Email a survey
After you've finished creating a survey and have added branding to a customized email template, you can send the survey and ask for feedback. The action of sending a survey creates a survey invitation record, which is stored in Microsoft Dataverse. When someone responds to the survey, a survey response record will be created and stored in Dataverse, which is linked to the survey invitation. With this feature, you can view which invitations have been responded to with a completed survey, which invitations have been started but not responded to, and which invitations haven't been opened.
You can send an email directly from the Send tab on a survey. By using the email option, you can review the email prior to sending it. Next, you would select a default or customized email template and then determine the recipients. Dynamics 365 Customer Voice has a direct integration with Microsoft Outlook and Dynamics 365. You can enter an email address directly into the To column, followed by a semicolon. Though the email will be sent, using this method means that no personalization of the survey is possible because only the email address is being used and the first name and last name aren't provided. In situations when the email address can’t be found in Dataverse, you can use a setting on each survey that determines whether respondents will be created as a contact record or not. By default, this setting is turned on, but you can turn off the setting so that new contact records aren't created.
Go to Outlook or Dynamics 365, and in the search box on the Contacts tab, enter the name of a person or an email address to display a list of suggested people who meet the value that you entered. When the required contact displays, select their name to add the contact into the To column. You can add multiple recipients, and each person will receive their own individual email, without indication of whom else the email was sent to.
Another option for Dynamics 365 customers is to search for and send a survey invitation to all contacts who are returned from a view. Views are created as system or personal views, both of which you can select for sending. By typing the name of the view in the To column, a list of views that match the criteria will display. Then, you can send the email with a copy going to each person who meets the search criteria of the view that was selected.
After the survey has been sent once, the Send tab will display a dashboard. The dashboard will provide you with access to resend the survey, and it will give an overview with widgets that display the total number of invites and responses for the survey. The dashboard will also show how many unsubscribes and failed invitations have occurred.
Selecting the Details option for the different widgets will open a recipients panel. For example, if you select the Details link on the Failed section, email addresses that survey invitations couldn't be set to will be displayed in a list. Then, you can review these entries to ensure that they're valid email addresses. Sent emails are tracked, meaning that you'll be able to monitor when recipients open the survey invitation. Additionally, you'll be provided with an overview that's found on the Not responded widget. Selecting the Details option will provide more information. Though it isn't possible to guarantee that none of the emails will be blocked and marked as spam or junk mail, the emails do include reputation management, which reduces the likelihood of this situation occurring.
The possible survey invitation status values are shown in the following table.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| In progress | The survey invitation email is queued to be sent. |
| Sent | The survey invitation email has been successfully delivered to the recipient. |
| Read | The survey invitation email has been read or opened. |
| Started | The survey has been started by the recipient but is not yet complete. |
| Responded | The recipient has responded to the survey. |
| Failed | The survey invitation email wasn’t delivered to the recipient due to an incorrect email address or other error. |
| Unsubscribed | The recipient has unsubscribed from receiving the survey-related emails. |
By default, surveys are sent from a generic email address for Dynamics 365 Customer Voice. However, the sender’s email address can be customized so that an organization can select an email address from their own domain. Customization helps with brand recognition and increases the likelihood that respondents will review, open, and take action when receiving an email from an organization that they're familiar with.
For more information on customizing the sender’s email address, see Customer Voice email details.
A recipient can also unsubscribe from receiving further surveys that are sent from Dynamics 365 Customer Voice. A required link in the lower part of each email template provides recipients with the option to unsubscribe. After the recipient has unsubscribed, their email address is added to Dataverse to an environment's unsubscribe list. Further surveys that are sent from the same environment will first be checked against the unsubscribed list, and if a matching email address is found, the recipient will be excluded from the email distribution.