Power to the Marketer: customise event registration forms in Dynamics Marketing
I’ve always been pretty impressed with the event management ability in Dynamics marketing thanks to such a simple set up process to create sophisticated multi-track/day/session events which a marketer can easily manage. One of the new features in release wave 1 2020 for Dynamics Marketing [1] just made things even better! It is entitled ‘Improved event management experience’ - but what does this really mean? Afew things but the best bit - we can now use marketing forms for our event registrations!
A very humble description - lets unpack what this actually means
Before
In a life before release wave 1 2020 we could add custom fields to event registration forms but otherwise the look and feel was very restricted without digging into some portal code and probably breaking things along the way.
After
Now we can build out of custom marketing forms and use them to register for events in the portal. Even better - it uses the Marketing Form field you have already set up for your subscription centres and landing pages already mapped and set up ready to use.
Instructions for Use
No need to handle with care nor any need for a computer science degree - its an easy three step process
Create an event registration form
Set up a new form with all the fields and images you desire using the wonderfully improved content designer -> Go to the ‘Summary’ tab -> Set the ‘Purpose’ to Event Registration. -> Check for and resolve any errors -> Go Live with your form.
Make a copy of your event
You may want to try this on a separate copy of your event before putting an upcoming one at risk.
Use the ‘Save as template’ button on your existing event -> Create a new event from the template just created.
You just did a very fancy ‘Copy and Paste’ cool huh?
Use the form on your event
Select the ‘Website and form’ tab on your event -> Set ‘use marketing form’ to yes -> Select your form built in step one -> Go Live -> Enjoy the beautiful new registration experience and get promoting your (probably virtual) event!
A completely new and improved event registration experience
Get your hands on the early access features
These features will be released for all Dynamics 365 Online customers in early May - exact dates for your region can be found here [2] but it is highly encouraged to enable early access to these features in your non production environments for two reasons:
The serious one - to test and validate that the changes do not negatively impact your existing system
The fun/geeky one - to get your hands on all the amazing cool stuff that’s coming - its like full permission to open a present weeks before your actual birthday
To get the new features for Marketing its a two step process:
Opt in to early access updates in the Power Platform Admin Centre [3] - it says that it applies the updates for marketing also but actually, it doesn’t
Rerun the Dynamics 365 Marketing setup wizard [4] - this actually applies the updates, you will know its done when you open Dynamics marketing you will see the new ‘get Started’ page
Happy Birthday to you!
A sad little side note: not all the new features are available in early access and you will have to wait until the scheduled deployment times. So no accessibility checker for me until May 10th but I will be back with more updates once I’ve got my hands on that!
[1] Whats coming for Dynamics Marketing in release wave 1 2020? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365-release-plan/2020wave1/dynamics365-marketing/planned-features
[2] When is the update coming to your region? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/release-schedule#what-is-the-revised-deployment-timelines-for-automatic-updates
[3] How to opt in for early access to updates: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/opt-in-early-access-updates#how-to-enable-early-access-updates
[4] How to enable early access updates to Dynamics Marketing: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/dynamics365/marketing/re-run-setup