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 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.
This post is a part of a series of posts for Customer Service. The complete GUIDE can be found here
The OOTB cascading rules for Case are not optimal for the setup that I like to use. I will try to explain why, and at the same time show what I feel needs to be done for it to work better. Keyword is Parental Relationships that we have to STOP. If you wonder what I am talking about, below is the timeline from Case displaying activities.
What happens when you have parental relationship on, and you assign the case to another user, all of the related entities like Task, Emai, Phone Call etc will also be reassigned. Normally you you could ask why that would matter, but for CASE that is a real issue.
You also happen to change the “Modified On” data for the records leaving them potentially unsorted in a manner that will confuse the service agents. This applies to all activities, even the ones that have been closed as complete.
There are MANY other ways to sort activities, but Emails are almost always historical activities and happen at a given time. Tasks and Phone calls can be in the future. This is why I like modified on date, to keep a sort of chronological order. If possible the best sorting would be chronological order for completed activities, and due date sorted on top of that for open activities. Don’t think that is possible unfortunately.
Configuration
As you can see, the default behavior is Parental for Email, Phonecall and Task. I could have chosen more, but these are the entities I use the most in Case.
Do the following for all 3 relationships. Select Configurable Cascading and then Cascade None for the Assign. Microsoft DOCS cascading – If you wan to see more about Cascading Rules.
Why not NEW UI Config?
At the time of writing this blog, the configuration still isn’t possible for relationships. If you are familiar with configuring, the main point is just showing what I need to do for Dynamics.
This post is a part of a series of posts for Customer Service. The complete GUIDE can be found here
The new name for this function is now called “Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules”. You find it under Service Management in the settings area.
Setup
I will try to explain why I believe this is the proper way to set it up, even though many of you probably will have a different preference.
Queue: Choose the queue that we created in the previous post
Create Cases for activities associated with a resolved case: The purpose of this field is to create a new Case when you receive an email on an old existing case.
I believe this setting together with 1 minute is the correct setting. Many will argue that I m wrong, but there is a reason why. Dynamics doesn’t have an automatic case reopen when an email is received on a closed case (A mystery why they haven’t done anything about it yet). Without this feature the email would just land on the closed case and never bee seen. With this setup a new case will be created once you receive an email for a case that is closed.
Certain support metrics work against their purpose. Just think about the good old “Number of cases closed in a day” “Time Case was open before closed” In the end, the customer wants to be treated well, and feel confident that the organizations can help with the issue. I try to educate that the case close confirmation should be done for every case.
With the current setting, emails will create Cases that Customer Service will be able to follow up. Sure you might get more cases, but you won’t loose any. A case not answered might be a customer lost!
Email Template: The template provided here is a nice start. Do what you need for changes. Notice that the case number here is included in the subject, and this is something we want to use later on also! Stay tuned for later post:)
Creating the record
Once you choose CASE as entity to create, the system will provide with default values that are fine.
CRM Keeper 