Efficiency is a critical ingredient for the success of your business. Specifically, your teams must communicate, create, and collaborate seamlessly to ensure the effective implementation of projects.

Providing access to a suite of productivity tools like Microsoft Dynamics allows your people to perform their tasks more efficiently, from anywhere, making your organization more agile and competitive.

A Quick Guide to Microsoft Dynamics 365

At a basic level, Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a database that helps your business manage and organize its lead and customer data.

Dynamics provides your employees with a set of practical tools they need to increase productivity, enhance their client relationships, and secure more business, ultimately improving sales outcomes for projects.

The application’s business intelligence platform offers project managers and account executives more significant insights into available opportunities and team performance.

Because Microsoft Dynamics combines ERP and CRM capabilities, your organization can streamline its communication with employees and clients. Providing a set of seamlessly integrated and complementary tools, Dynamics is a valuable asset for the success of business projects.

What is Microsoft Dynamics?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a set of modular and interconnected Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps and services that enable and transform your business, project management, and collaboration activities.

Dynamics CRM offers you an automated, intelligent, and integrated sales and marketing solution that efficiently connects, prioritizes, and converts leads into paying customers through better customer engagement.

On the other hand, Microsoft Dynamics AX offers you an advanced enterprise resource planning (ERP) package, now part of the Finance and Operations apps.

The application combines powerful financial and project management capabilities that help you manage customer demands, stay compliant with industry regulations, and deliver projects on time and within budget.

Core Functions of Microsoft Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics applications adapt to both your overall business and specific departmental requirements. Each app works well independently, but you expose a lot more functionality when they work together.

You can start with a single app, such as Dynamics 365 Project Operations, to unify your project-based services, then expand as your project team members need.

Modular Operation and Seamless Integration

The suite is powered by Microsoft Azure, delivering a broad service ecosystem backed by a trusted software platform. Additionally, Dynamics has native integration with Microsoft 365, providing unified user and service management capability.

Accessibility and Administration

Dynamics 365 functions by enabling access to its browser-based applications from anywhere and on any device. Many mobile applications allow your team members to work on the move.

You can also use the included Microsoft Power Platform to create customized and automated user experiences around your processes and data.

What’s more, Dynamics comes with built-in administrator tools, so you can maintain control over application and service configurations to meet your security and business needs.

Planning Your Dynamics 365 Implementation

A successful rollout requires a strategic implementation plan. This plan should outline important stages, from data migration to user training.

Selecting the right implementation methodology is necessary to connect the technology with your business processes.

Microsoft’s Success by Design framework helps confirm that the architecture meets business goals. A phased rollout can also mitigate risks and smooth the transition for your teams.

5 Benefits of Microsoft Dynamics for Project-Based Businesses

Microsoft Dynamics ERP’s project management functionality gives you a robust set of tools and apps that you can use, regardless of industry or project type, to produce your product or achieve the results you want.

The ERP streamlines and simplifies project management by offering an end-to-end financial overview, deep integration with your supply chain processes, and project controls.

For example, project management in the manufacturing sector means streamlined supply chain management, while financial services can ensure regulatory compliance with robust security features.

All of these features mean that Dynamics offers the following benefits to your project-centric business:

1. Ease of use and deployment

You can choose to use Microsoft Dynamics in the cloud or within a hybrid cloud environment. Its design makes it incredibly simple to deploy and manage regardless of the operating environment, making it adaptable to your infrastructure and budget.

Real-world examples show that this flexibility allows companies to start with a cloud-based solution and move to a hybrid model as their needs evolve.

Dynamics is an excellent fit for businesses with a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy. The company’s employees can easily access Dynamics applications from any web browser, Outlook, or mobile device.

2. Full integration with Microsoft products

Dynamics offers easy, native integration with other Microsoft products, such as the Office 365 suite.

The app integrations allow company employees to transition from Dynamics to Power BI for their data analytics, SharePoint for project documentation, or Outlook for communication.

The easier you can make it for your employees to switch between the apps they need, the less time they will spend transferring data from one application to another or learning how to work with new platforms.

3. Project templates

Depending on your project type, choose the appropriate Dynamics 365 project template:

• Fixed-price
• Cost
• Time
• Material
• Investment
• Internal

 

Selecting the appropriate project template will help save time when setting roles and estimating completion time for a specific project.

4. Scalability

One of the most compelling reasons for project-centric businesses to use Dynamics is that it is easy to scale up or down depending on the project team’s size, workload, and the company budget. Like other Microsoft cloud solutions, Dynamics offers an easy-to-change subscription model.

5. Higher productivity

Project teams can access almost any type of data they need on Dynamics, which means they can work more efficiently.

As a result, they do not have to waste time searching for information from various disconnected sources.

Because they have all the relevant tools and insights at their fingertips, they can make better and more informed decisions, a fact supported by numerous customer case studies.

6 Ways Dynamics Helps Project Managers in Decision-Making

Microsoft Dynamics has everything managers need to handle their projects from start to finish. The suite makes it simple to optimize processes and helps project managers meet all their goals and targets. They can prioritize tasks or take the necessary action to resolve any issues and move forward.

Inbuilt business intelligence capabilities offer real-time insights into every project stage, giving managers the information they need to make business decisions. If you are a project manager, here are some of the ways that Dynamics helps you make the best decisions:

1. Setting up project quotations

You can set up your project quotations by isolating tasks and specifying the load capacity. What’s more, you can manage budgets, schedule tasks, and monitor project status to help anticipate and avoid potential delays.

The quotations you create could include basic contact information, possible taxes or surcharges, agreements and discounts, items and services, and special trade agreements that form the basis of your project contracts.

2. Gaining financial control and visibility

Project financial management is a central feature of Dynamics 365. The platform provides comprehensive tools for cost control, allowing managers to monitor budgets against actuals in real-time.

You can configure complex billing rules to automate invoicing cycles and confirm accurate cash flow. The system also simplifies revenue recognition. This helps you comply with accounting standards and gain a clear view of project profitability.

3. Managing project forecasts and budgets

To manage and control your project, you could use project forecasting to enter transactions into forecast forms for each of your transaction types.

On the other hand, you can prepare a budget for the project by having a single-entry form to capture the original budget details and any revisions.

4. Creating and managing breakdown structures

Depending on how accurate you want your tracking to be, you can describe the team’s work, the resources necessary to perform the job, and the completion timeframe.

Create your work breakdown structures (WBS) if your project has a low tolerance for deviation, for diligent work progress tracking.

5. Optimizing resource allocation

Dynamics helps you quickly identify the most qualified resources available to work on the project. You can also schedule your resources based on the specific project requirements or the skills and availability of team members for optimum deployment.

6. Evaluating project progress and financial health

Microsoft Dynamics provides a quick overview of external and internal projects’ operational and financial performance. You can compare the resources consumed against the revenue earned for your project in real-time.

The application’s cash flow monitoring feature lets you review forecasts alongside actual cash flows for completed or ongoing projects. All the information is centralized and accessible from every corner of your organization, so that costs stay up to date and you can quickly generate invoices.

Project statements offer a quick snapshot of the project’s progress through dashboard view. They give you all the task, project, and activity data you need to analyze progress and create reports.

How to Boost Long-Term User Adoption of Dynamics 365

A tool’s value depends on people using it correctly. High user adoption is important for maximizing your ROI on Dynamics 365.

A good change management strategy helps communicate benefits and manage the transition. Comprehensive employee training provides your team with the skills they need to be productive.

You can also run pilot tests with a small group of users to identify potential issues and gather feedback before a full-scale launch. This process improves the outcome of the final rollout.

Microsoft Dynamics – The Project Management Game Changer

For your project to succeed, you need to have access to the best tools and technology. Microsoft Dynamics allows you to collaborate in real-time to complete tasks within budget and on time.

Are you ready to experience hassle-free project management? Book your custom demo of BrightWork 365 PPM Software for the Microsoft 365 platform.