Hello All, I hope you guys are safe and doing well. Stay Safe, Keep Family Safe. 🙂

Since after long time I am back but with a bang Dynamics 365. We know in this pandemic situation world is moving their businesses online and companies are on toes to move their presence in market through online software’s.  Microsoft is already a leader in this technology. So I thought to spread the D365 knowledge and its dominance with you guys. I am going to publish whole series of D365 Sales Process with its all the possible customization, configuration and functional process.

In this article we will discuss about Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Process which 5 is designed to support from lead management to close of sale.  Basically I will walk you through all the core records which are present in sales module.

Let’s understand what is Dynamics 365?

• Apps that work together Seamlessly in the cloud
• Apps can be purchased for easy deployment or built using XRM framework
• XRM framework provides:
  • Security, Workflow, Reporting, UI, and Data Modeling

Refer Microsoft Dynamics 365 Modules in the image 1.1 below:

Let us understand the core records and their purpose in D365 Sales.

Basic Record Types in D365 Sales Process:

Core Records: Customer

• Accounts – These are the organization with whom your sales process or relationship is established. All the customer records are stored in this entity as said D365 is customer relationship solution. Below are the types of record or customer with whom interaction is taken placed.

• Organization or Company
• Partners
• Vendors
• Distributors
• Resellers

• Contacts – These records are generally on the behalf of the account, like employee of Google who will deal on behalf of the company. Also certain company may serve their individual customer. Contacts integrate with the contacts in Microsoft Outlook, so it is important to understand that when fields on the contact record are updated, that change may synchronize to Outlook for one or more users depending on synchronization settings.

• Persons
  • Employees
  • Channel Partners

• Customers
  • People
  • Organizations serviced

Refer the generic organization structure.

Core Records: Leads

• Lead represents potential customer to do business with. Lead can come from all the marketing campaign, channel and portal which our company runs.
  • Potential Sale
  • Potential Customer
• Lead Qualification is the process where we choose to go ahead with the customer depending upon information and details we have.
  • Determine Viability
• Lead should be considered temporary until it is converted into opportunity.

Core Records: Opportunity

• Opportunity represents a potential sale or a deal which is ready to close as won/lost.
• Can be created directly from account, contacts. (This is customizable)
• Can be created from qualified leads which is called as lead qualification process.
• Can be attached to an account or contact records
• Opportunities Status values:
  • Opportunity can be Open or Closed
  • Closed as Won
  • Closed as Lost

Core Records: Quotes, Orders, Invoices

• Quote – In simple terms, this is the formal price which we notify to customer in written. This can be created from opportunity as well as directly from quote button if your customer is known.

• In short Quote = Formal offer to the customer on behalf of the company.
  • Activate, Print and Close Quote are functionalities available on the quotes.  

• Order – These Are nothing but accepted quotes, and document what specific products or services the customer is buying.

• In short Order = confirmed request.

• Invoice – This is the final stage of the sales process in D365. Invoices are how you bill your customers with respect to the opportunity. Invoices are created after an order has been fulfilled.

• In short Invoice = Billed order

 Refer the simple example of sales process.

In the next article we will talk more about Sales Literature, Business Process Flow, Product Catalog and Competitor and then I will walk you through all the sales process with their functional flow and configurations, security roles, business units and entities.

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Stay Safe 🙂