Get ready for vacation

Before leaving on your vacation, you can make sure that:

• Someone on your team can take care of your customers and has access to your customer records.
• Activities due while you are gone are reassigned.
• You've sent an e-mail message to your contacts to let them know who is taking care of them while you are out.

On This Page Share your records with one person Share your records with multiple people Reassign any open or scheduled activities Block your schedule for future appointments and service activities Notify your customers of your plans

Share your records with one person

When you share a record with another person, you are giving that person permission to make changes to that record while you are gone. When you return, you can stop sharing records. This example illustrates how to share a contact. But the procedure is similar for other record types.

Share your active contacts with one person

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Workplace, and then click Contacts.
2. In the View list, select My Active Contacts.
3. Select all the contacts on the page. You can perform this action on only one page of records at a time.
4. On the Actions toolbar, click More Actions, and then click Sharing.
5. In the Who would you like to share the selected contacts with dialog box, under Common Tasks, click Add User/Team.
6. In the Look Up Records dialog box, in the Look for list, select User.
7. In the Look for box, type the first few letters of the name of the record to narrow your search, and then click Find.
8. In the list of available records, double-click the person you want to share the record with, and then click OK.
9. In the Who would you like to share the selected contacts with dialog box, select the type of share access that you want.

   Tip

To protect your contact information, consider giving the person you are sharing the contact records with only read, write, and append privileges. For more information about privileges, see the Help topic, “Controlling Data Access.“

1. Click OK.

Move to the next page of results and repeat steps 3 through 10 until all records are shared.

This will share every record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online that is owned by you with the other person, except activities. In addition, if you are the organizer or a required or optional attendee to an appointment, you need to reassign those activities. How to share activities is discussed later.

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Share your records with multiple people

Sometimes transitions are more complex than a one-to-one sharing, and you have to divide your responsibilities among two or more people. For example, you might be responsible for sales in two states, and you want one coworker to own everything associated with one state's contacts and customers, and another coworker to own everything associated with the other state's contacts and customers.

First, determine which record types have records that must be shared, such as contacts, leads, opportunities, accounts, and e-mail messages.

For accounts, contacts, leads, quotes, orders, and invoices, you can determine records owned by you where the person or company resides in a specific state. You will have to specify the search a bit differently for opportunities and activities, because address information is not stored in these records.

Share accounts, contacts, leads, quotes, orders, and invoices

1. On the Standard toolbar, click Advanced Find.
2. In the Look for list, select a record type: Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Quotes, Orders or Invoices.
3. If there is already search criteria listed, on the Form toolbar, click New.
4. Click Select, and in the Fields section, select Owner. Do not change Equals Current User.
5. Click Select, and then select one of the following:
   • For accounts and contacts, select Address 1: State/Province.
   • For invoices, select Bill To State/Province.
   • For Leads, select State/Province.
6. Click Enter Value, and then type the two-digit state code, for example, WA.

   Tip

Save this Advanced Find query so that you can use it to remove the share from the records later.

1. Click Find.

2. Click the check box at the top of the list that selects all records, and then on the Actions toolbar, click More Actions, and then click Sharing.
3. In the Who would you like to share the selected contacts with dialog box, under Common Tasks, click Add User/Team.
4. In the Look Up Records dialog box, in the Look for list, select User.
5. In the Look for box, type the first few letters of the name of the record to narrow your search, and then click Find.
6. In the list of available records, double-click the person you want to share the record with, and then click OK.
7. Repeat the search for records in the other state, and assign them to the other person.
8. Repeat steps 2-12 until accounts, contacts, leads, opportunities, quotes, orders, and invoices are all shared.

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Reassign any open or scheduled activities

Next, reassign any open or scheduled activities. Unfortunately, you cannot see the state in the Advanced Find search results. You must open each activity to determine which person to assign it to.

Reassign activities

1. On the Standard toolbar, click Advanced Find.
2. In the Look for list, select a record type: Activities.
3. From the Use Saved View list, select [new].
4. Click Select, and then click Owner. Do not change Equals Current User.
5. On the next line, click Select, and then select Activity Status.
6. Click Enter Value, click Select or change the values for this field, double-click Scheduled, and then click OK.
7. Click Edit Columns, and under Common Tasks, click Add Columns, select Due Date, Regarding, and Start Date, and then click OK.

   Note

While you're here, you may want to adjust the width of the columns so that all fit on the screen. To adjust the width, select a column, click Change Properties, select a width, and then click OK.

1. In the Edit Columns dialog box, click OK.
2. Click Find.
3. Look at each scheduled or open activity, and decide who to assign it to. Click the link in the Regarding column to see what the activity is about. You may have to click another link in the record that comes up to determine which state the activity is related to, and, therefore, who to assign the record to.
4. Select each record, and then on the Actions toolbar, click Assign.
5. Click the Lookup button, find the user, and then click OK twice.

Look for additional appointments

The last assignment task is to look for appointments where you are not the owner, but are listed as the organizer or as a required or optional attendee.

1. On the Standard toolbar, click Advanced Find.
2. In the Look for list, select Appointments.
3. Click Select, and in the Related section, select Activity Parties (Activities).
4. Click Select, and in the Fields section, select Party.
5. Do not change Equals Current User.
6. Click Find.
7. Open each appointment, and look both on the Appointments and Details tabs to see whether you are required, optional, or the organizer of the appointment, and change the data as required.

The appointments will appear in the new owner's list of activities and on their Workplace calendar.

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Block your schedule for future appointments and service activities

After you block your schedule for your vacation, your time slots in the Service Calendar will show that you are unavailable and your name will not be returned for any scheduling. Direct appointments and service activities can still be made for you. But an alert will be displayed that you are being scheduled outside your work hours.

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Workplace, and then click Personalize Workplace.
2. On the General tab, at the bottom of the page, click the here link to open your user profile.
3. Under Details click Work Hours.
4. In the calendar, select the first day of your vacation.
5. On the Set Up menu, click Time Off.
6. In the Schedule Time Off dialog box, in the Reason box, type Vacation or another explanation.
7. Make sure that the All Day Event check box is selected.
8. If you were going to be out for more than one day, in the Duration list, select the number of days.
9. Click OK. In the calendar, a red color block displays the time off.
10. Click Save and Close to close your user record.

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Notify your customers of your plans

You can send e-mail to all your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online contacts to let them know who will be helping them while you are gone.

There are two basic steps:

1. Create an e-mail template for notifying contacts about changes.
2. Send the e-mail to your contacts.

Create an e-mail template

First, prepare an e-mail template with the message to send to the contacts.

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Settings, and then click Templates.
2. Click E-mail Templates, and then click New.
3. In E-mail Template Type, select Contact, and then click OK.
4. In the Title box, type something like Notify contacts about vacation. This information will be used by you to select the correct contacts, but is not seen by customers.
5. In the Subject box, type the subject line of the e-mail that will go to customers. For example, you could enter Contact Information for your Adventure Works account while I am on vacation.
6. In the body, type and format the text of the e-mail message you want to send. You can insert fields from the contact record. For example, to start your message with Dear contact_first_name:
   1. After you type Dear, click Insert/Update, and then click Add.
   2. In Record type, select Contact.
   3. In Field, select First Name, and then click OK twice.

   Tip

To avoid blank salutations if the record does not include a name, include a default value, such as Dear valued customer: in the Default Text box.

1. If this template will be used by multiple users, make sure the signature inserts the name of the user who is using the template. For example, you could select the Full Name and Job Title fields of the user from Insert/Update. The result will look like this in the file:

   {!User: Full Name;User : Job Title;}

2. When you're satisfied with your text and formatting, click Save and Close.

Send e-mail to your contacts

Now you're ready to send e-mail to the shared contacts.

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Sales, and then click Contacts.
2. On the Standard toolbar, click Advanced Find, and then click New.
3. Click Select, and select Modified By.
4. Do not change Equals Current User.
5. On the next line, click Select, and select Modified On.
6. Click Enter Value, click the calendar control, and then select Today.
7. Click Select, and then select Owner.
8. Click Equals Current User, and then select Equals.
9. Click Enter Value, click the Lookup button, select the new owner, and then click OK.
10. Click Find.
11. Select the Select/clear all records on this page check box.
12. Click Send Direct E-mail on the toolbar.
13. In the Send Direct E-mail dialog box, select the new template you just created.
    1. In the Send direct e-mail to section, select Selected records on current page.
    2. If your name was not already selected, in the Send direct e-mail from section, click the Lookup button, select your name, and then click OK.
    3. Click Send.

Your customers now know who to contact, and all work items are reassigned so that your contacts are not forgotten while you are on vacation.

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Related Links

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Don't lose customers when a salesperson leaves your organization

Using Advanced Find