The importance of reviewing the Microsoft Certification Study Guide when preparing for an exam - Part II

?If you're looking at the exams for the first party?Microsoft Dynamics 365?products and the?MB-210 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Functional Consultant?learning pathway, it's self-paced collection includes the following Learning Paths:

• ?Work with Dynamics 365 Sales
• ?Implement goal management in Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service
• ?Enhance Dynamics 365 Sales with tools and apps

?

?None of the modules in these Learning Paths cover the following topics that are included under the 'Manage core sales features' skills heading:

• ?Create and manage forecasts
• ?Manage in-app campaigns

??♀?

?

In the first article of this two-part mini-series, I provided a high-level overview of the 'Create and manage forecasts' topic, with references to where you can find the documentation on the detailed steps for configuring these processes.? ??

?I touched on considerations you need to take account of when considering the order to study and sit the exams for the first party Microsoft Dynamics 365 products. And also provided the dates for when nearly all of these exams are due to be updated during September 2023.? ??

?

??In this follow-up article I do the same in respect of the 'Manage in-app campaigns' topic. ??

??I also revisit the dates for when nearly all of these exams are due to be updated during September 2023, with additional insights on the impact of these "updates". ??

?

Manage in-app campaigns

?So what is meant by "Manage in-app campaigns"? ??

?

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales app aims to provide resources that enable users to "do common sales tasks" within the one app.

?This includes the ability to create a marketing campaign as part of your Sales engagement without needing to have the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys app installed.

You can:

? Promote your business and improve sales with targeted marketing campaigns in Dynamics 365 Sales.

? Create activities for each campaign and assign them to different team members.

? Track customer response and costs for each campaign.

?

Unlike forecasts, which is a premium product, Campaign management is included within all three key Licence tiers:

• ?Dynamics 365 Sales Professional
• Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise
• Dynamics 365 Sales Premium

?

? It isn't, however, fully supported in the Dynamics 365 app for Teams.

?

The Security roles required to use the app are similarly aligned to this broader availability:

• ?Any primary sales role, such as Salesperson or Sales manager

?Manage in-app campaigns

?The Study Guide for the MB-210 exam says that you need to understand the following skills to Manage in-app campaigns:

• ?Create and manage marketing lists
• Create quick campaigns

?

However within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales app Sales Hub, you have the ability not only to create quick campaigns, but also standard campaigns as well:

Note:? The Sales app is still referencing this as Marketing.? I don't know whether in time it will be rebranded to Customer Services - Journeys?? ??

?Also, as with forecasts, you'll only be able to view the Marketing section under the Sales area from the Sales Hub app, and not the Sales Trial app. ??

?

?The 'Get started with in-app marketing' article within the Seller guide provides a very good explanation of the difference between a campaign and a quick campaign, including this excellent visual representation:

So whilst you can use the Sales app for the more complex and detailed complete marketing campaigns, the fact that the Study Guide doesn't include these under the skills they expect a Sales Functional Consultant to have indicates to me that they'd expect this type of campaign to be managed using the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing app (now the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journey app).

Dynamics 365 Sales documentation

?If you remember from our deep-dive into forecasts, under the Dynamics 365 Sales documentation there are three guides:

• ?Administration guide
• Seller guide
• Developer guide

Whereas the knowledge on forecasts was equally spread across the Administration and Seller guides, with Manage in-app campaigns, the majority is actually contained in the Seller guide.

I will, however, go through the guides in the same order as before, for consistency. ??

Administration guide

?The Administration Guide only has a single article covering how to configure the In-app marketing settings to define various aspects of campaigning.

?For example, you can specify whether you want to create a campaign response automatically when a customer responds to a campaign email.

?

To be able to configure these settings, you do, however, need to have the System administrator Security role.

Seller guide

The Seller Guide provides you with the details on how to create and run a marketing campaign under its "Sales engagement" topic heading (which is usefully beneath Forecast management).?

It includes separate articles on Creating a marketing list:

And on 'Creating a quick campaign', which starts by explaining when to use a quick campaign v's when you should create a standard campaign instead.

?

It then walks you through how to use the Create a Quick Campaign wizard:

And importantly ?? highlights what Activity types are supported and what aren't:

Developer guide

?The Developer Guide has a single article under 'In-app marketing' that provides reference documentation for customising the quick campaign and distribute campaign activity forms.

?

This can only be done by a System customizer, and there a number of important caveats:

Details of the input parameters that the marketingformdisplayattributeset action expects are provided, including helpful advice on where you can get column names from system customizations, in order to populate the displayattributelist parameter with the list of columns to be displayed in the custom form:

It then provides an example of the HTML POST Action for developers to copy, and the expected JSON Response. ??

?Updates to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Functional Consultant Associate exams

?As I mentioned at the end of my last article, nearly all of the first party Microsoft Dynamics 365 exams are due to be updated during September, with the new versions taking effect from the following dates:

• ?MB-210 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Functional Consultant:? 27th September 2023
• MB-220 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing Functional Consultant:? 20th September 2023
• MB-230 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Functional Consultant:? 25th September 2023
• MB-240 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service Functional Consultant:? Not currently being updated.? Last updated 23 March 2023
• MB-260 Microsoft Customer Data Platform Specialist (Customer Insights):? 21st September 2023

I said previously that the skills measured before and after these dates will change to varying degrees and recommended you review the Change log section of the Study Guide.

I can't emphasise how important this is, as having reviewed them myself I've found that the MB-230: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service exam is going through a wide range of minor and major changes, deletions of some topics and additions of new ones. ??

Whereas the MB-220: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing exam, very surprisingly, has no changes at all apart from one minor change to the Manage email messages topic and, of course, its renaming to MB-220 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights (Journeys) Functional Consultant! ??

As I commented on one of the timely posts from ANS Group 's Anthony Rutter on the changes in the new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys app, it looks like we're still going to have the situation where the 微软 Learning Pathways will lag 4-6 months behind when the Microsoft Learn documentation articles get updated. ??

?

Which is good for those still needing to understand Outbound as an interim solution, but could be quite confusing now that people sitting these exams for the first time have access to Microsoft Learn as an exam resource. ????