assignment rules in dynamics 365

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Harnessing the Power of Assignment Rules in Dynamics 365

by Brian Begley | Sep 21, 2023 | Dynamics 365 Sales , Dynamics 365 Sales Insights

In today’s fast-paced business environment, efficiently managing leads is crucial for any sales-driven organization. Microsoft Dynamics 365, with its comprehensive CRM capabilities, offers a powerful feature known as Assignment Rules. This tool is instrumental in enhancing lead conversion rates by ensuring that leads are directed to the most suitable sales representatives. This blog post delves into the intricacies of Assignment Rules in Dynamics 365, bolstered by real-life examples, to showcase how businesses can leverage this feature for optimal sales performance. to learn how you can Ignite your Sales Pipeline, visit 10 Proven Strategies to Supercharge Lead Generation with Dynamics 365.

Understanding Assignment Rules in Dynamics 365

Assignment Rules in Dynamics 365 are designed to automate the distribution of leads (or other work items) to the right sales personnel based on predefined criteria. These rules take into account various factors like geographical location, industry, lead score, or the expertise of the sales representative. By automating this process, Dynamics 365 ensures a more efficient and error-free distribution of leads, significantly enhancing the chances of conversion.

Real-Life Example: Tech Solutions Inc.

Consider Tech Solutions Inc., a company specializing in providing IT solutions. Before implementing Dynamics 365, they faced challenges in lead management due to manual distribution processes. Leads were often routed to sales reps who lacked the specific expertise or were already overwhelmed with work, leading to missed opportunities and lower conversion rates.

After adopting Dynamics 365 and implementing Assignment Rules, Tech Solutions Inc. witnessed a remarkable transformation. They set up rules to assign leads based on the product interest of the lead and the technical expertise of their sales reps. This strategic alignment ensured that leads were handled by the most qualified person, resulting in a 30% increase in lead conversion within the first quarter of implementation. Learn how your salespeople can close more and shorten the sales cycle by visiting Mastering the Dynamics 365 Sales Cycle – Part 1 Lead to Opportunity

Features and Benefits of Assignment Rules

Customizable Criteria : Dynamics 365 allows businesses to define their unique criteria for lead assignment. This customization ensures that each lead is matched with the most suitable sales rep.
Increased Productivity : Automated lead distribution saves significant time and effort, allowing sales reps to focus more on selling rather than on sorting through leads.
Improved Response Time : Faster assignment leads to quicker follow-ups, a crucial factor in increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Enhanced Customer Experience : When leads are matched with knowledgeable reps, the quality of interaction improves, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Data-Driven Decisions : Assignment Rules utilize the rich data within Dynamics 365 to make informed decisions, leading to more effective lead management.

Real-Life Example: HealthCare Plus

HealthCare Plus, a provider of healthcare products, utilized Dynamics 365 Assignment Rules to manage leads across various regions and product lines. They created rules to distribute leads based on geographic location and the specific healthcare product of interest. This not only improved the efficiency of their sales team but also ensured that customers received more personalized and knowledgeable service, leading to a 40% improvement in customer satisfaction scores.

Best Practices for Implementing Assignment Rules

Understand Your Sales Process : Before setting up rules, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of your sales process and the specific needs of your sales team.
Define Clear Criteria : Establish well-thought-out criteria that reflect your sales strategy and customer segmentation.
Regularly Review and Update Rules : As your business evolves, so should your assignment rules. Regularly review and update them to align with your current sales strategy.
Train Your Team : Ensure that your sales team is well-trained on how the Assignment Rules function and how they benefit the sales process.
Monitor Performance : Keep track of the performance of your lead management process and make adjustments as needed.

Assignment Rules in Dynamics 365 represent a significant advancement in the realm of CRM, offering a streamlined, efficient, and intelligent approach to lead management. By drawing on real-life examples from companies like Tech Solutions Inc. and HealthCare Plus, it’s evident that implementing these rules can lead to remarkable improvements in lead conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and overall sales productivity. As businesses continue to seek ways to optimize their sales processes, embracing the full potential of Dynamics 365’s Assignment Rules will undoubtedly be a game-changer in their journey towards sales excellence.

How can we help?

In the dynamic realm of modern business, effective lead management is the cornerstone of sustainable growth and triumph. Microsoft’s robust customer relationship management (CRM) solution, Dynamics 365 , offers a comprehensive lead management system to capture, nurture, and convert leads into steadfast customers. To learn more about the core elements of lead management in Dynamics 365 and how it can supercharge your sales pipeline, visit Mastering Lead Management in Dynamics 365: Igniting Your Sales Pipeline .

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM Lead/Case Assignment Automation Rules - Best Practices and Tricks!

Businesses revolve around Sales. That is why Leads are precious because only a fraction of them are converted into sales. And one of the challenges that organizations face in lead conversion is responding quickly to newly generated leads.

41% of business organizations feel that following up with leads quickly is a challenge. But only 25% of marketing and sales professionals have any kind of automation software specific to lead conversion.

In highly competitive markets, this response time can make or break deals. The only way to decrease the response time is to assign the incoming leads quickly to the respective salespersons, which is practically impossible in the case of manual processing. So, the only solution is to automate the assignment of leads through an app that specializes in this task and works with your CRM.

And this is where Lead Assignment and Distribution Automation comes in!

This Microsoft Preferred App automates the allocation or distribution of Leads (or any other entity records) recorded in Dynamics 365 CRM in a systematic way.

Now, let’s see why Lead Assignment and Distribution Automation is the apt app for assigning Leads, Cases, or any other entity records in Dynamics 365 CRM.

Bid goodbye to the manual assignment of Leads

With this Lead assignment automation app, you can assign the leads generated through various sales and marketing initiatives by using Round Robin or Capacity Algorithm. With the Round Robin algorithm, the incoming Leads will be evenly distributed among your team members. If there are three members in your team and there are six incoming Leads then each member will be allotted two Leads.

But under the Capacity Algorithm, the individual capacity of your team member (salesperson) is taken into consideration while assigning leads. Under this rule, you can allocate more leads to an experienced salesperson as compared to an inexperienced one. This ensures that each team member is equally loaded as per their capacity.

Further, you can also automate the assignment of leads that were already existing in Dynamics 365 CRM before the implementation of this automation app into your CRM. Another added advantage of using this Lead automation app.

Multiple checkpoints to assign leads with ease

While automating lead assignment in Dynamics 365 CRM, there are many factors that need to be considered carefully for the smooth execution of the lead assignment process. For example:

The order of executing assignment rules if there are multiple assignment rules configured in your CRM.
The sequence of assigning leads to team members (salesperson) if there are five or more salespeople in your team i.e. who will get the first lead?
Daily, weekly or monthly – when the leads should be assigned?
Check availability of the salesperson – is the salesperson on vacation, out of the office, or available?

Configuring rules and applying conditions to handle these factors will ensure operational efficiency while assigning leads in CRM. These parameters or checkpoints will undoubtedly eliminate any chances of mismanagement while allocating leads in Dynamics 365 CRM.

Dashboard reporting to monitor lead assignment

With Dashboard reporting, the Lead Assignment and Distribution Automation app ensures you get a clear insight into total assigned leads. It helps you to understand to whom the active leads are assigned and the situation with pending leads through the Lead assignment dashboard. When this information is readily available, it becomes relatively easy to track, monitor, and optimize the workload and performance of each team member. It is also quite helpful in planning sales strategies and the development of skills of salespeople, resulting in a higher lead conversion rate.

With all these features, isn’t this quite an amazing app to have in your Dynamics 365 CRM?

In this day and age of technological advancement, restricting an organization's capabilities with manual tasks is a huge disadvantage for the future growth of the organization. So, break free from the old patterns and explore the advantage of automation apps for the future advancement of business.

Just go to our website or Microsoft AppSource and download the 15-day free trial of this fabulous lead automation app.

Also, check out these videos to learn more about this Lead automation app.

For any further information on automating lead assignment within Dynamics 365 CRM, mail us at [email protected]

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Automatic Lead Assignment

Posted by: Dian Taylor | on June 15, 2021

I keep coming across more features that are getting enabled as part of 2021 Release Wave 1 and each time another feature is added I feel like I received another birthday present! Microsoft is not sitting still and new features are being added almost constantly! I think this feature is going to be a game changer for a lot of sales organizations. Keep in mind this feature is currently in public preview, which means it’s not a finished product as of yet. You have the ability to test it out and see how it works and provide feedback to Microsoft. As the title suggests, as part of this feature a lead distribution engine will be added to the Dynamics 365 organization. You can then configure the logic for leads to be automatically assigned to users or teams based on assignment rules. Keep in mind that this feature is part of the Sales Accelerator in Dynamics 365 Sales, which means you’ll need to purchase the Sales Insights add-on license in order to get access to this functionality. To learn more about the Sales Accelerator check out these two articles I wrote about it: What’s new with the Sales Accelerator and Sales Accelerator(Preview) .

How does it work?

So first let’s talk about how this auto-assignment actually works. When a lead flows into the system the assignment rules that were configured are applied to the leads. If the condition(s) in the assignment rule is met, the lead is automatically assigned to a Dynamics 365 Sales user or team. Keep in mind that if there are multiple rules. The the system always looks at the order of the rules, the rule that is on top will be ran first, then the one beneath that one, and so on. So when you are creating new rules, these new rules will automatically be added to the top of the list, but if you need to you can move the rules’ order around so that the most important rules are ran first.

Seller Attributes The assignment rules work hand in hand with seller attributes that are part of the lead assignment functionality as well. We can use these attributes to track certain things on a per user basis, for example certain skills different users have, like the ability to speak another language besides English. Another example is there maybe certain types of leads that should only be sent to certain sales people. Seller Attributes allow us to create attributes and associate them with Dynamics 365 users (the sellers). We can use some of the fields that are related to the lead table for this (option sets) or we can create our own attributes with their corresponding values. Let’s create a new seller attribute to track which languages our users are speaking. In the Sales Hub, navigate to Sales Insights settings and click on ‘Assignment Rules(preview)’ on the sitemap. You’ll notice ‘Seller attributes’ on the bottom right side of the screen. Click on ‘Manage’ then click the ‘+New seller attribute’ button. In the window that pops up, enter a name for the seller attribute, which in my case is ‘Language’ or ‘Languages Spoken’. Below the seller attribute you’ll notice an dropdown field that reads ‘Data field linked to attribute’. These are fields that I mentioned earlier which are related to the lead table. If there was an out of the box ‘Preferred language’ field for leads (which would represent the language the lead prefers), you would be able to choose that here, and you would even be able to remove any of the values from that field in the seller attribute! So for example if I had the languages ‘German’, ‘Spanish’ and ‘English’ in the ‘Preferred Langage’ option set field, but only needed to use ‘Spanish’ and ‘English’, I could remove the ‘German’ option from the seller attribute.

Since the ‘Preferred Language’ field doesn’t exist as part of the lead table, there are two different options you have: you can select ‘Do not link with fields’ (This allows you to add your own values to the attribute by typing the values in the ‘Attribute Values’ field and hitting enter on your keyboard) or you can manually create the ‘Preferred Language’ field for the lead table and using that. Honestly I would suggest trying both just to you understand what I’m talking about and get to learn more about this functionality. Managing Sales Teams You can access the sales users or sellers by clicking on the ‘Manage button’ on the Sales Teams section on the Assignment rules page. This will take you to a page that shows all the sellers and their related information, like ‘Max capacity’ (see explanation below), ‘Current leads assigned’ ( if there are leads assigned to sellers prior to creating assignment rules, the total number of assigned leads will not show in this list immediately. Once a lead gets assigned, a leads’ status is updated or a lead is deleted, this number of currently assigned leads will be updated) . Seller attributes that are assigned to each seller, whether or not a seller should be part of the users that gets leads assigned by the assignment rules (Assign Leads slider) and a list of ‘Roles’. If you want certain sellers to be excluded from getting leads assigned you can turn this off on a per user basis. Unfortunately there is currently no way to mass update sellers, you’ll have to turn them off one by one. Roles represent the security roles that are assigned to the user.

Applying Seller Attributes Once you have created the seller attributes you will still need to add them to the different sellers. You can start this process by clicking on the ‘Manage’ button on the Sales Team section on the Assignment Rules page. Keep in mind these seller attributes can only be assigned to users, not to teams. In order to assign the seller attributes to Dynamics 365 users in bulk, check the box next to the seller names, then click ‘Apply Attributes’ and select the attributes you want to assign. Another button on the top is the ‘Set Lead Capacity’ button. This will allow you to set how many leads any seller could have assigned as a maximum. This is important because this works hand in hand with the assignment rules. If (based on the rule) a lead is to ready to get assigned Tom, and Tom’s lead capacity is 10 but he already has 10 leads assigned to him the lead will not be assigned to him. The lead capacity can also be updated for multiple users at a time. Assignment Rules The assignment rules is where we configure the data (which leads should be assigned) and the logic of the lead assignment. (when does a lead needs to get assigned?) You’ll notice ‘Assignment rules’ on top of the screen. This is where you will be creating the assignment rules. Click ‘+New Assignment Rule’ to start creating a new rule. You will need to enter the name of the rule and select a lead segment. NOTE: Once the rule is activated, all of the leads in the segment will be assigned based on the logic in the rule. If you want this rule to apply to all leads you can leave the ‘Set lead segment’ field blank. If you’ve read my previous article about the sales accelerator and how segments work, then you know that we can filter out leads in a segment.

When you select a segment in the assignment rule, you can add additional filters to the assignment rule by clicking ‘+ Additional Condition’. This will take you to a query screen where you can configure the filters you want to use for this specific rule. You have the ability to filter on lead columns but you can also add filters for tables that are related to the lead, just like we can in advanced find. For this particular example I added a field/column to the lead table called ‘Preferred Language’ with the values “English’, ‘Dutch’ and ‘Spanish’ so I can track which language the lead prefers to speak. Under the assignment rule I am adding an additional lead condition where the ‘Preferred Language’ equals ‘English’. This means that all leads in the segment that I tied to to this rule that have this field set to ‘English’ will be included to be assigned. In the ‘ Assign these leads to ‘ field we can define who to assign the leads to. These could be individual users or to owning teams. (Make sure the teams/users have the correct privileges otherwise the leads won’t be assigned to the user/team.) If you choose to assign the leads to users, you’ll notice you can assign the leads to ‘Sellers with matching attributes’. These refer to the seller attributes that I discussed earlier. This option also allows us to add filters for those seller attributes. In this example we only want to assign the leads to sellers who speak English, so I choose the ‘User seller attributes defined for assignment rules’ option, and then picked ‘Language’ (<-this is the seller attribute) equals ‘English’. This means that these leads will only be assigned to sellers/users that have the ‘English’ language seller attribute. Under the ‘Distribute leads by’ section you have the option to choose load balancing or round robin assignment. Load balancing means that the leads will be distributed based on a users’ current load. Example: According to the rule a lead would need to be assigned to sellers/users who speak English. Let’s say there are two users, Bob and Scott who both speak English. Scott has a current load of 10 leads and Bob has a load of 5 leads currently assigned to him. This means the lead would be assigned to Bob, because his load is less than Scott’s. Round robin assignment is where the leads get distributed evenly. Let’s say we have 4 leads that need to be distributed, then both Bob and Scott will get 2 leads assigned regardless of how many leads they own. Below the ‘Load balancing’ and ‘Round robin’ assignment options you see the ability to consider a seller’s capacity. As mentioned before, a seller’s capacity is the maximum number of leads that can be assigned to the seller. If this box is checked, a seller’s capacity will be taken into account.

You’ll also notice a check box named ‘Consider seller availability’. If you check this box, then the seller’s calendar will be taken into consideration. Example: If a seller has marked days off on their calendar the lead won’t get assigned to that seller on those days even if that seller meets all other conditions. The system would try to assign the lead to another seller who meets the conditions in the rule or the lead would remain unassigned (if no other seller meets the condition(s)). In order for a seller to set their availability they would need to configure this. Before they can do this, the setting needs to be enabled first. You’ll need to navigate to ‘Sequences’, where you will see a ‘Settings’ button on the top right of the page (image above). The seller availability settings can be turned on here. Once this is turned on, each seller can configure their own individual availability by navigating to the Sales area in the Sales Hub and then selecting ‘Sales Accelerator’ on the sitemap on the left hand side. On the top of the work items lists you’ll notice a gear icon. This is where some of the personal settings can be configured. When clicking the gear icon the ‘Personal Settings’ window will pop up where users can configure their availability. To learn more about setting up sellers’ availability c lick here . One last thing I wanted to mention is that this engine runs each time a lead is created or updated, so it’s not like it runs in batches every couple of hours. I hope you enjoyed this article! Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post!

Posted in D365 Sales , Release Wave | Tags: auto assignment , automatically assign leads , Lead Assignment , lead assignment engine , Sales | 2 Comments »

2 Comments to Automatic Lead Assignment

Thanks Dian for sharing this. One query regarding lead assignment engine. As it runs each time a lead is created or updated, if the lead is already assigned to a seller and a particular attribute changes on the lead, I believe such leads are not considered for reassignment to the sellers. Correct me if I am wrong over here.

I haven’t tried this myself, so I would definitely recommend playing with it to try that scenario out.

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Automatically route deals to the right sellers by using segments in assignment rules

By Bar Segal, UX Designer

Dynamics 365 Sales helps teams better understand business relationships, take actions based on insights, and close opportunities faster. One of the many ways the app helps sales teams succeed is enabling them to build segments for use in assignment rules to ensure leads and opportunities are routed to the right sellers.

What is a segment?

A segment is a collection of leads and opportunities that are grouped together based on certain conditions, such as location, deal value, language, and product. You can create segments for both lead and opportunity entities. For details, see this article: Create and activate a segment .

You can use segments in assignment rules and sequences . With segments, you can choose the set of characteristics a lead or opportunity should have in order to get assigned to relevant sellers or to connect to a certain sequence, without the need to create the same conditions repeatedly.

When a new lead or opportunity is created in Dynamics 365 Sales and matches the conditions of a specified segment, it will automatically become a member of that segment, and will assign to sellers and connect to a sequence based on how you build your organization’s process automation.

Let’s take an example to understand how it works.

Define segment conditions

The following segment is defined with simple conditions, to catch all leads coming from the company’s website and that have an email address.

Using an assignment rule in Dynamics 365 Sales to capture leads with an email address.

A segment can also include more complex parameters, using groups of AND/OR conditions or a link to a related entity. For example, you can create a segment that will capture all opportunities that are interested in printers or monitors, and that are related to one of two relevant accounts.

Simulate segment members

You can simulate the results based on existing data in your system, to make sure the segment will catch the lead or opportunity with the desired characteristics. The simulation results are not actual members of that segment and are just an example of the types of leads the segment will capture when it is activated.

Important highlights and limitations

A lead or opportunity will be evaluated for a segment when it is created, and again when it is being updated. For example, a lead can enter the system without a populated email address, but after going through a nurturing process, an email address will be added, and the lead will become a member of the “Nurtured leads from website” segment in the above example.
Your segment must be activated to catch new leads or opportunities.
A lead or opportunity can become a member of only one segment. If a lead matches the conditions of more than one segment, it will randomly become a member of one of them.
When a lead is added to a segment and assigned to a seller or connected to a sequence, it can’t be added to a different segment, seller, or sequence.

How to use a segment in assignment rules

When creating assignment rules for a lead or opportunity, you can use a segment to define the type of record that will be assigned to sellers via each rule. You can create multiple rules based on the same segment and add specific conditions to each rule to match your business process.

In the following example, we can select the “Nurtured leads from website” segment. This means that all leads that will become members of that segment will be assigned to sellers by this rule’s conditions.

Create rule for adding leads to a segment in Dynamics 365 Sales.

We can add another condition to that segment that will route the hot leads from the segment to the most experienced sellers.

For this scenario, we can create two rules: one rule to capture hot leads from the segment, and another rule to catch all remaining leads from the segment.

By placing the rule for assigning hot leads above the default rule, hot leads will be evaluated first and will be assigned to experienced sellers. The rest of the leads will be assigned by the default rule.

For more information about segments, read the documentation:

How to manage segments
How to connect a segment to sequence

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You can have a signature automatically added to all new messages. Go to in the New messages drop-down box and select one of your signatures. If you don't want to automatically add a signature to new messages, choose (none). This option does not add a signature to any messages you reply to or forward.

You can select to have your signature automatically appear in reply and forward messages. In the Replies/forwards drop-down, select one of your signatures. Otherwise, accept the default option of (none).

Choose OK to save your new signature and return to your message. Outlook doesn't add your new signature to the message you opened in Step 1, even if you chose to apply the signature to all new messages. You'll have to add the signature manually to this one message. All future messages will have the signature added automatically. To add the signature manually, select Signature from the Message menu and then pick the signature you just created.

Add a logo or image to your signature

If you have a company logo or an image to add to your signature, use the following steps.

Open a new message and then select Signature > Signatures .

In the Select signature to edit box, choose the signature you want to add a logo or image to.

To resize your image, right-click the image, then choose Picture . Select the Size tab and use the options to resize your image. To keep the image proportions, make sure to keep the Lock aspect ratio checkbox checked.

When you're done, select OK , then select OK again to save the changes to your signature.

Insert a signature manually

If you don't choose to insert a signature for all new messages or replies and forwards, you can still insert a signature manually.

In your email message, on the Message tab, select Signature .

Choose your signature from the fly-out menu that appears. If you have more than one signature, you can select any of the signatures you've created.

See how it's done

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Note: Outlook on the web is the web version of Outlook for business users with a work or school account.

Automatically add a signature to a message

You can create an email signature that you can add automatically to all outgoing messages or add manually to specific ones.

Select Settings at the top of the page.

Select Mail > Compose and reply .

Under Email signature , type your signature and use the available formatting options to change its appearance.

Select the default signature for new messages and replies.

Manually add your signature to a new message

If you've created a signature but didn't choose to automatically add it to all outgoing messages, you can add it later when you write an email message.

In a new message or reply, type your message.

If you created multiple signatures, choose the signature you want to use for your new message or reply.

When your email message is ready, choose Send .

Note: Outlook.com is the web version of Outlook for users signing in with a personal Microsoft account such as an Outlook.com or Hotmail.com account.

Create and add an email signature in Outlook for Mac

Create an email signature from a template

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Select security roles to assign records to

3 contributors

Before an assignment rule can assign your sellers and sales teams new opportunities, leads, and insights, you need to select the security roles that can be automatically assigned to records. Then, make sure your sellers are given one of those roles.

Segments and assignment rules are part of the work assignment feature. Work assignment is available in sales accelerator version 9.1.23074.10021 and is rolling out in phases in different regions. Learn more about work assignment .

License and role requirements

Select security roles.

In the lower-left corner of the page, select Change area > Sales Insights settings .

Under Sales accelerator , select Work assignment .

Select Settings .

In the Eligible security roles section, select Manage .

Select one of the following options to grant permissions to your sales team:

All security roles : Allows all the security roles in your organization to automatically receive lead, opportunity, and insight assignments.
Specific security roles : Allows only the security roles that you select to automatically receive lead, opportunity, and insight assignments.

Select Save .

Permissions required

The following permissions are required to perform tasks on work assignment entities. Make sure security roles are configured to grant the required permissions.

Entity: Permissions

Seller attributes

Attribute: Read, Create, Write, Delete, Append To
Attribute Value: Read, Create, Write, Delete, Append
Attribute: Read
Attribute Value, User: Read, Append, Append To
Attribute, Attribute Value: Read

Seller capacity

Assignment Map: Read, Write
Assignment Map, User: Read
Sales Routing Run, Segment, Team, User: Read Note : Before a record can be assigned to a seller, the seller must have privileges on it.
Segment: Read, Write, Append
Sequence: Read, Write, Create, Append, Append To
Sequence Stat, Sequence Target Step: Read
Sequence Template: Append To
Segment, Sequence, Sequence Stat, Sequence Target Step, and Sequence Template: Read
Segment: Read, Write, Create, Delete
Segment: Read
Segment: Read, Write, Create

Assignment rules permissions are required only when assignment rule is selected for migration.