Microsoft Dynamics CRM has two settings that determine how email is delivered to a Lead, Contact, or Account:
Do Not Allow Email
When this option has been set to Do Not Allow, the record in question is automatically excluded from any email operation where the email is sent directly to the person or company.
Do Not Allow Bulk Email
When this option has been set to Do Not Allow, the record is automatically excluded from any bulk-email operation such as:
- A Quick Campaign
- A Campaign activity distribution
- And in some cases, by third-party email marketing tools
These settings are actually in place to protect both you and the recipient from either sending too much email, or receiving too much email, respectively.
These settings can be set manually, by editing the record, or automatically, should the recipient have chosen to “unsubscribe” from your mailing list.
Many times the Do Not Allow Bulk email gets set to prevent you from including them in a bulk-email campaign, but they have no problem receiving normal emails from you, sent directly to them.
This creates a philosophical debate about what to do with the record, should one or both of these settings be set to Do Not Allow. Here are the options that I have seen:
- Ignore that the recipient has these settings set and conduct your business as you normally would. Dynamics CRM will remove the record from any situation where it could possibly receive an email. If they do not wish to receive bulk emails, then fine. They will not. If they do not wish you to email them at all, then consider the next option.
- Deactivate or Delete any record that has these settings set to Do Not Allow.If both are set to Do Not Allow, then they really do not wish to hear from you via email and if email is your primary or only communications channel, it really may not be worth your time to have that record active in your database.
The sticky part is when they have the Do Not Allow Bulk Email set to Do Not Allow, but the Do Not Allow Email set to Allow.
If you only bulk-email recipients, then this record is of no use to you so you need to make a decision about what to do with it. If you will continue to send individual emails, then it can probably remain active.
Finding Records with Do Not Allow Settings
Yesterday I posted: Searching for Contacts with the Do Not Bulk Email Flag Set
which described how to change the Do Not Allow Bulk Email field so it could be searched. Which we will do with advanced find:
As you can see, it’s a pretty simple query. And you can create one for Do Not Allow Emails and one for Do Not Allow Bulk Emails.
This will give you a better view into what settings have been set for the recipient.
Again, the goal of this exercise is to remove or deactivate records from your database that you would never be able to contact.
Finally, be advised that this can be a lot of work, depending on the size of your database and the age of your system. The longer you have had Dynamics CRM, the more data that you probably have.
