Access Dynamics 365 data in Teams meetings (Preview)

Microsoft is investing more and more in the integration between Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 which I believe sets Dynamics 365 even further apart from the competition. I’m sure you are familiar with some of the features we have access to today, like the ability to view Dynamics 365 data from within Microsoft Teams or the ability to access a Teams chat from within Dynamics 365, but there are a lot more new features on the horizon! Last week I wrote an article about the swarming feature in Dynamics 365 Customer Service (currently in preview), which allows customer service agents to quickly and automatically start a Teams chat while the application invites subject matter experts to the chat. If you’re interested in learning more, you can read the full article and watch a demo of the functionality here. In this article I am going to discuss another great new feature which takes advantage of the Dynamics 365 integration with Microsoft Teams meetings.

I reported earlier this year that as part of 2022 Release Wave 1, users will be able to create and join Microsoft Teams meetings from within Dynamics 365. The feature I am discussing today builds on top of that by allowing users to access and update Dynamics 365 data while in a Microsoft Teams meeting! I am sure you can see how valuable features like these are, as they allows users to stay in the meeting, without the need to open another application. This will allow them to stay focused on the meeting.

Ok so how does this work? Let me explain: When a user creates an appointment with a Microsoft Teams meeting in Dynamics 365 (the ability to create teams meetings from within Dynamics 365 is another new feature) and populates the regarding field with a Contact, Opportunity, Lead, Account or Case record in Dynamics 365, the details of that record will automatically get added to the Microsoft Teams meeting. All you have to in order to access the record, is click on the D365 icon on the top of the meeting and the Dynamics 365 form will open on the right side of the screen. But what if there is a customer on the call? People from outside your org will not see the Dynamics 365 data in the meeting, so don’t worry about that! I mentioned above the tables that are supported for this, but please keep in mind this is a preview feature, so I assume that support for additional tables (hopefully also custom tables!) will follow at a later date.

As you can see in the image above, the Dynamics 365 button shows on the top of the screen. It’s important to note that I noticed that this button is only visible on the teams meeting app. If users are joining the meeting by using the browser version of Teams, the button is not visible. You also notice the meeting attendees (who are in the same organization as me) can view the Dynamics 365 opportunity this meeting is about. This is because the opportunity shown on the right side of the screen is the record which is populated in the ‘regarding’ field of the appointment in Dynamics 365, as you can see on the image below. Besides being able to update some of the fields on the opportunity from within Teams, you also have the ability to add notes or add tasks directly from within the Teams meeting! When I clicked on the primary contact Consuelo Moses, the contact form opened in the Teams side-pane!

So what if you (or someone else) forgets to populate the ‘Regarding’ field in Dynamics 365? Can you still access the record in Dynamics 365? Actually, yes! In this case you can manually add a Dynamics 365 record to the meeting! You can do this by clicking on the ‘More’ button with the three dots on the top of the screen, and selecting ‘+ Add an app’. You need to find the Dynamics 365 App, click on it and find the record you want to populate in the teams meeting. Once you click on the record you want to populate, it will show up in the right pane of the teams meeting. And not just for you, others in the meeting will only have to click on the same D365 icon on top of the meeting to access the record. (only users who are in the same org) All and all some pretty awesome new functionality and all from within the Microsoft Teams application! This is allowing us to collaborate while having the relevant data at our fingertips DURING the meeting!

Ok so now lets take a look at how you can get this working on your sandbox environment! You will need to log into the Dynamics 365 Sales Hub and select the App Settings area from the area chooser on the bottom right side of the screen. You’ll notice a new entry on the sitemap called ‘Teams Meetings(preview)’ below the ‘General Settings’ section. You’ll notice the slider on the top of the page that reads ‘Show Dynamics 365 data in Teams meetings (preview)’, which you will need to set to ‘Yes’. As the page explains, you will also need to enable server-side sync for calendars and I would suggest to also turn on the ability to allow users to create and join Microsoft Teams meetings from within Dynamics 365. To get an even better experience you can also turn on the ability to record/transcribe Teams meetings, which is another preview feature, but this is not required.

Your next question is probably going to be regarding the Dynamics 365 form that you saw in the Microsoft Teams meeting. Which form is being used? Can we modify the form? Microsoft informed me that in this initial preview, the Dynamics 365 record details shown within the meeting side panel are using the “In Context’ Form. These are actually the same forms that are used in the Deal Manager Workspace side pane! These forms are configurable, but there are limitations. I just wrote an article on the form limitations a few weeks ago, so if you want to learn about which configurations are supported (and unsupported for this form) you can take a look here.

I hope you found this article informative! Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post!