ERP

Where is the limit in Business Central CRM capability and when integrating it with D365 Sales? (part 1)

Marko Totovic Business Central, CRM, Dynamics 365, ERP, Microsoft Dynamics CRM , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We know that Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (previously NAV) is primarily an ERP solution. But even so, this product has some customer relationship management capabilities. And name ‘Business Central’ probably comes because this solution can provide all business activities in one solution. But as this is primarily an ERP solution, the biggest strength comes in ERP, and in other areas, such as CRM or HRM, the level of functionalities is significantly lower. But let us make an overview of what is already in Business Central, but we can say it can be treated as CRM.

First, what we can find are a good customer and contact management. Still, as customers play an essential role in every ERP solution, we can emphasize more about contact management where we have some basic information about contacts and some segmentation.

You can also find some level of creating and tracking opportunities and sales quotes and interactions. You can also have some possibilities to make direct phone calls from BC or send an email. This is more or less what we have, but this is not a small number of functionalities.

Today I’ll not go into details about all these features. I just wanted to show some basic information about them and explain on a high level in which situation you should think about an additional and full CRM solution. As a full and independent CRM solution, I’ll focus on Dynamics 365 Sales Professional:

  • First, naturally, if you don’t have enough functionalities, you will take a specialized CRM solution, but let’s talk in detail on another occasion.
  • Second, the price can be an issue. If you have pure CRM users, they still need to pay $70 or even $100 for the license as they must pay a BC license even if they need only CRM capabilities. Sales Professional full license price is $65, and you can get full CRM. But with the new attach license for Dynamics 365 Sales Professional, BC clients can add a full CRM solution for an additional only $20.
  • Third, as I mentioned in the beginning, Business Central is still primarily an ERP solution, meaning its UI is built for ERP and not for CRM. Even if you have many CRM features, when we compare usage of these features, this is definitely not even close to being useable as in a regular CRM solution.
Dynamics 365 Sales Lead to Opportunity Business Proces Flow

Today I wanted just to make a high-level overview, but in future texts, I’ll try to be more accurate about when CRM in Business Central is enough for you and when you should think about integration with Dynamics 365 Sales.

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BizApps Wiki – a great place for ERP, CRM and other experts

atotovic Certification, Conference, CRM, Dynamics 365, ERP, General, HRM , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

New platform BizApps.Wiki has just started. On the first sight it looks like as well know Wikipedia, but there is ‘but’…

In comparison with Wikipedia there is highly focused content only with business applications (solutions/software) and other related topics. By the business application topics you can find information about almost all possible business application solutions as well as vendors (global and local). Also you can find information about partners or about the most impactful experts (MVPs or similar).

By the ‘other related topics’ it means you can find a lot information about project management, business processes, implementation processes, learning guides, certifications, events, communities, accounting… and so on.

OK it is obviously that topics are not related only with Dynamics solutions as this is Wiki about all business solutions, but there are for sure a few dozens of articles (maybe even more) related only with Microsoft solutions.

And on the end, there is one really good idea about building the digital business applications museum. Even if its history is not so big, it is very interesting how these applications looked like 20-30 years ago. And this is not finished project… as you can see on the first page, this is an ongoing project (always work-in-progress) where it is expected that community will take a part in building or editing this library of articles.

I’ll not write about the project in more details as you can easily go there and check. Definitely good for developers, consultants, project managers, but also for future experts such as students…

Dynamics 365 Ecosystem Map April 2020

atotovic Dynamics 365, Power Platform , , , , , , , , ,

Last months I see a lot of interests for completely Dynamics 365 ecosystem map. Even if we now what is part of Dynamics 365 ecosystem, visualization is much better. Because of that I want to share with you one global ecosystem map and more detailed maps per each solution. This is the last one made for April 2020 release and thanks to Vadim Korepin who made it. Keep in mind that resolution in my blog is not the best, but if you want to get in the best resolution, download image (right click on the image) and you will get 3242×1843 picture.

First start with completely Dynamics 365 ecosystem with all solutions.

Now let’s continue with more details. First let’s make a look in ERP ecosystem (Finance, SCM, project Operations and Business Central):

Logically we will continue with CRM portfolio:

Now to add ecosystem of our modular solutions to complete ERP and CRM solutions:

AI Solutions in D365 ecosystem looks like that (keep in mind that we have some additional embedded AI features in other solutions):

Mixed Reality is also part of Dynamics 365 ecosystem:

This is the list of Dynamics 365 services:

And the last but not the least, Microsoft platform ecosystem (Power Platform and other Microsoft platforms):

When you look at all these maps, it is obviously that we have a great ecosystem in Dynamics 365 family. I hope you will use these charts in daily business.

15 Microsoft Ignite not-to-miss non-Dynamics Session

atotovic Azure, Business Central, Conference, Dataflex, Dynamics 365, General, Power Platform , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A few years ago, and earlier, every time when I attended some conference I’ve chose the topic I’m familiar with. For example, probably in 95% of my time I attended Dynamics NAV sessions or something very close with it.

But in the last few years I changed my attention to very different sessions. In these times, everything is different, and everything is changed. Now if you want to survive in your ERP or CRM world, you need to learn a lot of different topics outside of your primarily interest. Solutions are more and more connected and now nobody want to buy i.e. ERP, but they want to buy completely solution… and if you want to provide it, you have to me familiar not only with ERP, but with IoT, AI, ML…

Because of that, I want to write a small recommendation not-to-miss sessions for all Dynamics ERP or CRM experts on this Microsoft Ignite. As Microsoft Ignite will start in a few days (September 22-24, 2020) and registration is free of charge, be sure you registered and try to attend the following sessions:

Of course, there are a lot of other Dynamics topics and I can suggest watching sessions about solutions you don’t implement. You will expand your knowledge and in this era it is very important to know how to choose what to and when to implement; when to customize and when to integrate… Of course, this is just my opinion and prediction… if you think differently, do as you think. Definitely, try to enjoy this virtual event.

Cloud Partner Competencies and Business Central

atotovic Business Central, Certification, Dynamics 365 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You are involved only in Business Central business and now you have Enterprise Resource Planning competency. But this competency is not in the cloud and if you want to get Cloud Business Application competency you can choose one of the options as a two different paths in achieving competencies:

  • Customer Engagements options
  • Unified Operations option

The first one is for CRM partners and the second one is in ERP. But when you read details, this is for Finance, Supply Chain Management, Retail and Talent (F&O) and all required exams are from F&O. If you want to continue only in Business Central and want cloud competency as Business Central is cloud product, you probably don’t know how you can fit with these requirements.

OK before I continue, I need to mention that this is my private text and it doesn’t represent Microsoft official statement, and this is not an announcement. Everything I’m writing here is based on Cecilia Flombaum presentation on the Microsoft Inspire a few days ago. If you want to see whole presentation, session is still available here (first part of presentation is mostly about Partner Contribution Indicator, but you can find BC details from cca 13:30).

She mentioned that we can expect a Business Central differentiation as well as Power Platform differentiation if you are focused only on one of these solutions. That will allow Business Central partner to achieve their silver and/or gold statuses in Cloud Business Application competency.

Currently we don’t know what will be required to achieve competency and statuses and if it will be connected with recently announced BC exam (probably yes).

But Business Central implementers will have one more opportunity – to achieve Small and Midsize Cloud Solutions competency through a Business Central differentiation opportunity. Probably there will be some differences i.e. slightly different threshold.

OK, this is everything we know for now. As sook as we have more information, you can find it on the Microsoft Partner Network.

How to integrate Business Central with Dynamics 365 Talent – part 1 (Introduction)

atotovic Azure, Business Central, Dynamics 365 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When I think about new Business Central features, the first thing in my mind is openness for integrations. As a part of Dynamics 365 family, the main power of this solution is when it can work simultaneously with other. Because of that, I showed these capabilities in a few conferences. As I got lot of requirement to explain it in more details, I’ll write about good example of BC integrations with one other Dynamics 365 solution – with ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’.

‘Dynamics 365 Talent’ is a new Microsoft Dynamics HCM solution (new name ‘Dynamics 365 Human Resources‘). This solution was initially based on AX HRM, but now it is separated solution. As we can use it independently and this solution is really amazing HCM system, I think it can be interesting how we can integrate this solution with Business Central and make them as the powerful tool together… and with no code.

If you are thinking how to make it and how to make it with no code, the answer is using one of the Azure services – Logic Apps. As ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’ has entities on CDS and Logic Apps has connectors for CDS and for ‘Business Central’, only what we need to do is to map entities and fields in both systems and of course, to think abut business logic on the first place. Depends what is the primary reason for integration, we can choose some of the options:

  • integrate HRM core system with HR in Business Central
  • integrate Attract or Onboard apps in Talent with Business Central.

In second option, we will use HR module in Business Central and use only one or two parts from ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’. On the other side, in first option we will use core HR in ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’. In this text, I chose to explain the first option.

In this first text, I’ll just explain some basic concepts and you will find more details in the following texts with this topic.

Basic setup in Business Central

First, as we don’t need all HR capabilities in Business Central (we already have all of them in dedicated HR solution – ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’), we will move only data necessary for other areas in Business Central. In this example I’ll show how to move data to Employee table as this table can be used for example in a Payroll system or you can use this information in Fixed Assets card.

Locate information in Talent

Now when we have the basic configurations, we can continue with integration. First, we need to find where an employee’s data are saved in Talent. To find this we need to open list of CDS entities and we can do it using PowerApps platform.

When we have these basic information, we can continue with technical parts how to do it in a practice.

My Sessions on Directions North America 2019

atotovic Business Central, Conference, Dynamics 365 , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Directions Asia has just finished, and we will continue with spring conference season in Dynamics. The next Directions will be in North America in Las Vegas in period May 5-8 in Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa. Registration is still available.

This year I want to show you about benefits of integration with different Dynamics 365 solutions. Why? Generally, I think we have great features in Business Central, but possibility to integrate this solution with other solutions using Azure tools or using different UI are the amazing possibilities. These options are why it is important to have Business Central in Dynamics 365 family.

Because of these reasons, you can find my sessions in agenda. From today (April 12th, the full agenda is available):

How and Why You Should Combine Dynamics 365 for Talent with D365 Business Central (May 7 2019, 8:00am, Room: Veranda B)

‘Dynamics 365 for Talent’ is a new Microsoft Dynamics HCM solution. This solution is available independently or through Unified Operations plan. Because we can use it independently, it is interesting if we can integrate this solution with Business central. You will see how to integrate Talent with Business Central and very important thing – without coding. And of course, you will see different integration options based on different user scenarios.

Using Model-Driven PowerApps with Business Central (May 5 2019, 3:15pm, Room: Red Rock A)

Although on the first sight, there is no so common things between Business Central model driven PowerApps, it can be very useful if we could use it with Business Central. Generally, model driven PowerApps is a tool for CRM development, but there are many reasons why to use it with Business Central. If you want to know why, come to this session to see why to do it and how to do it… and maybe even more. As we expect more and more CRM and ERP solutions in simultaneously work, it can be very interesting.

OK, I will not write more, but if you think these topics are interesting for you, you are welcome on my sessions and see you in Las Vegas.

And of course, my sessions are not only reason to come on Directions 😊. You will find great sessions there… you will see details about Business Central Spring release ’19 as well as amazing sessions by MVP’s and other experts.

Waiting Directions ASIA

atotovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics NAV , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today is Sunday and I’m seating on the airport waiting my flight to Bangkok. I just few days Directions ASIA 2018 will start. This time, it will be one of the most important conferences in Dynamics NAV world.

DirectionsASIA.PNG

Why it will be so important? On this conference we will see the new product with still code name – Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’. As we already know, this solution will be full Dynamics NAV on a cloud as full SaaS solution. But we will get the same on-prem product, with the same code base – Dynamics NAV 2018R2. From my point of view, I’m primarily waiting SaaS solution and I expect it will be much more significantly for Dynamics world. In this moment I don’t want to write anything about news in this solution, because we will get officially information in only few days. I’ll be there and I’ll publish the most important news announced on Directions.

Also, we will see some news from CRM world (Sales and Marketing), especially from SMB area. It will be very important in the future of business applications, because we can offer common solutions to cover all requirements in specific companies.

Dynamics ERP and CRM Continue Together

atotovic Conference, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I didn’t write a blog for a while, but these few days I’m on eXtreme 365 conference and I decided to share some observation. For some time, since there is a Dynamics 365 product family, we created a closer collaboration between ERP and CRM products. Generally, it was mostly based on technology.

But now, I see the next steps. First, more and more ERP partners try to learn more about CRM and the same situation is with CRM partners and ERP knowledge. Now, I’m at eXtreme 365 conference that was originally CRM conference, but from this year this is not only CRM conference. We have a lot of sessions about D365 for Financials, D365 for Operations, Common Data Service, PowerApps, Flow… And as I see, there are some NAV partners (and MVP’s as well J). Also, I saw announcement for Directions this year and there is a same situation, this will not be only NAV event and we will have CRM sessions as well.

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This is very important, because all of use started with thinking that we need to continue with both products together. And this is a huge opportunity for partners. This is opportunity for upselling and if they know both products they will be better on a market.

And about a conference. Great conference and great opportunity for networking. This is the first time I’m on some big conference that was not originally NAV conference and this is the great opportunity to see some new people, sometimes with different attitude. I also met some friends from a NAV world here and I can say this is a great mixture. I’m expecting something similar on Directions as well.

OK, in some next posts I’ll write more about some news with these products, but for sure we can expect more and more news in this world in next few months.

Microsoft Dynamics 365!

atotovic Azure, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, O365, Power BI, SaaS , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today, Microsoft published story about Microsoft Dynamics 365 on Partner Source and on their blog. And in the same moment, they’ve also published Microsoft AppSource. What is this?

MSDyn365.jpg

Microsoft says that this represents the end-to-end intelligent business applications in the cloud and it will be worldwide available in the fall of this year. Generally Dynamics 365 will bring the best of Dynamics ERP and CRM solutions and currently it is based on Project “Madeira” (but not only; we can expect the enterprise edition of Dynamics 365 based on AX) and CRM Online, but not only on them. It will provide the main business processes as Finance, Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Operations, Marketing and Project Service Automation.

And even more. This is not closed system. This system is natively integrated with big data and IoT, Power BI, Cortana Intelligence, Microsoft Flow,… everything what you need and when you need. Classic Software-As-A-Service story, but very advanced. I think I don’t need to spend my words about integration with Office 365; this integration will be extremely deep (you already saw just a part of this in my previous article about using “Madeira” with Outlook).

Dynamics365.jpg

And of course, if you want to know something more about it, the best is to attend on WPC during the July. Microsoft will provide three session about this new solution. You can also see more about it on Summit this year (Scott Guthrie will speak about it) and I hope on Directions.

You can expect more from me about this soon. But this is just small the first introduction about new solution in the family; remember this name – Microsoft Dynamics 365.