Microsoft Dynamics Data Adapter

The Microsoft Dynamics Data Adapter provides integration between Microsoft Dynamics and MXO, enabling the sharing of information between both systems, as follows:

Provides MXO with access to customer insights and information held within your Microsoft Dynamics data model for use in decisioning.
Provides your agents using Microsoft Dynamics with information about the Next Best Conversation for a customer based on information stored in the MXO AEP.
Provides MXO with the ability to drive action in Microsoft Dynamics, based on customer activity on your Touchpoints. For example, creating a sales lead or opening a support case.
Provides your agents with information about a customers recent interactions across all Touchpoints so that they can better understand the customers context and journey up to the point they are interacting with them.

Example

A customer uses an online complaint form to contact their insurance company about an issue with their insurance policy. MXO opens a support case in Microsoft Dynamics, detailing the customer’s issue. A call center agent contacts the customer to discuss their complaint and MXO provides the call center agent with the next best conversation for that customer, based on the fact that the customer is unhappy. The next best conversation offers the customer a 15% discount if they decide to renew their insurance policy.

ODATA Queries

The Microsoft Dynamics Data Adapter uses ODATA Queries to specify which data attributes to retrieve from your CRM and pass to MXO.

Building ODATA Queries

We recommend using an ODATA query builder to build your ODATA queries. For example, CRM Rest Builder, which is available as installable solution for Microsoft Dynamics.

ODATA queries must include a reference to the key or keys required by Microsoft Dynamics. These keys can be:

Any captured attribute, selected from the Select the attribute to use as a Key drop-down, or
Any key attribute configured by you for your Space. Key attributes must be referenced by their API name.

Important: When referencing a single key in an ODATA query, using a guid ContactId as the key works well. Using the guid when passing multiple keys, however, may result in no data being returned to MXO. When passing multiple keys, blank values may be detected, and the guid function fails when processing blank values. For this reason, We recommend using the guid as a key only when referencing a single key in an ODATA query.

Example ODATA Query - using single key used for lookup

ContactSet?$select=Address1_City,Address1_Country,Address1_County,BirthDate,
GenderCode&$filter=(ContactId eq guid'({customerkey})')

Example ODATA Query - using multiple keys for lookup

ContactSet?$select=Address1_City,BirthDate,ContactId,FirstName,
LastName&$filter=(email eq '{email}') or (loginid eq '{msdynid}')

Data Adapter Timeout Period

Requests from the Microsoft Dynamics Data Adapter are configured to timeout, as follows:

For the initial request, after two seconds.
For the client handshake, after five seconds.

If MXO does not receive a response within the required timeout period, the request will fail.

To create a Microsoft Dynamics Data Adapter

In MXO, choose Collect.
Select External Data, click Create.
Choose Microsoft Dynamics as the type of Data Adapter you want to add.
Enter a name for the Data Adapter you are adding. Using a descriptive name makes it easier for you and your team members to know when to use the Data Adapter.
Enter a brief description of the Data Adapter you are adding and when it should be used.

Enter the configuration details that define the adapter's behavior.


Field	Description
Select the attribute to use as a key	Select the captured data attribute you want to use as the key for looking up data in Microsoft Dynamics. Captured data attributes are stored in the Customer Metadata Data Adapter.
Odata Query	The ODATA Query to use. This query must contain a placeholder for the key or keys required by Microsoft Dynamics. A key can be any captured attribute, selected from the Select the attribute to use as a key drop-down, or any key attribute configured by you for your Space. Note: Key attributes must be referenced by their API name.
List	Specify whether or not the returned data is expected to be in list format. You can select Not set, which acts as if No is selected, Yes, the root data model is a list, or No, the root data model is not a list.
Organization unique name	The name of your registered Microsoft Dynamics org.
Client ID	The Windows Azure Client ID to use to authorize the Data Adapter with the MS Dynamics endpoint. This must be set up in Windows Azure by the Microsoft Dynamics Admin.
Tenant ID	The unique ID for your Azure Active Directory tenant.
Client Secret	The client secret associated with the Windows Azure Client ID.
Key	The key to use to test the ODATA query associated with the Microsoft Dynamics data model. The value you provide must relate to a customer record in Microsoft Dynamics that contains data for all the attributes defined in the ODATA query. Note that you can only use the attribute selected from the Select the attribute to use as a key drop-down to test the Data Adapter. During testing, the attribute is replaced by the value entered in this field.

Click Test configuration. This tests and verifies that the new configuration details are valid.
Click Apply.
Click Save.