The New Seller Portal in Dynamics CRM and Dynamics Marketing
See and manage which messages are reaching your contacts in the new Seller Portal
The Seller Portal in Dynamics Marketing gives you an overview of which marketing messages are reaching which specific contacts. This is important information for salespeople, making sure that they are well informed about which communications their customers have been receiving when they meet with them.
The portal also enables salespeople to remove specific contacts from campaigns and/or emails that they think will not interest those contacts. The display is similar to the marketing calendar in Dynamics Marketing and includes much of the same functionality, plus extra features designed for salespeople (see also Keep track of company-wide projects with the marketing calendar).
The seller portal is designed to be accessible by Microsoft Dynamics CRM users, with handy links and integrated functionality available inside CRM. If you are a CRM user or administrator, then see Dynamics Marketing for Dynamics CRM users for an overview of how to set up the integration and find those features of Dynamics Marketing that are most likely to be useful and available to you.
To open the "Contacts Seller Portal"
Use the "Contacts Seller Portal" to view and manage marking communications targeted at each contact. You can access it from Dynamics CRM as well as Dynamics Marketing
To open it, do one of the following:
If you are working in Dynamics CRM
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- Go to Sales -> Contacts in CRM and filter to find the contacts you wish to inspect
- Mark the contact(s) you wish to inspect
- Click the More button ( ... ) at the top of the screen to open a menu and then click View Marketing Portal
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If you are working in Dynamics Marketing
- Go to Marketing Execution -> Marketing Database -> Marketing Contacts to view a list of all marketing contacts in the database.
- Mark the check boxes for each contact you want to inspect
- Click the "Seller Portal" button in the toolbar.
The "Contacts Seller Portal" page opens.
You'll see a a Gantt chart with a linear calendar next to a column that lists the contacts you selected. See below for tips and details for working with the portal.
To open the "Accounts Seller Portal"
The "Accounts Seller Portal" looks very similar to the "Contacts Seller Portal", but focuses on companies rather than individuals. An important difference is that you can view all of the individual contacts associated with a given company and also choose which of them should be included in a given campaign.
Just like the "Contact Seller Portal" you can access it from Dynamics CRM as well as Dynamics Marketing
To open it, do one of the following:
- If you are working in Microsoft Dynamics CRM
- Go to Sales -> Accounts in CRM and mark the Accounts you wish to inspect.
- Click the More button (…) at the top of the screen to open the menu
- Click View Marketing Portal
- If you are working in Dynamics Marketing
- Go to Marketing Execution -> Marketing Database -> Marketing Companies to view a list of all companies in the database.
- Mark the check boxes for each company you want to inspect
- Then select the Seller Portal button in the toolbar
The "Accounts Seller Portal" page opens, which displays a Gantt chart with a linear calendar next to a column that lists the companies you selected. See below for tips and details for working with the portal.
Working with the seller portals
View, scroll and zoom the Gantt chart
Both the "Accounts Seller Portal" and the "Contact Seller Portal" display a Gantt chart showing a linear calendar next to a column that lists the companies or contacts you selected to inspect. Adjust the view options so that you can see all of the information you need as follows:
Use the time-range controls (Today, Year, Quarter, Month, or Week) to control how many days you can see in the chart, essentially zooming in and out.
Use the left and right scroll arrows, located above the upper right corner of the chart, to slide the view forward or backward in time.
Use the Filter button to adjust the set of campaigns displayed as needed.
Drill down to view campaign and messaging details
Both the "Accounts Seller Portal" and the "Contact Seller Portal" provide the following features:
Each of company or contact targeted by at least one campaign displays an Expand button (+) to the left of their name in the left column.
Select the Expand button (+) to expand the display of all campaigns that target the listed company or campaign. A timeline for the campaigns will now be shown as a Gantt chart on the calendar.
You can continue to drill down into a campaign either by using the Expand buttons (+) in the left column or by selecting the down-arrow in the Gantt chart. Here you will be able to see any emails and other communications that have or will be sent to contacts.
Hover the mouse pointer over any item in the Gantt chart to see a tooltip displaying summary details for that item.
To see complete details about any campaign, email, or other campaign element select its name in the left column or on the Gannt chart. The details will open in a fly-out window, so you can view the details without leaving the Seller Portal.
Past and future emails are handled slightly differently. All emails scheduled for future delivery are shown for each contact or company. However for emails already sent, the portal only shows those mails that were actually received; bounced emails and emails blocked due to cross-campaign rules will not be shown.
Special features of the "Accounts Seller Portal"
The "Accounts Seller Portal" focuses on companies, each of which may have one or more contacts working for them. However, not all campaigns targeted a given company are necessarily of interest to all of that company's contacts. Therefore, you are able to see a list of contacts working for each company and to block specific contacts from campaigns that have not yet started, thus preventing all associated mails and other initiatives from reaching them.
Each campaign includes an Edit block list button to the right of its name in the left column (the button also shows a number indicating how many contacts are blocked);
You can select this button to open a pop-up that displays all of the contacts from that company and campaign.
The window includes two columns: contacts in the left column will-receive/have-received communications about that campaign, while contacts in the right column will-be/have-been blocked. For future campaigns, you are able to move contacts between the columns; to do so, select a contact and use the arrow buttons between the columns to move contacts back and forth as needed.
To view a summary of all the ways a given contact has engaged with your marketing messages, select the contact's name in the blocked/not-blocked pop-up. A fly-out will open showing that contact's Marketing Engagement. See also See how contacts are engaging with your campaigns for more information about this display.
Special features of the "Contacts Seller Portal"
The "Contacts Seller Portal" focuses on individuals rather than companies, and therefore provides a more detailed engagement analysis for individuals while also enabling you to remove individuals from campaigns and/or messages that are unlikely to interest them.
- To view a summary of all the ways a given contact has engaged with your marketing messages, select the contact's name in the left column. A fly-out will open showing that contact's Marketing Engagement. See also See how contacts are engaging with your campaigns for more information about this display.
- You are able to remove specific contacts from campaigns that have not yet started, thereby preventing all associated mails and other initiatives from reaching them. Campaigns that were/will-be sent to a given contact show a Check button to the right of its name in the left column; campaigns that were/will-be blocked for a given contact show a Blocked button here. For future campaigns, you can select this icon to toggle the blocked/not-blocked status for a given contact and campaign; for past campaigns, this is read-only.
Add alerts to track contact interactions
Once you have an overview of which contacts will receive which messages in connection with which campaigns, you might also like to receive alerts when key contacts interact with the messages by opening emails, claiming offers, registering for events, etc. See Work with alerts for details about how to configure alerts for these types of events and more.
Note
The seller portal is an add-on solution for the Dynamics to CRM connector. After the connector is installed and set up, you can install the seller portal solution. Please note that MDM and CRM must be in the same tenant for the Seller Portal integration to work.
For more information see Install the Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Seller Portal solution for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
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Thanks to Dynamics CRM 2015 and Dynamics Marketing, Sales and Marketing are now closer than ever.
See also
Comments
- Anonymous
February 13, 2015
The Dynamics CRM family just gets better and better. You have so many options to increase your productivity