Dynamics 365 Customer Service: Setup Mailbox for Automatic Case Creation

In this article I am going to explain how we can setup a mailbox in exchange and tie that to a support mailbox in Dynamics 365. When people send an email to this mailbox, a case will automatically be created by the system. We can then use a workflow to assign this new case to a queue or team as described in this previously published article. Please note for this to work you’ll have to have exchange integrated with Dynamics 365 and you will need to have access to Dynamics 365 for Customer Service. NOTE: This article describes the setup for the ‘older’ version of Dynamics 365, before the 2020 Release Wave updates when the automatic record creation and update rules were still in the legacy interface. If you want to see how to set this up for environments that have the 2020 Release Wave enabled where the automatic record creation and update rules have moved to the unified interface, that article can be found here.

Setup Exchange Mailbox

The first thing we’re going to do is setup a mailbox in exchange, this is also where we will define the email address for the support mailbox. Navigate to the admin portal of office 365. Then expand ‘Groups’ on the left hand side and select Shared Mailboxes. Click ‘+Add a Mailbox’ and set the mailbox name and email address. Once the mailbox has been created remember to add members to the mailbox by selecting the mailbox and clicking ‘edit’ adjacent to Members.

Add Dynamics 365 Queue

Now we need to add a queue in Dynamics 365, where we will tie this exchange mailbox to the queue by using the support email address. This will be the place where the emails will be tracked in Dynamics 365 after they are received in the exchange mailbox.
Navigate to Settings>Business Management and click ‘Queues’. Create a new queue and enter the email address of the mail box you just created in the ‘Incoming Email’ field. Select whether this is a private or public queue add members (who can access the queue) if this is a private queue. Note the system will create a mailbox using the email address provided in the ‘Incoming Email’ field of the queue. Also set the ‘Convert Incoming Email to Activities’ field to ‘All Email Messages‘.

Configure Dynamics 365 Mailbox

Click on the mailbox under ‘Email Settings’ to open the mailbox. We will now configure the incoming and outgoing mailbox settings. Set the ‘Incoming Email’ and ‘Outgoing Email’ fields to ‘Server-Side Synchronization or Email Router’, then click ‘Approve Email’ on the ribbon and click ‘Test and Enable Mailbox’. Once the email has been enabled you will see the Incoming Email status and Outgoing Email Status on the mailbox record showing as ‘Success’. We have successfully configured the mailbox in Dynamics 365!

Record Creation and Update Rules

In order for the system to automatically create a case when an email message is sent to the support mailbox, we need to create record creation rules in Dynamics 365. Navigate to Settings>Service Management>Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules.
NOTE: Keep in mind that there can only be one active rule per queue.
Create a new rule and associate it to the queue created earlier as shown below. There are some additional options available here, we can enable to create cases for unknown senders, this means if the email address is not in Dynamics 365, do we still want to create a case? We can also decide if we want to create a new case if we receive an email regarding a resolved case, and if this is the case, how long should the case have been closed?

Record Creation and Update Rule Item

Once we save the rule, now we will add some details as to when a case should be created. From within the rule, click the ‘+’ sign under ‘Specify record creation and update details’. You must first enter a name for the rule item before you can start configuring it. You can type any name, but I’m going to use ‘Create Case from Email’.
Set the conditions of the rule and the actions (In the example below there are no conditions so each time an email comes into the queue a case is automatically created. You could also say if the body of an email contains a particular word, or if the sender of the email belongs to an account that is a premier customer, etc.. do this…) Under ‘Actions’ select ‘Add Step’ and select the Case entity.

Click on ‘Properties’ to configure the case record that will be created. This window looks a lot like the window we see when we’re creating or updating records using workflows. When the properties window opens, some of the fields have already been populated. If you have custom fields on the case form, you have the option to populate them from here too. If you’re read my previous article, you’ll see the familiar ‘Category’ and ‘Subcategory’ fields on the case form. The case will automatically be assigned to the team that belongs to the subcategory so I don’t have to configure any assignment here.

Save and close the process form, and click the ‘activate’ button on the command bar to activate the rule. You can now start testing the configuration by sending an email to the support queue email address. It takes a few minutes for the email to actually show up in Dynamics 365. Once it does, you should be able to see the case that has automatically been created by the rules we just configured.

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