Book Image

Implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations

By : Rahul Mohta, Yogesh Kasat, JJ Yadav
Book Image

Implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations

By: Rahul Mohta, Yogesh Kasat, JJ Yadav

Overview of this book

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition, is a modern, cloud-first, mobile-first, ERP solution suitable for medium and large enterprise customers. This book will guide you through the entire life cycle of a implementation, helping you avoid common pitfalls while increasing your efficiency and effectiveness at every stage of the project. Starting with the foundations, the book introduces the Microsoft Dynamics 365 offerings, plans, and products. You will be taken through the various methodologies, architectures, and deployments so you can select, implement, and maintain Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition. You will delve in-depth into the various phases of implementation: project management, analysis, configuration, data migration, design, development, using Power BI, machine learning, Cortana analytics for intelligence, testing, training, and finally deployment, support cycles, and upgrading. This book focuses on providing you with information about the product and the various concepts and tools, along with real-life examples from the field and guidance that will empower you to execute and implement Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Foreword
Title Page
Credits
Disclaimer
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365?


To understand Dynamics 365, let's first understand Microsoft Cloud competencies and the overall cloud vision. Microsoft Cloud has numerous offerings and services; Microsoft these offerings into four broad categories, namely Modern Workplace, Business Applications, Application and Infrastructure, and Data & AI. Each of these categories of multiple applications services.

The following are the visual highlights of these four categories:

As shown in the preceding visual, Modern Workplace combines Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility and Security, and it is offered as Microsoft 365. The Business Applications category is a combination of ERP and CRM business applications and is offered as Dynamics 365. The third category is Cloud Application and Infrastructure, which is powered by Azure. The last category, Data & AI, deals with data, AI, and analytics.

Turning our focus back to the Business Applications category, in the business application word, business leaders are looking for greater business process automation to achieve digital transformation. What gets in the way today is monolithic application suites, which try to solve business process automation as a single application; you need modular applications built for a specific purpose, but at the same time, you need these applications to talk to each other and produce a connected graph of data that can be further used for AI and analytics. Microsoft, from the past several years, has been focused on building modern world purpose-built modular, integrated applications infused with AI and analytics capabilities.   

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the next generation of intelligent business applications in the Cloud. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a unification of the current CRM and ERP Cloud solutions into one Cloud service, delivered by purpose-built applications. It enables end-to-end business processes driven by unified navigation, has a core user experience in how they look and feel, and also allows seamless integration with each other. Microsoft Dynamics 365 further extends Microsoft's commitment of being a cloud-committed company bringing in world-class business apps together in their overall cloud offering. The Dynamics 365 applications can be independently deployed. A customer can start with what they need, and as the business demands, the customer can adopt additional applications.

Many of you may be new to Microsoft Dynamics 365, and it would be a good idea to register the logo/brand image of this solution from Microsoft. The following is a common symbol that you should expect to gain a lot of traction among organizations embracing business applications in Microsoft Cloud:

Let's now explore the key deciding factors for adopting Microsoft Dynamics 365 in your organization's day-to-day life, with the help of its usage benefits and salient features.

The benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365

Any business application and its platform decision is often on benefits, return on investment, and the commitment of product principal with an assured road map. We would like to share the top three among several benefits of leveraging Dynamics 365 as your business solution platform:

  • Productivity like never before with purpose-built applications
  • A powerful and highly adaptable platform to enable business transformation effectively
  • Integrated applications to eliminate data silos  
  • Insightful intelligence to drive informed decision making

Microsoft Dynamics 365 salient features

What makes Microsoft Dynamics 365 stand apart from its competition and enabler for organizations lies in its features, capabilities, and offerings.

Here's a quick glance at the salient features of Dynamics 365:

  • Cloud-driven, browser-based application
  • Generally made available on November 01, 2016 to a number of markets
  • Seamlessly integrated with Office 365, all out of the box, to increase productivity and stand apart from others
  • Intelligence built in for predictive analysis and decision making support
  • Releveled and revolutionized the traditional approach towards business solutions

Dynamics 365 is the next generation of intelligent business applications in the Cloud (public and private) as well as on premises, expected to transform how businesses use technological solutions to achieve their goals.