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Web to Lead Form and Email Communication with Dynamics CRM

Post Author: Joe D365 |

If you are set up to capture web form information in Dynamics CRM, you are already doing some things right. However, are you properly communicating with them once they have taken the time to fill out the form?

When somebody fills out a web form on your webpage, you want them to know that you've received their information and in a timely manner! Who doesn't love to receive an email instantly, verifying that their submission has been received, and that someone will be in touch with them shortly? It simply reaffirms they made the right choice by filling out the form.

Combining the power Microsoft Dynamics CRM add-on, PowerWebForm, and a simple out-of-the-box CRM workflow, you can easily close the communication loop.

Let's say we have a "Contact Us" form that someone fills out when they need to connect with our organization. We've already created the web form, mapping our form fields to CRM fields and deciding we want to create a lead for every form that's submitted. We've also set our duplicate detection so that if a duplicate is found based on Last name and email (a web form activity will be appended to the existing lead, instead of creating a new one) so our CRM stays nice and de-duped.

(For instructions on how to create a web form, see the PowerWebForm user guide or visit the PowerWebForm website)

Notice: If you enter an email in the "Notify E-Mail" field, you will receive an email every time someone fills out a web form.

PWF lead form img replacement1

Now we're ready to create the simple CRM workflow that will email someone every time they fill out our "Contact Us" form.

1. Navigate to CRM and go to Settings > Development > Process Center > Processes > New

web to lead CRM

2. Name the Process à choose Entity – "Web Form Activity" and Category – "Workflow" à Click OK.

PWF lead form img replacement2

3. Change the Scope to "Organization". Then go further down the form, click "Add Step", choose "Check Condition", name the step and click below the description where it says "(click to configure)".

4. Set up the workflow so that, on the creation of a Web Form activity, it checks to see if it came from the "Contact us" Web PWF lead form img replacement2Form. Click "Save and Close".

5. Click under the check condition, choose "Add Step" and add a "Send Email" step.

6. Click on Set Properties.

7. Use the "Dynamic Values" form assistant on the right hand side to put the {Regarding{Web Form Activity}} merge tag in the "To" and "Regarding" fields. Specify who the email is from, the subject of the email, and what you would like the email to say. Then, Save & Close.

Remember, it's always a good idea to test your web form and workflow to make sure everything's working like it should. Now, when someone fills out a PowerWebForm on your website, they will instantly receive an email thanking them for reaching out and ensuring them that they have been heard. That's the power of using a CRM workflow and PowerWebForm.

Happy CRM'ing!

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

6 comments on “Web to Lead Form and Email Communication with Dynamics CRM”

  1. Thank you! Appreciate the detailed screenshots. Question: Does Outlook or the Email Router need to be "on" in order to have this autoreply send?

    1. Hi Anya -- Yes - the email router OR outlook crm client needs to be setup in order for the autoreply to be sent. We would highly recomend the email router so workflows can send the reply right away.

  2. Is it possible for the web form completions still to be tracked in google - we presently track existing completions in analytics and would still like to see the power object web forms being tracked in analytics.

    1. Hi Amanda - yes - this is possible. What one of our clients does is to use the google tracking analytics in the page that the user is immediately sent to after completing the web form. In Power Web Forms you can defined the 'return url'. Add the google trackign here and I think this is exactly what you are looking for. Also - take a look at our component powerWebTraffic. It is pretty similar to google analytics, but the data is added to your crm and you can correlate anonymous traffic to your leads/acconts/contacts if they fill our a survey or click on emails generated from your crm. Neat stuff.

  3. I installed the trial Web Form but i do not see the "Copy Source" button on the "Preview and Deploy" window.
    Did i install incorrectly??

  4. We actually ended up removing the "Copy Source" button from the solution because it was causing a lot of issues in some CRMs. If you would like to view the source of a web form, please copy the URL, paste into a browser, right click and view source. Thanks!!

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