The Dynamics 365 App for Outlook lets users track, set regarding and create records with one click. It’s extremely simple to track entire email threads and allows users to access CRM data within Outlook. You can also track Outlook meetings. The app for Outlook is a great tool to help increase user adoption at your organization.

The User Experience

When an email/meeting is received that a user wants to track in Dynamics 365, they first have to click the Dynamics 365 icon at the top of the email/meeting. This opens up the Dynamics 365 panel on the email or meeting:

From this panel, the user can take two powerful actions:

• Set Regarding: Select an already existing record in Dynamics 365 to track this email and future correspondence to.
• Add record: If the email address is not recognized, you can add it to Dynamics 365 as a Lead, Contact or Account.

Additionally, you can interact with any records from this panel, opening them up and viewing Dynamics 365 data right in this panel.

Once a record has been tracked and set regarding in Outlook, the email/meeting will display in the timeline of the record in Dynamics 365.

User Experience: Add Dynamics 365 Record from Email / Meeting

In the screen shot below, the email address was not found in my Dynamics 365 database. As a user, I can click on the + icon under Unknown Recipient and easily create a record with one click. Select the record type to be a Contact, Lead or Account.

Basic Steps to Get Started with the App

1. Set up server-side sync. If you want to use the App, you will need to first configure and set up server-side sync for your Dynamics 365 environment.
2. Test and enable mailboxes in Dynamics 365.
3. Apply the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook security role to users.
4. Deploy the app to eligible users.

A Full Implementation Guide for the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook

If you’re looking to implement this, check out this blog I wrote earlier this year. It will walk you through all requirements and steps to implement and deploy the app to your users.

Additionally, you can refer to documentation from Microsoft about setting up server-side sync.

The 10 Tools

Here are the tools we will review in the entire series:

1. Managing Business Settings
2. Security Model Tools
3. Global Search
4. Table (Entity) Search
5. Dynamics 365 App for Outlook
6. UI Controls
7. Model-driven Apps
8. Field Mapping
9. Business Rules
10. XrmToolBox Tools