Transactional emails are non-marketing, service-based messages triggered by a user action or system event—such as order confirmations, password resets, or appointment reminders.
Learn more about transactional emails in Using transactional email.
With Microsoft Dynamics 365, you can trigger transactional email sends using workflows. This integration allows you to:
design your transactional emails directly in Dotdigital EasyEditor,
personalise your emails using Dynamics CRM data,
send your emails in real-time using Dotdigital.
Before you start
Things you need to know:
You must use Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution version 9.2.0.0 or higher.
You must have transactional email enabled in your Dotdigital account.
You must have the Email Marketing Manager security role in Dynamics to use transactional sends.
You must create, design, and personalise your transactional email templates in Dotdigital.
You must create a workflow in Microsoft Dynamics. Since workflows are a Microsoft Dynamics functionality, it’s recommended that you review Microsoft documentation on this functionality and reach out to your CRM administrator or your CRM consultancy partner to help you plan, build, and test workflows that meet your needs.
Transactional email sends do count toward your email send allowance. We send transactional emails using the Dotdigital API; this uses our dedicated transactional IP addresses. These API calls do not count towards your Dotdigital API limits or usage.
You must not include any marketing content in transactional emails.
Limited support for your workflows
Due to the customizable nature of Dynamics, Dotdigital cannot support workflow setup or troubleshooting.
Learn more
Add a transactional send to your workflow
Once you create your workflow in Dynamics, you can add a transactional send to your workflow:
Go to Settings > Advanced Settings.
Expand the Settings drop-down menu, then select Processes under the heading Process Center.
UI labels may vary depending on your Dynamics version. If you don’t see this option, contact your CRM administrator.
Select your workflow process.
Expand the Add Step drop-down menu and select Create Record.
From the Create drop-down menu, select Transactional Send.
Select Set Properties. The next section of the article will guide you through this process.
Set properties for a transactional send
Once you add a transactional send to your workflow, you can set the properties for the send.
Summary:
Dotdigital Email Campaign - choose the campaign to send.
Dotdigital Email Account - select the account where the campaign is stored.
Send Status - set to Scheduled.
Details - optionally add a description or note.
Configure email send while your workflow is running
Set your Send Status to Scheduled.
Go to the Form Assistant in the side panel.
In the Look for drop-down menu, select Process in the first drop-down menu, and Execution Time in the second drop-down menu.
Select Add then OK.
Send Target
Enter at least one of the following variables:Contact Name
Lead Name
Account Name
Target Email Address
You must set at least one Send Target, for example, a target email address or a contact name. Which target and variable you use will be dependent on the setup of your workflow. The send returns the error message Invalid email address if the target contact doesn’t have a valid email address. Learn more about result messages in Check the result message status.
Content Customisation
Define how you want to use the data stored in Microsoft Dynamics in your transactional sends:Data Label - expand the drop-down menu to select the data placeholders you used in your email campaign. For example, FULLNAME, MEMBER_NUMBER, and CLAIM_NUMBER.
You can use up to 20 data labels in a transactional email.
Learn more about data labels in Email data labels in MS Dynamics.
When you have completed all the fields, select Save and Close at the top of the window.
The transactional send step is added to your workflow. When the workflow is triggered, Dotdigital sends the selected email using the mapped data and send target. You can monitor the send status and results in the Transactional Sends area of Dynamics.