Display customer data in Dynamics 365 applications
Organizations often achieve a 360-degree view of their customers by using their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications. While they're gaining a complete view of the customer data in the context of their CRM data, they're not truly getting a 360-degree view of the customer because it doesn't include data from outside the CRM system.
To truly get a 360-degree view of your customers in your CRM system, the system needs to include other details, such as activities that occurred in other applications, important analytics that might be used to help drive business actions, and demographic information that might not be available in the application. These details are readily available in Customer Insights - Data. To help make this information available, you can install and set up the Customer Card Add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Data into your Dynamics 365 applications. The Customer Card Add-in retrieves data from Customer Insights - Data, such as customer profile fields, insights, and the activity timeline. Then, it displays the data in applications, such as Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys, and more, without affecting the data in the connected Dynamics 365 app.
For example, by using the Customer Card Add-in to display the activity timeline from Customer Insights - Data into a Dynamics 365 form, you can view activities such as website purchases, store visits, inspections, or other activities from other applications. Additionally, you can view the Dynamics 365 activities, such as emails, appointments, and tasks, that are stored in the Dynamics 365 Record Timeline. By having this information available, you can provide your users with a more complete picture of what's going on.
The Customer Card Add-in includes multiple controls that you can add to your model-driven forms to display data:
Measure control - Displays important measures such as total visits, total lifetime spent, and average lifetime from the customer profile in Customer Insights - Data.
Intelligence control - Displays prediction data, such as product recommendations or custom churn data, based on predictions or custom models in Customer Insights - Data.
Customer details control - Displays information that comes from the unified customer profile in Customer Insights - Data.
Enrichment control - Provides Microsoft-powered enrichment data, such as brand and interests for the associated customer profiles.
Contacts control - Displays contacts that are associated with the account. This control is only available when Customer Insights - Data is being used to support B-to-B scenarios.
Timeline control - Displays a timeline of activities that come from Customer Insights - Data. This timeline is different from the Dynamics 365 timeline.
Important
Each add-in control relies on specific data in Customer Insights - Data. Some data and controls are only available in environments of specific types. Some controls might be available in your environment if you don't have the correct items set up in Customer Insights - Data. For example, the Intelligence control requires data that is generated by using predictions or custom models. If you haven't set up a connected Customer Insights - Data environment, you won't be able to add the control to a form.
Before you install the Customer Card Add-in, make sure that you meet all necessary requirements, such as including Dynamics 365 data in your unified customer profile. Otherwise, the card might not function properly. For a list of requirements, see Customer Card Add-in prerequisites.
Install the Customer Card Add-in
Before you can use the Customer Card Add-in solution in your environment, you first need to install it into your Dynamics 365 environment. You can find the solution by going to Customer Insights - Data Customer Card Add-in (Preview). To install the solution, select the Get it now button.
Note
Before the solution install begins, you might need to sign in with your administrator credentials for the Dynamics 365 app to install the solution. After the install starts, expect that it might take some time for the solution to be installed into your environment.
Set up the Customer Card Add-in
Setting up the functionality requires that you first make some configuration changes to the Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Data Customer Card Add-in solution that we deployed. The solution can be modified from the Power Platform App Maker portal. Under the solution section, select the Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Data Customer Card Add-in solution.
Once you are in the solution, open the configuration.html web resource file, and select Advanced options. Select the link under URL to open the configuration area.
Once in the Configuration page, set up the following information:
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Data instance - Specifies the Customer Insights - Data instance that you want to connect to and populate card details with.
Dynamics 365 contact ID field - Specifies the field on the customer profile that matches the contact ID field in Dynamics 365. You use this option in B-to-C scenarios.
Dynamics 365 account ID field - Specifies the field in Customer Insights - Data that matches the Dynamics 365 account ID field. You only need to complete this step for B-to-B scenarios.
For more information, see Configure the Customer Card Add-in.
Add customer card controls to forms
The final step in the process is to add the customer card controls to the necessary forms in your Dynamics 365 environment. Depending on your scenario, you can choose to add controls to the Contact form or Account form. If you decide to use Customer Insights - Data for B-to-B purposes, we recommend that you use the Account form.
The simplest way to initiate the process of customizing the forms is to use the Microsoft Power Apps maker portal.
Expand the Dataverse area (which might show as Data in some environments), select Tables, and then select Account or Contact based on your deployment type. Select Forms and then select the version of the contact form that you want to use.
When the version of the contact form that you want to use is open, select the Switch to classic button, which opens the form in the classic interface.
Often, you might need to add tabs and sections to your form to ensure that the information can be displayed the way that you want. You also need to add a field to each section to act as a placeholder that you can attach the Customer Insights - Data controls to. Typically, this field can be any field on the form.
The following image shows a form with three columns, with three sections added. Each section uses the Address 1 City field for the placeholder field.
When you're satisfied that everything is in place, double-click the field that you want to modify and then open the properties menu. When the field properties open, clear the Display label on the form checkbox and then select the Controls tab.
On the Controls tab, select Add Control, and in the Add Control box, select the Customer Insights - Data control that you want to add to the form.
You can select from the following options:
Customer Insights - Data Demographic Control
Customer Insights - Data Enrichment Control
Customer Insights - Data Intelligence Control
Customer Insights - Data Measures Control
Customer Insights - Data Timeline Control
After you select the control that you want to work with, set the control to Web and then select OK.
Repeat the process for each Customer Insights - Data control that you want to add to the form. After you save and publish the form, the newly added controls display on the form.
Using Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Data with other Dynamics 365 applications is only one of many ways that you can use Customer Insights data in other applications. Next, you learn how to complete the same process with Microsoft Power Platform.