Learn how to fill out the different sections of our Microsoft Dynamics Connectivity form.
Overview
Engagement Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics is a powerful integration that lets you synchronise data between your Engagement Cloud accounts and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Before we can start to provision your accounts, you must complete the Microsoft Dynamics Connectivity form to give our engineers the essential information they need to technically carry out the provisioning.
When installing the Engagement Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics connector, we create several new entities, and some existing entities are also extended.
To learn what changes are made to Microsoft Dynamics as part of this integration, check out the article What changes are made to Microsoft Dynamics?.
Before you start
Things you need to know:
- If you secure your Microsoft Dynamics CRM with a firewall, you must allow some IP addresses.
To learn which IP address to allow, check out the section Dynamics CRM connector in our IP addresses article.
- If you want to learn more about the data synchronisation process between Dynamics and Engagement Cloud, check out the article Understanding data syncs between Microsoft Dynamics and Engagement Cloud.
Non-production (Sandbox)
We do provide an Engagement Cloud Sandbox account with any new Dynamics Connector, so we’ll firstly ask you information regarding your non-production environment. Once you’ve run your tests on this environment and are ready to use a connector to your production, the CRM connectivity form for the production system needs to be completed and submitted.
The Sandbox connector can remain as long as required and could be used for on-going testing and development if required.
If you’d prefer to skip this step and directly integrate your production environment, please let your project manager know.
1: Customer Details
In this section of the form, you see your company's name and your Digital Marketing Specialist.
You cannot edit this section of the form. If any of these details are incorrect, contact our support team.
2: Connected Engagement Cloud Account(s)
Here you see the Account Name, Account Email Address, and Account Id (s) of the Engagement Cloud Account you want to connect to your CRM. During the provisioning process, they are created within Microsoft Dynamics.
You cannot edit this section of the form. If any of these details are incorrect, contact our support team.
3: Contacts
Here you can see and add email addresses listed as business or technical contacts. Only users named here can access the connectivity form.
- Business Contacts
The people in your organisation that need to be informed on the progress of the integration. - Technical Contacts
The people in your organisation or your CRM consult that need to provide the technical information needed to submit this connectivity form. We will arrange the technical Onboarding call with these contacts.
To add additional contacts, select Add business contact or Add technical contact. Enter all names, email addresses, and phone numbers into the boxes provided.
4: Installation Requirements
Here you choose who is responsible for installing the managed solution and a suggested date for when it should be installed by. The installation and setup is done in two parts:
- Installation of the managed solution
- Provisioning of the connected account(s)
Provisioning happens typically within 48 to 72 business hours after submitting the form. We do our best to meet your suggested date, but these dates are subject to change.
During installation and provisioning, users can continue to access Dynamics and Engagement Cloud.
Installation Approach
There are two installation approaches listed:
Customer/Consultant conducts installation (standard method)
You or your CRM consultant should install the managed solution. When this option is selected, you see a link to download the chosen downloadable package.
After installing the managed solution and checking the connectivity, you should submit the form. After you submit the form, our engineers will provision the system within 48 to 72 business hours.
The Connector Service Account on the form is used to confirm remote connectivity and then get the current CRM metadata. We give this account the Email Campaign Connector Service (System Use only) role during the provisioning. This role lets the account access and update all of the entities used by the integration.
Provisioning of the system by dotdigital includes the following steps:
- Engagement Cloud accounts are connected.
- Standard Synchronisation and Data Mappings (email address, first, last and full name) are applied.
- Synchronisation tests are conducted.
- The technical onboarding call is provided.
During provisioning, which usually takes 40 mins, the service account might require temporary administrator/customiser access.
dotdigital conducts installations and provisions the system
This option requires dotdigital temporary administrator/customiser access to a CRM. This Connector Service Account is used to read the current CRM metadata and existing customisations and to confirm remote connectivity.
Installation and provisioning include the following steps:
- The managed solution is imported. Changes to CRM include new entity metadata, 4 security roles, new forms, configuration data and changes to the site map to allow access to the new Email Campaign information, which is added to the Marketing section.
- Engagement Cloud account(s) are connected.
- Standard Synchronisation and Data Mappings (email address, first,last and full name) are applied.
- Synchronisation tests are conducted.
- Technical onboarding call is provided.
Suggested Installation Date
Here you suggest a day when you want the installation to be performed. Provisioning normally happens within 48 to 72 business hours once this form is successfully submitted.
We do our best to meet your suggested date, but these dates are tentative and subject to change.
5: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Settings
Select the appropriate access method, CRM version and URLs to allow connectivity to your CRM.
Web Service Access Type
This section is used to identify how your Dynamics CRM can be accessed by the integration. You’ll see the below options available to you in the drop down:
- Microsoft CRM online
- Microsoft CRM Online (Office 365)
- Internet Facing Deployment (IFD) - If you host your own Dynamics CRM, you can use this method to connect it to the Engagement Cloud for Dynamics connector. Please refer to this article to learn more on Internet-facing deployment (best practice)
- Partner Hosted - Your organisation may not have a public-facing IFD environment and may already use a reverse proxy solution to publish internal web sites to the Internet. Please refer to this guide on how to use a reverse proxy
- Direct Access (external IP) - This approach involves your Dynamics CRM Server being directly accessible from the Internet and will use standard Windows authentication to access the CRM system. This option is not usually recommended without secure firewalls being in place and SSL connectivity. Please refer to this article on to direct web service connection via an internet connection to a public IP address (port forwarding)
Authentication type
Expand the Authentication type drop-down menu and select the authentication type you want the connector to use when connecting to your CRM.
There are three authentication types: Office 365, AD, OAuth.
If you select OAuth, you must also enter an App ID and a Redirect URL.
Dynamics CRM Version
Choose your Dynamics version from the drop-down. To identify your organisation's Dynamics version, login in your CRM then:
- Click the “Tools/Settings” icon (upper right)
- Click “About”
- The About window displays the version
Dynamics CRM versions currently supported are:
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 365
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
CRM Web Application URL
The CRM Web Application URL is the web address that is used to access your Dynamics CRM. For example, your Web Application URL might look like:
https://yourorganisationname.crm4.dynamics.com.
CRM Discovery Service
Enter your Dynamics CRM Discovery Service URL. To identify your organisations Discovery Service URL, login to your CRM then:
- Click the 'Settings' menu item
- Select Customisations
- Select Developer Resources
6: CRM Connector Service Account
The integration requires a service account in Dynamics for the API interaction. Some customers use a full user license so we can assist in diagnosing issues and carry out investigations should the need occur. All CRM records created and updated by the Engagement Cloud service will be associated to this CRM user account.
In the fields provided, enter the CRM Connector Username, CRM Connector Password. The domain is only only applicable for certain connectivity types, it is visible only when it is required.
Passwords
All passwords for this user should be non-expiring, as this is an on-going service account.
Once the CRM settings and Service Account sections have values, select the Save button. This can be used at any time to establish values, no actions will be triggered when the save button is used.
After the data entered has been saved click the Fetch Organisations button to verify connectivity to the organisation.
If connectivity is successfully established the form will display the available CRM Organisations and the CRM Organisation Service URL.
Select the Click here to verify service account connectivity button. If successful a success message is displayed. If it is not successful, an information box will show where data is missing or possibly incorrect.
After the success message is displayed the form can be submitted by selecting the Submit button located at the bottom of the page.
Any Notes or special instructions should be included in the Notes / Other Consideration interface. This can include a request for call prior to any work being carried out.