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The Microsoft Dynamics 365 approach to business applications unifies Microsoft's current CRM and ERP cloud solutions into one cloud service with new purpose-built business applications that work together seamlessly to help you to manage specific business functions.
Let's now get an insight at a high level into the various apps available in the Dynamics 365 family. Let's look at some of these apps, along with Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service is an omnichannel solution to unify the way customers and prospects experience your business. There are several dashboards in Dynamics 365 for customer service as well. The following screenshot depicts one of the dashboards:
Users can create consistency and loyalty at all touchpoints across various experience channels such as self-service, peer-to-peer service, and assisted service. It also proactively addresses issues by detecting the customers' intent and social sentiment.
Expect an increase in CSAT (short for Customer Satisfaction) and retention by providing personalized and consistent engagements and proactive addressing of service issues.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations is now available as two separate products as Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management (SCM) for licensing purposes. These two products are collectively called Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations apps. If the customer buys licensing for both Finance and SCM, then they will get all of the features that were previously available in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.
For the purposes of this book, we will call the product Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.
Microsoft has done a complete re-architected Dynamics AX and introduced cloud-based Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations to the world. Microsoft offers users an interface that is so natural to use that they just use it with an accelerated adoption, thereby raising productivity. Since the first release in July 2017, Finance and Operations, has gone through various updates, and introduced various new features and processes, which we will learn about later in this book.
The fact that it works seamlessly anywhere on any device and on any platform is among the key features that make Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations very attractive to implement.
Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations offers a wide variety of role-specific dashboards and workspaces to make work life easier for folks using it day in and day out. The following screenshot shows a dashboard that comprises several workspaces in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations:
Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations is a very flexible application, and it can be used for many scenarios as needed by any organization. Some examples are the following:
It would be very nice to get a glimpse of all workloads available in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, suggesting their core functionality. The following diagram shows a full-suite visual for various workloads:
As shown in the preceding diagram, there are several modules/capability areas spanning different workloads, namely, vertical, horizontal/operational, and administrative.
We will be getting into the details of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations throughout this book; however, there are a few key features that are in line with other D365 business apps, as follows:
Several new navigation concepts are introduced in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, and the following are the key ones:
The following screenshot shows the navigation page:
The following screenshot shows workspaces and various tiles used within workspaces in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations user interface:
Let's move on to the next app that Dynamics 365 offers!
Dynamics 365 Business Central is an accounting application offering from Microsoft, but it is more than accounting software. It is a comprehensive business management solution for small and midsized organizations that automates and streamlines business processes.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central also has dashboards similar to the role-driven dashboards in other Dynamics 365 apps:
Earlier a part of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Commerce is now separated as its own application as part of the Dynamics 365 product portfolio. Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Commerce provides an intelligent platform to enable retailers to combine the best of digital and in-store to deliver personal, seamless, and differentiated customer experiences by empowering people and capturing insights to drive growth.
The following screenshot depicts a Dynamics 365 Commerce solution:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources was an earlier part of the Finance and Operations and is now a separate SaaS-based independent offering out of Dynamics 365. Dynamics 365 Human Resources brings your human capital management to the cloud for a mobile, employee-focused, strategic HR approach that helps you to find and hire the right people, nurture success, and deliver high-impact, sustainable results.
The following is a talent solution dashboard showing various modules and capabilities:
Microsoft is trying to make use of the Dynamics 365 suite easier by providing access to various tools that work very seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 business applications. These tools complement the Microsoft Dynamics 365 suite to make it more personalized and easy for information consumption and informed decision making. Let's have a look at these complementary tools in the following section.
