As I prepare for my Dynamics 365 certification in sales (MB 210), I’m creating blog posts based on my revision. I hope that collectively these posts may prove useful to anyone also preparing for the MB 210 exam. This time I will cover the concepts around record creation rules.

You will see that record creation rules are mentioned in the skills measured statement within the section headed “Perform Configuration”.

Record creation rules are something I often think about in context of service scenarios rather than sales! I might, for example, want to create a case for all emails received into a support mailbox. But I guess there is also a valid use case to create leads (or other entities) as messages are received. Having said that record creation rules are created / configured in the advanced settings area of Dynamics 365 under the heading of “service management”. (Hence why I typically think about them in a service context.)

But regardless of where they sit in the navigation they are referenced in the skills measured statement and we should therefore be prepared to answer questions on them!

Rule Creation

Initially we create the record creation rule “header”, this includes setting the source type, queue and such like. Below you can see I have linked my record creation rule to a queue I’ve called info@npdynamics.com.

The queue field allows me to define the source queue. Often this could be a queue associated with a “generic” email account. For example, info@npdynamics.com. Meaning any customer who sends a message to this type of address may be registering a service request or sales enquiry. Prior to creating the record creation rule you may need to create and test a suitable mailbox. (I will give additional details below.)

Source types, a common use case is to create records as emails are created. But we can configure multiple other source types. Including;

• Phone call
• Email
• Appointment
• Task
• Social Activity
• Booking Alert
• Chat Activity
• Service Activity
• Alert Subscription
• Invite Redemption
• And many more!

Additionally, we have options to decide if cases should be created when customers have a valid entitlement etc. As MB 210 is a sales exam, I am not going to explain these concepts here. But you should investigate these options to fully understand the capabilities of record creation rules.

Having specified the “header” details I can then add the record creation and update details. In my example I will keep this very simple. I “just” want to create leads for all emails that arrive into my “info” mailbox. But hopefully you can see that I could add conditions and other actions as required.

Tip:
I didn’t add any conditions or other actions in my very simple example. You might want to experiment with these to understand how more complex rules could be created!

Creating a shared mailbox

Before creating your record, creation rule you might want to create a generic email, such as info@ or sales@, I will explain how to achieve that below …

Create mailbox in Exchange

Within the office 365 admin area, I have opened the Exchange admin center and created a shared mailbox.

Tip:
I guess / assume you could use other mailbox types. But in my example (and often in production scenarios) a shared mailbox is ideal. As it will not be associated to an individual user. And also, won’t consume a license.

Notice below that we can list the users who have access to this mailbox in the mailbox delegation option.

Create queue in Dynamics 365

Once we have defined a shared email address / mailbox in Exchange we can create a queue within Dynamics 365. This can be done in the advanced settings area of Dynamics 365. You will find the queues option (show below) under business management within the advanced settings.

You can see below that I have created a public queue and given my shared mailbox as the incoming email address.

Approve then Test & enable the mailbox

Once my queue is saved a mailbox within Dynamics 365 will be created. Before you can receive incoming email messages you will need to check /edit the details. In my example I have altered the synchronisation rules, notice how I have configured incoming mails for server-side synchronisation, but the outgoing email option is set to “none”. This might be typical, as an “info@” address would be used to capture emails, but any responses will be sent from “real” users.

Once you are happy with any changes, you will need to click the “Approve Email” option to approve that this mailbox can be linked to Dynamics 365.

Next use the “Test & Enable Mailbox” option. Assuming you get no errors the mailbox will be ready for use after a few seconds.

Testing / Using the Rule

Having created your mailbox and rule. Plus tested the mailbox and activated the record creation rule you will be ready to test it.

Once an email is received (and tracked into Dynamics 365) the record creation rule will be trigger. And (as you can see above) emails will be created. By default, the leads will be owned by the owner of the record creation rule. You may need to be aware of this and consider how to handle the ownership of leads. (Either by changing the owner of your record creation rule or by setting the owner within the creation rule.)

In this post I have given you one simple example / use case for record creation rules but I hope you can see that my example could be expanded to cover more complex scenarios.

Additionally, you should consider that record creations are just one approach available to automatically create records within Dynamics 365. Other options existing including traditional workflows and Microsoft Flow.

I suggest you include creating and activating a record creation rule into your MB 210 revision. Then trigger the rule (in my example by sending emails to the queue) and review how your leads are created. Enjoy.