Sending e-mails from Microsoft Dynamics CRM

(post courtesy Sarkis Derbedrossian)

I often meet Microsoft CRM users who don’t know how sending e-mail works within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Most users think that when they create an e-mail in CRM and hit the send button, the e-mail is sent automatically. Neither Outlook nor CRM can send e-mails without a post system e.g. Exchange server. Below you will learn how e-mail within CRM works with and without Outlook

E-mail in relation to CRM

Once you've created an e-mail activity in MS CRM and click the Send button to send the e-mail, this mail is handled differently depending on the settings of each user is set to in MS CRM.

E-mail can be handled through Outlook or directly through CRM ... but neither Outlook nor MS CRM can implement the physical handling of the e-mail. This is done by a mail server (Microsoft Exchange Server or another mail system).

Sending an E-mail in MS CRM

Do not make a fast conclusion and think that MS CRM can neither receive nor send e-mail. You should understand that the above task requires an e-mail system to accomplish.

When you send email from MS CRM it usually happens by the following steps:

1. The user creates an e-mail activity and clicks on the send button. The e-mail is now saved with the user as the recipient
2. The e-mail gets synchronized to the user’s Outlook
3. The users Outlook sends the e-mail to the mail server (Exchange)
4. Exchange sends the e-mail through the internet

What if the user does not have the Outlook client open? This will result in the mail will not be sent until the user logs into Outlook. For some situations this can be insufficient. Fortunately installing the e-mail router can solve it.

Sending e-mail via the e-mail router

If you want to be independent of Outlook, and thus could send email directly from MS CRM without using Outlook, this can be done by installing and configuring an E-mail Router.

The e-mail Router is free software that comes with MS CRM. The software can be installed on any server that has access to a Mail Server (Exchange Server or other mail system (POP3/SMTP)) and MS CRM.

When you send email from MS CRM using an E-mail Router it often happens by the following steps

1. The user creates an e-mail activity and clicks on the send button. The e-mail is now saved with the user as the recipient
2. The e-mail is sent to the e-mail router
3. The email router sends the e-mail to the mail server (Exchange)
4. Exchange sends the e-mail through the internet

E-mail settings in CRM

Depending on how you want your organization to send e-mails, remember to check the following settings:

1. In CRM, Settings, Users
2. Open the user form
3. In the configuration section of the e-mail access, select the desired setting

Configuring e-mail access

It is possible to choose one of the following settings from the option list:

None
Outlook cannot be used for sending and receiving e-mails which is related to MS CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook
Outlook is responsible for sending / receiving e-mail. Integration with MS CRM for Outlook must be installed and configured. E-mails sent / received only when Outlook is active (open)

E-mail router
E-mail is sent and received with MS CRM Email Router. If this element is selected, a dialog box allows entering credentials. Check the box if you want to specify credentials

Forwarded mailbox
E-mail forwarded from another e-mail address. The e-mail Router is responsible for sending / receiving e-mails.

More Information:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM: How to configure the On-premise and Online E-mail Router in different deployment scenarios
• Contact Microsoft Partner Technical Services for assistance with a deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 30, 2013
  Great post, explains email sending in CRM simply and clearly. Thank you

• Anonymous
  September 12, 2013
  Can MS Dynamic CRM send email using personal email address and business email from the contact form?

• Anonymous
  April 29, 2014
  How do you change the address the mail is being sent from?
  
  We have a shared mailbox with the shared mailbox address added as the primary email for the user sending out the e-mail from CRM. It is still being sent out from her personal email address, rather than the share mailbox/e-mail address entered in CRM.

• Anonymous
  August 04, 2014
  If people don’t know how sending e-mail works within Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it's because it's poorly documented. Clearly Microsoft wants to push the installations towards VARs or the cloud.

• Anonymous
  September 09, 2014
  An Outlook synced old appointment has a status change is CRM. Status is changed from scheduled to completed. There is no email routed set up in CRM. Will this status change trigger Outlook to re-send the Old appointment. In this instance the appointment is from 2009.

• Anonymous
  September 10, 2014
  What is the expected behavior when a user changes the status on an appointment from 2009 from scheduled to completed.
  The appointment was created in Outlook calendar and synced set regarding to CRM.

• Anonymous
  September 15, 2014
  Thanks a lot for the explanation.

• Anonymous
  September 19, 2014
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  December 05, 2014
  It's unfortunate that using Outlook would hold up the process. There should be a way to combine efforts, utilizing outlook for certain features, but still be able to push an email out from a workflow without the user having to have Outlook running. It's a little counter-intuitive.
  

• Anonymous
  April 20, 2015
  We have a contact center of 80 people. We completed an implementation using the thin client CRM email capabilities and server side integration with Exchange bypassing completely the Outlook client. All emails are sent via a central email address i.e. XYZCustomerServiice@xyzmail.com and responses are routed straight into the queue of the agent who is currently assigned to the case. New requests go into a central queue until they are picked up by an agent. Outlook to CRM integration was abandoned when we observed the "heaviness" and reliability of the synchronization process. We predicted it would be very heavy on support and the desktops. The above implementation has generated 0 support calls as we have processed more than 250K email the past 3 months.

• Anonymous
  July 13, 2015
  very clear and useful
  thnx