Microsoft Dynamics 365 Integration

You can quickly resolve customer issues and pass qualified leads to your sales team using Sprout Social’s integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365. By pushing messages and contact information you receive from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn your customers and prospects get in touch with the right teams quickly. 

Easily track customer issues, record customer interactions, route cases and create leads by pushing social messages directly from Sprout into Dynamics 365.

Note: You must be an Account Owner or have the Manage Profiles company permission and the Manage Advanced Inbox Features feature permission to set up this integration.

This article contains the following sections:

• Connecting to Microsoft Dynamics 365
• Creating an entity
• Lookup and link Contacts and Leads
• Creating Cases in Sprout
• Commenting on Cases
• Editing Dynamics 365 data in Sprout

Connecting to Microsoft Dynamics 365

In order to push information from your Sprout account to Microsoft Dynamics 365:

Note: Currently, there is no two-way communication between Dynamics 365 and Sprout. Sprout pushes information from social media messages to your specified Dynamics environment. You can’t edit, delete or show any of the Dynamics 365 information in Sprout.

1. Navigate to Account and settings > Settings > Integrations under Global Features, and then click Connect for Microsoft Dynamics 365.
2. Accept the terms and conditions of the Twitter EULA. 
3. Complete the OAuth process to securely log in to your Dynamics 365 account.
4. Select the environment you want to add from the dropdown. You might start by connecting a staging environment, try out the integration, and then disconnect that environment and reconnect to your production environment.
5. Click Complete. You now see Connected on the Integrations screen for Dynamics 365.
   
   

Managing your Microsoft Dynamics 365 integrations

You can connect up to 10 Dynamics 365 instances to Sprout. To manage your integrations:

1. Navigate to Account & Settings > Settings > Integrations under Global Features. 
2. Click the pencil icon. The account modal opens.
   
   You can add, edit or delete your connections from this screen.
   
   
3. Click Add New Account to connect an additional Dynamics 365 instance. The authorization modal opens.
   
   
4. Click Go to Dynamics 365 to complete the authorization process.

Creating an entity

You can create Cases, Contacts and Leads from Sprout and push social message details to your Dynamics 365 Instance. This push creates a new row on the entity type you specify with the social information tied to it.

Create a Lead if you notice someone on Twitter is engaging with your brand and wants to learn more about your products. By creating a Lead, your sales team can see it in Dynamics 365, claim it and then follow up to begin the sales process.

Create a Case if a customer reached out to you via Facebook about an issue or problem with your product and they require a little more support. Creating a Case ensures your support team can see the request, claim the case and assist your customer.

Create a Contact for someone who works at a company that you already do business with. For example, if a CEO from one of your partners starts interacting with you on Instagram, you can create a new Contact in Dynamics 365 to keep their Instagram profile along with their contact information.

To create an entity from Sprout:

1. Navigate to the Smart Inbox tab.
2. Click for the message you want to create an entity from. You can create entities from public and private messages. The reply window appears.
3. Click Link to create a Contact or Lead in the right-hand panel of the reply window, or click to create a Case.
   
4. Enter the appropriate fields based on the entity type:
   • For a Case, the contents of the message, along with the social profile are automatically populated in the Description field. Add more information if necessary, and then click Create Case.
   • For a Contact, the first name, last name and social profile are automatically populated. Additionally, the description auto populates with the contents of the message. Add more information if necessary, and then click Create Contact.
   • For a Lead, the first name, last name, social profile and source fields are automatically populated. Additionally, the description auto populates with the contents of the message. Add more information if necessary, and then click Create Lead.
     
     

When the entity is successfully created, a message appears in the lower-right corner of your screen. 

You can double-verify that the entity appears in your Dynamics 365 Instance by logging in and checking the rows for the particular entity you created.

Lookup and link Contacts and Leads

You can lookup and link Contacts and Leads when interacting with users in non-review message types in Sprout. Sprout automatically searches for related Contacts and Leads using the social profile, name and email of the user you’re interacting with. 

Sprout automatically looks for Contact and Lead information in your Dynamics 365 instance to match interactions with. When replying to messages in the Smart Inbox, you’ll either see a preview of the suggested match or a notification stating that no suggested Leads or Contacts were found.

To link Contacts and Leads with a preview of a suggested match:

1. Click to reply to the conversation with the user. In the right-hand panel of the message window, you see the Link section appear in the Dynamics 365 Contact area.
2. Click Link. The Link modal appears.
3. Verify the Contact is a match, and then click Yes, link.
   
   

If the suggested Contact isn’t a match, click No, continue searching. This opens the Contact and Lead search popup. Now you can:

1. Enter the name, email or social profile of the user.
2. Click Create new Dynamics 365 Contact if you can’t locate a match or click Create new Dynamics 365 Lead. The Contact or Lead popup appears. Sprout prefills as many of the fields as possible and copies your entire message history into the Description box.
3. Connect the new Contact to an existing Account or enter a Company Name when creating a new Lead.
4. Click Create Contact or Create Lead.
   
   

To link Contacts and Leads where no suggested matches are available:

1. Click to reply to the conversation with the user. In the right-panel of the message window, you see the notification that No suggested Lead/Contact found.
2. Click Search Microsoft Dynamics 365.
3. Enter the name, email or social profile of the user.
4. Click Create new Dynamics 365 Contact if you can’t locate a match or click Create new Dynamics 365 Lead. The Contact or Lead popup appears. Sprout prefills as many of the fields as possible and copies your entire message history into the Description box.
5. Connect the new Contact to an existing Account or enter a Company Name when creating a new Lead.
6. Click Create Contact or Create Lead.
   
   

Now whenever you open a private message with the user in Sprout, you’ll see all their connected Contact and Lead information from your Dynamics 365 instance.

Creating Cases in Sprout

You can create Dynamics 365 Cases directly in Sprout. To create a Dynamics 365 Case:

1. Navigate to the Smart Inbox and open the message you want to create a ticket for.
2. Ensure a User is matched in the right-hand side panel.
3. Click next to Dynamics 365 Cases.
4. Complete the following fields:
   
   

• Enter a descriptive title.
• Assign a Priority
• Enter an Account or Contact
• Enter a description. This is where the message history gets pre-filled

Click Create Case.

Now the Ticket appears in the Dynamics 365 Case section in the right-hand panel. You can also add in any private comments for your team. 

You can make any edits to your Case by clicking into the fields on the Case. You can also click View All Cases to see a list of all Cases open with a particular Contact or Lead.

Commenting on Cases 

You can view and add comments to any Dynamics 365 Cases in Sprout. Use comments to coordinate with support colleagues using Dynamics or to document the status of the Case. You can also add private comments for your team.

Editing Dynamics 365 data in Sprout

Social Profiles may be linked to Dynamics 365 Contacts and Leads. If you link a Contact, all related Cases will automatically link to the Social Profile. Once a link is made, each time you open a conversation with that user, their profile view contains all of their Dynamics 365 data.

You can edit their data directly from the profile view by clicking into the field. Make your updates and click Enter. Their data is updated in Sprout and in your Dynamics 365 instance.