Send birthday greetings to your customers

Under Settings, click Customization, and then click Customize Entities.

Double-click the Contact entity, and then in the Contact entity form, under Details, click Attributes.

Click New, and in Display Name, type Birthday Month. Change the Type to int, and then click Save and Close.

Click New, and in Display Name, type Birthday Day. Change the Type to int, and then click Save and Close.

Under Details, click Forms and Views, and then double-click Form.

On the Details tab, click the Personal Information section, and then click Add Fields.

In the Add Fields dialog box, select the check boxes for the two new attributes you added, and then click OK to close the dialog box.

For each new field that you added to the Personal Information section on the form, click Change Properties.

In the Field Properties dialog box, on the Display tab, select Disabled on the form, and then click OK. A disabled field will appear as dimmed on the form.

Select the Birthday field, and then click Change Properties.

In the Field Properties dialog box, click the Events tab, click onChange, and then click Edit.

In the Event Detail Properties dialog box, on the Details tab, select the Event is enabled check box to enable the event, and in the text box, paste the following script:

if (crmForm.all.birthdate.DataValue != null)
{
var bd = crmForm.all.birthdate.DataValue;

crmForm.all.new_birthdaymonth.DataValue = (bd.getMonth() +1);
crmForm.all.new_birthdaymonth.ForceSubmit = true;

crmForm.all.new_birthdayday.DataValue = bd.getDate();
crmForm.all.new_birthdayday.ForceSubmit = true;


}
else
{
crmForm.all.new_birthdaymonth.DataValue = null;
crmForm.all.new_birthdaymonth.ForceSubmit = true;

crmForm.all.new_birthdayday.DataValue = null;
crmForm.all.new_birthdayday.ForceSubmit = true;
}

On the Dependencies tab, in the Available Fields list, select the Birthday Month and Birthday Day fields and then click to move the field to the Dependent Fields list.

Click OK to close the Event Detail Properties dialog box, and then click OK to close the Field Properties dialog box.

Click Save and Close on the Form: Contact form.

On the Entity: Contact form, on the Actions menu, click Publish.

On the Entity: Contact form, click Save and Close.

In the Contacts list, on the Standard toolbar, click Advanced Find.

Click Show Details, and create a search that looks like this, which will find only contacts that have both a Birthday Month value and an e-mail address.
 

Note

All criteria are selected from under Fields in the Select list.

Click Edit Columns, and under Common Tasks, click Add Columns.

Select the Birthday Month check box, and then click OK.

Under Common Tasks, click Configure Sorting.

In the Column box, select Birthday Month, and then click OK.

In the Edit Columns dialog box, select the Birthday Month column (you may have to scroll to the right to see it), and then use the green arrows under Common Tasks to move Birthday Month to the left so that you will be able to see it on the Advanced Find search results page, and then click OK.

Click Find and verify the results are what you expected.

Click Back to Query, click Save As, type the name of the view (such as Birthday List), and then click OK.

On the Standard toolbar, click Advanced Find.

Click the Saved Views tab.

Select the search, and then on the More Actions menu, click Sharing.

Click Add User/Team, click Find, and then in the Look Up Records dialog box, select the users you want to share this view with.

Click OK to close the Look Up Records dialog box, and then OK again to close the Who would you like to share the selected saved view with dialog box.

Click Workplace, and then click Personalize Workspace.

In the Set Personal Options dialog box, click the E-mail Templates tab, and then click New.

In the Template Type list, select Contact, and then click OK.

On the E-mail Template form, type a title, such as Birthday Greetings, and a description. The title and description are not displayed to the recipients of the e-mail messages that are created by using this template.

In the Subject line, type a greeting, such as Happy Birthday.

In the body of the message compose your message.

1.	To add a field that will insert the customers’ name, on the Actions toolbar, click Insert/Update.
2.	In the Data Field Values dialog box, click Add.
3.	In the Record Type list, select Contact, and in the Field list, select First Name, and then click OK.
4.	Type your message. Tip Although you cannot insert images or HTML directly into Microsoft Dynamics CRM e-mail messages or e-mail templates, you can use the copy feature in Internet Explorer to copy an image from a Web site and paste it into the e-mail template. The image is available as long as the Web site can be accessed.
5.	To close the Data Field Values list, click OK. Your template will look like this:

Click Save and Close.

To close the Set Personal Options dialog box, click OK.

In the Contacts list, in the View box, select your saved view. You may have to press F5 on your keyboard to refresh the screen before the saved view appears.

Select all the contacts who you want to send birthday greetings to.

On the Actions toolbar, click Send Direct E-mail .

In the Send Direct E-mail dialog box, under Contact Templates, select the birthday template you created.

Click Send.