A brief on Project Service Automation

Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides an end to end service that helps in sales and marketing of billable projects on time and within the budget too. It helps you with project service automations which basically-

1. Estimates, quotes and contracts work.
2. Plans resources.
3. Enables collaboration.
4. Captures expenses, time and progress reports for real time accurate invoice.

This application has following features-

1. Project based contracts- They basically measure contracts on the basis of profitability and feasibility. They are responsible for relating quotes, labour pricing, billing and estimation etc.

2. Project planning- There has to be some planning and estimation done before passing a contract which majorly includes automatic tasks of scheduling, predecessors, sales distribution and cost information which is performed by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation.

3. Resource management- This section majorly deals with skills and proficiencies of workforce. The right person must be chosen for the right kind of work based on the availability of resources and requirement of job. Tracking resource utility and metrics is also a part of this.

4. Time utilization and collaboration- For multiple projects, web or mobile services can be used to record time and cost involved. The new entries to be included must be checked by the manager and their financial implications must be worked upon. This software allows you to easily collaborate with Office 365 workspace.

5. Project billing- The invoices which are included are based on terms of contract and approved paperwork as well as expenses involved. All the expenses involving revenue, invoices, unbilled amount and real time costs are recorded for analytics and integration of financial systems.

There are currently two versions of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation -

1. In case you are using it on a desktop or laptop, the project service automation application is used.

2. And for the smaller screen such as tablets and mobiles we have project rescue hub application which is a modified version of project service automation application. This application which we use for smaller screens is basically designed on the unified interface framework, using responsive web designing principles. This enables multiple viewing options and gives a better interaction experience in different kinds of environments.

So, these are the basic features that you get with the project automation with Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Microsoft Dynamics 365: Fostering Dynamism in Sales

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the new generation of intelligent business solution that facilitates faster growth of your organization. For building better and never ending customer chain your company needs to transform, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 paves way for you to meet the needs of your patrons. It is a power-packed intelligent management software that increases the efficiency of the sales employees in your company by facilitating better interactions with your target customers.

Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for sales will illustrate you the ways in which you can organize your daily activities, thereby helping you take accurate steps for better sales. The software helps your sales people to work in a smarter way hence increasing their efficiency and your organization’s productivity.

Some touch-points of the productive use of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for sales:

1. Collaborates with customers: Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 you can get in touch with target customers at the touch of a click. Moreover, it creates modified documents and templates for your sales team so that your people can instantly connect with customers and provide them the information they are looking for. Undoubtedly, Dynamics 365 helps you grasp better opportunities by making it easier for your employees to get insights about potential clients.

2. Updates Sale tactics: Microsoft Dynamics partner you through better prediction of sales and guides you to effectively strike at targets by earning more returns from every sale that comes your way. Since the software is embedded with Power BI you can create reports and also explore the performance of your sales department. Accredited with Microsoft Dynamics CRM customization, the software facilitates you with an updated information about customers and sales instantly.

3. Intelligent Customer administration: The software helps you smartly manage your organization, hence relieving you greater time for selling your products. It boosts your efficiency by giving you key insights of the sales trends. Using a MS Dynamics Partner you can seamlessly multiply revenues and shrink costs as it computerizes all your sales procedures via an extremely instinctive channel of programming.

4. Focused Action: Implemented with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customization, Dynamics 365 helps you concentrate on customer specific preferences. Not only does it help  in taking proactive action but also gives you dependable insights which help in building a better relationship with clients. Based on forecasting the prospective trends, this smart business solution increases the sales and diligently helps you to personally connect with your customers.

Microsoft Dynamics: An Intelligent Application for Adroit Management

The need of the hour is to be techno-servant. Today, being technically up-to-date is a vital task that can strengthen your company’s prospective. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is one of the latest additions in technology that helps in smarter management of your business. A unique CRM for small businesses, this software provides you with an intelligent business application that will help you manage the whole business productively. Since it fosters smarter customer engagement, can be relied upon for building better customer chain. This blog will let you know the details of Microsoft Dynamics 365.

What does the Dynamics 365 do:

1. Targets customer engagement: Microsoft Dynamics 365 keeps in record all the touch points of customers. Starting from consideration to the level of purchase, this software helps in better access to customer interests and expectations. By keeping an eye on the changing trends of demand, it helps in building trust and fosters higher satisfaction amongst customers.

2. Empowers staff and optimizes the setup: The software keeps your employees updated with the latest insights and targets in the sector. The intelligent processing of this CRM application smartly manages your business needs, helping you gain accolades both from employees and customers.

How does it work :

1. Microsoft dynamics 365 works as a CRM for small businesses and helps your company deliver customer specific services on the basis of information from social media platforms and mobile sites. The software believes in proactive functioning rather than reactive functioning.

2. The software uses automation technology that collaborate tools and helps in giving a complete overview of customer client relationship.

3. The software reinvents business model according to the market trends. Its intelligent decision making restructures your company according to the latest trend. Since you are in swing with the latest developments, your company can seamlessly enhance its services and concoct satisfied customers.

Why only Microsoft Dynamics:

Microsoft believes in making achievers. It endeavours to cater digital intelligence through its CRM business solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365. The data visualization capabilities of this smart software enable productive prediction of customer specific services. This helps in capturing newer and better opportunities for your organization. The software is one of its kind that can help you effortlessly manage the entire business by assisting you in acquiring better and happy customers.

Every company has its own set of rules and administration criterion. No two companies run on the same parameters. Before adopting any CRM solution for your business, compare the available software in demos. Through Microsoft Dynamics demo you can compare the tools and features of various CRM solutions. The Microsoft Dynamics demo gives you quick and accurate information about the software you intend to adopt.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Suite Capabilities

Microsoft Dynamics 365 has been a rage ever since its release late November last year. The latest avatar of the Microsoft CRM System, the software suite has successfully re-introduced Microsoft’s CRM offerings through 5 separate stand-alone applications mainly Dynamics 365 for Sales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing, Dynamics 365 for Customer Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation and Dynamics 365 for Field Service Automation. So much to the extent that, all those who have worked on these have just one thing to say and that is they do not miss the premier customer relationship management system crm anymore and are happy with how Microsoft has repackaged it.

Besides there are a lot of other functionalities that the customer relation management system has to offer in its latest incarnation. One of these are the Intelligent Suite Capabilities. This is categorically for enterprises and small and mid-segment businesses operating out of India. Powered by Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning Processes and also with some degree of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support, companies will be empowered to reinvent business processes.

Some of the Intelligent Suite Capabilities in Dynamics 365 include the likes of:

1. Sentiment and Intent Analysis
2. Preemptive Service and Relationship Insights
3. Lead and Opportunity Scoring
4. Product Recommendations and Up-Sell and Cross-Sell.

These capabilities that have been mentioned above can be further extended with independent apps offering targeted and domain-specific intelligence. Dynamics 365 includes a new customer insights app, something which is an analytics app and helps connects and analyze data from Microsoft and other widely used CRM and ERP Apps and also IoT Data.

These are certainly going to add to the rising popularity that Dynamics 365 is already enjoying amongst the corporate brass, with plenty of accolades already coming in thanks to the stand alone apps that have been made available for use in the form of Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Field Service Automation and Project Service Automation. This popularity has been the reason that has made companies such as Adobe tie up with Microsoft, with Adobe offering to tie up its marketing cloud with the software giant’s cloud services.

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 is available to the world in two different editions, namely the Enterprise Edition and the Business Edition. Both are available on a subscription per app model, which means that the end user does not have to purchase them, rather can subscribe to the app which he wants to use at a very nominal fee. As it happens, the new-app based subscription model is going to help businesses to use only those apps which they feel a need for, on a subscription basis.

Microsoft has gone on record saying that businesses will get one holistic subscription for all the information on their fingertips and this way they will get to save four or five times the cost of traditional CRM providers.

SharePoint Document Management based on Microsoft Dynamics 365

What is SharePoint Document Management and how beneficial is it, when based on Microsoft Dynamics 365? Services delivered traditionally entail working together on documents through the organization based on particular processes. Microsoft Dynamics SharePoint accounts for easy, effective and controlled access to appropriate documentation.

As far as MS Dynamics SharePoint Document Management is concerned:

1. End users do not have to fill in any kind of metadata.
2. Documents get stored in a fully managed site in SharePoint.
3. Document Names based on metadata get converted to a common name with consistency and meaning.
4. Smart Searches for Documents with pertinent metadata objects can be made both in internal as well as external collaborative workspaces.
5. The moments documents get barred, they can immediately be automated and controlled, and also optionally backed up and removed as well.

Companies across Australia and New Zealand get to experience the following benefits through SharePoint Document Management based on Microsoft Dynamics 365:

1. Once necessary customizations have been done by the concerned Microsoft Dynamics Partner Australia, organizations will become better, faster and smarter. They will begin working effectively to create documents. Since this feature supports tasks, workflows and versioning, companies gain the chance to share mutual knowledge.

2. Microsoft Dynamics 365 via SharePoint makes it possible to share information with customers and suppliers. It will provide insights into inventory for a limited number of suppliers and will help set up a knowledge base with FAQs.

3. Finding information regarding an ongoing or completed project will become a quicker process. Whatever problems crept up and the finished look of the project are things that will become easy to know. There are advanced search functions that help with searches not only on document files but also the entire content of documents.

4. Latest versions are always available thanks to this. Multiple people can be collaborated with on a document and the system also offers advanced version control and ensures older versions get saved automatically.

5. Precious time can be saved by automating SharePoint processes otherwise performed manually. A highly user-friendly web environment ensures that end users always have the ability to share files and manage agendas without muss fuss. They always have access to the last modified documents through version control.

So this was all about SharePoint Document Management based on Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Configure Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation

It has been an eventful couple of past months when Microsoft finally pulled the plug on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and decided to reintroduce it as Microsoft Dynamics 365 through standalone applications such as Dynamics 365 for Sales, Dynamics 365 for marketing, Microsoft dynamics 365 for customer services, Dynamics 365 for Field Service Automation and Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation.

All of these have their own specialties to offer and as it happens, make Dynamics 365 more powerful in terms of offering customer relationship management than anyone could have imagined possibly.

So if Microsoft Dynamics 365 were to be configured for Project Service Automation, then the procedure given below is to be followed so that the same happens successfully. Mind you, those having begun using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation and those still contemplating, the app helps manage accounts, projects and resources.

1. Set Up Time Units. Configuring these in the product catalog is a must as these will be used as a base for scheduling and billing projects.
2. Set Up Currencies ad Exchange Rates. These again have to be set up for projects.
3. Create Organizational Units. Setting up groups which the organization uses to divide its business are again a must, something which happens mostly on the basis of geography, business function and other logical divisions.
4. Set Up Invoice Frequencies. Setting these time periods up is necessary as these are a prerequisite to bill clients.
5. Configure Transaction Categories. Doing these is necessary as consultants can that way charge their billable and unbillable expenses to.
6. Configure Expense Categories. These need to be set up again so that consultants charge their billable and unbillable expenses to.
7. Create Product Catalog Items. Doing this task is necessary as they enable end users to add products meant to be sold to the product catalog.
8. Create a Price List. Multiple ones have to be configured as this will help decide how exactly clients are supposed to be billed for every role their project requires.
9. Set Up Resources. Doing this will add skills, proficiencies, resource roles and other resource information necessary for projects.

Following these steps will ensure that you do end up configuring Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation.

Editable Grids and Relevance Search Enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics 365

You were introduced to Microsoft Dynamics 365 in an earlier post.

Now get introduced to Editable Grids and Relevance Search Enhancements in it.

The new Editable Grids offer various capabilities such as Inline Editing, Grouping, Filtering and Sorting of Columns. End Users can find them at the Entity Level, in a Dashboard and also in Sub-Grids inside a Form. Editable Grids are supported on forms in the Dynamics 365 Web Client, Dynamics 365 for Tablets and Dynamics 365 for Phones.

As far as dashboards are concerned, Grids are available in Dynamics 365 for Tablets and Dynamics 365 for Phones.

Some of the tasks that Editable Grids make possible are:

1. Editing rows with most Dynamics 365 field types
2. Grouping and Filtering on any and all columns falling in Current View
3. Sorting all sorts of Columns in the Grid
4. Moving, Adjusting and Paginating Columns in the Grid
5. Showing Lookup Values based on the Value of the Field of the Related Entity
6. Showing Calculated and Rollup Fields As Read-Only, alongside associated last Updated Date
7. Enabling and Disabling Fields based on Security Role
8. Exporting Editable Grids to Excel and Integrating with the Chart Panel
9. Toggling between a Read-Only Grid and Editable Grid
10. Saving the User State (Filters, Sorting and Adjusted Columns) within the Session
11. Using Business Rules and Complex Grid Logic based on Events, including Saving and Updating Records
12. Using Command Bar Actions and Buttons

These sure are set to increase curiosity in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Services as end users will feel they will get to do more while attending to customers. If these Grids are anything to go by, then you can proceed to check Relevance Search Enhancements.

Relevance Search Enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics 365 comprise the new Facet and Filter support, using which you can drill into as well as explore search results without the need to refine search terms repetitively. There are 4 global facets for Relevance Search, shown by default on the left side of the Relevance Search Results Page, mainly Record Type, Owner, Modified On and Created On fields sharing commonalities with almost all Dynamics 365 entities shown below:

 

Users selecting specific entities in the Record Type facet get to see a list of entity-specific facets, which they can choose from eventually. So if they happen to Select Account Entity, they will get to see additional information about the Account’s Annual Revenue, alongside the Industry they happen to be in and also the Primary Contact Information. Also, the Facet List is configured by an Administrator and in case you wish to view some other kind of information as well, you can contact your administrator for the same.

1. Documents attached with emails and appointments can now be searched in, besides those attached with a note
2. The Option Set and Lookup Fields are searchable as far as this release is concerned
3. There is added support for showing results for shared records

So this was about Editable Grids and Relevance Search Enhancements in Microsoft Dynamics 365.