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Track Outlook Email in Dynamics CRM 2011

Post Author: Joe D365 | August 19th, 2013

One of the many benefits of Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is the ability to track valuable email interactions in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Several items can be tracked from Outlook, including emails, appointments, tasks and contacts. In this blog we'll focus just on emails.

The beauty of tracking emails is that if the user deletes the tracked message in Outlook, there will still be a copy saved in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

To track an email, you have two options. You can select "track" or "set regarding".

Track Outlook Email in Dynamics CRM

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To decide which option you should choose, you first need to determine whether or not there was an entity (an account, contact, lead, opportunity, case, etc.) that your email can be linked up with. If it can't, then you want to select "Track." This will create a linked record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

On the flip side, if there is an account, contact, lead, opportunity or case the email can be linked up with, you would select "Set Regarding." When you select this option, a "Look Up Record" box appears. Let's say, for example, you want to look up a specific account. You would select the drop down box (which will show recently used records and record types), then select the appropriate record. This will link the email to the record you choose. This is the preferred method of tracking emails.

You can tell if an email is being tracked in Outlook by looking at the bottom of the email. Below is an image stating it was saved and where it is located in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Note: You can untrack an email from a string as well. If you select "untrack" for a particular email, that email will not be saved in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

If this post was useful, you might want to read more about email preferences in Dynamics CRM. Or, if you are looking to enhance your email capabilities, you may want to research PowerObjects PowerPack option in PowerMailChimp.

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.

13 comments on “Track Outlook Email in Dynamics CRM 2011”

  1. Hi Joe,
    Just got Outlook 2013 (CRM 2011 Online) and the ability to choose the type of record you want to Set Regarding against only allows Account now. It allowed Lookup for any record previously. Have you seen this issue? Know of a fix?

    1. Hi marty - this should still work like the crm 2011 client. Check your browser 'zoom level'. we have seen cases where that lookup window is a bit big and you don't see the select entity drop down.

    2. I've had this happen and thought something was broken. The problem is with the rendering of the window. You see only View and Search but you NEED TO SCROLL UP to see Look For. I'd call it a bug.

      1. OMG I can't even tell you how much this blog has just saved me and how much I wish I'd found it a week ago. This is so stupid and obvious I probably would never have uncovered it. I have exhausted permissions, personal setting, configuration issues with my one user experiencing this and was ready to pull my hair out. Then I read this. Sure enough it was simply a rendering of his window and all he had to do was scroll up. Thank you thank you thank you for posting the issue and fix!

  2. Joe,

    I'm new to Dynamics CRM. Thanks for your articles.

    I'm used to attaching emails to all associated entities (from a past life in SFDC). For example, if it's an email from Bill Smith at Acme Corp regarding our 400 Blue Pencils opportunity, I want the email to showup under all of those entities in the CRM tool as a completed activity.

    It's unclear to me how that works in Dynamics CRM. Can you elaborate?

    Jeff

  3. Hi Joe,

    I've been starting to use MS CRM and your posts have been really usefull to me. Tanks for that.

    No I have a question about mail tracking that is driving me crazy.

    What I want to do is to keep track on mails regarding cases while testing this within two posts using the CRM client for outlook will work fine, the problem is when I test it between an x-mail server and CRM client or just outlook with CRM client.

    The steps I follow are these.

    First step is that after I receive a client's mail to outlook and to transform the mail into a case I track the mail to CRM.

    Then form the Queue where the email appears I open it and I transform it into a case. At this point everything looks fine, back in the email regarding is set to the cases I've just created. Then the mail appears in the cases activity wall.

    Second step is to reply to the customer from CRM. Reply mail is composed and sent to the client. When I look at the sent items in outlook the CRM box shows regarding set to the case from where I've generated the reply.

    Nonetheless after 5 second is set to None. here is where I start to have problems. Obviously the reply is gone from the case's activity wall.

    lather when I get a client's reply the mail is not even followed by CRM. (Email configuration for CRM is set to follow track of all concerned mails). I have found a manual workaround for this issue. Set back in the sent mails the regarding value to the regarded case, then follow up manually the customer's reply and regarding in the customers reply is set to the correct case.

    thanks for any hint/help you can provide me.

    regards

  4. I'm doing all the tracking but where do I see the emails? I go to activities and notes but the emails don't show up there, even though the email says it is being tracked

      1. Even on closed activities is not there, any idea, do i need to do any other configuration?

  5. My test results show that you can't skip the Track button. Select an email and click Set Regarding. It works for Account and some other entities but not for Opportunity and others. I have to click Track first for ALL emails that I want to Track. I then have to click Set Regarding. Lots of blogs say Track is a waste of a click but I'm finding test cases where I have to click Track first for all tracked emails. One issue if I skip clicking on Track is the icon next to the email doesn't change all of the time. And that means I don't have the option to Untrack if Outlook doesn't know the email is Tracked.

  6. Just found this thread and wondered if you could advise on taking this one step further. Scenario: Contact sends me a request for a quote via email, the email contains all the detail i need to quote. I hit Set Regarding to link the email to the Contact, but then want to create an opportunity about the enquiry, I can hit Convert to Opportunity, but then content of the email doesn't seem so be in the Opportunity so I have to cut/paste into notes etc. Duplicating a lot of the text etc This seems very clunky. Am i missing how this should be done?

    1. Hi Craig - yeah - to automate further we would need to architect something. One option would be a simple plugin that runs on creation of opportunity. if opportunity was auto created and related to an email, copy body of email to the description of the opportunity. THis may work, but the email could contact html/etc which would be copied to the opportunity.

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