Introduction: This blog is the continuation of Part 1 and it will show you the code that are required for the action to work and the workflows created in CRM. Steps: 1. Add a button on marketing list using Ribbon Workbench and script which calls the action. 2. Create an action “MailChimpBatchCreateCall” that triggers on Sync button click. When the button is clicked, action is called using JavaScript. This action Retrieves configuration and Marketing list records from CRM and add the members to Mail Chimp Marketing list by Mail Chimp API Call (Batch request). The code to be included in the action is given below: This is a POST request as we are creating list members in MainChimp using (WebClientEx client = new WebClientEx()) { string authorizationKey = string.Empty; authorizationKey = Convert.ToBase64String(ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, “{0}:{1}”, username, api))); client.Timeout = 60000; client.Headers.Add(HttpRequestHeader.ContentType, “application/json”); client.Headers.Add(HttpRequestHeader.Authorization, “Basic ” + authorizationKey); tracer.Trace(“jsonData: ” + jsonData); createBatchResponseJSON = client.UploadString(basicURL, jsonData); } tracer.Trace(“createBatchResponse :” + createBatchResponseJSON); Model.MailChimpContactCreateBatchResponse createBatchResponse = GetInfoFromJSON(createBatchResponseJSON); CreateMailChimpSyncRecord(createBatchResponse, tracer, service, marketinglistid); The JSON request to be passed is given below: The JSON response for the BATCH call is given below: 3. Create an action “MailChimp status” which triggers on MailChimp Sync record creation. Mail Chimp API call is made to get the status of the synchronization process. Batch ID is the unique value which helps to retrieve the status of sync call. If status is finished, sync process is completed. The code to be included in the action is given below: This is a GET request to check the status and update the status record in CRM. //// Call the web service using (WebClientEx client = new WebClientEx()) { string authorizationKey = string.Empty; authorizationKey = Convert.ToBase64String(ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, “{0}:{1}”, username, api))); basicURL = basicURL + “/” + batchId; HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(basicURL); request.Accept = “application/json”; request.Method = “GET”; request.Headers.Add(“Authorization”, “Basic ” + authorizationKey); using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse()) using (Stream stream = response.GetResponseStream()) using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream)) { getBatchResponseJSON = reader.ReadToEnd(); } } tracer.Trace(“createBatchResponse :” + getBatchResponseJSON); Model.MailChimpContactCreateBatchResponse createBatchResponse = GetInfoFromJSON(getBatchResponseJSON); //// Update the MailChimp Sync record with new status UpdateMailChimpSyncRecord(createBatchResponse, tracer, service, currentRecord.Id); The JSON response for the GET request is given below: 4. Create workflows that keep on checking the status of the batch call. The initial batch call is a sync process and we get a status showing no. of record finished and pending. Thus, the syncing process takes place in background. Therefore, we need to create workflows to keep on checking in specific interval. In the initial call, we have kept waiting time of 5 min and then kept waiting time of 1 hour and called the same workflow again till we get the status of batch call as “finished”. a. Main Workflow: b. Child Workflow 1 Check Mail Chimp Sync. c. Child Workflow 2 Check Mail Chimp Sync. For more code details, you can refer the GitHub link. Hope it help you and thus we can integrate the CRM with Mailchimp and make use of MailChimp API calls listed in their documentation. Members can be added individually or by using the batch operations. You can refer the below links from MaiChimp  which shows how we can make individual and batch calls. i. Creating a new member ii. Batch Operations

Introduction: This blog will depict an idea on how we can integrate the members of CRM Marketing List to MailChimp Marketing List. Description: We had a requirement to add all the members from CRM static marketing lists to Mail Chimp marketing list. There were many marketing lists in CRM and exporting/importing data for each marketing list was a repetitive process each time we add a member to the list. Thus, we created some customizations in CRM with respect to the MailChimp API functionalities. These customizations will help your organization to minimize the manual efforts of adding members to Mail Chimp marketing lists. Only thing you need to do is to click on the custom sync button present on the marketing list record. CRM customizations are listed below: Provide a manual option on CRM marketing list to sync the list members to the MailChimp marketing list. These will work for members of type Contacts and Leads. Account members cannot be synched because it does not have an email address field. (MailChimp API main parameter for synching any member is the Email address of the member. It does not create duplicate records in MailChimp). Create a field on Marketing list which stores a unique marketing list ID from MailChimp. This value is important as this will help usl to link CRM and MailChimp lists. Create an configuration entity in CRM to store Mail chimp API key, MailChimp username, MailChimp URL.MailChimp URL for developer purpose is given below: https://<dc>.api.mailchimp.com/3.0 The <dc> part of the URL corresponds to the data center for your account. For example, if the last part of your MailChimp API key is us6, all API endpoints for your account are available at https://us6.api.mailchimp.com/3.0/. Below is the link to get or create a API key in MailChimp. How to create/get API key Write a custom action which calls the MailChimp API. Below are the links for synching the members individually and to perform the sync operation in batches. Each Member Sync Sync Members In Batches Create a MailChimp sync entity to record the sync status. The sync takes place in background in MailChimp thus we need to create this entity and keep a sync check by calling the MailChimp API to retrieve the batch status. Once the status is finished, sync will complete and all the members will be synched to MailChimp Marketing list.Below is the screen shot which will show the below details: How many records completed How many records errored Submitted and Completed date Status of the sync process. You can see the status of the sync by opening the record. Status finished denotes the syncing process is completed. In the next blog, we will discuss on the MailChimp API call in action.

Disconnected systems cause your business processes to be inefficient. How quickly can you get new products up on your eCommerce store? How long does it take you to update inventory counts? When these processes are too slow, it negatively impacts your performance. You can’t keep up with your competitors. Overall, these issues can lead to poor customer experience. You won’t be able to process orders quickly enough or give customers the accurate information they need to make a purchase. Coordinating with CRM NAV integration permits you to consequently synchronize information between your ERP and different frameworks. You don’t need to contact any catches. You get the opportunity to characterize rules on how information is shared by your operational needs. Introduction: SMS Messages can be sent from a D365 CRM Online to an individual using the Twilio Web Services. In this blog, we will see how can we send SMS Messages from CRM using Twilio Web Service Scenario: We will create a message record from CRM which on save will call the Twilio web service via a plugin and send the message to the destination based on the information passed to Twilio from the D365 CRM. Process: Step 1: Creating Entities Create the following 2 Entities which are ‘SMS Configuration’ and ‘SMS Message’. The SMS Config entity will only consist of three fields which are Username which will have the value of ‘Account Sid’. Password which will have the value of ‘Authentication Key’. From which will have the value of Twilio ‘Account Phone number’. The SMS Message entity will consist of the following two fields which are as follows To which will have the value of the ‘Receiver’s Phone number’. Message Body which will have the value of the ‘Message text’ that the receiver will receive.  **Note: The purpose is to provide dynamic data and to not hardcode any value. Step 2: Creating Plugin Code to Call the Twilio Web Service The plugin code will be consisting of two main code blocks: Web Service Code Block Main Execute Code Block Web Service Code Block We will be using the Web Service code in our plugin code while calling the Twilio Web Service from CRM. For more information on how to call Web Service using plugin refer the following link : https://www.cloudfronts.com/call-web-service-plugin-dynamics-crm/ In this case we need to make modifications to the Web Call Service function block of the Web Service plugin code. Changes made to the ‘Try Block’ of the Web Service Call. We won’t require to make any changes to the WebClientEx code block of the Web Service Call Code. Main Execute Code Block In the Main Execute Code Block we will be calling the above Web Service Code Block. Retrieving of the SMS Configuration Record can be done using fetch XML method. Conclusion: Thus, in this way we can send SMS Messages from D365 CRM Online using Twilio Web Services. Hope you find this helpful.

Customer service is the backbone of any organization. Any company that desires to progress or scale-up high should focus on providing the best customer service to their clients. But, with so many things happening at the same time, it is pretty tough to provide it. Hence, it is wise to use  Dynamics 365 customer service, an ERP solution. It will not only help you to become effective but, it will help you and your team to be more efficient. Since it is cloud-based software, you get information from your team in real-time.  The best part about this particular enterprise resource planning software is that it offers a host of different features. For example, ‘Voice of Customer Survey,’ is one of those salient features that you will love using.  Voice of Customer is a feature of Dynamics CRM where you can create and send out surveys to gain valuable feedback from your customers about your products or services. Respondents can take your surveys on a phone, tablet, or computer. Anonymous surveys can be triggered in different ways: Email Social sites like Twitter, Facebook or other web pages SMS In this blog, we will discuss how we can achieve sending surveys using SMS. We had a requirement for the client that whenever work order status is changed to completed, send a survey SMS to the contact to fill out the feedback for the service provided. Pre Requisites: Voice of Customer Solution installed Power SMS solution. Download Power SMS from here- http://www.powerobjects.com/powerpacks/powersms/ Choose a Service Provider CallFire(for US numbers) Twilio Configuring Power SMS. The configurations steps can be found in Power SMS User guide here- http://www.powerobjects.com/guides/powersms/. Steps to be followed to send survey using SMS are listed below: Create survey in Voice of the Customer as per your requirement and publish the survey. Create a workflow on work order status field that creates Survey Activity. On creation of survey activity, survey link will be created. Populate and store the survey link in work order contact some custom field on work. Step: Create survey activity Step: Update contact Create a workflow that creates a SMS message on update of survey link field. After creation of SMS, set the status of the survey as “Pending Sent”. Step: Create SMS When a work order status will be changed to completed, SMS will be send using workflow. You can see the status reason whether the SMS send successfully or not. Thus, surveys can be distributed using SMS and feedback can be stored for analysis and improvement of the organization. For more information on Voice of Customer you can refer our blog “Voice of the Customer for Dynamics CRM 2016”.  

Introduction Voice of the Customer features creating and sending out surveys to gain valuable feedback from your customers about your products or services. Respondents can take your surveys on a phone, tablet, or computer. You can see your customer’s feedback history as you work a sale or resolve a service case. In this blog we will have look on the limitations of Voice of Customer features before using it and the installation of VoC solution in CRM. Purpose of VoC Basically it is used for getting feedbacks from the customers about your products or services. You can track how satisfied your customer is with the service they received and then we can analyse the results. Availability of product Voice of the Customer is available with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update and later. Before using Voice of the Customer have a look on Limitations Voice of the Customer has the following limitations designed to optimize performance: You can publish a maximum of 200 surveys. You can include a maximum of 250 questions on a survey. If you’ve enabled feedback for a survey, you can include a maximum of 40 questions. You can create a maximum of 25 pages per survey. You can send a maximum of 10,000 email invitations that include piped data in a 24-hour period. Any emails that exceed that amount will remain pending during that time and will automatically start sending when the time limit is over. Voice of the Customer will pull a maximum of 2,400 survey responses per day. Voice of the Customer allows storage of a maximum of 1,000,000 survey responses. Steps to use Voice of the Customer in CRM. Install the Voice of the Customer surveys solution Sign in to https://portal.office.com with your Global administrator or CRM System Administrator credentials. Click Admin > CRM On the Manage all CRM Online instances page, select the instance to add the solution to. Click Solutions. Select the solution you want to install and click Install. Proceed through Terms of service to accept the terms. The status for the solution changes to Installation pending. The status for the solution will change to Installed when the solution is ready. After you installed the solution, you need to accept the terms and conditions to configure it in CRM. Go to Settings -> Customizations Click Solutions Select Voice of the Customer solution In the Voice of the Customer Configuration screen, select I agree to the terms and conditions and click Enable Voice of the Customer. If you do not receive response you can click on “Retrigger response processing”   Customize Voice of the Customer survey settings No much customization is needed if you satisfied with default configuration. If you have specific customizations you would like to make, change the HTML or XML of the elements. You can also import XML from an existing survey. Voice of Customer will be available in the Navigation bar. Click on Voice of the Customer and you can create your surveys and make respective changes. So this is how you can add Voice of customer solution and start creating surveys. To see how to create surveys refer our blog article Create surveys in Voice of Customer.