From the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement and CRM Blogs: Flow; Business rules: Portal access; Email engagement

This week on the Dynamics 365-CRM blog roundup:

• Microsoft Flow – perform action on update of specific field in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 tips and tricks: Use business rules
• Provide contacts with access to a portal via a workflow
• Embedded intelligence with email engagement in Dynamics 365

Microsoft Flow – perform action on update of specific field in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement

On Inogic's Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM) Tips and Tricks blog, the author sung the praises of Microsoft Flow, saying that it was the "best thing that ever happened to citizen developers." The author explained that Microsoft Flow offers developers a number connectors, including a connector for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement.

For the D365CE connector, we have below triggers (at the time of writing the blog): On demand; on update; on create; and on delete. For Microsoft Flow, the Flow is always triggered on an update and not on update of a specific field. So, the question arises, what to do if we want to trigger the Flow on update of a specific field in D365 CE?

In the blog post, the author provided some steps to enable citizen developers to trigger Flow on update of a specific field – something that would have required a skilled developer in the past.

You can read the steps to follow here.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 tips and tricks: Use business rules

On the CRM Software Blog, a writer from the Beringer Technology Group explained why system administrators should ensure they include business rules in their "system administrator CRM utility belt of super powers."

In the blog post, the author pointed out that business rules gives users a simple drag-and-drop interface so they can implement and maintain commonly used rules that are always changing.

The author provided examples of actions users can take by configuring a simple drag-and-drop business rule on a form and gave real-world examples from is own experience to explain some of those actions.

You can read more about how to use business rules here.

Provide contacts with access to a portal via a workflow

On the Megan V. Walker – tips, tricks and solutions for non developer geeks blog, Walker stated that there were various ways a contact could get access to a portal. In her blog post, she discussed how to enable contacts to access a portal via a workflow.

She noted that the information she provided was predicated on users already having their portals set up, as well as having created any web roles that they needed.

Walker then presented the workflow in its entirety and broke it down step by step. She also cautioned that users would have to have Jason Latimer's CRM String Workflow Utilities solution installed first because it was needed for a couple steps.

You can learn what the steps are to provide contacts with access to a portal via a workflow here.

Embedded intelligence with email engagement in Dynamics 365

On the PowerObjects blog, Joe D365 noted that Microsoft rolled out a number of exciting features as a part of embedded intelligence in D365CE.

He then explained the key capabilities of embedded intelligence, including email engagement that lets users track email statistics and better engage customers.

Email Engagement enables Dynamics 365 users to keep track of the various statistics about the email messages goes out of Dynamics 365 such as:

• How many time email messages opened.
• Follow if attachments are opened or not.
• Number of time links in email clicked.
• Replies to the email.

In his blog post, Joe D365 discussed how to enable email engagement in Dynamics 365, how to use it, and how to follow the emails so you know when a recipient has opened an email, clicked on embedded links, opened attachments, or sent a reply.

You can read more about email engagement here.