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Configure Folder Tracking

Expanding on the functionality discussed in the previous step, this step takes us beyond the standard tracking of emails' subjects and senders, as CD
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17.3
Automatic email tracking is a great feature of common data service for apps allowing to store all customer communications in one place. CDS supports tracking using email subjects and sender and folder level tracking extends these features and adds new capabilities to email processing. As the name suggests, the feature works by tracking all emails in the pre-configured folders. That allows tracking customer interactions wherever you are and from virtually any device by simply moving the emails to the tracked folders, either manually or automatically using the exchange rules. In addition to tracking emails, system can also set regarding the record per tracked folder basis.
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For example, a salesperson that works with five major opportunities could have a folder for each of them, and then simply, by moving the emails to the folders, salesperson would both track emails and associate them with the opportunities with no further efforts. You can enable folder level tracking for Microsoft Exchange folders to map an Exchange inbox folder to accommodate the service for apps record so that all the emails in the Exchange folder get automatically tracked against the mapped record in the apps. Tracked folder can be associated with a record in CDS for apps. That will automatically set regarding the record. The feature works in Outlook for web, as well as mobile devices.
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In fact, it works in any email app that allows to move email to a folder. You can also set server-side Exchange rules that move certain emails to the folders enabling automatic tracking based on sender, recipient, subject, domain name, and many other criteria. The following are the requirements for using track folders in common data service for apps. The feature works only with Microsoft Exchange. Your organisation must use server-side synchronisation as your email synchronisation method. And lastly, the tracking folder feature must be enabled by your system administrator. Once the feature is enabled for the environment, users can configure folder tracking using Personal Options, Email tab, then configure folder tracking rules.
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User can add folders as required, user can optional link to records that will be set as regarding. This is a handy feature for working on customers record, like sales opportunities or support cases, where communications are frequent, for example, for major customer accounts. And that’s it. There are certain restrictions on the folder tracking use. Only folders in the Inbox are supported. Emails move to subfolders of the tracked folders are not tracked. If you manually change Regarding field in the tracked email, your change will be overwritten by the synchronisation process. To change Regarding, simply move email to a different tracked folder or to a folder that has not tracked and then set the Regarding field. Only 25 folders per mailbox are supported.
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To free up additional folders for tracking, you can disconnect some of the existing folders without any impact on the emails that have been already tracked. For example, if you set up a folder for a large opportunity, you’d want to disconnect that folder after the opportunity is closed. And finally, folder tracking is a user feature only and queues are not supported. Let’s take a look how folder tracking may work for your organisation. Contosa is a large account, and we would like to easily track communication related to that account.
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We already pre-created the tracking folder and our Inbox, so now all we need to do is to go to our Dynamic 365 for Sales, go to Personal Options, select Email, and configure folder tracking rules. We need to create a new folder mapping. For that we select Contosa folder and we select Contosa account. So any email in that folder will be tracked and Regarding will be automatically set to Contosa.
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Once the mapping is saved, we can test it. Say we received an email from a third party indicating that Contosa is ready to proceed with the purchase. We simply drag and drop this email into Contosa folder, then we go back to our Dynamic 365 for Sales, go to our Activities view, switch to Emails. And after a short period of time, when we refresh the view, we can see that email has been tracked and Regarding field has been set to Contosa. We would like to automate the process even further.
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We can create a server-side rule for all the incoming emails that based on some criteria, for example, if email subject or body contains the word Contosa, we would like to track this email and we would like to set Regarding to Contosa.
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So we simply create a rule that moves the incoming email into Contosa folder if body or subject contains the word. From that moment, the emails will be tracked automatically. It’s that easy. Folder-level tracking offers 100% tracking accuracy. It’s easy to enable and configure. It works anywhere and from any device. It automatically sets Regarding, and it can use Exchange rules for fully automatic email tracking.

Expanding on the functionality discussed in the previous step, this step takes us beyond the standard tracking of emails’ subjects and senders, as Common Data Service (CDS) environments allow for folder-level tracking to extend the functionality of email integration

Organisations that use Microsoft Exchange, with server-side tracking, can enable and customise the folder-level tracking of email conversations for Dynamics 365.

By associating pre-configured email folders with records on the Dynamics 365 platform, a user can move an email into that associated folder on any device that has access to the email account and supports email folders. This allows not only for tracking the conversations but also will allow Dynamics 365 to automatically set the ‘Regarding’ field for those emails on the Common Data Service (CDS).

This can be further extended and automated through the use of Exchange rules, to automatically move emails that meet certain criteria to specified folders.

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This content is taken from
CloudSwyft Global Systems, Inc. online course,

Dynamics 365: Implementing Power Platform Integrations

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In the next step you’ll have the ‘Setup Exchange’ Hands-on Lab for this week where you’ll be tasked with configuring Microsoft Exchange to meet the requirements for email integration, to practically engage with content discussed thus far

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This content is taken from CloudSwyft Global Systems, Inc. online course
Dynamics 365: Implementing Power Platform Integrations
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