Tag: web to lead

This article looks at how Microsoft Forms with Flow can be used to create forms quickly that can pass data to Dynamics 365 online.

In the past, this task has always been a challenge. Getting developers to create forms that can create Leads in Dynamics 365 or using third party ISVS.

Benefits and Advantages of Using MS Forms and Flows:

Microsoft Forms and Flows can not replace fully the normal method of creating Web to Lead Forms. However, it can come close and advantages are clear for System Admins to use this methodology

1. Marketing Teams can quickly design forms without using third party resources. Drag & Drop interface including themes and colour pallet.
2. Forms can be used for surveys as well and shared via email.
3. More economical then getting forms developed by third parties.
4. Responses are stored within Forms as well and can be exported out to Excel
5. Forms can be shared via link or embedded in a website.

Steps to Set Up Web to Lead Capture

1. Login to Microsoft Office and select Form from apps selector. Log into your office online account by clicking here.

   

   Figure 1: Office Short Menu

   This menu is accessed by clicking on dots at top left of banner. This is a condensed menu and you may need to click on All apps to view Forms.

click on Form to enter to start designing a new form. Follow simple steps to create a form. You may chose to design a quiz as well.

Once inside Form creation, there are various ways of personalizing the form for your needs. Different images, themes etc can be chosen. However, purpose of figure 3 above is not to go through form customization and highlight the settings menu. Clicking on … in top right menu activates from menu. Clicking on settings will pop up settings menu.

If you plan to use this form publicly, make sure ‘Anyone with link can respond’ is selected

Here various settings can be chosen. Most important, if you plan to use this form publicly, make sure ‘Anyone with link can respond’ is selected.

Once we are happy with the form, next step is to decide how to use and share the form. Several options are available to chose from.

Options currently available:

1. Send a Link
2. Download QR Code
3. Embed to a website using iframe
4. Email Directly

Fun Bit. Connecting the Form to Dynamics 365

This is where the fun begins. The form design is complete. You have decided how to use the form. Now we need to make sure that responses from the form are pushed into Dynamics 365.

We leverage the functionality provided by Microsoft Flow interface.

Using the office menu as in figure 1 above, click on Flow.

There are already pre-built templates available that can be used for various functionalities.

You can be really adventurous and start with a blank canvas. However, to make things simple, I chose the template in Figure 5 above and modified it to create record in Dynamics 365 instead of SharePoint.

NOTE: Access to SharePoint site is required to start using the above template. Template attempts to connect to services as shown in Figure 6 below. If access to SharePoint is not available, choose a different template or start with a blank flow and add steps as illustrated in Figure 7 and 8.

Edit template as shown in Figure 7.

Add Dynamics 365 create record connector

Adding Dynamics 365 Create Record action will connect to one of 365 organisations that can be accessed by logged in user. Organisation to use can be selected from drop down.

The connector is highly configurable and will display all the fields available for the selected entity by clicking on ‘Show advanced options’. Fields can be set to have specific value as well. For example, ‘Lead Source Label’ in Figure 9. This is set to Advertisement for any record being created through this process. Hence, it is very simple to categories records being created from different forms and sources.

Next step. Hit Save and enable testing……..

As seen in Figure 11, below, trigger even can be selected. Select ‘I’ll perform the trigger action’ as trigger for the flow is submission of data. This will occur when a user clicks ‘Submit’ button on the form

After clicking ‘Test’ the Flow becomes active.

For testing purposes, copy link to the form created and open in a browser window.

Figure 12 shows the demo data that has been entered for blog purposes.

And as by magic, a lead appears in Dynamics 365 as seen in Figure 14 below.

Good Things About using Flows

• will provide the list of usage of flow. Can click on any instance to view the status and timing etc. For example, for the form that was submitted earlier in this blog, the steps with times is displayed in Figure 15 below

• Each Flow has its own Dashboard

• Flow can be turned off and on as requested
• Flow can be packaged and exported