I am currently preparing for my renewal of the MB 210 exam. I noticed that Playbooks have been included in the skills measured and I haven't previously created a revision guide for them. Hence this post!

Below you can see an extract from the current skills measured statement for the MB 210 exam. We can see that playbooks are mentioned in the configure processes section.

What are Playbooks?

Playbooks are designed to help members of the sales team respond consistently to events. They do this by creating sets automating processes (or plays) which are a set of tasks needed to address a specific situation.

The idea is that managers or administrators can create playbooks for common business scenarios.

How do we configure Playbooks?

Before you try and use playbooks you might need to ensure they are enabled. You can do this in the "Playbook Settings" option. Which you will find in the app settings area of your sales hub.

An admin user will need to create a playbook category. This is done in the "App settings" area of the Sales Hub.

Each playbook category simply has a name and description. (As shown below.)


Next we create a Playbook template. First select your category. The name field will default to the name of the category for you.

Now we can opt to track progress. This option governs what happens with playbook activities. If we don't track "standard" activities are just created against the related Dynamics 365 record. If we do track then a playbook will create activities for the playbook activities when the playbook is launched. (This approach also allows a manager to monitor progress against the "steps" in this playbook.)

The estimated duration field is how long you expect the playbook to "run" once it is launched.

Having saved the playbook we can then define which record types the playbook applies to and the associated playbook activities.

One playbook can apply to multiple record types. The possible types include account, contact, opportunity, lead, quote, order and invoice.

Having defined your record types you can now define the playbook activities which need to be followed. These can be tasks, phone calls or appointments.

When creating a task enter a subject and description. On tasks and appointments you can then also (optionally) enter a relative due data and duration. The due date is the number of days in which the activity is due. With the starting point being the date the playbook is launched. The time is the time you'd like to show the activity as due.

We can also define the duration and priority of tasks.

It is also possible to use the related option and use the documents feature to upload any associated documents that the sale person may require. (This feature does rely on document management / integration with SharePoint being enabled. Plus the activity type you wish to associate documents with will need to be enabled for documents.)

Once created the playbook must be published before it is ready to use by the sales team. You can use the revise option to edit a published playbook. Doing this will revert it to a draft status. (Meaning you will have to publish again once your changes have been completed.)

Using Playbooks?

Once a playbook has been published it will be available to launch from the tables it is associated with. This can happen manually or automatically.

Tip: We can launch playbooks automatically on record creation (or other event) from a workflow or Power Automate. (I could, for example, trigger a playbook launch on entry to a specific stage in my business process flow by triggering a workflow on stage entry.)

To launch a playbook manually the sales person can use the "Launch playbook" option from a relevant record. For example I can launch my playbook from an opportunity. (As shown below.)

We can see the plays associated with our record by using the "related tab" option. Within the Playbooks tab we can then see of the plays and their current status.

Opening the play book will show us the status of all the related tasks. We can complete them from here!

When the tasks have all been completed or cancelled we can close the playbook. A play with open activities cannot be closed! A play might not result in the expected / desired outcome … therefore we can close as our play as successful but also "not successful", "partially successful" or "not required".

Additionally a manager can track the progress / usage of playbooks from the playbook template. This is done on the "monitoring" tab. Below you can see that the manager can see a row for each time the playbook was used.

Plus the manager can monitor the playbook to reviews the progress of specific tasks.


Hopefully I have given you an insight into how playbooks operate and this information will help you with your MB 210 exam revision. Enjoy!