Open Preface

Preface

In a typical marketing scenario, Dynamics 365 is used to manage the data of the customer and Spotler Mail+ to send (commercial) mailings and/or newsletters to those customers.

The Spotler Connector ensures that, among other things, contact information is synchronized to Spotler.

About this Manual

This manual explains how this synchronizing is working and explains how to automate processes. Using this you can apply marketing automation in your business.

Where in this manual is spoken about connector, we mean the Spotler Connector.

When we talk about Dynamics 365 as the source system, this also applies to Power Apps. If certain aspects don't work with Power Apps, we will explicitly mention this.

For Power Apps you use the light version of our connector: Spotler Connector for Power Apps.

Who this Manual is For

This manual is written for:

• Marketeers and Salespersons who want to know how the basic sync works and how to do basic actions

Open Spotler Hub App

Spotler Hub App

Spotler related info and actions will be added to your own Dynamics 365 app by the Spotler Connector solution.

The Spotler Connector solution also adds the Spotler Hub app. This app can be handy for marketeers and/or IT staff to navigate easier to Spotler related info and actions.

⚠️Warning! The have access to the Spotler Hub app you need to have the Spotler User role.

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Open Spotler Hub

You can open the Spotler Hub App when you have logged into Dynamics 365.

1. Using the app switch app button in the upper left when you have your Dynamics 365 open.
   
2. Click the Spotler Hub app button to open it.

Spotler Hub App

When the Spotler Hub app is open you use the left navigation menu to go to the different sections.

![SpotlerHubApp-MainAppMenu.png]

Open Sync Contacts

Synchronize Contacts

Keeping your contacts up to date shouldn’t require manual exports or imports. That’s exactly what the Spotler Connector fixes — it keeps contact data in Dynamics 365 and Spotler synchronized automatically.

The Spotler Connector keeps your contact lists in sync between Dynamics 365 and Spotler. So when a customer updates their info in your CRM, it’s reflected in Spotler — and vice versa if you choose.

That means:

• No more CSV exports
• No more outdated email lists
• Always the right data for your marketing campaigns

The connector supports these record types in Dynamics 365:

1. Contact (🇳🇱 Contactpersoon)
2. Lead (🇳🇱 Potentiele Klant)
3. Account

• 🔄 How Synchronization Works
• ➡️ Syncing from Dynamics 365 to Spotler
• [⬅️ Syncing from Spotler to Dynamics 365](#syncing-from-spotler-to-d

Open Sync Subscriptions

Synchronize Subscriptions

✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS

• Sync with Permission table or Marketing List
• Do Not Bulk Email => Sets all Permissions to False
• Do Not Email => Anonymize Contact
• Unsubscribes / Opt-outs

iFunds Engage 365

The Connector is optimized for the iFunds Engage 365 solution.

Periodieken is the way in Engage 365 to describe subscriptions (opt-in/opt-out). These Periodieken synchronized to Permissions in Spotler.

Advanced

There are two environment variables that control what happens for Permissions when a new Contact, Lead or Account is being created.

Open New Subscribers

New Subscribers

New subscribers in Spotler can be added to Dynamics 365 as Contact or Lead (or Membership Entry for iFunds Engage 365).

For example, if you have a subscription form in Spotler, where new leads can leave their info, like their name and email address.

The connector makes it possible to add these new subscribers into Dynamics 365!

You specify if you want to create a Lead or Contact in Dynamics 365. Each has their own default strategy to add it to Dynamics 365:

• Lead: Each new contact in Spotler, creates a new record, even if the same email address is used.
• Contact: If a record with the same email address already exists, it’s updated. No duplicate contact is created if the same email address is used.

💡Tip: You can also have a custom strategy, like other columns for deduplication!

Do you use a Source column to specify the m

Open Sync Marketing Lists

Synchronize Marketing Lists

In Dynamics 365, you usually have way more data than in your Spotler account. This is partly because Dynamics 365 already stores a lot of data on its own, and partly because it acts as a hub, pulling in data from other connected systems. This extra data lets you create more detailed segmentations in Dynamics 365.

You don’t need to sync all this data into Spotler to send relevant marketing messages.

You can create a Marketing List, where you select members using filters on your data in Dynamics 365. For example your top 100 customers based on sales in the last 6 months or all customer who did a purchase in the last month.

⚠️Warning! Marketing Lists are only available when you have a Dynamics 365 Sales license. Power App license doesn't contain Marketing Lists! See Add/Remove from List for an alternative way of syncing.

Using the connector, you can synchronize this Marketing List to Spotler as an [Dynamic List](https://he

Open Anonymizing / GDPR

Anonymizing / GDPR

✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS

• Contact is Deleted
• Contact is Inactive (Deactivated) => has setting
• Contact has no email or
• Contact has NotEmail=true
• Explicit Spotler Job

Anonymizing / GDPR

Overview

Anonymizing a contact removes all personally identifiable data from Spotler — name, email address, and any other stored profile fields. Once anonymized, the contact can no longer be found or contacted through Spotler. The Spotler Connector handles this automatically in several situations, and also supports triggering it explicitly through a Spotler Job.

Note: Anonymization is irreversible. The contact record in Dynamics 365 is not affected — only the data stored in Spotler is removed.

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Automatic Anonymization

The connector anonymizes a Spotler contact automatically in the following situations, without any manual action required.

Contact Deleted

When a Contact, Lead, or Account is deleted in Dynamics 365, the connector imm

Open Bounces

Bounces

✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS

Contact status:

• Active = Current contact base
• Inactive = Bounces and unsubscribe

Status:

• Active : Static, only exist in a static list, you can't select/filter them in a dynamic list (unless you reference the static list directly)
• Active: Dynamic, exist overall, can be selected and filtered using dynamic lists
• Inactive: Soft bounce (4x), can't deliver the email at this time, already tried 4x. If Soft bounce but retries <4x it is still Active.
• Inactive: Hard bounce (1x), can't deliver the email (email doesn't exist or is wrong)
• Inactive: Opt-out, Unsubscribed of everything
• Inactive: Permanent, explicit set to don't send any emails

How to solve bounces?

Change the email-address, the contact will be activated again.

Best practice: when hard bounce then send an internal notification (a task or email) to correct the email address

![hard-bounce-profile-change-email.png](https://books.automatevalue.com/u/hard-bou

Open Spotler Info

Spotler Info

✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS

Open Bulk Mailings

🚀NEW FEATURE : COMING

Bulk Mailings

✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS

To do bulk mailings, like a Newsletter, Spotler has the Mailing module.

The information about these bulk mailings can be viewed in multiple ways inside of Dynamics 365. Each email send to a recipient from the mailing can be stored as an Email Activity for the specified Contact, Lead or Account. For each bulk mailing a Campaign is created in Dynamics 365 with insights about the mailing. Interactions with this mailing like Opens, Clicks, Bounces and Unsubscribes, are stored as Campaign Responses.

Which information is being stored in Dynamics 365 is configurable:

• Create Email/Phone Activities for Bulk Mailings? Yes/No
• Create Campaign for Bulk Mailings? Yes/No
• Create Campaign Responses for Bulk Mailings?Opens/Clicks/Bounces/Unsubscribes

See the following chapters for more details:

• Campaign
• [Campaign Responses](#campa

Open Marketing Interactions

Marketing Interactions

✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS

Spotler tracks interactions like Email Sent, Email Opened, Email Clicked, etc. These are stored in Dynamics 365 as Marketing Interactions.

Contact Form

Details

Open Engagement in Timeline

Engagement in Timeline

✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS

Email Interactions can be shown in the Timeline of the specific Contact, Lead or Account.

There is a setting TimelineInteractions to configure which interactions are visible in the timeline.

Email

Email Engagement

If you have Dynamics 365 Sales module, enable [Email Engagement](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/sales/confi

Open Spotler Jobs

Spotler Jobs

Spotler Jobs (🇳🇱 Spotler Taken) are the core of the connector. They are being used to give a command to the connector to execute a task.

The connector uses Jobs to execute operations in Spotler, but you can also create them yourself. You can create Jobs manual in the UI but also create them in Processes or Workflows/(Cloud)Flows to customize and extend Dynamics 365.

You can use Spotler Jobs in Workflows, Business Process Flows, Power Automate and Plugins to fully automate actions in Spotler.

• View Spotler Jobs
• Create Spotler Job

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View Spotler Jobs

Spotler Jobs are often run for a Contact, Lead or Account. Also Marketing Lists can have Spotler Jobs.

When you have one of these records open, you can view Spotler Jobs under Related > Spotler Jobs.

By clicking on Spotler Jobs a list will open with all the related Spotler Jobs with their statu

Open Tagging & Scoring

Tagging & Scoring

Spotler supports Tagging & Scoring. You can use this to segment your contacts and to determine the value of your contacts. This way you can send more targeted and relevant messages to your contacts.

• Tagging contacts
• Scoring contacts
• Timeline Posts

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Tagging contacts

Tags can be set yourself and can be applied for all kinds of reasons. Usually the purpose of tagging is to capture a phase or interest that a contact is in. By grouping contacts with the same tags, you create relevant segments (using Dynamic Lists). You make subsequent marketing campaigns for these segments.

Add Tag

To add a Tag from Dynamics 365, we create a Spotler Job with the operation Add Tag.

Select the Customer (=Account/Contact) or a Lead for which you want to add the tag.

Fill in the tag you want

Open Trigger Automations

Trigger Automations

Spotler has the Automations module and the older Campaign module. With these modules it is possible to send 1-on-1 mails based on certain changes, fully automated. In this way you can create full customer journeys.

With SpotlerAutomate you can also trigger these Automations (and Campaigns) from within Dynamics 365. Consider, for example, a welcome process for new customers, an e-mail with a brochure or an automatic 'customer lifecycle campaign' that is relevant to the recipient.

• New Automation
• Start Automation
• Stop Automation

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New Automation

An Automation needs to be created in Spotler.

Ad

Open Trigger Campaigns

Trigger Campaigns

Spotler has the Automations module and the older Campaign module. With these modules it is possible to send 1-on-1 mails based on certain changes, fully automated. In this way you can create full customer journeys.

With SpotlerAutomate you can also trigger these Campaigns (and Automations) from within Dynamics 365. Consider, for example, a welcome process for new customers, an e-mail with a brochure or an automatic 'customer lifecycle campaign' that is relevant to the recipient.

⚠️Warning! Campaigns is deprecated in Spotler. Use the more powerful Automations.

• New Campaign
• Start Campaign
• Stop Campaign

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New Campaign

A Campaign needs to be cr

Open Add/Remove from Audience

Add/Remove from Audience

In Dynamics 365 or Power Apps, you usually have way more data than in your Spotler account. This extra data lets you create more detailed segmentations in Dynamics 365 or Power Apps.

You don’t need to sync all this data into Spotler to send relevant marketing messages.

Preferable you would use Marketing Lists to synchronize these segmentations into Spotler, see Sync Marketing Lists.

But Marketing Lists are not available in Power Apps, so this chapter describes an alternative way of creating these segmentations, as Dynamic Lists in Spotler.

For each Customer or Lead you can Add To or Remove it From a Dynamic List in Spotler, also called an Audience, using the Spotler Connector.

⚠️Warning! This feature is only available in Spotler Mail+ Automation and eCommerce, not for Spotler Mail+ Professional.

You can then access these [List

Open Set/Clear Contact Field

Set / Clear Contact Field

Overview

The Set Contact Field and Clear Contact Field operations let you push an explicit value to any Spotler contact field directly from Dynamics 365, without going through the normal Contact Sync.

This is useful for fields that cannot be mapped (computed values, order history, aggregates) or when you need to write a value once without maintaining a permanent sync.

Setting a Field Value

Create a Spotler Job with the Set Contact Field operation. Select the customer or lead, enter the Spotler Field Name, and enter the Field Value.

The field name must exist in Spotler. You can use either the internal Spotler field name (e.g. lastorderdate) or the display name (e.g. Last Order Date). If the display name matches more than one field, the job fails with a validation error asking you to use the exact internal name instead.

Type coercion: The value is converted to the field's expected type before sending to Spotler. For example, a da

Open Example Automations

Example Automations

React to Bounces

When a contact is inactive because of a bounce, send an internal notification so that the email address can be corrected.

Reactivation contacts

Contact that are not engaging give false impression on your contact base. Sometimes it is better to clean these up, by sending a reactivation email.

When no response, de-active the permission or tag them.

Renewal Subscriptions or Licence Expiry

When a renewal is up-coming you could send an email for upgrading. Or inform them about a licence that is expiring.

Send the right message at the right time.

Open Website Visitors

🚀NEW FEATURE : COMING

Website Visitors

✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS

Spotler Leads discovers companies that visit your website, using IP Lookup and Web Tracking. Very valuable information for B2B companies.

The Spotler Connector can synchronize these Website Visitors, including the web pages they view, into Dynamics 365 CRM. Enriching existing customers and creating new leads.

⚠️Warning! This feature only works when Spotler Leads (GatorLeads) is enabled.

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View Website Visitors

View List, Hot List, My List, Focused View

View Details

View Visits

Auto-matching existing Customers

Promote to Lead or Customer

Lead Rating, Status & Type

Open Setup

Setup

The installation of the integration consists of the following steps that needs to done by the customer (or their Dynamics 365 implementation partner):

Preparation

Provide environment information

To connect with Spotler we need the following information:

1. Spotler API Key and Secret (Where can I find the Key and Secret of the Spotler REST API? – Spotler Help Center)
2. Dynamics 365 Organization URL and ID (Determine your environment's organization ID and name)

Approve App for your organization

The connector requires access to your Dynamics 365 environment. This is done by granting Spotler Connector App access to your organization. This is done in two steps:

1. Add the Spotler Connector App to your organization. Use the following link for this https://automatevalue.com/spotlerautomate-access. > ⚠️**Warn

Open Database Fields

Database Fields

When you go to the profile of a contact in Spotler, it contains a number of fields with information about the contact.

These are database fields and can be altered.

How to manage them

Do you need extra database fields in your account, because you want to collect more data with your forms? Or would you like to edit database fields? As the owner of an account, you have an overview of the database fields, and you can add and edit them.

ℹ️ Info: Only the Owner can alter fields.

See Database fields – Spotler Mail+ Help Center

Fields that you don't need are best to make them not visible, so that they don't clutter your profile.

⚠️Warning! Fields that or not Visible are also not seen be the Spotler Connector!

You can move fields up and down and rename them. When renaming fi

Open Mapping

Mapping

Contact details, among other things, are synced between Dynamics 365 and Spotler. A mapping describes which fields of Dynamics 365 maps with the database fields in Spotler.

We will configure a simple default mapping and email the initial configuration of the mapping in an Excel document.

The mapping is stored in the AutomateValue Connector Platform and managed by AutomateValue. Changes can be requested by email (support@automatevalue.com).

Think about the fields do you want to map between both systems and let us know. Often it is useful to have a session with each other about what is possible and which fields you want to synchronize to Spotler.

Please note that fields may not be more than one level deep. For example, fields from Account can be included in the Contact synchronization, because that is one level (Contact->Account). It is also useful to think about which entities need to be synchronized: only Contact or Contact and Lead? Are all contacts allowed t

Open Environment Variables

Environment Variables

There are two environment variables that control what happens to the Permissions (Subscriptions) of a new Contact, Lead or Account that is created in Dynamics 365.

permissions

The permissions environment variable defines which Permissions are being added to a new Contact, Lead or Account.

It auto populates the Permission subgrid will all the possible Permissions, so that a user can directly flag them them when they are creating a new contact, lead or account.

The value needs to be a semicolon separated string of permissions that match the permissions in Spotler. For example: Newsletter;Productinfo;Servicenotifications;

⚠️ Warning: This setting only applies to newly created Contact, Leads or Accounts created in Dynamics 365. If a new contact is created in Spotler then this setting doesn't have any effect!

The Spotler connector will daily update this environment variable with the latest permissions defined in Spotler, so you don'

Open Tables

Tables

The Spotler Connector tries to use as much is possible the existing tables and columns in Dynamics 365 to store data. In this way, when you remove the Connector from your environment, you don't lose this data.

But for some functionality we added a couple of tables and columns.

Added Tables

• Spotler Info: Information about the synchronization to Spotler, like the last status and if it is active or inactive.

• Spotler Permission: Permission for which a Customer or Lead can (un)subscribe for.

• Spotler Job (Log): Jobs for executing operations by the Spotler Connector.

• Spotler Automation: Contains the trigger codes of automations and campaigns in Spotler. Used to lookup in a Spotler Job.

• Marketing Interaction: Interactions related to marketing, like Website Visits, Email Opened or Email Clicked.

• Website Visitor: Tracked Website Visitors than can be promoted t

Open Security Roles

Security Roles

The Spotler Connector installs two security roles into Dynamics 365:

1. Spotler User
2. Spotler Service

Spotler User

This Security Role should be given to all users that work with your Dynamics 365 app.

It will allows to View the added Tables by the Spotler Connector and make it possible to Edit Spotler Permissions.

It also gives access to the Spotler Hub App.

Spotler Service

This Security Role contains the minimal permissions that the installed Application User of the Spotler Connector needs to have to do the synchronization.

Often these minimal permissions are not enough. For example, you can make complex queries for dynamic Marketing Lists which touches all kind of Tables.

So, the advice would be to assign the System Administrator role to the Application User.

![securityrole-service.png](https://books.automat

Open Configure Contact Sync

Configure Contact Sync

The connector syncs a contact from Dynamics 365 or Power App when a Spotler Job with the operation Sync Contact is created. This is the trigger for the connector to start doing its work.

You can create a Spotler Job yourself, every time you make a change to a contact, but that would be cumbersome.

• Workflows
• Trigger Fields

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Workflows

The connector installed a couple of Workflows that will trigger when an Account, Contact or Lead is created or changed and will create a Spotler Job:

• Account WF01 - Create Spotler Job
• Contact WF01 - Create Spotler Job
• Lead WF01 - Create Spotler Job
• Spotler Permissions WF01 - Create Spotler Job

These Workflows can be tweaked to your liking, or even completely deactivated, if you wish to build the logic in another way, like [

Open Customizations

Customizations

✍️ DRAFT : IN PROGRESS

• Auto populating Permissions for new Accounts/Contacts/Leads
• Populating Permissions for existing Accounts/Contacts/Leads
• Sync Contact Job or Marketing List
• Manually adding Permissions by Admin
• TODO's

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Auto populating Permissions for new Accounts/Contacts/Leads

When a new Account, Contact or Lead is created in CRM a background process will create Spotler Permissions (1-2sec). Which Permissions will be created can be configured in two Environment Variables:

1. Spotler Permissions (dh_spotlerpermissions)

Holds a semicolon (;) separated string with the Permissions that will be created. The connector will keep this in sync with Spotler.

To disable the auto-creation of permissions add a Current Value with a semicolon

Open Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

• Spotler Job stays on status 'Queued'

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Spotler Job stays on status 'Queued'

Problem

Spotler Jobs have initial the status 'Queued'. This status should change to 'In Progress' and end in the status 'Completed' (or 'Failed').

Often these status changes happen fast, but there can be a delay in processing. Normally most Spotler Jobs are processed within 3 hours.

If the status after a day is still 'Queued' there could be a problem in processing.

Possible Cause

Go to the waiting Spotler Job and click on Related > Background Processes. Does it contain a failing System Job?

If there is a failing System Job then open it. Go to the Details tab, which contains the error message.

If the error message contains 'A SASKey has not been configured for ServiceEndpoint SpotlerAutomate' than the SAS Key is missing or not correct.

If there are no failing System Jobs than the connection to