Unparalleled collaboration and conversation tracking in Dynamics 365 Sales with Microsoft Teams
Each solution within Microsoft’s wide array of business solutions provides a deep set of capabilities on its own. Where this ecosystem really shines, though, is through interconnectivity improving efficiency for workers and allowing them to better collaborate with coworkers.
Take, for instance, Microsoft Teams. It is an incredible tool for keeping a business connected—regardless of being in the same office space or not. On its own, Teams give great tools like messaging, calling, file sharing, and much more. Dynamics 365 Sales, on the other hand, provides a plethora of tools for sales teams to better engage leads and customers. By combining these two products, we can expand the capabilities of both. Teams can be integrated with Dynamics 365 Sales to allow for conversations to start directly from records, initiate calls to customers, or link records into Teams channels.
Teams Dialer
If your organization has Teams licenses with a phone system set up, you will be able to configure the Teams dialer in D365 Sales. An administrator will need to go into the App settings and select Teams calls under General settings. Turning this on will prompt some setup options, like allowing incoming calls to be answered in D365 and also set internal organization calls to come in only through the Teams client (not in D365).
Microsoft Teams calls setup in Dynamics 365 Sales. Image courtesy of Microsoft.
Then the security roles can be set for allowing Teams calling. If there are only specific teams or workers that should have access to the Teams dialer, you can enable the dialer only for specific security roles. Moving further through the set up, we have the option to enable call recording and transcripts. The transcripts in particular are a great feature because they let team members review what was discussed on a call they may not have been part of without needing to listen to the full recording.
Once the dialer is enabled, users with access will be able to elect the phone option at the top right of the sales app. This is a quick way to dial a number without needing to open the Teams app. Also, when viewing a contact or lead record with a phone number, we will have that same phone icon displayed next to the phone number fields. Clicking this will start up a call. We can adjust microphone and speaker settings using the three dots (. . .) icon at the top left of the call window. We can also make calls through a work lit item in the Sales Accelerator in essentially the same way.
The Teams Dialer in a contact record. Image courtesy of Microsoft.
If it is enabled in the initial setup, incoming calls can also be received directly in Sales. A notification will display on the screen with the name of the customer (if the calling phone number is associated with a contact). If multiple records have the same phone number, the notification can display up to three different contacts and will indicate if there are further records not displayed.
When on a call, there will be a record option on the call popup. If Teams conversation intelligence is set up and enabled in your system, Sales and Teams will use AI to analyze the conversation in real-time, identify each unique voice for transcription attribution, identify key points from the call, and finally suggest action items for after the call. Outside of that, the call popup has a Notes tab that we can use to take our own note on the call and will be kept alongside the call record. Next to the Note tab is the transcript.
This panel appears at the side of your screen when making or receiving a call from a record. Image courtesy of Microsoft.
Teams Chats in Sales
In addition to calls, we can use Teams messaging right within the Sales app. Similar to calling, an administrator will need to enable the feature before it can be used. With this feature, chat conversations can be connected to a record for quick collaboration with colleagues without needing to divert attention from the Sales app.
When viewing a record, there will be a Teams messaging icon displayed at the top right of the screen near the profile icon. It looks like two overlapping speech bubbles. This opens the Teams chats pane on the right side. In this pane, we can see chats connected to the current record. Below that is a list of the other chats that are active in Teams. In this menu, we can connect any existing chats to the record and they will be moved up to the “connected chats” section.
You can Teams Chat straight from a record and associate chats with records, as well. Image courtesy of Microsoft.
Opening the chat pane when on a dashboard or other page that is not a specific record, a list of connected chats will be displayed with a link to the related record.
Clicking New Connect Chat will create a new chat conversation linked to the current record. Some suggested participants to include in the conversation will be shown, as well. After creating the chat, it will be visible to the selected participants when they open the record in Sales.
Many organizations have multiple locations or utilize a hybrid work environment. The high interconnectivity between Microsoft products and the ease of collaboration it brings is an asset to keep sales teams connected, regardless of where they are individually located.
Be sure to check out some of our other blogs about Dynamic 365 Customer Engagement and let us know if you’re interested in getting a more hands-on demo of Microsoft Dynamics 365!