you to view and manage your Outlook contacts; see which ones are found in Dynamics 365 already or need to be added and link a contact to an Account record.

To access the add-in, in the lower-left corner of Outlook, click the three dots (...) and select Add-ins.

Terminology

Tracked: Your Outlook contact is connected to a record within Dynamics 365.

Not Tracked: Your Outlook contact is not connected to a record within Dynamics 365.

To Track a contact, select one that is Not Tracked and click Track. 

Link a contact to an Account

Select the contact and click Link. 

Search for the account to link to and select Link.

Click here for more details on working with Contacts.

If you’d like to learn more about how to take advantage of the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook, let us know!