Connect a contact to your CRM

You’ll get the most benefit from everything Copilot for Sales can do for you when your external contacts are available in your CRM system. In Copilot for Sales, we call this connecting a contact to your CRM. Contacts that are connected to your CRM are referred to as Saved contacts.

When you read an email from external contacts or compose an email to external contacts, and open the Copilot for Sales pane, Copilot for Sales searches your CRM for the contact’s primary email address. The external contact is connected to a CRM contact based on one of the following conditions:

  • External email address matches only one CRM contact

  • External email address matches none of the CRM contacts

  • External email address matches multiple CRM contacts

Note

If you're using Dynamics 365 as you CRM, Copilot for Sales matches the email address of the external contact only with the EmailAddress1 field of the contact record in Dynamics 365 and not with EmailAddress2 or EmailAddress3 field. Ensure that email address is populated in the EmailAddress1 field to connect the external contact to the CRM contact. If the email address is populated in the EmailAddress2 or EmailAddress3 field, Copilot for Sales won't match the external contact with the CRM contact and considers it as an unsaved contact.

External email address matches only one CRM contact

If the address you entered in your email matches only one contact in the CRM, Copilot for Sales automatically connects them. The connected contacts are displayed in the Contacts card.

External email address matches none of the CRM contacts

If the email address you entered doesn’t match any of the contacts in your CRM, create a contact in your CRM.

External email address matches multiple CRM contacts

If the email address you entered matches multiple contacts in the CRM, you must manually select and connect to the correct CRM contact. Copilot for Sales displays a message on the Highlights card about multiple matches of a contact.

  1. In the Copilot for Sales pane, select the contact in the Contacts card, and then select Choose contact.

    Screenshot showing to choose contact from CRM tab.

  2. Select the contact you want to connect to.

    Screenshot showing to choose the correct contact.

    If none of the matches are correct, select Create a new contact to create a contact.

    If you've connected the external contact to an incorrect CRM contact, by mistake, you can change the connected record.

Show saved contacts through quick CRM actions in email banners

When you read an email from external contacts and have all the contacts saved in your CRM, the banner message at the top of the email enables you to access the saved CRM contact details through quick CRM actions in the banner. Select Show contacts to view the saved contacts. All the saved contacts are displayed in the Contacts card in the Copilot for Sales pane.

Screenshot showing banner message with quick action to see saved contacts.

Currently, banner messages with quick CRM actions are available on up to two external emails per day. If you wish to disable these banners, ask your admininstrator to disable them.

Note

This capability is being rolled out gradually and is expected to be available by the end of May 2024 to all users

See also

Create a contact in your CRM