SmartSurvey has a new integration with Dynamics 365 to help you improve and streamline your data processes. You can connect to Customer Service and Sales objects.

Making the Connection

To start, choose “Automate” after the Build stage, or from Home or My Surveys pages click on the icon.

 

The next thing you will be presented with is the list of available integrations.

To connect to a Dynamics 365 environment, click the "Configure" button next to the blue Dynamics 365 family icon. If this is the first time your SmartSurvey account is connecting to Dynamics 365, you will be prompted to establish a connection and will see the following box:

This gives you the opportunity to name the connection, which is useful if you need to connect to multiple Dynamics 365 instances; this can be a Sandbox. Add your chosen name and click “Create New Connection”.

You will now be prompted to Link your Dynamics 365 account with SmartSurvey by entering your Dynamics 365 URL. You can connect to a Sales Hub instance too.

The system will now attempt to log in to your Dynamics 365 account. If you are not already logged in using the same browser as SmartSurvey, please log in as you normally would. The connection will be established automatically, but you may need to complete a two-factor authentication check based on your company's security settings.

If you already have one or more Dynamics 365 connections set up, then they will be listed above the "add new Connection" box and you just need to click the "Use" button next to the one you want to use.
 

Basic Configuration

The integration is easy to set up and you can perform the following Actions:

Push Actions	Pull Actions	Trigger on Event
Create Record	Get Record	Lead Created
Update Record	Get Contact By Email	Contact Created
Update Contact by Email		Case Closed
Upsert Contact by Email

Name

• Integration Name: Add a name for the integration.

Integration Type

• Push: Send Data from SmartSurvey to Dynamics 365.
• Pull: Retrieve data from Dynamics 365.
• Trigger Survey on Event: Send an email invitation to this Survey, based on a Dynamics 365 event.

Push Actions

• Create Record: The integration will attempt to add a new record to the target object.
• Update Record: The integration will attempt to change the data in an existing record in the target object.
• Update Contact By Email: The integration will attempt to change the data in an existing record in the targeted Dynamics 365 "Contacts" object, based on a supplied email address.
• Upsert Contact By Email: The integration will attempt to change the data in an existing record in the targeted Dynamics 365 "Contacts" object, based on a supplied email address. If a matching record is not found, a new record will be created.

Pull Actions

• Get Record: Access a record in the targeted object and read its data.
• Get Contact By Email: Access a record in the targeted Dynamics 365 "Contacts" object, based on a supplied email address.

Trigger on Event Actions

• Because Trigger Survey on Event integrations work differently to pushes and pulls, they are documented in a separate guide, Triggering a Survey From an External Application.

If Get Record or Update Record is selected, then an additional “RecordID” field will be loaded. This is required so that the integration knows, each time it atempts to transfer data, which record it is trying to access or change. As there are a couple of methods of going about this, this is dealt with in the guide: Getting a Record ID into a Survey.

Triggers for Push

There are three options for triggering the Push Integration:

• Completed: The Respondent completes the response in the usual way.
• Disqualified: The Respondent completes the response by triggering a Skip Logic rule to disqualify them.
• Updated: The respondent, or the survey editor, completes the response after accessing it via an edit link.

These can be selected or deselected in any combination. “Completed” will be set by default.

Objects

Unless either of the "...by Email" actions has been selected, you will also need to select an object for the integration to target by using the Drop-Down.

Record ID or Email

For "Update..." , "Upsert..." or "Get..." Integrations, you will need to tell the integration where to find the identifiying data for the record you want to target.

For integrations based solely on email, this section will be headed "Contact Email". For ones using IDs, it will be headed "<Object Name> ID"

You can do this by using the "Select Merge Code" drop-down, which will allow you to choose from survey data, variable data, and contact list data. For more details on passing this data into smartsurvey see Getting a RecordID into a Survey

Note for advanced SmartSurvey Users - the Merge Codes used by this function look similar to SmartSurvey Piping Codes, but they are not the same. Use the "Select merge code" and "insert" functions instead of copying a SmartSurvey Piping code from elsewhere.

Field Mapping (Push Actions Only)

The Field Mapping page will appear once you click "Next Step" on the main integration configuration page for a Push Action.

The Field Mapping page displays the fields in the targeted object down the left, with boxes to the right for your mapping settings for each field. For a Dynamics 365 Integration the list appears in the API internal name alphabetical order, so in the Contact object - accountrolecode - with a Display name of Role is first in the list:

If the fields you need are not shown immediately select button "Add Field" below the list. Wait for the rest of the list to appear and then start typing to narrow down the search to find the field you want to map.

To map a field, click in the right hand box to see the mapping options. There are two main options, Variables and Formulas

You can enter the name of the item you want to map whenever you see "Start typing to search..." 

 

 

Variables

The Variables tab allows you to map specific variables directly to the object field.

• Questions: The answers to the questions on the survey
• Respondent Details: Various information about the specific respondent, such as response time, IP Address (if the survey is not anonymous), and selcted language.
• Survey Details: Details about the survey such as it's name or nickname.
• Custom Variables: Any Custom Variables associated with the survey
• Contact Info: Information from the Contact List.

You will need to map any mandatory fields in Dynamics 365 (marked with * ) to create a record

Formulas

The Formulas Tab allows you to choose or create functions to modify variables before they are pushed to the object. The bulk of the list are ready-made functions that cover commonly-used transformations such as extracting first or last name, or getting the domain out of an email address, or combining strings. These actions can be stacked so a field can be mapped to a formula that uses as a variable that the output of a formula.

To map your survey, simply work your way through the listed fields and map them in turn. Your progress is saved at every point that you make a change, so there is no "Save Changes" button. Once you've mapped everything you want, then simply close the field mapping screen by clicking the X icon in the upper-right.

See additional help article:  Field Mapping for CRM Integrations
 

Pull Integrations

Pull integrations retrieve data from Dynamics 365 to be be used as part of the survey, rather than sending data to Dynamics 365 once the response is completed.

The retrieved data can then be used in Piping Tags as part fo the survey content or as default answers.

Finding the Data

So, to make this work, you need to first tell the integration what data it should retrieve. This is done as part of the integration configuration described above, either you choose an object, and then enter an object ID into the survey data, or you use the "Get Contact by Email" and you only have to tell the integration where to find the email address. In both cases, the data to look for can be supplied as part of a survey question, as the pull integration will try and retrieve data every time it tries to display an "Integration" Piping tag.

Example - a survey could ask on the first page for a client's email address. It could then on the second page display details stored in that client's Contact record for confirmation.

Displaying the Data

To display the data as part of your survey, or as a default answer, you need to use a piping tag of the format:

[integration(field_name)]

Where "field_name" is replaced by the internal name of the property in the targeted Dynamics 365 object.

This is not the Label of the property (That being the friendly name, captialised and perhaps with spaces that you see in the Dynamics 365 UI), but its internal name. The internal name will have no spaces, and is what the property is known as to Dynamics 365 code and APIs. 

You can find all the internal names from the Microsoft Learn website. For the Contact object see Contact EntityType

You can also find Contact internal names by setting up a Get Contact action and going to Event Activity /Event Data

So, to pipe:

• "First Name" from the contact object into the survey via the pull integration, we need to add the tag: [integration(firstname)]  
• "Email" from the contact object into the survey via the pull integration, we need to add the tag: [integration(emailaddress1)] , where emailaddress1 is the primary email

You will need to add pull integration tags by typing manually as the piping tag UI that allows you to pick from a list of allowable tags does not have access to this information