Microsoft Social Engagement – part 2

As is promised in the previous blog, I’m continuing with writing about Microsoft Social Engagement.

In this blog I will show you how to setup Microsoft Social Engagement. After that you will see how to connect it with your social networks, how to track posts, how to post on it, as well as you will see results of all those activities.

Setup

If you want to start with Setup in Microsoft Social Engagement you first have to make connections to your social networks.

For that, you will need these social networks usernames and passwords, and of course all admin rights (in a case if there is a fan page which you want to connect).

First step is going in to the Settings, and by clicking on the button ’+’ you will see a popup menu where you must choose which network you want to connect. After that, simply type in all necessary data.

After you’ve connected all your social networks, you can proceed to the next step.

Just to know, this step is optional. In a case if you use Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement, you can connect it with Microsoft Social Engagement. Again very simply, you just have to click on a ’+’ button, and after that you will have to select name of your Dynamics 365 instance. On the end, the system will do by itself the rest of the connecting.

When you have done all these things it will be time to start with defining what you will follow.

Now, you have to find Search Setup on the menu and again simply click on ’+’ button. With that, you will start to make definitions. First you will define Categories (as your business require), after that you will define Topics in these Categories, and at the end you will define exact words which you will follow. In all these definitions there is one restriction made by Microsoft… you can define words which will not have more than 10,000 mentions in one month by their opinion. This is nicely shown by one chart which you will see immediately on entering in the Search Setup.

Social Center

When you finish with all these configurations, you will have to do some additional config as well. But this time you will need to define your tracking in social center, and this will be one of the main places in this tool where you will spend your time.

Before we start with Setup, I will tell you a few things about Social Center. This is place where you can see your posts, posts where you were mentioned by your followers (or by people who just mentioned you). From here you can have direct Messaging with your Social Networks, you can directly post from here, and of course you can Like, Share, Comment, Mark, link to Dynamics 365… and all of Social Network activities. As I told you, this is place where you will spend most of your time working with this tool.

To Setup a new stream you just have to click again on ’+’ and after that you have to enter all necessary data: Name, Filters and Color.

When you have done all these things you have one new stream which you will follow at this moment.

As I mentioned you can answer on message, do all activities (like, share, retweet…), directly post. You will do all those things right here on stream, except posting.

For posting you have to click on a ’Publish’. After that, you will choose if you are going to use Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Then that you will do exact same thing as for Social Network, you will write a post, choose some photo if you like, and Post it.

Your posts will be available on your stream and you can see all thins which are going on around your post.

Dashboard

You will spend most of your time in Social Center, but Dashboard is still most important for you. On the Dashboard you will see all important information’s about your brand and you will find out how you can improve your activities on Social Media.

Here you will see how your Conversations are going on, what about your Sentiments on your posts and mentions on social networks, Locations, so that you can focus on some specific type of Marketing on some locations and of course you will see which of Sources are the best, and what you will have do to beater of other one.

Now I will pass through few important things to follow.

Sentiment: Here you can see how much people are satisfied with your brand or product, and you can do something do make your customers more satisfied.

By saying sentiment I mean that this tool have some type of ML and AI and it knows some language’s, so it can understand what is positive comment or post, and all that what is negative, all others which he did not have understood Microsoft Social Engagement will show as Neutral sentiment.

Phrases: Microsoft Social Engagement is tracking which phrases are most mentioned with words which you have categorized on the beginning. By having this information, you can always do breather categorization of words which you want to track on Social Media.

Authors: By knowing which authors are mentioning you the most on Social Networks you can make some type of partnership with them, or you can offer something to them so they can make beater commercial for your brand.

Sources: By following all sources where your brand is mentioned you will know where you are the best, and where you have to improve yourself.

Language and Locations: By following on which Language is your brand most mentioned you can understand how you have to position your advertisement, and which language is most important for your brand, al that Location is the same thing, but with it you can track weary precisely your customers (followers).

But more about Location and rest of functionalities in Microsoft Social Engagement you will read in my next blog (last in this series about Microsoft Social Engagement).

Microsoft Social Engagement – Introduction

29/11/201829/11/2018 Marko Totovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Buzz, CRM, D365, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 for Marketing, Dynamics 365 for Sales, Microsoft, Social Engagement, Social Listening

Imagine you have a production business and global presence… or you have global or regional services offering. Probably the most important information you need is a feedback from your clients… and this is necessary as soon as it is possible. Why? If you get a late feedback, there is a big chance you will lose a huge amount of money. Sometime it is important to get a small information what you need to change, but very soon, not too late. And, where you can get the best possible feedback in 21^st century? Of course, on a social networks. Social networks will provide the fastest possible noise.

If you want to follow all those social activity automatically, this Microsoft tool – Social Engagement is perfect for you. With Microsoft Social Engagement, you can connect your business with all popular social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn…).

You can find how big buzz is about your new posts, you can find out your followers are happy (they show positive or negative sentiment)… Of course, regarding this, you can track locations, countries, cities, different markets… However, the question is how you can use this information in your advantage.

Social Insights connects you with what your followers say about you or your products, services etc. You can grow a Brand Reputation using all the information you’ve collected using Social Insights. After you grow your brand reputation, you can start Social Care and focus on positive phrases and feelings of your followers.

After all important thing is Social Selling, which you will grow using all this tools, and you will have satisfied customers and followers.

In next few texts I’ll prepare until the end of year, you will understand how to use this amazing tool.

Summit EMEA 2019

27/04/2018 atotovic Conference, Dynamics 365, Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV AXUG, CRMUG, D365, D365UG, Dynamics 365, EMEA, Microsoft Dynamics, NAVUG, Summit, Summit EMEA, UG

Summit EMEA 2018 in Dublin has just finished yesterday and I still try to count all impressions. It was the great one with 221 sessions and now we can start to think about the next year Summit.

Only one part was missing – NAVUG part of the Summit and I really hope that we will have NAVUG Summit in EMEA the next year, especially because now NAV (of course Business Central) is a very important part of Dynamics 365 family. Before that I’m happy to see all UG’s in Phoenix later this year.

And now, where will Summit EMEA be the next year?

Currently we have four options to choose: Amsterdam, Barcelona, London or Nice. If you want to give your vote, it is not too late and you can do it here. The last time when I checked results, it was like that:

Anyway, see you in one of the these four cities the next year.

Dynamics 365 for Marketing – Check for Errors

12/02/201812/02/2018 Marko Totovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM CRM, D365, D365 for Marketing, Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 for Marketing, Marketing, Microsoft Dynamics, testing

As I’ve already wrote, Dynamics 365 for Marketing Public Preview has been announced. Also, in my previous blogs I wrote about Click Dimensions Marketing solution for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales, and this time I want to take an opportunity to show you something new in this new D365 for Marketing Public Preview solution.

I have been testing Dynamics 365 for Marketing for a while, and I’ve found one interesting feature named as ‘Check for Errors’. This feature looks like really good functionality because you can check if everything is fine with your Marketing Customer Journey, or Email Template, or something else before you go live with it.

Check - GoLive

Checking process will take only a few seconds, and until this checking done, you can’t do any other thing, but still it is only a few seconds. 🙂

Error 1

After system has checked your configuration, it comes with even better things. As the first, system shows you a notification bar where you can see where to look for an error.

Error 2.PNG

After going to the place where error is, the system will show where your error is placed, or if there is a few more errors you will see the places where they are, as in my example.

Error 3

In my example I have one error in two campaign parts. With going to the properties of each campaign part, you will see exactly where you did a mistake.

Error 4.PNG

After testing a little while Dynamics 365 for Marketing Public Preview, I’ve found this interesting thing, and I wanted to share it with you. This shows that the new Dynamics Marketing app is very interesting for using and testing.

Dynamics 365 for Marketing Public Preview

11/02/201811/02/2018 atotovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM CRM, D365, D365 for Marketing, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Marketing

Few days ago, Dynamics 365 for Marketing Public Preview finally has been announced. For those of you who already attended on some of Dynamics events, this was expected moment.

If you want to try it, go to this URL: https://trials.dynamics.com/Dynamics365/Preview/Marketing and you just need to use work email and phone number for verification:

D365M1

The second step will be accepting trust to the Microsoft CRM Services as publisher…

When you finish registration, you will get the main Dynamics 365 for marketing landing page:

D365M3

Now, you have possibility to run ‘First time setup’ and finish this configuration and continue to work with this app after that. In the following texts, we will write more about them.

The main features covered with this App are:

Multi-channel campaigns
Lead management
Sales and marketing alignment
Marketing analytics
Event Management

Marketing Campaign Automation in Click Dimensions – Step by step

30/01/201829/01/2018 Marko Totovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM automation, Click Dimensions, CRM, D365, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Manual, Marketing, workflow

In my previous blog about making marketing campaign automation in Click Dimensions, I just wanted to cover top processes and share an idea how I solved this requirement. But when you know what you want, creating Marketing Campaign Automation in Click Dimensions is not so complex, and now I’ll show you how to do it, but this time step-by-step.

Marketing List

I prefer to start with creating Marketing List, because you will use it in creating automation, and it won’t be a good idea to forget it.

So, everybody who has ever used Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales knows how to create marketing list, but I will explain it in a few sentences. First you are going to the Marketing card, and in the row Marketing you will see Marketing Lists. After entering the marketing list, you need to fulfill what is necessary in creating marketing list.

I will not be so long on this, but everything is shown on pictures, so if somebody is doing this for the first time please follow the pictures.

Email Templates

Now we are coming in to Click Dimensions, so who have not ever used Click Dimensions I will explain everything step by step, and for those who already use Click Dimensions, maybe you will learn something new.

So, Click Dimensions is located on Marketing card, so you are probably figuring that we won’t go out of Marketing card in creating this automation. Let’s go back on creating, first we have to create Email Template. We are going to row Email Marketing, where we will find and enter it to the Email Templates.

After we entered this, we are starting with creating an Email Template, so we first have to fulfill necessary data, and then click on Save (as creating everything in Dynamics 365 for Sales). After saving your data you have to enter this in the editor to really create template.

In editor, way of working is ‘drag & drop’, so it is easy and intuitive. So, you need to choose what you will put in your email, and just save it.

Depends on how many emails you want to send in one automation, you have to create as much email templates.

Campaign Automation

As you see this is going pretty easy and fast. So, we’ve came to the main thing in this step by step explanation. So, we are still on Marketing Card, and this time we are going in row Marketing Automation where we have to enter only one thing we have in this row, and that is Campaign Automation.

After entering it you just need to begin with creation of regular New Campaign Automation. After you open a Campaign Creator, you will see that the only thing that is mandatory to fulfill is the Name of this Campaign, and after typing the name we just must save this, and to be prepared to go into the Builder where we will create the campaign.

Builder

Builder is placed on the ribbon inside of Campaign Automation you’ve created, and you have to enter it from the start with creating with your automation.

CD5

The Builder is intuitive created, and you can work easy through this process. It has ’Triggers’, ’Actions’, ’Timers’, and ’Series’. In this text I will explain how to use only some of the triggers, and actions.

So, we will start with trigger ’Added to List’ and this works as drag & drop, so you just have to choose what you will use and to move it to white background. And after starting with our trigger, we will add the next one as action, and in this example, this action will be ’Send Email’.

After doing this, we will again use one trigger, and not this is an ’Email Interaction’. And just to know, when trigger is not used on the beginning of the whole design it will have ’yes’ and ’no’ conditions sides. It is important to know that you can’t finish with opened any of these sides of trigger, without actions. So, it is better to have the trigger on the beginning (to avoid thinking what actions to put on both of sides). After we add our second trigger, we will first focus on our ‘true’ side. Because it is some email campaign we will use in ‘true’ side action ’Assign Owner’ and in ‘false’ side ’Remove from List’. Now we have just created what campaign will do, and you just have to fulfill some more information and we have finished.

First by clicking on first trigger ’added to list’ you will see on the right side that instead of triggers and actions something new appear, and in that place in first trigger, you just have to bring your marketing list which is mandatory, and to check check-box for ’Run on entire list’. That means that this automation will collect all your contacts from your marketing list, but if you type in some new contact, this automation will automatically add it to list.

After this is finished, we are going on our action in the same way by clicking on it. Now you will have to type some more information, but not so much. Mandatory is to select which email template you want to use in this automation, so you will use one you have created on the beginning. After that you have to type in subject, and to choose from which name and email address this mail will be sent.

After that, you have to go on the next trigger, and you have to choose from which series the email will be sent, and in can be only that you’ve used in a step before. After that you have to choose what is an interaction you want to monitor (email clicking, or email opened). In this example, I’ll use clicking. And only timer configuration is left if you want to use it. I’ve set here on the timer that if in 3 days nothing happens that this interaction is going in to ‘false’ side.

If condition is positive, we’ve put action ’Assign Owner’ and setting up of this action is easy. You have just to choose a display name, and to type which user will be assigned if somebody open our email.

If our condition is negative, it is similar. You just have to choose from which list you want to delete if somebody didn’t respond to campaign. Of course, it will be the list from which you have started. This is because, as I already mentioned, we must have action on the end of each condition.

CD7

And we finally arrived at the end. It just left to save this, and after saving, you just have to click ’PUBLISH’ and whole Campaign Automation is starting, as your email is sent.

Making Flow in Click Dimensions – Marketing Automation

25/01/201825/01/2018 Marko Totovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM automation, campaign, Click Dimensions, configuration, CRM, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Flow, workflow

Today I had a challenge or maybe opportunity 😊 to set up marketing automation process in Click Dimensions Campaign Automation for the first time. This is reason I want to share this experience with you.

In the beginning it looked pretty easy, and I just needed to create few email templates (it depends how much templates we need), after that I have to create marketing list and to create new campaign automation which look pretty easy because it works on the first sight as Microsoft Flow, just with less actions and triggers.

As I said, looked quite easy. When you enter the campaign automation builder, it looks like you will finish just in a few minutes, and you will do it, just if you know some “secret weapons” 😊.

Of course, every time when you are working with some kind of workflows, you must start with triggers, and to continue with actions and triggers in combination as much as you need. But in my case, I had to start with email trigger and as much as I wanted to finish it, it always made some issues. After a few attempts I realized that my email triggers have a problem in that it doesn’t know which email to use. But if you want to begin with saying this mail you will use is not possible to use because this is an action, and of course you can’t start with an action…

CD 2

After a lot of thinking and trying to get over this problem, because there are not a lot of triggers I realized that I must begin with Manual Entry (which is note normal to use, when you have a few hundreds or thousands emails to enter in list), and that was a problem. But as I said in the beginning of this article, it is not hard to work in Click Dimensions campaign automation, but you have to know some things, and I realized that the best way was to start with marketing list triggers entry and it finally started working.

CD 3.PNG

Then it came to the next problem, but this time on the end, because we must close the triggers. Just to be clear, in Click Dimensions Campaign Automation, at the end of builder, you must put the action, so again it was problem to realize which action would be normal to use; when you compare it with Microsoft Flow, it can be little bit confused, because Flow doesn’t require it. If I use email action again, it will be in some circle which could never be closed, and further I didn’t want to delete someone from my marketing list because they didn’t answer to this campaign, because they will maybe respond at the next, and my trouble continues. But I realized that there is no other way to close it except of using ‘remove’ from the list action. Again, I had to get over new problem to finish this campaign automation, and with little thinking I remembered to create the clone of my marketing list and to use it from beginning of my campaign automation process, and in that way, I will keep my marketing list on original one.

These problems took me some time, but after resolving all of them, I found out that using of Click Dimensions Campaign Automation process if quite easy, but you need to try few times before it works, and after some time of using it often you will really create every Campaign Automation in few minutes.

CD 1

The future of NAV – a small wrap up

10/10/2017 atotovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV App, BE, CDS, D365, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 tenerife, EE, Extensions, Marketing, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV 2018, NAV Tenerife, NAV2017, NAV2018R2, SaaS, Sales, VS Code

These days we got a lot of messages about the future of our product – Dynamics NAV. Now I’m seating in a plane and traveling to Nashville on NAVUG Summit and finally have found some time to make a small wrap up with all important things. I think now, after two Directions in North America and EMEA, picture is clearer.

Roadmap

The first thing I want to mention is roadmap of Dynamics NAV. I think it is absolutely clear that in this moment we have Dynamics NAV 2017 as ‘on prem’ and ‘on cloud ready’ solution, but as SaaS, we have Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations Business Edition, generally based on Dynamics NAV. But this is just in this moment, because Marko Perisic announced in Madrid last week that we will have published Dynamics NAV 2018 at December 1^st. This announced is mostly based on partners feedback and this is absolutely this what partners wanted. For now, SaaS solution will stay the same, with the same name and in the same countries (US, Canada and UK). But with this new NAV version, partners will get new solution and the most important, with this new NAV version they can start to use Visual Studio Code for Extensions v2. This is important because partners now can start immediately with new model of development and to be ready for the spring and new solution.

At the spring 2018, we will finally get already announced new product – Dynamics 365 “Tenerife”, but only as cloud SaaS solution. As on-prem solution, we will get Dynamics NAV 2018 R2, but with the same code base as Dynamics 365 “Tenerife”. In this moment I don’t know a reason why we will still have the same product with the different names ‘on cloud’ and ‘on prem’. But very soon, we will continue with only one name – currently code name Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’. System will have new modern web interface, sandbox and lot of new features (more about it in another post).

And ant the spring, we will get Dynamics 365 for Sales App with less features (ex Business Edition) and Dynamics 365 for Marketing as preview. Both of these products was presented on Directions and they really look nice and rich.

New Package – New Opportunities

As I said, I don’t want to write about all new features in the future release, but what with the whole package. The main idea is to stop to implement ERP and/or CRM; but to continue to implement full business solution. This is what clients need; they don’t care what part of system it is, the just need to solve their problems and their requirements. And as the new business solution, we will have Dynamics 365 as business solution who cover most of the potential client’s needs. That means we will not sell e.g. ERP, but solution. In this solution we will see what real requirements client has and implement adequate Apps with adequate level of features. Price will depend of this, but we will don’t know prices, because of lot of changes. By my opinion, very important is that now we can combine Apps from ex Business Edition and ex Enterprise Edition. With this we will have more agility in implementation process. And of course, all of this will be integrated with Common Data Service. And even better, we can use CDS for our integrations. We can use not only Dynamics 365 Apps, but also PowerApps, Flow, Office 365, Power BI, 3th party Apps… as the same business environment.

Conclusion

The final message is by my opinion very clear and very positive. For both partners and customers. Don’t afraid, Microsoft will not stop with this amazing product. Rebranding is not canceling. But with new name, we will get still the same powerful product, but with the great new opportunities as well.

I can write probably more, but I think this is more than enough as the first wrap up after two Directions. Future of our product is a clear.

The future of AppSource

26/09/201726/09/2017 atotovic AppSource, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV apps, AppSource, consulting, D365, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, service

With Dynamics 365, AppSource was introduced as platform for Apps exchange. This was a place where you could find apps based on product type and industrial solution. Now we can find more and more Apps there.

But now, AppSource got a new additional reason of existing. This is not only place where you can find App. Now, you can also find a good consulting service there (and not only for D365, but also for PowerBI). You just need to choose Consulting Services and you can find a list of them:

Or if you are located on Apps, you will also see that you can choose some of existing consulting services, related with your product.

With these possibilities, now you can be nore close to your partners, and not only as ISV, but also as consulting implementator. With this, the way of how this kind of business works will be dramatically changed, and for all partners it will be good idea to accept this new approach as soon as possible.

If you want to publish your services, you can go to the List on AppSource and choose “Grow your business – offer your implementation services” and you can find a manual how to do it as Microsoft system integrator, because you still need to meet some conditions. But if you succeed, you can offer different consulting services in fixed scope and with a fixed duration and become well known globally with your services.

More truth about the future of NAV

22/09/2017 atotovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV D365, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 tenerife, extension, Financials, NAV, NAV Tenerife, Tenerife

After the first day of Directions NA, there are a lot of confusing posts about the future of Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 for Financials. I don’t know why, because Marko Perisic was clear about all details.

The first well known products are not canceled. This is just rebranding and it means we will still have products with the same features (and lot of new features) as old NAV (and Dynamics 365 for Financials). Now we will just have one common platform for both of these old products and with the same name – Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’ (currently code name). We will have this product on cloud and on-prem (as old NAV). If partners want to deploy NAV on Azure, they will not use their own infrastructure and instead of that, they will use this product as SaaS. But what is the best for partners, they can make project based customizations on cloud as well as on-prem. And this is amazing.

About other Apps, we can license Apps as we want to use and we will be in situation to make combination of Apps from old BE or EE solutions. And of course we will pay per feature and per named user. And I must to be honest, maybe we still don’t have all details about licensing and this is one of the most important reasons, why this product is not published just now. Product is already finished, but we need to wait the final adjustments about licensing. This will be on the first place, because Microsoft wants to encourage partners and clients to use cloud solution as more as possible. This is the most important strategy. But all clients can continue to use on-prem solution if they insist. But Microsoft will make much better offer for cloud solution. And we need to be patient to wait the final decision.

New product will have new modern user interface, almost the same as other D365 products and this will be very important for future customers, because they will have the same filling working in different Apps.

And yes, we need to wait until the spring for the new product, but I cannot see some specific issue, because we can continue to implement NAV. If we customize NAV 2017 using extensions and VS Code, it will be very easy to transform these implementations to new solution the next year.

And yes, we can continue to use CDS for integrations, PowerApps, Flow, PowerBI… All of these will be used with the new product as well. We can continue to publish Apps on AppSource, because this service will be continue to use and it will be much more improved. And one more yes, on the closing session, Marko announced that he and his team accepted the most important feedbacks from partners. This is encouraging message for all partners who are afraid from any reason.

Of course, partners will need to change their business models in some parts, more or less, but this is normal situation in whole business. Personally, I’m happy with all new announcements and I think R&D team made a good job.