Email Tracker – Business Central’s forgotten logging feature
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central has many and continues to add many more new features on a monthly basis. One of these feature is a type of email tracker known as Email Logging. The key to using this feature with Business Central is having Microsoft 365 (O365). The Email Logging feature does not work without the integration between Microsoft 365 and Business Central.
What is Email Logging?
Once Business Central integrates with Microsoft 365 you can easily track all of the emails that take place between your contacts and sales people. For example, let’s assume you have customer Michael from TravChans and contact Joe who is the sales person at Cronus USA. Both are setup in Business Central with Email Logging enabled. Now, any inbound email from Michael or any outbound email from Joe automatically gets logged by Business Central as as an interaction entry.
If you use Dynamics 365 for Sales you know that one of the most popular features is the Email Tracker. You just go into the software, click on an email, and say that you want to track all emails between myself and this person. Email logging in Business Central is effectively the same thing but it tracks all of the emails.
Where is the Email Tracker in Business Central?
If you go to the Contact Card you’ll see Interaction Log Entries. An interaction in Business Central’s Email Logging feature is any interaction between your organization and that contact. This could be an order confirmation, a shipment, an invoice, a manually recorded interaction such as a phone call, or any other type of interaction.
How it Works
This Email Logging feature is easy to set up and works by syncing with Office 365. Folders are created that allow a Code Unit in Business Central to see into these folders and whether or not a new interaction needs to be created. Whoa, whoa, whoa! You mean to tell me that I have to setup a code unit? That’s correct. For instance, you could set your code unit up to run every minute, ten minutes, or whatever it may be. Then, Business Central will check with Office 365 to see if new interactions are available. Full disclosure, I don’t recommend setting your code unit to run every minute because there’s the potential for this to cause performance issues, especially with larger databases.
Why You Should Use This Email Tracker Feature
Let’s assume you’re a salesperson that is in the process of closing a big account and suddenly you catch the flu and need to miss a week of work. In the past without an email tracker you would be frantically emailing and talking to a fellow salesperson trying to get him or her up to speed to help you close this deal. With Business Central’s Email Logging feature those days are long gone. Once enabled, the emails and their attachments are automatically logged and your colleague can access all the communications between you and the contact and more readily step in for you.