• Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Special Offers
Business Intelligence Info
  • Business Intelligence
    • BI News and Info
    • Big Data
    • Mobile and Cloud
    • Self-Service BI
  • CRM
    • CRM News and Info
    • InfusionSoft
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
    • NetSuite
    • OnContact
    • Salesforce
    • Workbooks
  • Data Mining
    • Pentaho
    • Sisense
    • Tableau
    • TIBCO Spotfire
  • Data Warehousing
    • DWH News and Info
    • IBM DB2
    • Microsoft SQL Server
    • Oracle
    • Teradata
  • Predictive Analytics
    • FICO
    • KNIME
    • Mathematica
    • Matlab
    • Minitab
    • RapidMiner
    • Revolution
    • SAP
    • SAS/SPSS
  • Humor

Tag Archives: Email

Google AI ethics co-lead Timnit Gebru says she was fired over an email

December 3, 2020   Big Data
 Google AI ethics co lead Timnit Gebru says she was fired over an email

When it comes to customer expectations, the pandemic has changed everything

Learn how to accelerate customer service, optimize costs, and improve self-service in a digital-first world.

Register here

Timnit Gebru, one of the best-known AI researchers today and co-lead of an AI ethics team at Google, no longer works at the company. Details are still being gathered, but according to Gebru, she was fired Wednesday for sending an email to “non-management employees that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager.” She said Google AI employees who report to her were emailed and told that she accepted her resignation when she did not offer her resignation. VentureBeat reached out to Gebru, a Google spokesperson, and Google AI chief Jeff Dean for comment. This story will be updated if we hear back.

I was fired by @JeffDean for my email to Brain women and Allies. My corp account has been cutoff. So I’ve been immediately fired icon smile Google AI ethics co lead Timnit Gebru says she was fired over an email

— Timnit Gebru (@timnitGebru) December 3, 2020

In a tweet published days before leaving Google, Gebru questioned whether there’s regulation that protects people from divulging whistleblower law protection for members of the AI ethics community.

Gebru left Google the same day that the National Labor Review Board (NLRB) filed complaints against Google that found that the company spied on and illegally fired two employees involved in labor organizing.

today the nlrb said i was illegally fired. it took a year. i hope they acknowledge what is happening to Timnit sooner. #ISupportTimnit #BelieveBlackWomenhttps://t.co/Qkvd4hFrZE

— kathryn spiers (@computerfemme) December 3, 2020

Tawana Petty is a data justice and privacy advocate in Detroit who this week was named national organizing director of Data for Black Lives. This morning she gave a talk about the legacy of surveillance of Black communities with tech like facial recognition and the toxicity of white supremacy on people’s lives. She dedicated her keynote talk at the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics conference to Timnit Gebru.

“She was terminated for what we all aspire to do and be,” Petty said.

Mia Shah-Dand, who organized the conference and previously worked at Google, called Gebru’s dismissal a reflection of toxic culture in tech and a sign that women, particularly Black women, need support.

I thought this was a joke because it seemed ridiculous that anyone would fire @timnitGebru given her expertise, her skills, her influence. This is one of the many times when I think there is just no hope for the tech industry. https://t.co/2Px7nkObke

— Ellen K. Pao (@ekp) December 3, 2020

Timnit Gebru is known for some of the most influential work in algorithmic fairness research and combating algorithmic bias with the potential to automate oppression. Gebru is a cofounder of the Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) conference and Black in AI, a group that hosts community gatherings and mentors young people of African descent. Black in AI holds its annual workshop Monday at NeurIPS, the largest AI research conference in the world.

Before coming to Google, Gebru joined Algorithmic Justice League founder Joy Buolamwini and created the Gender Shades project to assess the performance of facial recognition systems from major vendors like IBM and Microsoft. As part of that work, a peer-reviewed paper concluded that facial recognition tends to work best on white men and worst for women with a dark skin tone. That research and subsequent work by Buolamwini and Deborah Raji in 2019 have been highly influential among lawmakers deciding how to regulate the technology and people’s attitudes about the threat posed by algorithmic bias.

I gave Google the benefit of the doubt re: AI ethics and fairness entirely because of the existence of Timnit’s team and the work they do there, knowing she and others are outspoken advocates and activists.

Now that she’s been fired, I’d argue Google no longer deserves it. https://t.co/sazZvz2iDS

— Cathy O’Neil (@mathbabedotorg) December 3, 2020

While working at Microsoft Research, she was lead author of “Datasheets for Datasets,” a paper that recommends including a set of standard information with datasets in order to provide data scientists with context before they decide to use that data for training an AI model. “Datasheets for Datasets” would later act as motivation for the creation of model cards.

As a Google employee, Gebru joined Mitchell, Raji, and others in writing a paper in 2019 about model cards, a framework for providing benchmark performance information about a model for machine learning practitioners to evaluate before using an AI model. Google Cloud began providing model cards for some of its AI last year, and this summer introduced the Model Card Toolkit for developers to make their own model cards.

This summer, Gebru and her former colleague Emily Denton led a tutorial about fairness and ethics in computer vision at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) which organizers called “required viewing for us all.” Shortly after that she got into a public spat with Facebook director of AI research Yann LeCun about AI bias, which turned out to be a teachable moment for LeCun, who won the Turing Award in 2019 for his work on deep learning.

Member of the AI community and others have at times have referred to Gebru as someone actively trying to save the world. Earlier this year, Gebru led a was included in the book “Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Immigrant Women Who Changed the World,” a book that was released in October.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Read More

Pop-up or Email, Auto-Dismiss or Non-Dismissible – Control the way Alerts are set in Dynamics 365 CRM!

November 29, 2020   Microsoft Dynamics CRM

xPop up or Email Auto Dismiss or Non Dismissible Control the way Alerts are set in Dynamics 365 CRM 625x357.jpg.pagespeed.ic.Z0kQwZltJ2 Pop up or Email, Auto Dismiss or Non Dismissible – Control the way Alerts are set in Dynamics 365 CRM!

Looking for an easy way to control alerts & notifications in Dynamics 365 CRM/Power Apps?

Then don’t look further! Alerts4Dynamics – a Preferred App on Microsoft AppSource – is what you need to manage, create, and send alerts in Dynamics 365 CRM/Power Apps.

That’s not all! Alerts4Dynamics has recently released three new additional features!

So, what are these new features and how will it benefit you?

Let’s have a short & crisp introduction of the new features.

  • Set User Preference
  • Dismissible/Non-dismissible Alerts
  • Auto Dismissible/Non-auto Dismissible Alerts

With this feature, you can give users the choice to select the mode in which they want to receive alerts and notifications in Dynamics 365 CRM. Suppose, you have two users – User 1 and User 2, where User 1 wants to receive alerts through Pop-ups and User 2 through Email notifications. Now, with this latest feature, you can configure alerts and notify these two users through the mode they have chosen for themselves i.e. User 1 will get the notification through Pop-ups and User 2 will get Email notifications.

xPop up or Email Auto Dismiss or Non Dismissible Control the way Alerts are set in Dynamics 365 CRM 1 625x247.png.pagespeed.ic.enGpiOV4fd Pop up or Email, Auto Dismiss or Non Dismissible – Control the way Alerts are set in Dynamics 365 CRM!

This feature will allow you (configurator) to decide whether the alerts can be dismissed or not. Here, while configuring alerts, if you select ‘Yes’ for ‘Is Dismissible’ field then the alerts can be dismissed by the users as per their convenience. And if you need the alerts to be displayed indefinitely or for a given period of time then you can select ‘No’ for ‘Is Dismissible’ field and the users will not be able to dismiss the alerts.

xPop up or Email Auto Dismiss or Non Dismissible Control the way Alerts are set in Dynamics 365 CRM 2.png.pagespeed.ic.siVaErjAfu Pop up or Email, Auto Dismiss or Non Dismissible – Control the way Alerts are set in Dynamics 365 CRM!

With this feature, users will no longer have to dismiss alerts manually as you can automate the dismissal of alerts. This feature is applicable to Rule-Based and Event-Based Alerts. In the case of Rule-Based alerts, when a record does not satisfy the specific rule anymore then the alert will be automatically dismissed. For example, if an Account record which was well under the Credit Limit, surpasses the allowed Credit Limit, then an Alert would be generated, however, as soon as the dues are settled the alerts will no longer be displayed for that particular record. Similarly, in the case of Event-Based alerts, the alert would be dismissed as soon as the condition is not satisfied anymore.

xPop up or Email Auto Dismiss or Non Dismissible Control the way Alerts are set in Dynamics 365 CRM 3 625x215.png.pagespeed.ic.YYbmyyIgV6 Pop up or Email, Auto Dismiss or Non Dismissible – Control the way Alerts are set in Dynamics 365 CRM!

An apt app to have, isn’t it?

Now send alerts to your team at right time, in the right way through a mode of their choice!

Just download and explore this amazing app from our website or Microsoft AppSource and see for yourselves how beneficial it is in managing your day-to-day Dynamics 365 CRM activities.

For a personal demo or more information related to Alerts4Dynamics, contact us at crm@inogic.com

Also, have a look into our other Preferred Solutions which will help you to further improve your Dynamics 365 CRM / Power Apps productivity.

Until then – Stay Safe, Stay Healthy!

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Read More

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Email Engagement

August 28, 2020   Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Email Engagement -Are you aware of these powerful features?

xD365 Email Engagement 625x310.png.pagespeed.ic.9sLr4RJvnK Microsoft Dynamics 365 Email Engagement

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Email Engagement will make your email smarter.

We find that many users of Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM are not aware of some of the most powerful features of the system. This may be because Microsoft has been enhancing the product and adding powerful features and functionality at a break-neck pace. My company; Strava Technology Group is a top Dynamics 365 Partner helping businesses through full Dynamics 365 CRM project lifecycles, its all we do and we have trouble keeping up at times so it is no surprise that end users do as well.

A few powerful email features called Email Engagement have flown under a lot of users’ radar so we wanted to provide an overview and video demo so you can begin using these powerful tools.

Dynamics 365 Email Engagement is part of the Sales Insights add-on. You can purchase Sales Insights for $ 50 per user/month or Dynamics 365 Sales Premium, a combined license of Sales Enterprise and Sales Insights for  $ 135 per user/month.

We are only covering a small portion of Sales Insights, the email engagement features.

What is Dynamics 365 Email Engagement?

Email Engagement is a suite of powerful email features that provide intelligence about emails you send to Leads & Contacts:

  • See when recipients opened your message, clicked a link, opened an attachment, or sent a reply.
  • Receive an alert right away, the first time a recipient opens your message.
  • Schedule the most effective delivery time, and receive advice for the best time based on the recipient’s time zone.
  • Choose the most effective message template, with recommendations based on your organization’s previous email interaction history.
  • Set an alert to remind you when it’s time to follow up on an email message.
  • Review the full interaction history of a single message, or review KPIs.

See a video demo of Email Engagement

About the Author: David Buggy is a veteran of the CRM industry with 18 years of experience helping businesses transform by leveraging Customer Relationship Management technology. He has over 16 years of experience with Microsoft Dynamics CRM/365 and has helped hundreds of businesses plan, implement and support CRM initiatives. To reach David or call 844.8.STRAVA (844.878.7282) To learn more about Strava Technology Group visit www.stravatechgroup.com

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Read More

5 Features for Savvy Email Marketing with Dynamics 365 Marketing CRM

August 25, 2020   CRM News and Info

Applying the appropriate strategies to email marketing can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Implementing comprehensive CRM solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing with apps that support marketing operations can help.

When evaluating email marketing efforts, it can often lead to this deceptively short-and-sweet question:

“Is it working?”

Without the right tools at your disposal, it is probably not an easy question to answer. But it is important as it reveals how well you leverage email marketing to create the personalized buyer experiences that transform cold leads to engaged customers.

Let’s look at five ways Dynamics 365 Marketing CRM allow you to be more strategic in your email marketing efforts:

  1. Manage Campaigns from the Customer Journey
  2. Automate Emails with Reusable and Dynamic Content
  3. Perform A/B Testing
  4. Score Your Leads
  5. Solicit Feedback

1. Manage Campaigns from the Customer Journey

Customer Journeys in Dynamics 365 Marketing allow you to:

  • Share information and processes across sales and marketing teams
  • Automate email marketing and run multichannel campaigns
  • Access key insights that promote smart decisions

With sales and marketing data in sync, all the information that is critical to personalizing the buyer experience can be found in one place. You can plot all marketing interactions along the journey from a visual top-level view that resembles a game board.

Customer Journeys also provide access to key email interaction data including opens, reaction time, clicks, bounces and more that can be used to fine-tune your email marketing strategy.

2. Automate Emails with Reusable and Dynamic Content

In Dynamics 365 Marketing you can optimize the email creation process with design and edit tools that support:

  • Standard or customized email templates
  • Reusable blocks of content
  • Dynamic content that personalizes messages

Templates and blocks of reusable content help optimize the email publishing process. Your options are flexible – from using standard templates provided by Microsoft, or creating something more custom. Using easy drag-and-drop tools, blocks of standard, pre-approved content can be placed anywhere in the email draft in seconds.

With templates and reusable content ready to go, you can spend less time writing and focus instead on tailoring the buyer experience to something much more personal.

Dynamic content can transform a generic email into a personalized one. Dynamic content can be automated into the process before a message is sent to a recipient, merging information from a recipient’s contact record.

A typical use of dynamic content is merging a first and last name to personalize an email salutation. But there are more powerful uses for dynamic content. For example, if you are emailing an existing customer, you could use purchase history data to update a dynamic content field with a blurb promoting a product upsell.

With some code work, custom logic can dictate the use of dynamic content anywhere in an email message.

 

3. Perform A/B testing

A/B testing capabilities offered with Dynamics 365 Marketing allow you to trial two different variations of the same email, which can reveal messaging that is proven to resonate better with recipients.

4. Score your leads

By assigning lead scores based on behaviors and conditions, you can tailor campaigns and foster growth of leads that are more likely to become engaged customers.

5. Solicit feedback

Insightful feedback from your prospects can be especially useful when planning your future email marketing efforts.

SEE THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Ready to Go Next-Level?

Want to see how the tools offered with Dynamics Marketing 365 can take your email marketing efforts to the next level? Contact JourneyTEAM to get your organization set up with Dynamics 365 Marketing at (833) 438-2312.


Nevin Anderson – CRM Solution Engineer

| 801-436-6636

JourneyTEAM is an award-winning consulting firm with proven technology and measurable results. They take Microsoft products; Dynamics 365, SharePoint intranet, Office 365, Azure, CRM, GP, NAV, SL, AX, and modify them to work for you. The team has expert level, Microsoft Gold certified consultants that dive deep into the dynamics of your organization and solve complex issues. They have solutions for sales, marketing, productivity, collaboration, analytics, accounting, security and more. www.journeyteam.com

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Read More

Email Messages Sent From Dynamics 365 Through Server-Side Synchronization Will Now Save to Exchange “Sent Items” Folder

August 5, 2020   Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Introduction

 

As part of Microsoft’s continued efforts to improve Dynamics 365 and Server-Side Synchronization, the behavior of how outgoing email messages sent through Server-Side Synchronization via Dynamics 365 interact with Exchange folder structures has been modified. This change will affect the sizes of Exchange mailboxes tied to Dynamics and can lead to mailboxes being unable to send email if Exchange limitations are reached.


Background on how emails sent through Server-Side Synchronization via EWS works in a nutshell

When Server-Side Synchronization is configured using default settings, pressing “Send” on a fully composed new Email Message will cause the following to occur:

  • The Email Message entity record is saved to the ActivityPointerBase SQL table (among others) in the “Pending Send” status
  • The User or Queue tied to the “From” field on the Dynamics 365 Email Message record has an associated Dynamics 365 Mailbox entity record. The outgoing polling period will elapse for this Mailbox, triggering a call to check for messages in a “Pending Send” status under the User or Queue context.
  • Messages in a “Pending Send” status are evaluated to ensure able to be provided to Exchange.
  • Messages are then provided to Exchange through EWS calls as part of the Dynamics 365 Server-Side Synchronization integration.
  • Exchange responds that it accepts the EWS request and will send the Email Message provided.
  • Dynamics 365 updates the Email Message record to a “Sent” status.
  • Exchange will save this email to the “Drafts” folder
  • Exchange will provide the email to the outbound connector, which sends the message.
  • Once sent, the email message is deleted from the Drafts folder.

This flow is markedly different than what a user would expect to see if they send an Email through Outlook, namely that messages sent through Server-Side Synchronization are not saved in the “Sent Items” folder. This ensures that mailboxes don’t increase in size and that Email Messages aren’t saved in two places (both Dynamics 365 SQL tables and Exchange folders).


Changes made to how Exchange handles Emails sent via Server-Side Synchronization

As a result of customer feedback, Email Messages sent through Dynamics 365 via Server-Side Synchronization now save a copy to the “Sent Items” folder in Exchange. This change allows Exchange administrators and legal discovery requests to easily identify messages that would otherwise require Dynamics 365 access to detect.


Effect of these changes on Exchange and Dynamics 365

Since messages sent through Server-Side Synchronization historically did not save a copy to “Sent Items” in Exchange, the Exchange mailbox never increased in size. As such, Dynamics and Exchange administrators might not be aware of this change, which will cause these mailboxes to increase in size over time unabated.

Due to this, the size of the mailbox or the number of items in the “Sent Items” folder (as examples) can reach a point where Exchange runs into limitations on the save of new items. These Exchange configuration values which prevent the save of new items are referred to as quota limitations.

In the event a quota limitation occurs when Dynamics 365 attempts to send a message through Server-Side Synchronization to Exchange, Exchange responds that it is unable to save the message and therefore cannot deliver it. This is provided to Dynamics in the form of an HTTP status code 403 response (forbidden), and the exception “Cannot submit message” due to “ErrorQuotaExceeded”. Dynamics will not change the status of the Email Message to “Sent” due to this exception.


How Exchange Quota Limitations can affect Users and Queues in Dynamics 365

In the event a quota limitation is encountered, the associated Dynamics 365 mailbox will cease to be able to send any outbound mail through Server-Side Synchronization. This can only be resolved by correcting the issue causing the limitation on the Exchange mailbox to occur. Quota limitations can be in many forms, such as the number of items allowed in a folder, overall size of the folder, overall size of the mailbox, etc.

For a Dynamics 365 User, this causes Dynamics 365 Email Message entity records to not be able to send if the User record is in the “From” field. Other users not running into quota limitations will be able to continue to successfully send email messages as normal. User mailboxes are typically monitored through Exchange clients (such as Outlook) by the users who own them, where the clients will normally point out mailbox size limits that are being approached. As such, user mailboxes are not typically affected by this change.

For a Dynamics 365 Queue, this causes Dynamics 365 Email Message entity records to not be able to send if the Queue record is in the “From” field. This can cause a much larger issue as Queues are typically used to send a much higher volume of emails, such as orders, customer service interactions, and marketing campaigns. When a queue that is successfully sending email messages suddenly runs into a quota limitation, it ceases to operate until the limitation is resolved.


How to prevent Exchange Quota Limitations from affecting Server-Side Synchronization

Dynamics 365 organizations that utilize queues for sending large quantities of email messages should verify through Exchange what policies are in use for the associated mailboxes. Exchange administrators can perform the following to ensure that quota limitations are not encountered:

  • Change the values of the quota limitations mailbox-level to ensure they cannot be encountered
  • Enable auto-archival on the “Sent Items” folder in a way that would prevent quota limitations from being encountered
  • Manual observation of the folder structures and movement of associated items to prevent quota limitations from being encountered

On the Dynamics side, organizations that wish to change this behavior for Email Messages sent through Server-Side Synchronization must open a support ticket with Microsoft. This behavior can be modified by our support team at an organization-level to never save copies of the item to the “Sent Items” folder.

Due to customer feedback, Microsoft is working on the creation and testing of an OrgDBOrg setting that is toggle-able to change this behavior without needing to open a support ticket with Microsoft. More information on OrgDBOrg settings and how to configure them can be found here:

OrgDBOrg Settings and Documentation on How They Work

OrgDBOrg Solution Tool by Sean McNellis that easily allows modifications to these settings

I will update this blog when this OrgDBOrg setting is available.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement in the Field

Read More

1-Click app to export and email Excel Templates from Dynamics 365 CRM, something you have been looking for!

June 20, 2020   CRM News and Info

Dynamics 365 data is stored in form of records. These can be exported offline in form of Reports, Word or Excel templates. In order to export the reports, word and excel templates there is a complex procedure in Dynamics 365. To ensure an ease in exporting these templates we have introduced a productivity app Click2Export.

Click2Export is a 1-Click app to export Report, Word and Excel templates. This makes it easy for a CRM user to keep an offline record of the files after they have been exported. There is different procedure for exporting all these templates. In this blog, let’s explore how the exporting of Excel templates is done.

Excel template is exported for an entire view. For instance, say a user wants to export templates for an individual record, then they can use report or word templates. However, if they want to export an excel template, it has to be done for an entire view.

For any of these exported excel templates there are two actions applicable to these files. They are attach to an email and download for offline consumption. For the exported files these actions can be applied, however if the user exports Report or Word Templates other actions such as attach to a note or upload to SharePoint is also applicable.

Users can also schedule reports for excel templates. This means that at a regular interval the excel template will be exported and attached to a mail and auto-sent. This saves a lot of time of exporting the reports and sending them at different intervals. This eliminates the overhead that the team has to go through.

Therefore, it is quite easy to export these files in the click of a button. In case you want to export excel templates too, Click2Export is the right fit for you. For a free demo of the app mail at crm@inogic.com.

In order to explore the solution download it for a free trial of 15 days from our website or Microsoft AppSource.

Happy Exporting!

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Read More

Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

June 15, 2020   Microsoft Dynamics CRM
160x160xaaronback new 1.jpg.pagespeed.ic.k1t83hlYrd Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

Enhanced Email or Not

With the Wave 1 2020 release, Microsoft rolled out an option called “Enhanced Email”. This feature updates the current email experience in Dynamics 365. However, it only updates the experience from the timeline. So, you will need to decide if the enhanced email experience is right for you or not. I will cover this below to allow you to decide the direction to take.

How Do I Access the Settings?

The enhanced email experience is set up within the “Sales Hub” app in Dynamics 365. Before updating the settings, you need to ensure you have the appropriate access. Afterwards, navigate to the “App Settings” option in the toggle menu.

 Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

The settings menu will load for the “Sales Hub”.

How Do I Enable Enhanced Email?

Now that the settings menu has loaded, choose the “Overview” option or the “Productivity Tools” option. Both options have a listing named “Enhanced email for timeline”.

xApp Settings overview section 625x338.png.pagespeed.ic.YxSBR11gAg Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

Next, click on the “Manage” link/button. This will load the “Enhanced Email” settings.

xEnhanced Email settings disabled 625x158.png.pagespeed.ic.ANfm7QMkR7 Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

Now, toggle the switch option from “No” to “Yes” and click “Save”.

xEnhanced Email settings enabled 625x153.png.pagespeed.ic.xY1U06eSad Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

How Do I Use the Enhanced Email?

After you have enabled the enhanced email functionality, navigate to an entity such as “Accounts”. Next, open any account record and click the “+” button at the top of the timeline and choose “Email”.

xChoosing email from a records timeline 625x184.png.pagespeed.ic.EPT5lSe JV Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

You will now see a new compose pop-up window appear. This new pop-up will overlay the Dynamics 365 application. Now, you can navigate around the system to different areas, if needed. The purpose is to provide an opportunity to look up information needed for the email being composed.

xCompose email overlaying the record 625x316.png.pagespeed.ic.2geatiqE L Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

xCompose email overlaying Dynamics 365 625x323.png.pagespeed.ic.28QwiOBud0 Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

You can minimize the compose window which will drop it down to the bottom left corner.

xCompose email minimized.png.pagespeed.ic.KuLHn29kY9 Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

The compose window allows you to craft an email with a full, rich text experience. Additionally, you can insert images, add attachments, utilize a template, and insert your signature.

xCompose email features 625x441.png.pagespeed.ic.DmCfJJk8y4 Dynamics 365 Enhanced Email

In Conclusion…

The “Enhanced Email” feature adds a new layer of functionality. However, it’s up to you if this is something to enable or not. Since the experience is different than before, you will need to keep your end users in mind.

I would recommend you try this out in a Sandbox environment, or spin up a trial of Dynamics 365 and try it there.

Until next time…


Aaron Back is a Microsoft MVP with many years’ experience with Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM), Power Apps, Power Automate (Flow), and Power BI. He is actively involved with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 UG (D365UG) (User Group) Community. His involvement includes: Serving as Chapter Leader for his local D365UG Chapter, serving on the D365UG Board of Advisors, and speaking at the annual D365UG Summit conference.


ACE Microtechnology, Inc. is a professional services firm committed to delivering Dynamics 365 (CRM) business solutions to small and medium sized organizations. Our focus is on delivering products and services that improve our clients’ business operations. ACE has developed specialties in serving the lite manufacturing, distribution and the hospitality industry.

Rather than just building technology or implementing software, we deliver real business value through industry knowledge and understanding each client’s business. We make it our business to know your business.

For more information or assistance with Dynamics 365 (CRM) contact ACE!

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Read More

Great Content Drives Great Email Engagement

May 22, 2020   CRM News and Info

You’re relatively new to email marketing. You know the basics, and you’ve already fired off a few internal tests through your shiny new marketing automation platform. Now all you need is to develop and deploy a brilliant email strategy that produces immediate and sustained results. 

But how? 

Email Content Great Content Drives Great Email Engagement

The first step in any successful email marketing strategy is to create compelling content that reaches the inbox, generates opens, and drives engagement through clicks and conversions. At first, this can feel like a complicated mystery — but by following these simple steps, you can increase your knowledge in short order, modify and optimize your efforts, and leverage email marketing as the centerpiece of a brilliant customer experience.

It Starts With Strategy — Plan Ahead

First of all, you should gather all relevant stakeholders to determine what you’re hoping to accomplish. Every aspect of your email marketing strategy (from your subject line to your signature) should work in unison toward your defined goals and objectives at every stage of the customer journey as you guide them through a well-manicured funnel.

Next, you need to plot how every email you craft will fit into that strategy. Every subscriber should represent a specific buyer persona who is at a different stage in their purchasing journey. So, you need to make sure that every email you send is tailored for and targeted to a relevant grouping of subscribers. More importantly, each of these emails should be focused on persuading your subscribers to engage with your communications and convert to a qualified lead.

Watch Your Tone!

Craft your email so that it stands out. Be friendly, and try to avoid jargon or overused language. Studies show personalization can significantly increase click-through rates, so make your email as relevant as possible. With Act-On, you can leverage our easy-to-use personalization features to make the most of the demographic and behavioral insights you collect and import.

And of course, never ignore the subject line — or take it lightly. The subject line is one of the most vital aspects of any email, as it’s your first and best hope of enticing the recipient to engage with your content. Therefore, it should always be clear and concise; you have about 3 seconds to capture your readers’ attention, so make the most of it by conveying the who, what, where, when, why, and how of what’s inside. You can also add humor with a clever turn of phrase or intrigue with a compelling statistic. And since research suggests that the optimal character length for successful email subject lines is 41, keep it short.

Oftentimes, the best evidence is already in our inbox. If you’re not sure what works best, think about which emails you’re most likely to open and which you’re most likely to ignore (or, worse yet, send to the Spam folder), and go from there.

Match the Subject With the Body

Immediate and long-term engagement is built on trust and clarity, so the body of your emails must reflect the subject lines. If your subject line says one thing, but the body discusses something entirely different, you risk damaging your relationship with your subscribers who might then unsubscribe from your communications or place your emails in the Spam folder. Build trust with your subscribers early to encourage further engagement, which will strengthen your email reputation — in turn creating further email inboxing and engagement.

Clearly Express the Value of Your Offerings and Content

You have a valuable product or service that you’re proud of and want to share with your prospects and customers, but how do you convince them of the value of your offerings (especially when compared to your competitors)? For starters, you have to grab their attention quickly — and then captivate them throughout the body of your email.

To do so, tell your audience exactly who you are, why they’re receiving your email, and what you have to say within the first paragraph. If you want to embed images, make sure they don’t confuse the issue or cause any problems with readability. And when it comes to color, iconography, and other design elements, maintain brand consistency so that your emails are instantly recognizable. 

Empower Your Audience to Take Action

Most importantly, you need to maintain control of that engagement. Be concise and stay focused on the message with direct language free of any filler or fluff. Provide valuable information that is easy to absorb and make sure your call-to-action (CTA) is strong, commanding, and easy to identify — even to (and especially for) someone who quickly scans your email. If contacts are interested, they should know where to click almost immediately. 

Anticipate Spam Filters

Every organization configures its Spam filters uniquely and can block an email due to even the smallest details. You know that your email is valuable and that you’re sending to contacts who are seriously interested in what you have to say and offer. So, follow these tips to ensure that your emails hit the inbox on time, every time.

  • All of your internal links work and lead to sites secured with SSL
  • The image-to-text ratio is balanced and every image contains alt-text
  • The email renders correctly on both desktop and mobile
  • The email has no emojis in the subject line and body content
  • The subject line does not include “red flag” words for Spam filters — such as “purchase,” “free,” or “great offer”

Finally, edit and proof every email and send internal tests for quality assurance and accuracy. Send each communication to a colleague for a second opinion and carefully consider any suggestions they might have. 

A/B Test Your Email Content for Continued Improvement

Once the testing process is complete, you’re finally ready to send a great email — but that’s not the end of your journey. Continue to A/B test various elements of your emails and campaigns, gather and collect the data, and optimize your future efforts based on behavioral and engagement insights. And as you continue to sharpen your skills through trial and error and success and failures, you’ll continue to improve email reputation, deliverability, and return on investment.

Contact Act-On for All of Your Email Deliverability Needs

If you need help along the way, Act-On is here to turn you into an inboxing pro. Our Email Deliverability Team brings years of experience, a wealth of knowledge, and several innovative strategies to the ever-changing world of email marketing. If you’d like to learn more, please follow this link or click here to schedule a free demo.

Or, if you’d like to learn more, please download our eBook, “Email Deliverability: Content Is King”. It’s full of great information to help you go even further in your email content journey to achieve awesome email engagement rates and email-attributable revenue.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Act-On Blog

Read More

Email Marketing Data Permission and Acquisition

April 28, 2020   CRM News and Info

Not long ago, marketers delivered email campaigns to millions of recipients — regardless of whether or not those recipients expected to receive communications from that sender. 

As we shift into an era of ever-tightening privacy regulations and stricter recipient ISP expectations, however, marketers who engage in these outdated batch-and-blast strategies are experiencing far lower open/click rates — thus getting far less value from their email marketing efforts.

Email Consent Email Marketing Data Permission and Acquisition

But fear not! Compared to the alternative of saturating inboxes with spam and potentially causing end users to abandon email altogether, moving to more calculated and targeted email marketing strategies is actually a good thing! All it requires is a simple shift in perspective.

Most notably, marketers need to empathize with their subscribers and follow best practices for email deliverability. Doing so builds trust in your brand and your email communication efforts. And when you strengthen trust, you start generating serious long-term revenue from dedicated repeat consumers.

So how can marketers thrive in an era of increasingly restrictive email marketing rules? It all begins with your data strategy! 

Obtaining data permission to send to your contacts will increase email engagement, leading to more business opportunities. Conversely, marketers who don’t obtain these permissions will suffer from low engagement metrics and miss out on sales opportunities. 

What is considered permission to send? How do we get permission? How do we keep it? 

Read on!

What Is Email Marketing Data Permission and Why Does it Matter?

Email marketing data permission means that a contact expressly opts-in to your mailing list, granting you permission to send your email to them. 

You should only market to those contacts who have expressly consented and opted-in to your list. By sending only to those subscribers who have expressly consented, you will drive more business opportunities through higher email engagement rates, achieve a more sustainable sending reputation, and obtain a better understanding of your customers and target audience.

However, a subscriber clicking a checkbox doesn’t automatically translate into positive engagement if you’re not setting the proper expectations — especially if your communication permissions request is buried in the fine print. During the opt-in process, make it clear what your end users are signing up for. You’re looking for clear consent here to avoid unsubscribes and the spam folder. 

The Risks of Sending Marketing Emails Without Permission

Marketers might be tempted to purchase or rent leads from third-party providers. At Act-On, purchased data is against our terms of service. Permission-based sending is essentially the opposite of buying leads from a third party, sharing data between affiliated business partners, forcing opt-ins, or anything that does not involve the recipient expressly consenting to your marketing communications.

Sending to contacts who aren’t expecting your mail can be expensive, time-consuming, unfruitful, and most importantly, risky. Senders risk poor engagement rates, high spam complaint rates, and a damaged sending reputation — meaning your emails could soft bounce or your domain blacklisted. Most importantly, sending to contacts who have not opted-in to receiving your mail risks violating GDPR and CCPA laws.

Regardless of whether you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, sending without an inbox owner’s express consent ultimately results in brand damage, poor engagement metrics, and poor ROI on your marketing efforts. It’s just not worth the risk.

Go Organic to Obtain Permission

Now that you know what email marketing data permission is, how should you go about obtaining it? Here are the two most accepted methods of obtaining permission to send.

1. Double Opt-In

The double opt-in method is the best way to grow your marketing list with a highly engaged audience. This method collects contact information from valid contacts who have clear expectations on what they will receive and drives better email deliverability. While your overall list of contacts may be smaller, your engagement rates will soar because you’ll only be sending to contacts who want to receive your communications. 

Here’s what the double opt-in process looks like:

  • Form Submission: The contact completes an Act-On form supplying various demographic and/or firmographic information. (Bonus points if you include a captcha before they submit the form!)
  • Verify & Confirm: Send the new contact an email confirming their address. Once they click the confirmation link, the contact has completed the double opt-in process, expressly consented to receiving your mail and cementing their position as an active subscriber!

2. Single Opt-In

This process requires a bit less work than the double opt-in process. The contact submits their personal information and email address via an Act-On form. Once that’s completed, they are an official subscriber. This method generates a larger (albeit less engaged) email marketing list.

The single opt-in method is not without fault, however. Users commonly submit erroneous personal information. And sending to incorrect email addresses can result in increased spam complaints and bounces, damaging your sending reputation. If your marketing efforts revolve around long sales cycles or ongoing subscriber engagement (as is often the case for B2B marketers), the double opt-in method is a better fit.

When using the single opt-in method, keep a close eye on your bounce rates and spam trap hits. If you’re having trouble with either of these, switch to the double opt-in method.

Maintaining Email Marketing Permission

Obtaining email marketing permission is just the first step in the email marketing process. You also need to maintain it. 

Just as easily as permission can be granted, it can be taken away. It’s imperative that you respect the privilege that your subscribers have given you in order to maintain their permission to receive your email communications. 

Here are some things you can do to maintain your subscribers’ permission:

  • Let Subscribers Manage Permissions: Include opt-out links in every email you send, and maintain a permissions page that includes options on how and when your customers hear from you. This will help you gain trust and protect brand reputation.
  • Send Engaging Content: Don’t send your subscribers emails asking them to purchase your products or services! Send them engaging content that makes you stand out as thought leaders in your field.
  • Prove That Subscribing Is Beneficial: Make unique offers, provide content that would otherwise be gated off, and remind them that subscribing to your mail is valuable to them.
  • Respect the Privilege to Send: Don’t over-communicate with subscribers. Always ensure you send at times that make sense to them. Email fatigue is a very real phenomenon. Nothing revokes permission more quickly than sending with too much frequency, too much volume, or poor timing.
  • Passive Revocation of Consent & Sunsetting: Sometimes subscribers give consent to receive marketing communications but later stop engaging with your mail. If a subscriber stops engaging with your marketing efforts for longer than 6 months, consider them unengaged. Before sunsetting them from your active mailing list, consider a re-engagement campaign so that no one accidentally slips through the cracks.

Any subscribers who do not engage with your re-engagement campaign can be sunsetted from your marketing list. Doing so ultimately protects your brand, sending reputation, and deliverability performance. 

Learn How Act-On’s Expert Deliverability Consultants Can Help You Achieve Success!

In the world of email marketing, permission has become more important than ever. As marketers are driven by highly targeted sending, adhering to email deliverability best practices to achieve strong engagement rates can be frustrating. 

Act-On’s team of expert Email Deliverability Consultants are here to help you at every step of the way. Our team provides ongoing monitoring of your sending performance, personalized engagement reports, and strategic recommendations to help you realize success and drive the most value from your marketing campaigns.

To learn more about our approach to email reputation and deliverability, please click here to schedule a no-risk demo. Or, if you’re not quite ready to speak with an expert, download this free eBook to get better acquainted with the benefits and drawbacks of email marketing.  

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Act-On Blog

Read More

Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

March 26, 2020   Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Have you been wondering how you can build a dynamic list of email addresses that can be used to generate a new email? Below, we will take a look at how to build this list using Power Automate. We will also look at how to send this list using the Outlook connector and will then compare this with sending an email directly from Dynamics using the Common Data Service(Current Environment) connector.

Let’s get started.

First, choose whichever trigger is necessary for generating the email recipient list. For this walk-through, I am simply using a recurrence trigger so that I can trigger it manually.

 

pastedimage1584997010699v1 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

 

 

Once you have your trigger specified, you want to choose the Initialize Variable action for your recipients list, which will be built as an array

 

pastedimage1584997010708v2 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

 

 

You can get your list of recipients from any data source available, but in this case, I am building a list of the top 5 Contacts that have an email address for demonstration purposes. This is using the Common Data Service (Current Environment) connector. To keep this simple, I am returning the top 5 Contacts where the Email Address field is NOT NULL. 

 

 

pastedimage1584997010715v3 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

 

 

You will need to iterate through each Contact record by choosing the Apply to Each action. Within the Apply to Each action, add the Append to array variable action to add the email address value to the array. In this case, I pull in the emailaddress1 using dynamics values from the returned Contact records. 

 

pastedimage1584997010730v4 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

 

 

Outside of the Apply to each loop, you need to join all of the array values with a semicolon. Select the Join variable action. Specify the outputs of the array values and enter a semicolon to join the values. 

 

pastedimage1584997010743v5 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

 

 

You can run the current configuration to test your results. When you look at the results of Join, you will see the following

 

pastedimage1584997038401v6 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

 You will see the inputs of the array and the outputs into a string of email addresses.

To send this using the Outlook connector, select Send an email (v2) action. Specify the Output of the Join function in the recipients line

 

pastedimage1584997038411v7 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

 

 

After you send, you will see the recipients listed and sent successfully. 

pastedimage1584997038425v8 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

 

 

pastedimage1584997038431v9 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

 

 

 

Now, if you want to achieve the same thing, but send directly from Dynamics, you will run into some complications. Dynamically building a list of recipients and adding to an email like we did in the Outlook connector, is not yet possible. Let’s take a look.

Below, I have selected Create a new record using the Common Data Service (Current Environment) connector. For the entity name, select Email Messages.

As you can see below, you must individually specify each recipient value. Meaning, you would need to know the entity type and number of recipients. It requires the format as /entitylogicalname(recordid) in the Activity Party Attribute field.  Unfortunately, you cannot specify multiple values in a string like we do with Outlook. There is a product enhancement suggestion to vote on here. Ability to dynamically build recipient list for Create Email Message in CDS (current environment) action

 

pastedimage1584997038436v10 Use Power Automate to build an email recipient list and sending in Outlook vs Dynamics connector

Stay tuned for the next post on creating and sending an Email from Dynamics using Power Automate. 

Aaron Richards

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement in the Field

Read More
« Older posts
  • Recent Posts

    • Rickey Smiley To Host 22nd Annual Super Bowl Gospel Celebration On BET
    • Kili Technology unveils data annotation platform to improve AI, raises $7 million
    • P3 Jobs: Time to Come Home?
    • NOW, THIS IS WHAT I CALL AVANTE-GARDE!
    • Why the open banking movement is gaining momentum (VB Live)
  • Categories

  • Archives

    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
© 2021 Business Intelligence Info
Power BI Training | G Com Solutions Limited