_As a D365 Marketing user, have you ever wondered why segment templates you created do not have icons like the system provided segment templates?_


![List view of segment templates](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dkfa1mjtbb3q6wuew0pv.png)

<figcaption>Find the imposter!</figcaption>

---

Although we can use filters, naming conventions and descriptions to locate the template we need, a visual hint is always good to have. Several clients and community members have asked about how to add custom icons to user created segment templates so I am going to demonstrate the simple steps to enable custom icons in this article.

---

Conceptual aside - the icon image we see on a segment template record is stored in an "Image" column of "Segment Template" table, named "Icon". 


![Image column of segment template](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/al25li7rzs5s8ib4gbb7.png)

<figcaption>Image column of a table</figcaption>

---

A table can have multiple image columns but only one can be dedicated as a "Primary Image Column". In a normal table (without further customization), the picture stored in the primary image column will be the icon shown on a record. The tables without a primary image column will not have this icon on the table form.

![Contact form](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/uygao1h1ihhcfgyyuh2w.png)

<figcaption>Primary image column shown on the main form</figcaption>

---

On the segment template table, the image stored in primary image column will be shown directly on the segment templates list view, tile view and main form.


![Segment template list view](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/truzmxybhgdp89px1ic0.png)

<figcaption>List view</figcaption>
---

![Segment template tile view](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/01cs7v3l41w4e1xdqrs4.png)
<figcaption>Tile view</figcaption>
---

![Segment template main form](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4tlnt7s3j74taaamfpax.png)
<figcaption>Main form</figcaption>
---

Now to the actual process. I mentioned steps, but it is actually **one step** - simply left click on the icon on the main form and a dialog will pop up for you to view or edit the image. It is so simple that this step did not even cross my mind. Previously, I was under the assumption that the primary image column would have to be added to the main form for users to modify. However, [Megan](https://meganvwalker.com/) told me about the simple approach which made me rethink about solutioning for any requirements or challenges - there always might be an out-of-box approach to look for before thinking about a customized solution.


![Change the icon](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/cn9ht9wcts0tpgjoxkh3.png)

<figcaption>A simple click and you can change the icon</figcaption>

---

Voila! Now you have the ability to add visuals to help other users understand what your segment template does. Just remember that any "Image" column data can only be populated after a record is saved, not when a record is being created.

---


_Some additional words for the adventurous type of people: being able to add more visuals is fantastic, but the image column should be used sparingly since it will **eat up the allocated file storage** within an environment if a lot of tables are configured to have image columns. Only use the image column when it is necessary and make sure you set a reasonable max image size when creating an image column. Otherwise, always use less expensive solutions such as **[SharePoint integration](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/set-up-dynamics-365-online-to-use-sharepoint-online)**._

![Image column configuration](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/1bzz7utb4fbmqzmdilxd.png)
<figcaption>The maximum image size can only be configured when the column is being created, not afterwards<figcaption>

I hope that this article is somewhat useful to you and feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Happy marketing!

As a D365 Marketing user, have you ever wondered why segment templates you created do not have icons...

How to add an icon to a D365 segment template

rainforss

_When sending emails in D365 Marketing app, it is always a good practice to include some personalized content in the email for a special and lively touch._

Recently, a lot of clients have the requirement to take the personalization further and include an email signature of the salesperson (or marketing person). In my opinion, it is a wise move because a email signature can make the communication feel less "automated". However, do make sure that "reply-to" address points to an accessible email box in case a recipient replies to the email directly since you don't want to miss out on a customer's inquiry.

The logic of this implementation is quite simple: when sending an email to a contact during a customer journey, append the email signature of the owning user for the contact record at the end of email body. If you are no stranger to **[Dynamic Content](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/marketing/dynamic-email-content)**, you might already have an idea of the implementation details. However, I do want to bring up one caveat of dynamic content before discussing the details of my solution.

---

According to Microsoft Docs - 

> Dynamic content gets resolved just before a message is sent to a specific individual. You'll typically use dynamic content to merge information from the recipient's contact record (such as first and last name), to place special links, and to place information and links from the content settings.

The caveat is that although you can populate dynamic content using information of records related to the recipient's contact record, you cannot traverse more than one relationship down the path from the contact table. For example, you can use a contact's parent account name to seed dynamic content because account table is **directly** related to contact table in D365 (only one relationship away). On the flip side, it is not feasible to use the parent account's territory information in dynamic content since territory table is only directly related to account table (two relationships away from contact table). Even if you use the dynamic content syntax like "contact.contact_account_parentcustomerid.territoryid.name", it will not resolve to the name of territory in the actual email sent. This is also specified in a Microsoft documentation:


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/chkgl1vxxybhny2rmp1z.png)
<figcaption>Since my example has 3 hops (periods) in the expression, it will not resolve according to Microsoft.</figcaption>

---

What does it imply? You might be tempted to use the out-of-box table **Email Signature** (if you are not familiar with Email Signature, check out this [amazing article](https://centricconsulting.com/blog/how-to-create-an-email-signature-in-dynamics-365-customer-engagement/) by Allen Paige) to populate dynamic content for an email but it is not a viable solution since the email signature table is not directly related to the contact table. You could customize the table to add a direct one-to-many relationship to the contact table but this is very wrong, **semantically**. How is an email signature of a system user directly related to a contact?

To work around this impedement, we could use the first name and last name fields in combination as dynamic content but this approach falls short if you want to include additional information ,format the email signature or attach written signature pictures.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/kqdex47nsxruw1j6w8p5.png)
<figcaption>Signature with formatted text and picture</figcaption>

---

Are we stranded here? Rich text field to the rescue! When creating a new column to store text in Dataverse tables, we are given the format option of "Rich Text".


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/7gwba1f68pv33vl82b81.png)
<figcaption>Column creation with rich text format</figcaption>

---

When "Rich text" format is chosen together with data type of "Multiple lines of text", the data stored in this field will be plain HTML and the field can be edited with rich text control when using placed on the system user table form.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/o8fuleu6m48l4fs9rxuf.png)
<figcaption>Rich text editor on a form of model-driven app</figcaption>

---

When adding images using the rich text control, make sure to use the "**Web Address**" option instead of "**From File**".


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/kejwmgahgw1y1hogdokj.png)
<figcaption>Attach images with web address only</figcaption>

---

**_Since image uploaded to D365 will only be available in the D365 environment but not be publically accessible on the internet, resulting in broken images when recipients open the email._**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/5p8lndnmya43pqx1c1nd.png)
<figcaption>Broken image since image can only be accessed within D365</figcaption>

---

Once the record is saved, the signature is stored as plain HTML which can be injected into marketing emails through dynamic content using this syntax: "contact.owninguser.hsi_emailsignature". Since emails are built with HTML behind the scene, the signature's HTML will be injected as a part of the whole HTML body, which will be rendered by email engines as user interface.

Let's perform a test send and see the final result:

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0w0ql07hajwdjt9r0e9h.png)
<figcaption>I used a relatively large dimension for image here so the signature might not look appealing</figcaption>

---

Now you have learnt how to add some advanced personalization to your marketing emails, congratulations!

When sending emails in D365 Marketing app, it is always a good practice to include some personalized...

How to generate dynamic email signature when sending in D365 Marketing

Transferring data and configurations between environments might not be as simple as it seems if instances of D365 Marketing are involved.

Although Microsoft's official documentation for D365 Marketing App states that Configuration Migration tool can "move validated journeys, emails, and other content from a sandbox to a production environment", the "other content" piece may easily fool implementers into thinking that cotent like marketing pages and images can be moved with ease, which is often not the case.

In this article, I am going to illustrate why creating all pre-approved content in a sandbox environment with D365 Marketing app might introduce a lot of issues for deployment to production.

---

Let's start with one of the simplest issues, which just happens to be one of the easier-to-resolve issues. 

If you have a live marketing page in the test instance of D365 Marketing app, it would be hosted on the Powerapps Portal installed with marketing application. Looking at the full page URL of this marketing page, you would notice the development related domain:


![Full page URL of marketing page in development environment](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/6rw4g6wnzpukst652uks.png)
 
<figcaption>Marketing page of development environment</figcaption>
 

Once this page has been migrated to another environment with D365 Marketing app, the full page URL would still be the same - pointing to the Powerapps Portal of the source environment. This happens because the Configuration Migration tool simply copies all data to the target environment.


![Marketing page migrated to another environment](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/rljuiu8whwbhjmz8wng3.png)
 
<figcaption>Marketing page migrated to another environment</figcaption>
 

This is an issue because the page URL would clearly indicate that the page is in a development environment and this page would cease to exist once sandbox Powerapps Portal is disposed of. There is a simple resolution to the issue: stop this live marketing page and go live again (go live directly if page is in "Draft" mode), the system will do a self-correction and publish this marketing page under the Powerapps Portal of the new environment.


![Page URL after re-publishing](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/8ct206on2w1emx7ui3xc.png)
 
<figcaption>Page URL after re-publishing</figcaption>
 


Now you might be wondering - this does not seem like a real issue at all if I can resolve by republishing the marketing page! However, if there are hundreds of landing pages (due to localization and other considerations), this process needs to be automated on all the pages using a Power Automate Flow and there are many other aspects to be considered - for example, system performance impact.

Generally speaking, this is indeed a relatively small issue considering the minimal disruption to system operation when it is being resolved.

---

Onto the one of the complicated issues: image records copied over to the target environment using Configuration Migration Tool are only stored as references to images of the source environment.

An image uploaded to D365 Marketing using the user interface will be saved to a private directory (for each unique environment) of a Microsoft owned server. Once this process is complete, the image will be cached through a content delivery network and it can be served through the internet with unique URLs. This URL information is then saved with a record of "Image" table in D365.


![File upload user interface](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/1y5rvxw7l6m8tn3hcp90.png)
 
<figcaption>File upload user interface</figcaption>
 


When image records are migrated to another environment using Configuraiton Migration Tool, the URL information is simply copied over and the image records are merely referencing the URL of images in the source environment. The following picture shows a list of image record, of which the first one is created using upload while the rest are migrated from the source environment:


![List of image records](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/x01sfwpf7y29ryphizcs.png)
 
<figcaption>Note the different identifier of server file directory</figcaption>
 


Again, this wouldn't be an issue until the source environment (which is usually a development environment) is disposed of. However, if that happened eventually, all marketing emails, forms and pages built using the images will show broken images as the cached images are removed from content delivery networks and server directories as a whole and they are no longer accessible through internet.

To work around this issue, you need to gather all the images uploaded to the source environment and bulk upload them into the target environment using the out-of-box image upload functionality. Doing so will publish images to a new sub-directory of content-delivery network for the target environment. Unfortunately, all images being used on marketing content such as marketing emails and marketing forms have to be re-embedded to ensure all the marketing contents are referring to the correct image URL. As you can imagine, the effort required to work around the image reference issue grows exponentially with the number of images and the number of contents referencing the images.

---

As of today, there isn't a streamlined and automated solution of migration marketing content between D365 Marketing instances but you may not need a migration solution most of the time. 

A D365 Marketing app contains both configuration data and marketing content. Configuration data such as content settings has no difference from other D365 app's configuration data, which can be migrated between environments using Configuraiton Migration tool without any issues. However, marketing content is just like the content managed on any CMS (content-management system). If you are familiar with any CMS like WordPress or SquareSpace, you know that contents are managed in only one environment, but with different statuses - published, draft, etc. The statuses are used to separate test/development content from anything publicaly available and D365 Marketing is using the same design to manage the content lifecycle. 

In my opinion, all content which should be published or likely to be published in the forseeable future can be placed in the production environment. For example, marketing emails and marketing pages can be created before production go-live and kept in the draft status. Some content may be created in a development enviornment to test customizations added to D365 Marketing app and integrations with other applications, but the solution manager should always bear in mind that content in development is disposable.

Having a solution/environment management and deloyment strategy is key to the success of a project but not everything has to be included in the solution management and deployment pipeline.

Transferring data and configurations between environments might not be as simple as it seems if...

How NOT to manage your D365 Marketing instances

_The form template is possibly one of the most under-appreciated or under-utilized tools of Dynamics 365 Marketing while its immediate descendant, marketing form, plays a critical role in digital marketing._

After some tinkering with form templates, a good portion of D365 Marketing users or even consultants would most likely give up trying to create **_scalable_** templates and seek help from the front-end developers. This is mostly due to the fact that element styles of the a form template would not be applied to new fields added if configured using the form designer.

---

Here is a default form template which you would see in any D365 Marketing instance:


![A default form template](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0ovzr24dub9jc7ox7raz.PNG)
<figcaption>Very basic, but consistent-looking</figcaption>

---

If any other types of fields are added to the form template (or the form created using the template), this somewhat consistent form template will break.


![Template becomes inconsistent](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/pkpx2hmdlokptu20vhrb.PNG)

---

The dropdown field, text-area input and the radio buttons cannot be styled using the form designer so people without the necessary HTML/CSS toolset will be stranded. One can try to get some assistance from a developer what if help is not available? Trying to get your dev team's attention to update the border color is probably not very efficient and surely would not be appreciated by the devs.

Luckily, there is a solution so that you need to ask your developer for favors only once. The solution is documented [here](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/marketing/custom-template-attributes#add-a-meta-tag-to-create-the-setting) in MS Docs about D365 Marketing but I will give a quick run down since certain parts of the document might not be very clear.

---

Usually, users would need to apply styling changes to a certain type/group of form elements to keep the form consistent. For example, it makes more sense to change the color of all input labels instead of only one. To achieve this, you would need a custom attribute to manage color of all input labels.

_The following part is for people with HTML/CSS knowledge, simply skip this part and pass it to your development resources_



- Go to the HTML editor of the form template and add one meta tag as follows:

```html
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="label-color" value="#66b6e3" datatype="color" label="Label Text Color">
```

- Use '-' instead of empty space in the name attribute since this will be referenced in form's CSS. The value attribute can be any hex color and setting "datatype" attribute equal to "color" will enable a color-picker on the form designer UI. Finally, the label attribute is what will be shown on the form designer.

- Next part is slightly trickier. You need to locate the label elements in HTML body and inspect the direct parent elements (or one more level up) so that you can write CSS selectors to apply styling to the target label elements.


![Inspect the HTML carefully](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/t3zs5gjy814qgobapbsu.PNG)
<figcaption>The label element is wrapped by a div element with "lp-form-field" class and another div element with "marketing-field" class</figcaption>

---

- **Do not** use a single generic CSS selector like below. The CSS created here will collide with existing CSS on the page where marketing forms will be hosted:

```css
label {
 
}
```



- **Do not** create a custom CSS class and add the class name to all label elements since new field labels added to the form using designer will not have the custom class name attached.

- **Be specific** and target all label elements using the pre-existing class names. Note that we have to wrap the hex color attribute value with two comment blocks and the "label-color" text corresponds to the name attribute of the meta tag we created. The hex color code here also needs to be the **same** as value of the meta tag so they can be synchronized:

```css
.marketing-field > .lp-form-field > .lp-ellipsis {
 color: /* @label-color */ #66b6e3 /* @label-color */;
}
```

- Once the form template is saved, you will see a customizable field under "Properties" tab of the form designer:


![Custom attribute enabled](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/r345d04lvmdo5i5c5e5m.PNG)
<figcaption>Control of all label color is now enabled</figcaption>

---

- Clicking on the colored box beside the input, you can start using the color-picker to modify the color of all labels directly.

---

As a demonstration, I have added all the following meta tags (and CSS) to enable multiple general controls designer would need.

```html
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="input-row-gap" value="2.5rem" datatype="text" label="Input Field Row Gap">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="label-input-gap" value="0.5rem" datatype="text" label="Label Input Gap">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="label-color" value="#66b6e3" datatype="color" label="Label Text Color">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="input-height" value="30px" datatype="text" label="Input Height">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="input-border-radius" value="3px" datatype="text" label="Input Border Radius">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="input-border-width" value="1px" datatype="text" label="Input Border Width">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="input-border-color" value="#ccc" datatype="color" label="Input Border Color">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="input-focus-color" value="#2b95b8" datatype="color" label="Input Focused Color">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="button-background" value="#38C6F4" datatype="color" label="Button Background Color">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="button-text-color" value="#000" datatype="color" label="Button Text Color">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="button-background-hover" value="#2b95b8" datatype="color" label="Button Hover Background Color">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="button-text-size" value="1.25rem" datatype="text" label="Button Font Size">
<meta type="xrm/designer/setting" name="button-position" value="center" datatype="text" label="Submit Button Position (start,center,end)">
```


![Enabled custom controls](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/f63hq36kqyos6rl1xly4.PNG)

---

Now the end users and consultants can apply stylings to groups of elements without always bugging the developers. The users will need the developers' help only when they need additional controls enabled and this will be a rare occation if the available controls are planned out in the beginning. When a new marketing form is created using this template, the custom controls will be immediately available on the form designer and styling changes will be applied to new fields added too.

This solution greatly improves consistency of marketing form stylings and efficiency of individuals involved so I would definitely recommend trying out.

The form template is possibly one of the most under-appreciated or under-utilized tools of Dynamics...

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