Integrate Dynamics 365 CRM Solutions With Microsoft Teams (Wave 2, 2022)

Have you ever wanted to start a Teams chat with a colleague to discuss a specific Account, Project, or Opportunity without having to leave your Dynamics 365 solution? The new D365-Teams integration now makes this possible!

It’s that time of the year again when Microsoft releases information about exciting new features coming to its Dynamics 365 CRM solutions platform. The feature that we will be exploring here lets you access existing Teams chats or start a brand new one without exiting Dynamics 365. Moreover, you will be able to link a chat to a particular record, making it easier for your colleagues to access relevant information.

Note that this feature is currently (as of September 2022) in preview mode and will become generally available in October 2022. If your organization is interested in exploring this feature, or others available in this release, the team can choose to opt-in early. If a team is interested in doing this, it is encouraged to do so in a non-production instance, validate, and then prepare for the production release. For information on enabling the early opt-in, please see this Microsoft resource.

Note: There are now 5 different Dynamics 365 apps that serve various CRM needs. In some contexts, you may also see those products referred to as “Customer Engagement” or “CE” apps.

How Do You Enable This Feature?

You will need to have a System Administrator role to be able to enable this feature. From Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, or any other model-driven D365 CE application, navigate to the App Settings area. Under General Settings, select Chat and collaborate. Turn on the Turn on Microsoft Teams chats inside Dynamics 365 (preview) toggle.

Your team will now be able to use this feature in the environment where it was enabled. Look for the new Chat icon in the upper right corner of your D365 app:

Any chats that you access or start from Dynamics 365 will be synced to your Teams application.

Access an Existing Teams Chat From Dynamics 365

You can access your existing Teams chats directly from your D365 CE application. Simply click on the Chat icon and a list of your existing chats will be displayed.

Click on any chat and a new chat tab will open. You can open multiple chats at a time, and each one will be a new chat tab.

Start a New Teams Chat From Dynamics 365

Select the Chat icon and then select the Compose chat icon in the upper-right corner of the Teams chats (preview) pane. This option starts an individual or group chat but doesn’t link it to the record.

You will then be able to type the name of the person or the group that you’d like to contact.

Start a Linked Chat

You can start a new linked chat or convert an existing Teams chat into a linked chat to associate the chat with a Dynamics 365 record.

Open any Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement record and select the chat icon. The Teams chats (preview) pane opens. To start a new linked chat with a participant, select New linked chat in the Chats linked to record section.

Use one of the following methods to add participants:

• In the Participants field, browse and select the names of the participants you want to chat with.
• A list of suggested contacts is automatically displayed for the Participants field. Select a participant’s name from the Suggested contacts list. The Suggested contacts list displays the contacts of the users who are working on the record.

The chat name uses the record name. You can modify the chat name. It’s a good idea to provide a meaningful name so that you can identify the chat even when you’re in Teams.

The “Send introductory message” option is checked by default. Participants of the chat will see a summary of important information regarding the record you linked.
They’ll also receive a link to quickly access the record. Additionally, you can choose to send a personalized message.
Select Start chat to finalize the chat creation.
All the participants in the linked chat will see the chat when they open the record in Dynamics 365. The chat will also be displayed in their Teams application.

You can start a linked chat from a number of popular D365 CE record types. If you have custom entities, this functionality can be enabled for those as well.

If you have any questions about Dynamics 365 features, or how to leverage the full power of your Microsoft business application stack, please get in touch!