Microsoft recently announced new features coming out with their next version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 (previously code named Vega). Check out the Dynamics CRM 2015 Release Preview Guide to see what features are coming with 2015. Over the course of the next few weeks we’ll slowly reveal this functionality one by one and show some of the key highlights of these features.
Next up for our review is reviewing the changes with Social Insights from Microsoft Social Listening. Previously only CRM Online orgs had access to embed components of Microsoft Social Listening within Dynamics CRM, but now with Dynamics CRM 2015, CRM On Prem customs will also be able to enjoy the benefits of the social data without having to leave Dynamics CRM.
Using a simple wizard based approach, Social Insights can be added to the following:
- System Dashboards
- User Dashboards
- Entity Forms
In order to have both your Dynamics CRM On Premise organization and your Social Insights environment talking to one another, you need to:
- In CRM, navigate to Settings -> Administration -> Microsoft Social Listening Configuration
- Copy the Domain URL
- In Social Listening, navigate to Settings -> Allowed Domains
- Add the Domain URL copied above to the Allowed Domains
- Copy the Social Listening URL
- Paste the Social Listening URL back into CRM
As stated above, Social Insights can bee added to System or User Dashboards by selecting the Insert Social Insights components when on a dashboard section.
When you click this icon, you’ll be presented with a 3 step wizard. You can select the specific data you want to display from Microsoft Social Listening including what search terms you want to display, what summary information you want to display (e.g., sentiment, volume, etc.), and more.
Note: You can have one or multiple visualizations on one of the sections of the dashboard so you can see multiple pieces of social information in each section.
Now when you navigate to your Social Dashboard, you’ll see the social data from Microsoft Social Listening displayed to you in a summary dashboard directly from within Dynamics CRM.
Similarly to adding Social Insights to a dashboard, you can add it to a CRM entity form. From here you’ll be able to see the same social component information that you saw within a dashboard.
Note: You’ll need to have a Microsoft Social Listening account and be logged into MSL or you’ll get an error when trying to view the Social Insights within Dynamics CRM.
A few additional pieces of information to be aware of:
- Does not require IFD to be enabled for CRM On Prem
- Will work with Outlook
- Multiple CRM instances can point to the same MSL instance
- This is not available on MoCA (as Social Insights is surfaced in CRM through an iFrame, and there is no support for iFrames in MoCA)
- Users in CRM need a MSL license (these credentials are used to authenticate to MSL)
