Best Practice: Using Microsoft Teams with Dynamics 365

In this blog article, I am going to share some common practices we learned from organizations who are implementing the new Dynamics 365 integration with Microsoft Teams.

There are 3 common use patterns for organization using Microsoft Teams to collaborate on managing customer relationship: 

1. Team based collaboration
2. Account based collaboration
3. Project based collaboration

Team based collaboration

In Team based collaboration, a sales team creates a Microsoft Teams to collaborate on accounts they are working on. For example, a sales team responsible for North America Sales region may create its own Microsoft Teams and create separate channel for each account they are collaborating on.

You can then connect the channel to the account record in Dynamics:

You may connect more than 1 record to the channel. For example, in addition to connecting Contoso Equipments account record to the channel, you can connect opportunities related to Contoso Equipments:

By connecting all related Dynamics 365 records to the channel, you can easily access the information and make an update. For example, when working on Video Hardware Upgrade opportunity and need to get information on previous activities related to Contoso Equipments, then you can switch to Contoso Equipments account tab to access the information.

Different team may collaborate on the same account on separate Microsoft Teams. For example, a Customer Service team may connect Contoso Equipments on another Microsoft Teams:

For this channel, the customer service team may connect a case record for Contoso as a separate tab on the channel:

Account Based collaboration

Another use pattern is an account team to create a separate Microsoft Teams for the account. This is a common pattern for top customer accounts with dedicated sales team supporting the account:

You then can create a separate channel for related record (such as an opportunity) and connect the opportunity record from Dynamics 365 to the channel

You can add more channel for a new opportunity:

You may create a separate Microsoft Teams for a different account with different (account team) members to collaborate on the account:

Project based collaboration

For large or complex opportunity, you may create its own separate Microsoft Teams to collaborate. By creating a separate Microsoft Teams, you can manage membership separately for this opportunity, such as the case when you need to collaborate more broadly across departments or even with external partner. 

You may connect the related Dynamics 365 account record to the general tab:

You can also connect the opportunity record from Dynamics 365 as a separate tab on the channel:

Members without Dynamics 365 user access will not be able to view the Dynamics 365 record on the tab but can have conversation and share file. The file shared by any members (including those without Dynamics 365 access) from Microsoft Teams channel file tab will be accessible from the Dynamics 365 document section for the record.

The file uploaded from Microsoft Teams channel:

The file automatically appeared on Dynamics 365 document tab on Contoso Equipment record:

Since there are multiple Dynamics 365 records connected to the same channel (Contoso Equipments and Home Electronics), each record will show the same files in Dynamics 365:

You may create additional channels to the Microsoft Teams, for example a channel to collaborate on a Proposal :

Note that if you do not connect a Dynamics 365 record to Proposal channel, a file uploaded on this channel will not appear in Dynamics. You need to connect the channel to the Dynamics 365 record to have the file uploaded on this channel appeared on the record page in Dynamics 365.

Connecting the channel to Home Electronics record in Dynamics 365:

Then upload files to the channel file tab:

The uploaded files appeared on Document tab in Dynamics 365:

Summary

 In this blog article, we discussed 3 common use patterns for sales team to use Dynamics 365 app for Microsoft Teams to collaborate on customer accounts or opportunities.

 You may use any or all use patterns above depending on your business needs. It is common to have a mix of the above use pattern in the same organization. For example, at Microsoft, we created a separate Microsoft Teams for our top 300 customer account where the account team can collaborate to manage relationship with the account. For smaller account, a team based collaboration is created for each sales team (e.g. North America sales team, Europe sales team, etc.). For a large opportunity, a dedicated Microsoft Teams is used to collaborate on the project.

 Hope this is useful, if you have other use patterns or have tips to share, please contact our team at D365forTeams@microsoft.com, we love to hear from you.