Running Microsoft CRM Workflows Against Marketing List Members

I love the marketing list functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  It really is like advanced find on steroids, so you can use multiple step logic to build a list of people or companies to target in a campaign or direct email.  Given that Marketing lists can be a combination of manually selected members and multiple iterations of advanced find, you can build a group with much more complex logic than what you could otherwise compile in one view.

One of the gaps in the Marketing List functionality in Microsoft CRM 4 is that the marketing list member entity cannot be used in CRM workflow. That means that you can’t use a workflow to add somebody to a marketing list, and you can’t run a workflow against all of the members of a marketing list.

Say, for example, you want to send the people on the marketing list an email with an attachment.  As discussed here, CRM direct email functionality and campaign generated emails do not support attachments, but workflow e-mails do; however, from the marketing list members view, you don’t have the option to execute a workflow.

The Work-Around

By combining marketing lists with advanced find, there’s a pretty easy work-around that will allow you to execute a workflow against the members of a Marketing List.  In this example, I’m assuming that the members of the list are contacts and that you have already created a “send e-mail” workflow that is executed on-demand and includes an e-mail attachment.

1.  Create your Marketing List. 

2.  Perform an advanced find against the Contacts entity.  Scroll down past the list of Contact attributes to the related entity section and select Marketing List.

3.  Select Marketing List Equals nameofmarketinglist  and click Find

The result will be a view of all of the members of the selected Marketing list, and you are now free to run your send workflow email with attachment against the members of the marketing list.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft CRM,Dynamics CRM,marketing lists,workflow,attachments

Comments

[Jeff paul news]

B2B Businesses are relying on revenue generation through different web marketing social processes and lead management programs .

[Michel Mueller]

What about if the list contains more than 250 records? Is the workaround still possible?

[Joel Lindstrom]

Michel,

Yes, it is possible, just run the workflow against each page of the advanced find results.

[cri]

How I send workflow email (to contact address email) against the members of the marketing list?

[Joel Lindstrom]

cri,
Following the instructions in this post, create the advanced find that returns the members of the marketing list, then select the results of the find and run your "send e-mail" workflow (click the workflow button and select your workflow).

Your "send email" workflow will need to be set up to be able to run "on demand."

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