Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales messaging

This guide provides instructions for configuring the app that lets you send single or bulk messages via SMS and WhatsApp to your accounts and contacts in Microsoft Dynamics 365. 

What you will need

• An Infobip account with administrator permission. If you do not have an account, you can create one.
• A sender for SMS or WhatsApp.
• An API key from Infobip for authentication.

How to create an API key

1. Login to Infobip with your account credentials.
2. Click Manage API Keys.
3. Click the New API Key button.
4. Give the new key a descriptive name and then:
   • Specify an expiration date
   • List the IP addresses allowed to use the key
   • Check the Public API check box
5. Click Submit.

The page refreshes and displays your new key at the top of the list of any other keys that are associated with your account. Click the Copy button to copy the key to your clipboard.

Installation

To install the app, go to Microsoft AppSource and find SMS & WhatsApp for Dynamics Sales app.

1. Click on Get it Now
2. Click on checkbox to accept Microsoft permission and click Continue
3. You are redirected to Power Platform admin center
4. Select environment in which you want to install the app
5. Accept terms & conditions and privacy policy and click on Install

Installation take couple of minutes, and after that you can continue with configuration of the app.

Configuration

Your first step is to connect Infobip and Dynamics 365 Sales. This lets Dynamics 365 send messages via the Infobip platform. 

1. Login to your Dynamics 365 account. 
2. Open Infobip Messaging Configuration from Model-driven application.
3. From the top menu click New to create a new record. 
   
4. From the ribbon click Give Consent to allow the Infobip app to access your Dynamics 365 instance.
5. Within the new record in the General tab, enter the name and API key.
   
6. If you intend to send SMS messages, then in the SMS Configuration tab set Enable to Yes. 
7. If you intend to send WhatsApp messages, then in the WhatsApp Configuration tab set Enable to Yes. 
   
8. Click Save. The status of the configuration should change from Draft to Success. 
9. From the ribbon click Set As Live. 

How to Send SMS messages

Follow the steps provided here to send SMS messages to Dynamics 365 accounts, contacts and campaigns. Note that when you set up a message, you have the following two options for how to handle language-specific characters: 

• National Language Identifier (NLI) – This is an encoding technology that allows an SMS containing language-specific characters usually treated as 16bit Unicode to be delivered as the original text, while only deducting 5 characters from the maximum SMS length - 155 characters allowed.
• Transliteration – This is a method of replacing special (unsupported) characters with similar or related characters that are part of the default alphabet.

For more details see the SMS documentation. 

For information about available reporting, scroll toward the end of this document and look for Reporting.

Send a message to contacts

1. Login to your Dynamics 365 account. 
2. Open Infobip Messaging Sales. 
3. From the left navigation select Contacts. 
4. Select one or mutiple contacts from the list. These are the people who receive the SMS messages. 
   
5. From the top ribbon click Send SMS. 
6. From the drop-down, select Campaign and enter the following:
   • Campaign – Either select from the drop-down or create a new campaign.
   • Recipients – This is filled in with the contacts you selected previously. 
   • Language – Select this to handle language-specific characters using NLI. 
   • Transliteration – Select this to handle language-specific characters using transliteration. 
   • Message tags – Select the tabs and select the message tags you want to use. 
   • Message – Enter the message content and any message tags you've chosen to use.
     For example: Good morning! {{address1_primarycontactname}}
     
7. Click Send to send the message. 

Send a message to accounts

The steps here are very similar to sending a message to contacts. 

1. Login to your Dynamics 365 account. 
2. Open Infobip Messaging Sales. 
3. From the left navigation select Accounts. 
4. Select one or multiple accounts from the list. 
5. From the top ribbon click Send SMS. The setup for sending a message to accounts is very similar to contacts. The difference is that message tags are associated to accounts, not contacts.
6. From the drop-down, select Campaign and enter the following:
   • Campaign – Either select from the drop-down or create a new campaign.
   • Recipients – This is filled in with the contacts you selected previously. 
   • Language – Select this to handle language-specific characters using NLI. 
   • Transliteration – Select this to handle language-specific characters using transliteration. 
   • Message tags – Select the tabs and select the message tags you want to use. See example below.
   • Message – Enter the message content and any message tags you've chosen to use.
7. Click Send to send the message. 

Example message including message tags

Hello {{accountid.name}}, here is our location: {{accountid.address1_line1}} {{accountid.address2_line2}} {{accountid.address1_line3}}. We look forward to seeing you!

Here is how this displays to the end user: 

Hi Regina Nowak, here is our location: Marszałkowska str 10/102, 02-220 Warszawa. We look forward to seeing you!

Send a message to campaigns

1. Login to your Dynamics 365 account. 
2. Open Infobip Messaging Sales. 
3. From the left navigation select Campaigns. 
   
4. From the top ribbon select New. 
5. In the form that displays, enter the following:
   • Name – Name of the campaign.
   • Targeted At – From the drop-down select Account, Contact, or Custom Entity. Depending on your selection, you get access to the group. 
   • Campaign Type – From the drop-down select SMS.
     
6. From the top ribbon select Save. 

How to send WhatsApp messages

This section explains how to send WhatsApp messages from Dynamics 365.Setting up messages is very similar to SMS except you can attach files, multimedia assets, or a Google Maps location to a WhatsApp message. 

Send a message from contacts 

1. Login to your Dynamics 365 account. 
2. Open Infobip Messaging Sales. 
3. From the left navigation select Contacts. 
4. Select one or mutiple contacts from the list. These are the people who receive the WhatsApp messages. 
5. From the top ribbon select Send WhatsApp. 
6. From the drop-down, select Campaign and enter the following:
   • Campaign – Either select from the drop-down or create a new campaign
   • Recipients – This displays the contacts you selected previously
   • Template – For more information about templates, see Message Types
   • Body – Enter the content of the message
7. Click Send to send the message. 

Send a message from accounts

1. Login to your Dynamics 365 account. 
2. Open Infobip Messaging Sales. 
3. From the left navigation select Accounts. 
4. Select one or multiple accounts from the list. 
5. From the top ribbon select Send WhatsApp. 
6. From the drop-down, select Campaign and enter the following:
   • Campaign – Either select from the drop-down or create a new campaign
   • Recipients – This displays the contacts you selected previously
   • Template – For more information about templates, see Message Types
   • Body – Enter the content of the message
7. Click Send to send the message. You should see a message indicating it was sent successfully. 

Send a message from campaigns

1. Login to your Dynamics 365 account. 
2. Open Infobip Messaging Sales. 
3. From the left navigation select Campaigns. 
4. From the top ribbon select New. 
5. In the form that displays, enter the following:
   • Name – Name of the campaign
   • Targeted At – From the drop-down select Account, Contact, or Custom Entity. Depending on your selection, you get access to the group
   • Campaign Type – From the drop-down select WhatsApp
6. From the top ribbon select Save. You should see a button called Send WhatsApp Message
7. Click the Send WhatsApp Message button. 

Reporting

Reporting provides additional information about whether your message was successfully delivered. Reports are available within Infobip Messaging Sales apps. There are two types of reports for both SMS and WhatsApp:

• Infobip SMS/WhatsApp – A list of all messages sent with additional information about message status, who were the recipients, and which campaign it was for. 
• Infobip SMS/WhatsApp Activity Logs – These logs provide information about when the message was sent and delivered, or about the error if the delivery failed.

Activity logs can be accessed from every Account/Contact, just click on Account/Contact record and within the Timeline section there is a list of all messages that were sent to the recipient.