How to use Draftship with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
Dynamics 365 stores email templates as a customization on the Email entity. Drop a Draftship export into the template body, wire dynamic columns, and send via the Outlook integration or Customer Insights Journeys.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 splits email across two products: Sales for rep outbound (templates that send through Outlook integration) and Customer Insights Journeys (formerly Marketing) for marketing campaigns. The template engines differ. Sales templates use a legacy slug-style merge syntax; Journeys uses Liquid.
Where Dynamics 365 Sales accepts pasted HTML
In the Sales Hub: Settings → Templates → Email Templates → New. Pick the entity (Contact, Lead, Account). The HTML editor opens. Paste your Draftship export.
Merge field syntax
Dynamics 365 Sales uses Dynamic Columns inserted via the editor's picker. The underlying syntax differs by where the template runs.
For Sales templates sent through Outlook integration:
| Draftship | Dynamics 365 |
|---|---|
{{ first_name }} | Insert via picker, becomes {!firstname} |
{{ last_name }} | {!lastname} |
{{ email }} | {!emailaddress1} |
{{ company }} | {!parentcustomerid.name} (when contact has parent account) |
For Customer Insights Journeys templates (the marketing path), the syntax is Liquid:
liquid{{contact.firstname | default: "there"}}
Outlook integration and the App for Outlook
Sales templates compose into emails sent via the rep's connected Outlook mailbox. The Dynamics 365 App for Outlook must be installed in the rep's Outlook for tracking. Without it, the email sends but doesn't auto-log to the contact record.
The compose flow: rep opens contact, picks a template, the template inserts into a new Outlook compose window, dynamic columns resolve at insert time. The rep can edit before send.
Customer Insights Journeys templates
For bulk marketing through Journeys, the path is similar but the editor is different and the engine is Liquid. From Journeys: Templates → New Template → HTML Editor. Paste the Draftship export. Wire Liquid expressions for personalization.
Image hosting
Dynamics 365 has no central CDN for email images. External URLs are the norm. Pair with Azure Blob Storage + CDN for hosted images.
Test send checklist
- For Sales: send via the App for Outlook to a real contact record. Verify the dynamic column resolution.
- For Journeys: use the Test Send feature against a real customer record.
- Run the size checker on the rendered output.
- Confirm bounce-handling settings on the journey or template.
When to use Sales vs Journeys
Sales templates: 1:1 outbound, Outlook-driven, tracked back to records. Journeys templates: 1:many marketing, IP pools managed by Microsoft, full lifecycle automation.
Pick based on the actual use case. If a rep is composing one email at a time, it's Sales. If you're scheduling a campaign to a segment, it's Journeys.
For broader compliance, see Email merge tag fallbacks.