Setting Activity Category on Email tracked from Outlook to CRM

1
votes

I'm using Dynamics CRM 2015 (7.0.2.53) and Outlook 2016 (16.0.7766.7080) with the CRM for Outlook (7.1.1.3113) addin.

What I am trying to achieve is to give users the ability to specify an Activity Category against an email which they Track and Set Regarding from Outlook.

Currently, upon tracking and setting regarding on an email in Outlook, an Email Activity is created against the specified Entity record (let's say an Opportunity) in CRM, which is fine. The problem is that I cannot find any way to allow the user to specify an Activity Category for that created Activity either during the Track/Set Regarding process, or even after the Activity is created in CRM.

Is what I'm trying to achieve possible and if not, is there any other way to achieve a similar result, so that users can specify some value from a set of options against an email when they track it from Outlook to CRM, so that value can then be used for reporting purposes?

1
outlookdynamics-crmoutlook-addindynamics-crm-2015outlook-2016
What is your criteria for setting Activity Category? Is it something based upon email contents or something based upon human interaction purely? – Khadim Ali

1 Answers

1
votes

Basically there is no way of adding some custom functionality to Tracking Emails from Outlook. So you cannot add anything in Outlook plugin that will allow you to perform some operation on CRM side to set the Category right.

You can always make a plugin/workflow on Email creation in CRM and based on some email properties (topic, content, recipients etc.) set this category by youself - but of course users still will be unable to change it.

When email is created in CRM, it's disabled (because it usually already has been sent), but you can still modify it using workflows and dialogs. So you can always create a Dialog (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg509010.aspx) and there you can prompt for proper category and set it on the email. So I can see a scenario like that - you have a view of Emails that are not categorized (or a Queue, where you put them in a plugin when user is tracking email from outlook). You pick Email, click "Start Dialog" which will be called "Set Category" or whatever, and set the category. Of course after this operation Email will vanish from the view. You can always create a reminder for the users to set the category for their mails, this should be included in new users training etc. Without any hardcore custom coding I think that's the only thing you can do (because if you don't mind writing more complex stuff you can always prepare some custom HTML5 control on Email form that will allow you to set the category field).