A while back I released a Customer Service solution to get a DEMO or Simple production system up and running withing an hour.
Due to recent updates to email to case and templates, the solution I had created failed every time on installation. After a few weeks with Microsoft Support we sorted it out, and the solution is back working again!😀😀🙏🎉🎉🥂🍾
Remember to get the latest version (18 or above) of solution from the GitHub folder.
The main change in the setup is the email to case is now a part of Power Automate, and no longer a part of our good friend WorkFlow
If you are using email to case, SLA or any Automatic Record Creation in classic you really need to update your rules ASAP to the new UI.
I can’t seem to find the message in the make.powerapps.com, but it’s one of the first messages that appears when opening the classic editor in solutions.
This post is not going to comment the pros/cons of the old vs the new. I will have to come back to you on that one. I am simply stating that you have to do this because it’s not only being deprecated, but it is being shut down. Microsoft has actually created a migration path for the rules, and documented the process fairly well.
I use these rules for the most in the email to case scenario. First it has some conditions, and then it has the actual create of the case record.
When running through the migration, it does in fact get the conditions correct when migrating, but not the owner that I have in the create statement later. This has to be manually added to the flow created by MS.
Post Migration
After the migration is done, I had the following:
A record rule in the new UI
The conditions also got migrated without issues
And a new flow that Microsoft Autocreates for the email to case record creation. The red box marks where I had to add the “owner” field for the Teams ownership that I normally use.
All of these steps are automatically added by Microsoft. This is also the case if you do a NEW Email to Case from the UI. It feels a bit odd to put my faith in the hands of something automatically created, but for now I have to go with the flow.
NB!!! REMEMBER TO CLICK THE SAVE BUTTON IN FLOW BEFORE ACTIVATING THE RULE
So far it seems to be working OK, but I have to do some more heavy testing before I can conclude that the Flow is as stable as the old rules within Dynamics. We are running it in production, so I will update if I see any problems 🤞
Recently I had this happen twice without really knowing why. The add new contact button was missing on the case form. In the old UI it was present, but in the new UI it was gone.
Problem
Luckily support found out that this is caused by the contact field containing some old “metadata”. All you have to do is remove it and add it back.
FIX
As you see here we have added the same field twice.. Now you can remove the “OLD” contact field and then publish..
Voila!
A pretty random thing to happen, but an easy fix:)
Did you know that it is possible to setup a fully functional Customer Service installation in less than one hour?
I am proud to present all 3 parts 1. The community solution – Download 2. The Video for installation 3. The Video for demonstrating the product
I have put a lot of hours into this configuration, because I wanted other consultants to see how nice and easy Customer Service could be delivered. I have been using countless hours every time I wanted to show a new demo, so I finally put in the extra work to make it complete. This will hopefully save you a LOT of work next time you want to demo Customer Service, or deliver a good solution to your customer.
1. Download
Go get my free community solution for Customer Service.
This is a showcase of how I would demo the solution. Find your own pitch and make yourself comfortable with it. Just make sure you have good demo data!! Good Luck 😀
This video is how I demonstrate the Customer Service solution based on my blog series. I like to keep things simple, but at the same time functional. Please let me know what you think.
Stay tuned
Next video will be “how to install the solution” from scratch, so you can try it out yourself😀
This is the last post in a long series about Customer Service and Dynamics 365. After several implementations over the years, the following configuration should be a great place to start.
Before we get started
Fire up a new trial of Dynamics with Customer Service, and add an office 365 trial to the same instance. I will not be going in depth on how to create a trial. Navigate here if you need tips
NB! for some steps you need Global Admin privilege
1. Exchange
The first step we need to do is setup a Shared Mailbox in the admin for O365. Navigate to https://admin.microsoft.com <- Make sure you are on the correct org when doing this.
When done you should se the message above. You now have successfully created a new email address for Exchange.
In the video I will explain why UNMANAGED, but I am not an ISV is the short answer. I have written about what’s included, so easy to reverse.
Remember to PUBLISH CHANGES
You will now see a new App called CS
3. Add Team + Security Role
Next you need to add a new team to Dynamics. Open the Advanced Settings in the navigation to the top right. We will be doing the next part in the old client
Open Settings – Security and Team. Add a new team and give it a name. I have chosen Customer Service. This is the team name that will own the Cases before they are assigned.
Also remember to add the security role “Team – Customer Service”. This security role is imported along with the solution
4. Add Queue + assign Team
This is the step where we connect Microsoft Exchange with Dynamics 365
Name of the queue is not important, but make something that is sensible.
When you click save, a new Mailbox will be created automatically by the system. Open the Mailbox, an navigate to the next step.
5. Approve Email and test receive mailbox
This is the point where you need to be Global Admin to continue. Start by approving the mailbox/email address.
Step 2 you test and enable the mailbox. Once this is done, head on over to “alerts”
You might need to refresh this a few times before it displays anything. The refresh button in the upper right corner is the easiest way to update the feed. You should only see information messages now. This should not generate any errors.
6. Email Settings
Next step is really important for keeping the subject logic. All of this will make sense later when you see the reply of the emails you send. Open the Email Configuration Settings and make sure it looks just like below.
7. Create Account and Contact
Now we create an Account and Contact that we use for our demo. The Account name can be whatever you want, but the contact needs to have a valid email address.
8. Send Test Email Outbound
Now it is important to check that emails actually are going out of the system. Open the contact you created with the valid email address. Create a new email activity.
NB! make sure that you substitute the from address to Customer Service (queue you created earlier) before you hit send. This will send FROM the queue to the Contact.
If things go as planned you will see an email appear in the mailbox. Be sure to check you spam if nothing is in the inbox!!!
9. Activate Record Creation and Upadte + add Team to Case Created Owner
After importing the solution you will now find “Email 2 Case” in the Automatic Record Creation area. Open this via the Customer Service HUB
Make sure you select your Queue that you have added earlier ADD QUEUE
Open the Email 2 Case Flow to see the structure that Microsoft now has create for Email to Case.
If you like adding the Team as owner to the cases (Optional), you have to add this line to the Owner field in the Flow.
NB! You have to retrieve the GUID from the Team in CRM.
Fining the Team GUID
Last step is to Activate the email to case record creation.. At this point you should be able to see emails entering CRM via Cases.
10. Add Signature
Next step we have create a signature for the user. Signatures can be personal or company specific. The signature is located under the setup section. Navigation is at the bottom left of the CS app.
The signature below is HTML. I don’t expect you do this from scratch. I have a great guide here
11. Add User with Signature and Default Queue
Getting close to the end now, we have to add all our hard work to the Customer Service User replying to the emails. In the user form you see 2 fields “Signature” and “Default Queue”.
Update with the queue you created earlier, and the signature you just created. This is what will defines what the email leaving the system will look like.
12. Add Email Warning – New Activity on Case
This last step is optional. I created it in Flow, so beware of possible hitches with a few things regarding the current environment connector.
The purpose is to notify the Agent that a new Email has arrived for the case. If for some reason the system received email to a close case, I reopen the case and notify the agent.
Microsoft released a new way to do automatic record creation a few months ago, but I never got around to ckeck it out before now.
The most obvious reason for the new release is creating something that is possible use within new UI. Therefore you can only find this in the customer service app at the moment.
Heads up
At the current moment the new approach doesn’t work, for a contact that is known by the system with an account. I am working with support help them understand the error with the flow. Will update the post when they fix the error. This means that the new solution only works when the contact is not connected to a parent account.
Old
In the “old” days we created everything via settings in the navigation. You start off creating a new record and link it to a queue you want to listen to. I prefered the following setup, and I have explained why in my other post regarding Customer Service
When you created the role for creation of case, it would use the following standard setup. Notice that the contact here would be set if account and contact were known. Contact would be contact, and account would be customer.
New
The new way of doing things is a lot like the old, but there are some differences.
Don’t get fooled by the name in queue to monitor. This is a regular email queue, but I gave it the name “flow”. The first thing we have to create is a new rule for the queue.
Here is where we see the first major difference. The condition for creation seems to use the same visuals as the new advanced find.
At the bottom you choose the rule and click create. This brings you over to Microsoft flow. Instead of the old WF, MS autocreares a new flow for you.
Just like the old flow, Microsoft didn’t want to you touch the details of the flow.
The old flow filled out the contact and customer fields, while the new one for some reason doesn’t (yet). I will try to work with MS on this also.
What to do next?
I honestly don’t know when they expect all of these rules to be transfered over, but I guess it will have to be done in the future when they try to sunset the old WorkFlows.
In the meanwhile I hope they fix the flow, so that it works as expected:)
This post is a part of a series of posts for Customer Service. The complete GUIDE can be found here
Before we complete it all I will clean the form a bit. The demo I will be focusing on is the B2B space. If you use the B2C part of support, you might not need any of this. Just continue to the next post:)
Before
It looks good out of the box, but it doesn’t provide a great amount of value.
Business Process Flow on the top of this case is close to useless. It only indicates that you can have a process that looks nice. The steps don’t make sense, and as always with BPF…. You can’t create a step without a mandatory field present. 😒
The first quick view shows a view of the company information. It takes up a lot of space, and in my opinion displays relatively irrelevant information about the customer. If you want quick info about customer, you can “hover over” the customer field.
The right side is setup with reference panels. I wrote an article about loving them a while back, but Customers seem to prefer normal subgrids when actually navigating. Recent Cases is actually just a quick view, and that doesn’t do us much good. Try opening one of the cases, and you won’t see much. We will have to clean this up for it to actually work. We will also remove entitlements, because it’s too much of a hassle in a simple Customer Service scenario.
I hide the tabs on top for now, because I simply don’t need them. If at one point you want to expand, you can reintroduce them.
Subjects.. Are they staying or going. I am not sure what the future holds for this. It’s quite confusing. At some parts of history it seemed very central for Customer Service and Knowledge Articles. Then Categories came along. I would like some clear information what is what. For simplicity I will use subjects for demo. Personally not to happy about it.
The customer field here is as confusing at the customer field was originally for Opportunity. If you are using Customer Service for B2B this has to be linked to an account and not contact. If you use B2C I guess you can just leave it and never really see it as a problem. In my cases I always have to change this to store Account, and then use the Contact field for Contact. Opportunity has managed to change from Customer field to Account & Contact. Don’t see why Case can’t do the same…
Cleanup
1. BPF – Business Process Flow removal
Start off by deactivating the BPF from customization. Then we have to delete all records of the process running. Open Advanced Find, and look for the table that has the same name as the Business Process Flow
PS: If you happen to have a demo setup, it might also include Field Service demo data. Then you have to repeat the process for “Case to Work Order Business Process”.
2. Quick View
Does not give any extra added value. I am replacing this function with a similar value, but different way of working. I open in form editor and remove.
3. Remove Entitlements in Reference Panel
First make sure to remove the Entitlements
Then make sure that the view is set to Recent Cases. Don’t trust that the name of the subgrid is correct. You actually have to make sure that you have the Recent Cases view here.
Create a new section for Recent Cases, and move the Recent Cases out of the Reference Panel. This way we can actually click on a case and open it from the Quick View.
4. Hide tabs
Just hide it. Don’t need it for now
5. Fix Customer field – B2B scenario
In the B2B scenario we need to make a few adjustments to the customer field, and add some onload logic for the agent. In the B2B scenario we need the customer data to be good, and therefore we can’t accept cases where the contact is unknown.
Let’s just agree that this doesn’t look very exciting, but it does the job. It does the job quite well!
This is how I want it to look. I have hidden a bunch of components that Microsoft includes as standard Customer Service. Normally it is just a little too much. This will lead to an easy training and a simple customer service view for the agent.
Removing the Business process flow we loose a lot of colors, but this is for actual production. Not a fancy demo to excite someone buying.
This post is a part of a series of posts for Customer Service. The complete GUIDE can be found here
Are you as excited as me now that things are coming together?!?!🙌😜 Probably not .. hehe
So the title might not sound exciting, but when you combine the work done in earlier posts with the work we will do in this post, you have got yourself a good setup for Email support system.
JavaScript
So we continue with the JavaScript from the last post, but here we will add a little something from the CASE. If you remember from the Autonumber post we now have a better CASE number that somewhat makes sense. Let’s use JavaScript to retrieve it.
Go all the way down to the last function
var formContext = "";
function OnCrmPageLoad(executionContext) {
formContext = executionContext.getFormContext();
//
//You don't need to change this. Just understand that forms have one the following states when opening
//
var FormTypes =
{
Undefined: 0,
Create: 1,
Update: 2,
ReadOnly: 3,
Disabled: 4,
QuickCreate: 5,
BulkEdit: 6
}
runAlways(formContext);
switch (formContext.ui.getFormType()) {
case FormTypes.Create: OnNewFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.Update: OnUpdateFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.ReadOnly: OnReadOnlyFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.Disabled: OnDisabledFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.QuickCreate: OnQuickCreateFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.BulkEdit: OnBulkEditFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.Undefined: alert("Error"); break;
}
}
//
//I only use the RunAlways, OnNewFormLoad and OnUpdateFormLoad, but i keep the others here if i ever would need.
//When looking at this you can always know what funtion is running. Easy to read and debug.
//On my OnNewFOrmLoad I am now calling a function "GetDefaultQueueAndSignature"
//
function runAlways() { }
function OnNewFormLoad() {
//
//On new form load we call get Signature and Queue
//
GetDefaultQueueAndSignature();
//
//For regarding we have to check that it contains ID before getting data, and we have to check that it is case
//
var RegardingObject = formContext.getAttribute("regardingobjectid").getValue();
if (RegardingObject != null) {
if (RegardingObject[0].entityType == "incident") {
GetCaseIDSetSubject();
}
}
}
function OnUpdateFormLoad() {
//
//On new UpdateForm load we call get Signature and Queue
//
GetDefaultQueueAndSignature();
//
//For regarding we have to check that it contains ID before getting data, and we have to check that it is case
//
var RegardingObject = formContext.getAttribute("regardingobjectid").getValue();
if (RegardingObject != null) {
if (RegardingObject[0].entityType == "incident") {
GetCaseIDSetSubject();
}
}
}
function OnReadOnlyFormLoad() { }
function OnDisabledFormLoad() { }
function OnQuickCreateFormLoad() { }
function OnBulkEditFormLoad() { }
//******************************************************************** */
//CUSTOM FUNCTIONS are added below here. Below this point you add all types of functions you need.
//******************************************************************** */
function GetDefaultQueueAndSignature() {
//Get User GUID and replace "{" and "}" with blanks.
var UserID = Xrm.Utility.getGlobalContext().userSettings.userId;
UserID = UserID.replace("{", "");
UserID = UserID.replace("}", "");
//Get User Default Queue and Signature via WebApi
Xrm.WebApi.online.retrieveRecord("systemuser", UserID, "?$select=_queueid_value&$expand=cs_Signature($select=cs_htmlsignature)").then(
function success(result) {
var Id = "{" + result["_queueid_value"] + "}";
var Name = result["_queueid_value@OData.Community.Display.V1.FormattedValue"];
var LogicalName = result["_queueid_value@Microsoft.Dynamics.CRM.lookuplogicalname"];
if (result.hasOwnProperty("cs_Signature")) {
var Signature = result["cs_Signature"]["cs_htmlsignature"];
}
if (LogicalName == null || Signature == null) {
alert("User Record missing Queue and/or Signature");
return;
}
//Set FROM lookup to queue
formContext.getAttribute("from").setValue([{ id: Id, name: Name, entityType: LogicalName }]);
//Set signature before current text in body
var Body = formContext.getAttribute("description").getValue();
if(Body != null){
formContext.getAttribute("description").setValue("<br /><br />" + Signature + Body);
}else{
formContext.getAttribute("description").setValue("<br /><br />" + Signature);
}
},
function (error) {
Xrm.Utility.alertDialog(error.message);
}
);
}
function GetCaseIDSetSubject() {
//Get Uswer GUID and replace "{" and "}" with blanks.
var CaseID = formContext.getAttribute("regardingobjectid").getValue()[0].id;
CaseID = CaseID.replace("{", "");
CaseID = CaseID.replace("}", "");
Xrm.WebApi.online.retrieveRecord("incident", CaseID, "?$select=ticketnumber").then(
function success(result) {
var CaseNumber = result["ticketnumber"];
var Subject = formContext.getAttribute("subject");
//
//Check if Subject contains data
//
if (Subject.getValue() != null) {
var SubjectContainsID = Subject.getValue().includes(CaseNumber);
//
//IF subject does not contain casenumber, i add the casenumber to the subject
//
if (SubjectContainsID == false) {
formContext.getAttribute("subject").setValue(Subject.getValue() + " - " + CaseNumber);
}
}
//
//This is a new email without a subject. Get the CaseNumber, and inform that topic has to be set
//
else {
formContext.getAttribute("subject").setValue("[Insert Topic] - " + CaseNumber);
}
},
function (error) {
Xrm.Utility.alertDialog(error.message);
}
);
}
We are getting the CASE number from Case / Incident. Then we perform a few checks to see if there is an active subject in the email, and if the email contains the case number from before.
New Email
Let’s see what happens when I now open a new email from a case. Not as a reply to email, but as a new email thread.
Look at that. You have the subject pre populated with a notification that the customer agent should add a topic. This of course could be defaulted to whatever you want in the script, but I left it like this.
Existing Email reply
In this case we see what happens when I reply to an email a customer sent to my CRM system
The CRM Email will look like this. Now I hit reply
Now this is what the subject line should look like.
Conclusion
This small detail means the world of a difference for the people working with customer service and the customers. Whenever they are referring to a case, they can use the same case number. No more tracking token idiocrasy. When you use the global search in dynamics you get hits from the emails and the cases. That is what I call being just a little more efficient!
Please implement this as OOTB Microsoft.
As you can see my posts are now coming together. Next post includes a little extra for quality of data, before I add a video of how to use it.
This post is a part of a series of posts for Customer Service. The complete GUIDE can be found here
Every time I setup Customer Service I encounter the same 2 problems. 1. I want to send from a QUEUE 2. I need to automatically add a signature
Am I really the only one having these problems, or are we all doing the same silly tasks every time?
Standard Signature OOTB
You can enter a standard signature per user, but this signature does not support HTML formatting for some reason. The email you are writing to is in fact a HTML email. Signature that is injected is text into a HTML, but the signature editor is a simple text editor.
When we open the email, the default signature will appear.
Pluss
Minus
1. You can use standard MS functions to auto insert signature
2. Users can easily make changes to personal signature.
1. Does not support HTML formatting of signature
2. Every user can configure personal signature, and you can’t control it for company profiling.
3. If you work with customer service you have to 4-5 clicks to find the correct signature for Customer Service to enter.
Standard Sender FROM
Whenever you open an email in Dynamics it will default to your email address. Normally I would say this if fine, but why on earth would you want to do this when setting up a Customer Service system?
A user would have to change the FROM to the Customer service
Imagine having to do this every single time you want to answer an email in Dynamics Customer Service! I personally would go crazy.
Design
I solve this by creating a custom entity called Signature and use a standard field on User “Default Queue” to solve the 2 problems. This involves some javascript, but will provide everything you need. In my last post of this series, I will also include the managed and unmanaged files you need to do it yourself.
From the Email I will now retrieve the HTML signature and default sender for this contact.
1. HTML Signature
I found this little tool that generates an HTML signature. It seems like a cool little piece of free software that will create nice HTML signatures. The HTML you generate, can be copy pasted directly into the signature entity.
Next you click on COPY HTML and open the Support Signature record (CUSTOM) on the user entity.
Just copy paste the HTML right inn to the text area. Save and Close
2. Javascript
Now you have to create a JavaScript file on the Email form. In the solution you can download in my last post you will find that I add a form to Email that you can use. I chose not to overwrite the default form.
var formContext = "";
function OnCrmPageLoad(executionContext) {
formContext = executionContext.getFormContext();
//
//You don't need to change this. Just understand that forms have one the following states when opening
//
var FormTypes =
{
Undefined: 0,
Create: 1,
Update: 2,
ReadOnly: 3,
Disabled: 4,
QuickCreate: 5,
BulkEdit: 6
}
runAlways(formContext);
switch (formContext.ui.getFormType()) {
case FormTypes.Create: OnNewFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.Update: OnUpdateFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.ReadOnly: OnReadOnlyFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.Disabled: OnDisabledFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.QuickCreate: OnQuickCreateFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.BulkEdit: OnBulkEditFormLoad(); break;
case FormTypes.Undefined: alert("Error"); break;
}
}
//
//I only use the RunAlways, OnNewFormLoad and OnUpdateFormLoad, but i keep the others here if i ever would need.
//When looking at this you can always know what funtion is running. Easy to read and debug.
//On my OnNewFOrmLoad I am now calling a function "GetDefaultQueueAndSignature"
//
function runAlways() { }
function OnNewFormLoad() {
GetDefaultQueueAndSignature();
}
function OnUpdateFormLoad() {
GetDefaultQueueAndSignature();
}
function OnReadOnlyFormLoad() { }
function OnDisabledFormLoad() { }
function OnQuickCreateFormLoad() { }
function OnBulkEditFormLoad() { }
//
//CUSTOM FUNCTIONS are added below here. Below this point you add all types of functions you need.
//
function GetDefaultQueueAndSignature() {
//Get User GUID and replace "{" and "}" with blanks.
var UserID = Xrm.Utility.getGlobalContext().userSettings.userId;
UserID = UserID.replace("{", "");
UserID = UserID.replace("}", "");
//Get User Default Queue and Signature via WebApi
Xrm.WebApi.online.retrieveRecord("systemuser", UserID, "?$select=_queueid_value&$expand=cs_Signature($select=cs_htmlsignature)").then(
function success(result) {
var Id = "{" + result["_queueid_value"] + "}";
var Name = result["_queueid_value@OData.Community.Display.V1.FormattedValue"];
var LogicalName = result["_queueid_value@Microsoft.Dynamics.CRM.lookuplogicalname"];
if (result.hasOwnProperty("cs_Signature")) {
var Signature = result["cs_Signature"]["cs_htmlsignature"];
}
if (LogicalName == null || Signature == null) {
alert("User Record missing Queue and/or Signature");
return;
}
//Set FROM lookup to queue
formContext.getAttribute("from").setValue([{ id: Id, name: Name, entityType: LogicalName }]);
//Set signature before current text in body
var Body = formContext.getAttribute("description").getValue();
if(Body != null){
formContext.getAttribute("description").setValue("<br /><br />" + Signature + Body);
}else{
formContext.getAttribute("description").setValue("<br /><br />" + Signature);
}
},
function (error) {
Xrm.Utility.alertDialog(error.message);
}
);
}
Save and publish.
The Result is beautiful
We have now saved the service technician many clicks, and the signature looks great. Follow the next post to see how we manage the subject field to “master” the Smart Matching function.
CRM Keeper 