Creating an HTML Email in Dynamics CRM 2011

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 makes bulk emailing very easy by using Mail Merge with Microsoft Word. This means you can send out newsletters to hundreds of your Dynamics CRM customers all at once, from one location. Because the Mail Merge is done within Microsoft Word, you can create full HTML emails with images and colours to reflect your company, and grab your customers’ attention.

 

For this example we will be creating a reusable Mail Merge Template for an HTML Newsletter, so we can send frequent newsletters to our customers using the same template and theme. This template will be configured to send to Contacts, and we will set the template to pull through the Contacts first name, to personalize the email.

To create a new Mail Merge Template in Dynamics CRM 2011, navigate to Settings, Templates, Mail Merge Templates, and then click New.  Enter a Name, for example ‘Newsletter’, and set the Associated Entity, in this case we will use ‘Contact’. Click ‘Save’ and the record will be created.

 

Next you need to create the word template file. If you have one already you can upload it at the bottom of the form, otherwise click ‘Create Template in Word’ at the top of the form to start from scratch.

Creating a new HTML Word Template

The template can be created in either an HTML editor, or simply within word itself. If you decide to use word to create the HTML template, you can use the default options such as tables, images, colours, and fonts to customize the template to look how you want. It is recommended that you use tables to colour and align your objects within your HTML email templates, as they show up best in email readers.

 

For more complex designs, it is recommended that you use an HTML editor to create your template, such as Expression Web or Dreamweaver. This way you can customize and position objects exactly where you need them, and you can apply custom styles to your HTML.

NOTE: Make sure all CSS is embedded inline, and not called internally or externally. Also make sure to use full URL references for images and hyperlinks.

If you have created your template in an HTML editor, you can copy the whole page content when viewing the template in your internet browser, and paste it into word. You may need to change some things around to make it look right again. (It can help to change the view to web layout - click the View tab and select Web Layout in Word 2010)

Once you are happy with your template, save it as an .xml file, as something meaningful, for example ‘newsletter.xml’. You can save the template in .xml format by click File, Save As, and selecting ‘Word XML Document (*.xml)’ from the Save as type menu in Word 2010.

 

You can now go back to your Mail Merge Template in Dynamics CRM 2011 and upload the .xml file using the ‘Browse’ button at the bottom of the form. Once selected click ‘Attach’.

Note: To make the template Organization Owned (usable by everyone) select ‘Make Available to Organization’ from the Actions menu.

To start using the template, navigate to Contacts, and select the contacts you wish to send the newsletter to (it might pay to run a test on yourself before emailing your customers). From the ‘Add’ tab, select Mail Mergeunder ‘Marketing’. In the Mail Merge window, select to start with an Organization or Personal template depending on which option you set earlier. From the lookup select the ‘Newsletter’ template. Choose whether to run the mail merge on all records, or just the ones selected, and then click OK.

 

When the word document opens, you will need to click the CRM icon to enable the CRM add-in, which can be located under either the Mailings tab or the Add-Ins tab in Word 2010. After clicking this you will be able to see your template.

If the step by step mail merge wizard doesn’t appear automatically on the right side of the document, you can click Start Mail Merge, and select Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard from under the Mailings tab. From this wizard you can click through the steps until step 4 where you can choose to insert More Items, which will allow you to insert fields from the Dynamics CRM 2011 Contact form, such as ‘First Name’ for personalizing the emails.

 

Note: If you want to insert Merge Fields you can resave the .xml file and upload it again to your Mail Merge Template record to save them for next time.

At this point you can update the template to contain the content and images you want added to the email. Once you have done this, and you are ready to send the email, you can click Finish & Merge from the Mailings tab, and then select Send E-mail Messages. You will be prompted to select the ‘To’ field, which is ‘E_mail’, and the subject that will be displayed in the Email messages. Leave the Mail format in HTML, and click ‘OK’ to send the emails to all records.

 

Each email you send from the Mail Merge will be added to your Outlooks queue, and will one by one be sent from Outlook with the email account you have configured. That’s all there is to it, the emails will now be sent to your customers, and each email will be personalized with the appropriate name.

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