Social Interacting is one of important to be  Microsoft Dynamic CRM’s success, this post will be about to this feature. Microsoft Dynamic CRM includes following functions for Social Interacting.

• Social Pane.
• Microsoft Social Listening
• Insignht by Inside View
• Yammer

This post will try to take a first look these features to determine and let you know how it works with internal & external social.

Social Pane

Social pane overview

It was introduced first time from 2011 version, it just support for Lead, Opportunity and case for this time but it has been supported for all entities in Micrsosoft Dynamic CRM. Social Pane help user to review and create social post at record. It may be created automatically by CRM system.

We should keep in mind that Social Pane was shipped to MS CRM but there is litmitation for customization.

The Social pane is structured by 3 main tabs: Post, Activities and Notes. 

Social Pane

and it has been set as default for all entities from initializing. Developer can hide one of them via configuring, it will talk in the next section.

Social Pane customization

In fact, this feature is just add-on of Microsoft Dynamic CRM, hence, there is limitation for customization, it just support for setting default tab in OOB tool. You can go to entity, go to main form of entity, doulbe click on Social Pane as following image.

In some cases, there are some sentitive information that you want to hide to end-user, there is only way to add custom code to hide it, the below code is not recommended to user DOM in MS CRM but it is the unique way to do that until now.

function HideTabs(socialPaneType) {
var controlEle = document.getElementById(“header_notescontrol”);
if (controlEle.children != null && controlEle.children.length > 0)
{
         for (var i = 0; i < controlEle.children.length; i++) {
        var ctrl = controlEle.children[i];
        if (ctrl.title == socialPaneType) {
        ctrl.style.display = “none”;
        if (i + 1 < controlEle.children.length) {
        controlEle.children[i + 1].click();
        return;
}
else if (i – 1 >= 0) {
      controlEle.children[i – 1].click();
           return;
}
}
}
}
}

Social Pane Upgrading note

If your system is upgraded from 2011 version, the Social Pane will not be added to upgraded form, you have to create new form, system will add Social Pane automatically for new one but only Note tab be displayed to user.

Microsoft Social Listening (MSL)

MSL Overview

MSL helps your system interact with social media channels, it allows for users to track their campaign as well as product’s brand name in real time with customers in social pages. But it is seperated application and we have to integrated it into MS CRM. It is the greate tool that help your system can:

• For Marketer, MSL can analyze and present the customer’s perceptions of campaigns in real time, it help marketers to interact with potiential customers in Facebook, Twitter.
• For Sale persons, MSL helps users to monitor specific customer accounts and gain a competitive advantage over competitors by analyzing their performance.
• For Services, MSL allows users to identify potential customer issues in real time and prevent a bad public relations campaign generated by negative reviews

MSL also support Dashboard and Charts that help visualize all social data in MS CRM.

MSL Integration

Microsoft Dynamic CRM Online

For Dynamics CRM Online, MSL has been included in the licensing model, but your organization must meet the minimum eligibility criteria to get this functionality.

Step 1: Clicking on Settings, select Administration 

Step 2: Looking for Microsoft Social Listening Configuration

MSL CRM Online Integration

Microsoft Dynamic CRM OnPremise

For on-premise deployments, integration with MSL is available at a cost. You must configure settings on both applications.

• Specifying the allowed domain where your Dynamics CRM resides.
• Going back MS CRM, and do the same steps as MS CRM Online.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Insight

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Insight Overview

It is a add-on that developed by InsideView company. This package is available for Dynamics CRM Version 4.0 or newer and is available for both on-premise and online Dynamics CRM.

Installing in Dynamics CRM Online

Step 1: Download the solution from https://www.insideview.com/microsoft-insights-install/

Step 2: Inporting the solution.

Step 3: Go to Configuration as following image.

Step 4: Click Start  to synchronize and follow the wizard steps to complete configuration.

Installing in Dynamics CRM OnPremise

For on-premise deployments, the process is relatively similar but data synchronization
is not handled through the solution configuration page. Instead, you need to set
up a proxy CRM user in order to provide your application users with the ability to
synchronize and export data. You should chekc this link  .

Yammer

Yammer Overview

Yammer can be directly integrated into your Dynamics CRM instance. You just need
to configure the connection to run the Yammer. Yammer is an enterprise social network. The company was created in 2008 and was bought by Microsoft in 2012. This is a corporate-friendly social media network.

Since Yammer was included under the umbrella of Office 365, there has been a big
push to integrate it into most, if not all, business applications. Yammer integration
has been built into Dynamics CRM both on-premise and online, and the posts are
surfaced on a new Yammer tab in the Social Pane.

Yammer Integration

Step 1:  Go to Settings, then select Administration

Step 2: Looking for Yammer Configuration

Step 3: Clicking on Continue

Step 4: Inputing all configuration as following image.

Step 5: Loggin to Yammer

Once you provide the correct credentials, the next steps of the wizard will walk you
through the authentication portion and when completed, it will take you back to step
2 on the configuration page.

Entity configuration

We can do this by navigating to Settings, select Post Configurations:

Hope that it will be useful for someone.