Convert an activity to a case
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This task requires permissions that are found in all default security roles. More information about specific permissions and performing this task while offline: Common Task Permissions
1. Navigate to activity records. In the Navigation Pane, click Workplace, and then under My Work click
Activities.
– OR –
To work with activities associated with a record, open the record and then click Activities.
2. Open the activity that you want.
Activity types that can be converted
Faxes
Phone Calls
E-mail Messages
Letters
Appointments
3. On the Actions toolbar, point to Convert Activity and then to Case.
4. In the Convert Activity to Case dialog box, enter information in the following boxes:
Customer
You must click the Lookup button to select or create a new customer.
By default, Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically completes the following operations during the conversion: o
Close the activity as completed. o Open the new case after the conversion.
To change the conversion operations, clear the associated check boxes.
5. In the Convert Activity to Case dialog box, click OK.
Note
The originating activity becomes a related activity for the new case. If the activity is open, it appears in the Activities list for the case. If the activity is closed, it appears in the History list.
Work with E-mail Templates
E-mail templates provide boilerplate text and Microsoft Dynamics CRM data for e-mail messages. These templates cannot be used with Microsoft Office Word mail merges.
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Concepts:
Managing E-mail Activities
Work with Mail Merge Templates
Create or edit an e-mail template
Can I do this task?
This task requires permissions that are found in all default security roles. More information about specific permissions and performing this task while offline: E-mail Permissions
An e-mail template is attached to an e-mail message after it is created. The template that can be attached to an email depends on which type of record the template is related to. For example, you can only attach a case e-mail template to an e-mail activity created from a case record. Global templates are available for any record type. You can create personal templates that are available only to you, or organizational templates that are available to anyone in your organization.
You cannot add an attachment to a template. You can either attach files to individual messages after they are created with the template, or save the file to a public Web site and include a Web address in the template.
This feature is not available in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook. Use Microsoft Office Word mail merge templates instead. More information: Create Customer-Ready Documents and Messages
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1. Do one of the following.
To work with organization templates a. In the Navigation Pane, click Settings, click Templates, and then click E-mail Templates.
– OR –
To work with personal templates
On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the E-mail Templates tab.
On the Actions toolbar, click New.
In the E-Mail Template dialog box, in the Template Type list, select the type, and then click OK.
Important The template is available only for the selected record type, such as a lead or opportunity. This cannot be changed. To use the same content for another record type, create a new template.
On the E-mail Templates form, you must enter the following information.
Title
Enter a meaningful and descriptive title for the template. The title displays in the list of templates.
Subject
Enter the subject of the e-mail message created with this template. This appears as the
Subject line in the e-mail message and overwrites the existing text.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 User’s Guide
Tips
You can enter a description of the template. This is not displayed to the recipient.
Enter the text you want to send in this message. Use the Formatting toolbar to edit the text.
Although you cannot insert images or HTML directly into Microsoft Dynamics CRM e-mail messages or e-mail templates, you can use the copy feature in Internet Explorer to copy an image from a Web site and paste it into the e-mail message or e-mail template. The image is available as long as the Web site is accessible.
To include a hyperlink in an e-mail template, type the URL including the http://, for example, http://www.microsoft.com and then press Enter. Do not include a period or comma or a space after the URL, or the link will break. A link is automatically added to the URL and the text is underlined and changed to blue.
There is no spelling checker built into Microsoft Dynamics CRM. There may be third-party solutions available. For more information, visit Microsoft Dynamics CRM Solution Finder.
The Formating toolbar has limited fonts and font sizes. However, you can copy and paste content from Microsoft Office Word. This allows you to take advantage of features such as spell checking and some advanced text formatting. To single-space a line of text, at the end of the line press
Shift+Enter.
Tip
To insert data fields to display information such as a customer's name or data from a quote, from Microsoft Dynamics CRM records, in the Actions toolbar, click Insert/Update, and then in the Data Field Values dialog box, click Add. In the Add Data Value dialog box, select the
Record Type and Field and then click OK. Click OK again to insert the data.
Use the Default Text box to define what text displays if the record does not have data for the field.
Click Save or Save and Close.
If necessary, click OK to close the Set Personal Options dialog box.
Notes
To change a shared template to a personal one or to a shared one, on the template form, on the
Actions menu, click Revert to Personal Template or click Make Template Available to
Organization.
If you use an e-mail template as a signature in addition to another template, insert the signature template first, otherwise, the Subject line will be overwritten.
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Add and edit the data fields in an e-mail template
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This task requires permissions that are found in all default security roles. More information about specific permissions and performing this task while offline: E-mail Permissions
Data fields are used with e-mail templates in the Web application. You can use custom fields, attributes, and entities with e-mail templates.
This procedure does not work for Microsoft Office Word mail merge templates. You can use Microsoft Office Word templates.
1. In the e-mail template, on the Form toolbar, click Insert/Update.
2. In the Data Field Values dialog box, do one of the following:
To add a field, click Add, and then in the Add Data Value dialog box, select the record type and field you want to add, and then click OK.
The field appears in the Data Field Values list.
To change the order in which your data fields appear, select the field, and then click Move
Up or Move Down.
To provide substitute text for a field if there is no data, select the field, and then type the text in the Default Text box.
To remove a data field, select the field, and then click Delete.
To insert the data fields into the e-mail template, click OK.
3. You can change the format for text displayed in a data field. Select the field, double-click the text, and then highlight the yellow text in the field, and then make the changes you want. If you select the field itself, you will not be able to reformat the text it contains because format changes must be applied directly to text and not to a field as a whole.
4. Click Save or Save and Close.
Important
If you want multiple data fields to appear on your template, you must add each data field individually and for one record type at a time. For example, if you want to create data fields for the first name and last name, you must perform step 2 twice, once to create a data field for the first name, and again to create a data field for the last name. If you add multiple data fields at once, Microsoft
Dynamics CRM automatically adds a semicolon (;) between each data field and treats it as an
EITHER/OR statement. Using the example of first name and last name, Microsoft Dynamics CRM looks for a first name, and if one is available, displays it. If a first name is not available, Microsoft
Dynamics CRM then looks for a last name, and displays it. It will not display both names.
If you want to include data from different record types, repeat step 2 and select a different record type.
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