I am about to take the MB2-719 certification, this certification covers the Dynamics 365 for Marketing Application. I plan to create a series of blog posts that collectively should help anyone else preparing for this exam. In this post I’ll look at the basic concepts connected with integration with other systems.
Below, you can see the section of the skills measured statement that references integration with other services. It specifically mentioned PowerBI and custom channels.
Additionally, LinkedIn integration is also references in the manage leads section of the skills measured;
Don’t forget that Dynamics 365 integrates with various other Microsoft products to help support team collaboration. Including Exchange, SharePoint, Excel, Teams and more.
Also, Dynamics 365 for Marketing is just one app in the Dynamics 365 offering, meaning out of the box it will seamless integrate with the other modules. (Including Sales, Service and even Field Service and Project Service Automation.)
Some common integrations could include;
- PowerBI – Use PowerBI’s powerful reporting capabilities to analyse marketing data.
- Excel – extract marketing data directly into Excel for reporting.
- Customer Insights – Dynamics for Customer Insights (or DCI for short) an Azure service that holds your “big data”.
- LinkedIn – Connect to LinkedIn Lead Gen to automatically sync leads generated in LinkedIn.
- On24 – 3rd party webinar service integrated with Dynamics 365 for Marketing.
- Voice of the Customer – Microsoft’s survey tool.
- Social Engagement – Use Microsoft Social Engagement to listen to sentiment and generate leads as required.
Customer Insights
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Insights (DCI) SaaS offering provides big data analytics and insights for sales, marketing and service functions. To extract the most out of DCI requires bringing in data from different sources. One of the most important data sources is Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online).
When using DCI with Dynamics 365 for Marketing we must specify which entities are to be synchronised into this Azure service.
You should keep in mind that to achieve good performance you should only sync the entities that you really need. Do not be tempted to sync all your data in the hope that one day it might be useful!
Within the settings area of Marketing you will find the “Customer insights sync” option. It is this that can be used to define what data to sync with DCI.
You can see below that I can select any entity from Dynamics 365. Also notice the publish button to apply any changes I make. By default a small number of entities are synchronised include account, contact, lead, event, marketing lists and surveys. (The core marketing entities you’d expect to see!)
Note: You need to know that once an entity has been added into the customer insight sync you cannot remove it. So be mindful what you add!
LinkedIn
Dynamics 365 for Marketing allows you to synchronise leads created in LinkedIn using Lead Gen forms. Assuming you might not be familiar with this service, you might benefit from reading the posts below!
https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/native-advertising/lead-gen-ads?#
You can also read more about the Dynamics 365 for Marketing integration with LinkedIn from the link below;
When leads are generated in Dynamics 365 from LinkedIn you will be able to identify their source from with LinkedIn (etc) by looking at the “LinkedIn Lead Info” tab.
Within the settings are of Dynamics 365 for Marketing we can define mappings from LinkedIn field and Dynamics 365 fields, additionally we can define how LinkedIn leads are matched against existing leads.
Below you can see the “Lead field mappings” section of Dynamics 365 for Marketing.
By default, lead matching is completed on email address only but you could create a new match strategy that includes additional fields as required. See below, how I have created a matching strategy that also includes first name and last name. You can have multiple lead match strategy’s but only one can be active. Additionally, you cannot delete or deactivate the default strategy (of email only) without creating a new one.
You will need to authorise an account, this can be done in the user profiles option in Dynamics 365 for Marketing.
LinkedIn Lead Gen forms are created within LinkedIn Campaign Management. Details of these are synchronised with Dynamics 365 for Marketing. That way we’ll be able to see which leads are generated from which forms.
Once your LinkedIn campaign and associated LinkedIn Lead Gen form are live you can see all form submissions on Dynamics 365 for Marketing under form submissions. You’ll be able to see the details of the lead and the information provided by the LinkedIn members when they answered the underlying LinkedIn Lead Gen form.
An entity exists called “LinkedIn Gen Integration Configuration”. I have opened this using advanced find and show the details below. You may need to be aware of this if you wanted to alter what happens for matching failures or control if campaigns are synchronised. (Customer journeys are automatically created for LinkedIn Campaigns, you may need to edit this entity to disable this feature.)
Custom Channels
Custom channels allow you to extend the capabilities of Dynamics 365 for Marketing. You could (for example) create a customer channel for activities like SMS or social media. Doing so will involve first creating the custom channel. That may involve making use of the extensibility features of Dynamics 365. Including custom entities, workflows, plugins, web resources etc etc.
For the purpose of my revision I am going to assume that the scope of the exam will not cover the details of how to develop a custom channel. But I may need to know they exist and why they might be used. And that custom channel tiles can be included in your customer journeys in Dynamics 365 for Marketing.
If you’d like to learn how to actually create a custom channel, you can find out more by following this link;
Essentially, you will need to create the required entities/forms, add in any bespoke logic using workflows / plugins. Then once your channel is working you can configure a tile which can be consumed in your customer journeys within Dynamics 365 for Marketing.
When creating the custom configuration tile you can link to a compliance field for that channel. This will be a Boolean field found on the contact entity, and can then be used to signify if this channel is a allowed (or not).
This post touches on quite a few topics! You should practice actually using as many of the integrations as possible as part for your revision. A task that could be quite involved but hopefully fun. Enjoy!
Microsoft Dynamics 365 