Conversations for Dynamics 365

Conversations for Dynamics 365 provide additional excellence to Customer Service, empower agents with an expanded knowledge base, and deliver flawless customer interactions. This product seamlessly integrates our Cloud Contact Center Solution features with one of the world's premium CRMs.

Infobip integrates its agent interface into Dynamics 365, facilitating a comprehensive integration of communication channels with core CRM components to boost sales or offer unrivaled customer experiences.

Functional description

Channel matrix

The table below shows which communication channels support Conversations for CRM in Dynamics 365, depending on whether the conversations are:

• Outbound (initiated over the channels from within the CRM)
• Inbound (started by the customer)

Channel	Outbound	Inbound
SMS	✓	✓
Viber	✓	✓
LINE	✓	✓
WhatsApp	✓	✓
RCS	N/A	✓
Live Chat	N/A	✓
Live Chat RTC (Voice + Video)	N/A	N/A
Messenger	N/A	✓
Facebook Posts	N/A	N/A
Google Business Messages	N/A	✓
Telegram	N/A	✓
Instagram DM	N/A	✓
Instagram Posts	N/A	N/A
KakaoTalk	N/A	✓
Email	N/A	N/A
Video	N/A	N/A
Voice	N/A	N/A

Channel capability matrix

The table below shows which information can be transmitted over the available communication channels:

Channel	Text	Image	Video	Audio	Document	Location	Template
SMS	✓
WhatsApp	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Live Chat	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Messenger	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Viber	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Telegram	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
LINE	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Google Business Messages	✓
Apple Messages for Business	✓	✓		✓	✓	✓
Instagram DM	✓	✓
KakaoTalk	✓

Standard dashboards

As part of the managed package, we have created a standard dashboard to display agent activity information:

1. Go to the My Dashboard section on the left side of the navigation menu.
2. Choose the Agents Activity view to see activity statistics.

Supervisor guide

In the following section, you can find the mandatory steps for the Conversations for Dynamics 365 implementation.

Install Conversations for Dynamics 365

The installation is done within a specified environment in Power Apps. To start the package installation, select your base content pack (Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement) for your tenant. You will be able to request add-ons after the tenant gets created.

From the main Powers Apps (opens in a new tab) homepage, open the new environment on the tenant, select Solutions and click the Import solution button.

After that, import the Infobip Embeddable Conversation file and click Next.

To proceed, click the Import button.

The whole process may take a few minutes (depending on the size of the package). Once it is complete, the following information appears:

After this, visit Solution in the menu on the left, and from there, select Edit and click the Publish all customizations button.

When the process is completed, the following information appears:

Channel integration configuration

To configure the channel integration, do the following:

1. In the main form of the configuration, link to use Channel URL and Trusted Domain fields: Embedded Conversations (opens in a new tab).

   

2. In the Select Unified Interface Apps for the Channel section, add the imported application (Embeddable Conversations app).

   

3. In the Select the Roles for the Channel section, add roles used within the Embeddable Conversations app (Embedded Conversation Admin and Embedded Conversation Agent).

   

4. Save the form and go back to the Embeddable Conversations.

Configure users

Before you start using Embeddable Conversations, make sure that your users are assigned to the application.

Go to the Power Platform admin center, select Environments, and go to Users in the Access section.

Choose Add user and enter the name or e-mail address of the new user.

Link Conversations for Dynamics 365 to the Infobip account

Once you have installed Conversations for Dynamics through the Embeddable Conversations app, you need to link your Dynamics 365 tenant to the Infobip account.

1. Open Embeddable Conversations from the Model-driven application menu.

   

2. Once inside the Embeddable Conversations, navigate to the Settings menu in the bottom left navigation menu for the app where you will see two objects available for configuration:

   • Embeddable Conversation Configuration
   • Conversation Outcomes
   

3. Select Embeddable Conversations Configuration and click New.

Create a name for this configuration (you should only need one), and add your API key (this can be found inside the Infobip portal).

To obtain your API key:

1. Log into the Infobip web interface (opens in a new tab).

2. Select API keys from the developer menu.

3. Click Save.

   
   NOTE

   If the linking to your Infobip account is successful, the system will populate the base URL.

4. Click the Middleware Credentials and complete the subsequent form.

To collect the credentials required for the form:

• Visit the Azure portal (opens in a new tab) and sign in to your Tenant account.

• Go to App registrations, fill in the Name field and choose your Supported account type then confirm the form by selecting the Register button. If you cannot find App registrations from the menu, click All services and then search for it.
• Go to Certificates & secrets, then the Client secrets tab and choose the New client secret option.

• In the Add a client secret form, fill in the Description and Expires fields and then select the Add button. The portal will automatically generate a Value and Secret ID.

Automatically associate inbound conversations

When you use Conversations for Dynamics 365 combined with Answers (or an external bot), you can identify the customer through their ID or inputs using this Conversation automation segment by combining API requests and verification of the customer.

Update the customer identity in Answers or your external chatbot

You need to utilize the CRM's API using the chatbot's API capabilities to update the customer identity automatically. For Answers, this is the Call API element.

Once you have identified the customer using their input, phone number, or both, you can use the Conversations Metadata API to update the customer objectId and objectType.

{

    ``"objectId"``:``"contactId"``,

    ``"objectType"``:``"Contact"

}

Conversation assignment

You can use most of the underlying functionality within Conversations, including workflows, surveys, and routing rules when utilizing Conversations for Dynamics 365. For more information, see the Conversations Supervisor guide.

Agents can only view their assigned conversations through the embedded interface. They are not able to search across conversations in the account and select which ones to work on.

Considering this, supervisors are strongly advised to configure automatic assignment for all queues using Conversations for CRM to make sure that customers are routed to available agents as quickly as possible.

Agent permission sets

To ensure you have the right experience, for the right users within Dynamics 365, you will need to assign the correct permission sets.

1. Go to the Settings icon on the top right corner and click the Advanced Settings button.

   

2. Select Settings from the toolbar and choose the Security icon in the System menu.

   

3. Click the Users icon.

   

4. Find the user from the search bar, and select the requested user.

5. Click Manage Roles from the toolbar.

6. Select a specific Role Name for the user from the list.

In order to use Conversations for Dynamics, you will need to link your Named User License from your Infobip account to a dedicated user inside Dynamics 365.

This link allows users to be logged into the system, but also to initiate, receive and manage Conversations through the agent UI.

1. Go to the Embeddable Conversation Configuration option on the left navigation menu and choose the configuration you have created.
2. Click the New Conversation Agent Association button in the Conversation Agent Associations section.
3. Fill in the form with Agent ID, Infobip Account and User.

There are two options to obtain your Agent IDs:

Option 1

• Log into the Infobip account.
• Select the Settings option in the navigation menu.
• Go to the General setup option and from the Agents list choose your User.
• Copy your Agent ID within the URL and paste it to CRM in the Agent ID field.

Option 2

• Make a request to the Infobip Get Agents API (opens in a new tab) via Postman or a similar tool, and retrieve the full list of agents within your Infobip account.
• Click the Save & Close button on the top toolbar.
• Unfold the panel on the right-hand side to log in to your account.

When the agent logs in, the status will be set to Offline. When the agent closes all the tabs in the browser, the status will be set to Away automatically; this is to prevent the agent from being delivered more inbound interactions if they forget to log out from the system.

Each user will be automatically logged out after 60 minutes of inactivity within the environment.

Optional steps

The following section explains the optional steps for the Conversations for Dynamics 365 implementation.

Use standard dashboards inside Dynamics 365

As part of the install package, we have created a standard dashboard to display agent activity information:

1. Go to the My Dashboard section on the left side of the navigation menu.
2. Choose Agents Activity view to see activity statistics.

Create new Conversation outcomes

To maintain accurate reporting, the agents are able to create Conversation Notes Inside the Conversation Object. Inside the Conversation Note object, the user can create an outcome; this is considered a summary of the conversation which can be used for historic reporting.

To determine which Conversation Outcomes agents, see:

1. Go to Settings within Dynamics 365.
2. Select Conversation Outcomes from the left navigation menu.
3. Click New.
4. Create your new outcome and click Save.

Agent guide

In this section, learn more about the different features and functionalities of Conversations for CRM through the agent experience using Dynamics 365.

Log into the system

Logging into the system is the first step to start with the Conversations for CRM experience.

You can log into the system using your standard Infobip username and password.

Visit the Supervisor guide (opens in a new tab) to find out how to make this available for specific users. Once configured, the appropriate interface will be displayed on the Dynamics 365 right hand navigation.

Set status

Across all CRMs, agents can set their status to reflect their availability for handling conversations. Only when your status is set to Available and you have enough capacity, you receive automatically distributed Conversations.

If a Conversation is assigned external to automatic assignment (i.e., transfer or supervisor change) it is presented to the agents irrespective of their status. This one-directional update allows the Infobip routing algorithm to be updated directly from within the embedded agent interface.

If the status is set from the Infobip application (portal.infobip.com (opens in a new tab)), it is not updated in the agent interface automatically, however, it will impact the routing of interactions.

Set conversation status

Across all CRMs, agents can manage the status of a conversation.

Conversations in an Open or Waiting status remain in the agent's window. Solved or Closed Conversations are removed from the agent UI to allow the agent to concentrate on more relevant activity.

Message types

Inbound messages

You will see an icon indicating that a conversation has one or more unread messages whenever you receive a new inbound message.

Outbound messages

Every outbound conversation will have a header stating that it is outbound.

Depending on the channel, you are also able to send attachments or locations to customers.

Attachments

Location

Receive an inbound conversation

An inbound conversation that has been assigned to an agent appears in their list of Conversations. Newly assigned conversations are shown in pink, while the unread messages will display an unread message icon to prompt the agent to respond to the new messages.

The conversation topics will display the following:

• Direction (i.e., if the customer initiated the conversation, this would be considered inbound)
• Customer identifier
• Original conversation channel

When an inbound conversation is received, the customer identifier can be their:

• Name
• Phone number
• ID (the customer ID presentation depends on whether the customer was identified before they were assigned to an agent)

If you are using standalone Conversations for Dynamics, the customer identity for inbound conversations will always be unknown - the customer will be presented as the customer destination, i.e., the address used to send/receive messages.

For SMS, WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, and LINE, this will be their phone number, and for other channels, this will be a unique customer ID for a specific channel.

Start an outbound conversation

Click-to-connect, a core feature of Conversations for Dynamics 365, allows agents to initiate an outbound conversation.

To initiate the call, locate an Account or Contact record and click on the phone icon next to any registered phone field.

This will display the New Conversation dialog inside the agent interface.

Select the sender/channel you would like to contact from the list that is dynamically populated from your linked Infobip account.

Once you select the sender, write your first message and create the conversation.

Transfer a conversation

Transfers are required if the customer needs assistance outside the skill set of the currently assigned agent.

To transfer a conversation, do the following:

1. Click the Transfer button in the upper right corner.
2. Choose the agent you want to transfer the conversation to in the dialog box.

The queue is a mandatory field when transferring a conversation. The queue can remain the same if you are transferring the conversation to an agent with a different skillset, however, a new agent must be selected.

If you are transferring the conversation to a different queue, the selection of a specific agent is optional. You can select from a list of agents assigned to that queue, or you can transfer the conversation to the selected queue where the auto-assignment algorithm selects the next agent.

Log a conversation

All conversations are automatically logged inside Dynamics 365. The following information is automatically logged on the Conversation record:

• Currently assigned agent
• Related record
• Channel
• Topic
• Start time (delivered to agent)
• End time (closed by agent)
• Duration
• Link to the Conversation transcript

In Conversations for Dynamics 365, agents can log the following additional information to the Conversation record:

• Reviewing previous conversations
• Providing context when transferring to another team

The Conversation outcome field enables the agent to record a high-level summary of the conversation to use in reporting.

The agent can automatically link a conversation to another record in the CRM by updating the relationship when logging a conversation. For more information on how to update this, see Link Conversations to CRM objects.

Activity logging

The activity is logged inside Dynamics 365 as a Conversation record which cannot be natively customized.

It contains automatic logs of events (start, transfer, or end of the conversation) and natively offers the ability to create a note record.

The Conversation Outcome picklist can be defined by a system administrator.

Link Conversations to CRM objects

The Conversation record logged inside Dynamics 365 will not be related to another account or contact record in the CRM when the identity of the customer is unknown.

The agent needs to update the Regarding field in the Conversations record. For more information see the Log a conversation section.

Once the agent updates the Regarding field, the Conversation topic will be updated as well. The Take me there screen-pop button will take you directly to this newly related record. For more information see the Screen-pop section.

The Conversation topic dynamically uses the record name when constructing the topic, i.e., the name of the contact or account when the customer is known. The Take me there screen-pop button will send the agent to this record, and the Conversation will be automatically logged against this record.

For more information see the Log a conversation and Screen-pop sections. To learn how to automatically identify customers in Dynamics 365, see Automatically associate inbound conversations.

Add attachments to a Conversation

Adding attachments to the messages is available through all communication channels, except SMS.

To add an attachment to a message, select the Upload an attachment icon and choose the file format which you want to send.

Screen-pop

Screen-pop inside Dynamics 365 allows agents to quickly and easily navigate around the CRM. With this, the agents have access to the relevant information when handling multiple conversations at the same time.

Agents can choose between two screen-pop options to help them navigate the CRM:

• Open conversation - navigate to a conversation's log inside the CRM to, e.g., write notes or relate the conversation to another object
• Take me there - navigate to the conversation's related record to, e.g., check specific details to resolve a customer inquiry

For more information, see the Log a conversation and Link Conversations to CRM objects.

Note: When using Screen-pop, the agent will be navigated away from the current record.

Omnichannel conversations

You may have various communication channels based on your account settings.

To change the channel you are currently using, select the wanted one from the drop-down menu in the From field.

If you receive an inbound conversation from an inbound-only channel, you will only be able to communicate over that channel. However, if the customer provides an eligible phone number, you can add it to the conversation using the Add customer phone number option, which will then allow you to select a different communication channel.

For example, if a customer engages over Live Chat and requests that you provide them with certain information over a more permanent channel, or they want to leave their PC and continue the conversation via their mobile phone, you can switch to the wanted channel.

Widget placement

Conversations for Dynamics 365 is an app that sits in the right-hand panel of Dynamics 365, which can either be expanded or minimized to offer you access to more real estate.