Transactional emails are service or non-marketing emails that are triggered by a transaction.
Learn more about transactional emails in Using transactional email.
In Microsoft Dynamics 365, you can trigger transactional sends using workflows. Using this feature allows you to craft your transactional emails directly in EasyEditor, personalise your emails using data you hold in Microsoft Dynamics, and send your transactional emails in real-time.
Before you start
Things you need to know:
You must not include any marketing content in transactional emails.
You must use Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution version 9.2.0.0 or higher.
You must have transactional email enabled in your Dotdigital account.
Transactional email sends do count towards 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 have the Email Marketing Manager security role to use transactional sends in Microsoft Dynamics.
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.
Limited support for your workflows
As every Microsoft Dynamics instance is highly customisable, for example, entity names, usage, and data stored in CRM, instances vary dramatically between companies. Therefore the Dotdigital support team cannot help you set up or troubleshoot workflows.
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 Centre.
If you don’t see Processes, you must contact your CRM administrator to access this.
Select a process name.
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.
When you have completed the steps under Set properties for a transactional send, which opens in a new window, select Save and Close at the top of the page.
Set properties for a transactional send
Once you add a transactional send to your workflow, you can set the properties for the send.
Under Summary:
Select the Dotdigital Email Campaign you want to use.
Select the Dotdigital Email Account where your email campaign
is stored.
Set the Send Status to Scheduled
Add Details such as a note or description to your transactional send.
If you want to send a transactional email 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.
Under Send Target, enter the relevant variables for one or more of:
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.
In the Content Customisation area, you can 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, andCLAIM_NUMBER.You can use up to 20 data labels in a transactional email.
Data Label Value
Define where the data is stored in Dynamics by using the Form Assistant panel. For example,MEMBER_NUMBERis stored in the Contact entity.
When you have completed all the fields you need, select Save and Close at the top of the window.