Are you ready to make the move to the newly released Dynamics 365 V9 on-premises in the New Year?

With the V9 upgrade deadline that is coming for Microsoft Dynamics online customers on Jan. 31, 2019, CRM on-premises customers may consider their own unique advantages of making the change in the New Year.

As far as V9 is considered, there are some major benefits of moving to Dynamics 365 on-premises sooner rather than later in 2019.

As technology evolves, we always recommend to keep up as to not fall behind or suffer from technological lag later in the game.

Top considerations for making the transition early in 2019 may include:

• A cleaner traditional user interface
• A new unified user interface (UUI)
• A new and improved mobile app
• Improved Dynamics 365 for Outlook App
• Increased User Adoption
• Many exciting new features

When it comes to Microsoft Dynamics 365 V9 on-premises, there are unique benefits to consider that are not the same as those making transitions to online.

By moving from CRM On-Premises to Dynamics 365 V9 On-Premises, users will reap these rewards:

Maximize Dynamics 365 V9 On-Premises Feature Utilization

When you make the transition, you will have access to all of the features and product advancements from Microsoft with the V9 release.

If you are using Dynamics CRM on-premises now, and don’t make the move, you will not have access to the new functionalities.

While Microsoft has a major focus to drive organizations online (to the cloud) with updates to Dynamics 365 twice per year (April and October), On-Premises users have the ability to upgrade once per year with new enhancements (October release).

Keep Up with the Technology

We all know how fast technology changes. The better you keep up, the less likely you are to fall behind.

Of course, timing is everything. By running an Upgrade Diagnostic, you will be able to best determine when the right time is for your organization while preventing complications and identifying system breaks.

Upgrade Diagnostics will help take the stress an upgrade may potentially cause your team, especially if you haven’t done it in a while.

Ledgeview’s experts can help you with this step.

We carefully consider your entire process, goals, and needs before we help you to make the transition by conducting a thorough business analysis that will allow us to pinpoint a good time for your org to make the move, all to help ensure your success.

Make Future Transitions a Breeze

We all could use easier transitions in our lives, right? Change is inevitable, but the more we keep up with shifts, the better we can respond.

While you may not be ready to move to Dynamics 365 online yet, Dynamics 365 V9 on-premises is a good option for on-premises CRM users who want to gradually make the move and realize the system’s full potential.

The more you keep up, the easier it is to evolve and adapt to future upgrades.

We recommend reaching out soon to explore your options.

When you need help moving from CRM on-premises to D365 V9 on-premises, reach out to Ledgeview to get started!

Our experts are eager to help you succeed.

This post is part of the Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features series in which I am going hands on with the new features introduced in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 (which was released on the 2^nd October). I reblogged the new features as Microsoft announced them along with some commentary of how I thought they would be received by both my clients and I. In this series, I will be hands on with them giving feedback of how well they work in reality.

The twenty-third new feature is Email POP PO Other Form. This feature makes the Purhcase Order Other Form available for email.

My hands on with the feature was somewhat abbreviated when I discovered that there was no default Word Template available. While technically allowing a PO to be emailed using the Other Form, the lack of a default Word Templates means that there is a large amount of effort involved to make it available.

To create a new Word Template, you need to use the Word Template Generator to create a Word Template from the Report Writer XML and then format the resulting template; this is a long, complex and difficult to process to do in order not to break the template so email, or even the Word Template itself, doesn’t get broken.

Click to show/hide the Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features Series Index

Read original post Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features: Email POP PO Other Form at azurecurve|Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant

Spending each day carrying out tasks, attending meetings, traveling, and making important business decisions can be taxing. Add to it the hundreds of emails that clutter your inbox each week, the need to respond to some as a top priority, setting up meetings with clients, and a plethora of other tasks, that might appear small and inconsequential, but take up a lot of your time. With Microsoft Flow, you can automate a lot of these daily tasks and set up workflows between services like Facebook, Twitter, SharePoint, Dynamics 365, Yammer, Dropbox, Outlook, and OneDrive to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data and more - so you can allocate time to tasks that really matter and work more efficiently.

Key Features

Currently, there are more than 150 services you can connect to with Flow. Within Microsoft Flow, you can view all your flows, take a look at some of the most popular templates, automate and streamline your approval process, use connectors to connect from one service to another, and find extensive information that will help you quickly ramp up on Microsoft Flow.

Using these connections is very easy; all you have to do is log into a particular service, and use Microsoft Flow to automate actions between the services of your choice. You can begin with one of more than a hundred commonly used templates to create flows in a browser or on a mobile device. Some of the key features of Microsoft Flow are:

Types of Flow

There are different types of flows that you can create with Microsoft Flow:

1. Automated

An automated flow performs one or more tasks automatically once it has been triggered by an event. For example, you can create a flow that notifies you by email when someone sends a tweet that contains a keyword that you specify. 

2. Button

A button flow performs one or more tasks with just one tap of a button, once it has been triggered by an event. For example, if you want to send a quick email to your team to remind them to join the daily team meeting, you can do this by simply tapping a button on your mobile device.

3. Scheduled

A scheduled flow performs one or more tasks according to a schedule. You can either schedule a task once a day/hour/every minute/ on a particular date, or after a specified number of days, hours, or minutes. For example, you can schedule a weekly call with your suppliers every Monday to stay on top of all the updates.

4. Business process

Business process flows are representations of your business processes and typically consist of stages, and steps within each stage. When using a business process flow, you can see which stage you are in the process of completing, and what steps you need to complete before proceeding to the next stage. Although you are required to complete certain steps before you can move to the next stage, with custom or out-of-the-box entities, you can also jump stages. Since business process flows do not demand any conditional business logic or automation beyond providing a streamlined experience for data entry and controlling entry into stages, they are fairly simple. When combined with other processes and customizations, they can save time, reduce training costs, and increase user adoption.

List of supported connectors

There are over 200+ connectors available in Microsoft Flow. You can connect any of these services, and manage data either in the cloud or via on-premise sources like SharePoint and Microsoft SQL Server.

Approvals in Flow

With Microsoft Flow, you can manage approvals across several services, including SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, OneDrive for Business, Zendesk, and WordPress. You can easily automate approval processes and:

• Set up single or multiple approvals
• Lay a condition that every approver must approve a request
• Configure timeouts and escalation of pending approvals
• Approve and reject requests from your email and phone or the flow website
• Add comments
• Reassign requests

To create an approval workflow, all you need to do is add the approvals, and then start an approval action to any flow. Once you add this action, your flow can manage the approval of documents or processes. For example, you can create document approval flows that approve invoices, work orders, or sales quotations, or process approval flows that approve vacation requests, overtime work, or travel plans. Approvers can either respond to requests from their email inbox, the approvals center on the Microsoft Flow website, or through the Microsoft Flow app.

Creating a request using Microsoft Flow

Before you start creating a request using Microsoft Flow, it is important to understand that every flow has two main parts: a trigger, and one or more actions. A trigger is the starting action for any flow and can be anything from a new email arriving in your inbox or a new item being added to a SharePoint list. Actions are events you want to happen when a trigger is invoked. For example, using Microsoft Flow, you can enable a new email to trigger the action of creating a new file on OneDrive for Business.

Now let’s look at how you can create a vacation request using Microsoft Flow

1. Go to My flows and select “Create from blank”.

1. Click on the “When a new email arrives” tab.

1. Set the Folder name and all other details.

1. Click ‘add an action’ and select the “Approvals” connector. In the Approvals Connector select the “Start an approval” action and add necessary details.

1. In the new step, select “Add a condition” and select the below mentioned values:

1. Go to the “If yes” condition and add action as “Send an email” and select values as shown below:

1. Go to the “If no” condition and add action as “Send an email” and select values as shown below:

1. Name the flow Vacation Request and save it.

1. Test the flow by sending an e-mail to yourself with the subject Vacation Request!

1. If you’ve enabled notifications in your Microsoft Flow app, you will get a notification on the app as well as in the Approvals tab.

Streamline daily tasks

With employees struggling to manage important but time-consuming tasks on a daily basis, Microsoft Flow is like a breath of fresh air. Using pre-built or custom templates, you can set up custom notifications so you can avoid getting lost in junk emails, set up calls once you receive a high-priority email, get notified immediately if a certain client or manager is trying to contact you, create a workflow that captures social media posts based on certain hashtags, setup automated responses to someone who tweets about your business and more. You can also create flows to copy files from one place to another, send out reports on the same day each week, and automate a ton of other processes that tend to disrupt your daily tasks for improved productivity.

• Dynamics salary survey 2017
• Dynamics salary survey 2016
• Dynamics salary survey 2014

WHY KNOWING AVERAGE WAGES IS IMPORTANT

Money should not be the key driver for moving jobs but make sure you are being paid your worth.  Use the average wage statistics to assess if they underpay you, take into your yearly review, tell your manager you are not being paid the market rate and ask what can they do?

Knowing the average wage for your role and experience helps you negotiate in your current role or a new job.

Wages should be based  on the industry average not an increment of what  you were previously paid

Why do people move?

• 57% lack of salary increase
• 54% lack of career or promotion prospects
• 49% Needing a new challenge
• 36 Lack of leadership and vision

46% are considering moving in the next 12 months, 17% not sure.  This might be due to the increased head hunting by recruiters on LinkedIn.  People who are not looking for jobs might be tempted if jobs with higher salaries keep being sent to them.

Recruitment has changed, people are applying to job adverts less and being head hunted more.

This post will help you evaluate different job offers.

How to evaluate job offers for Microsoft Dynamics 365 roles

Money and moving roles

It’s common to say you shouldn’t move for money but why?  Money isn’t a motivator because after a few months the more money it will stop making you feel happy.  Getting paid more does‘nt  make you enjoy your job or the company culture more.

If you consider your own career, you will have progressed to a more senior role and get paid 2 or 3 times the wage you started on but are you 2 or 3 times happier now?

Those who move jobs for money, lose motivation once used to the new wage.  Money is a problem when you don’t have enough.

if you decide you want to change job  to further your career, go to a company that shares your values or move to a new role which can further  your career.  Think about the things that can improve your job

• Company culture
• Training
• Career progression opportunities
• Getting new skills
• Role

The app development opportunity on Microsoft's business applications platform continues to evolve in complex ways, says John Silvani.

The new cloud-based evolution of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, was designed as an all-in-one solution for Small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) to manage all aspects of their operations. By harnessing artificial intelligence through cloud-based technologies, it provides organizations with all the tools they need to meet the expectations of clients and customers in a marketplace that is constantly evolving and relies on quick, efficient and personalized service.

What really sets it apart from other business management solutions is just how easy everything is. By streamlining the Microsoft Dynamics NAV interface and providing intuitive, user-friendly tools that facilitate everyday tasks, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central allows users to increase their productivity and efficiency.

Here are just some of the features that set Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central apart and might make it just the right business management solution for your organization:

• Accessibility and mobility with a cloud-based platform
  Cloud-based business management solutions are getting more and more traction every year, and this is not without reason: having your data and tools accessible from anywhere via the device of your choice makes a world of difference. Users have all their data and tools at their disposal from anywhere, ensuring a level of mobility and flexibility that is essential in today’s fast-paced, interconnected market.
  

• Quick access to data with an intuitive, user-friendly interface
  Just type a few letters in the search bar, and Business Central will produce all results, sorted based on what you are most likely to want to access. Information is updated in real time across the entire system, which highlights any errors to ensure that they are corrected immediately. Filters can be applied to display only the data that you need for an easy user experience.

• Seamless integrations to other Microsoft tools and products
  This reduces the number of clicks and the amount of time spent switching between different applications, increasing productivity and efficiency. For instance, users can send documents and invoices without having to save them to their desktop first. Quotes can be modified and sent to clients directly from Outlook, while accounts can be managed from Business Central without having to switch to your CRM application.

• A high level of personalization without developments required
  Business Central allows a high level of personalization without the need for costly developments. Screens can be personalized to display information based on user needs and preferences, while role-based security ensures that users have only access to the data relevant to their responsibilities. Furthermore, a variety of third-party applications are available to meet any specific needs, ensuring that Business Central covers all your business processes.

• Maximized productivity and efficiency
  The system is designed to optimize efficiency and productivity by streamlining and automating processes and predicting the next steps. For example, it will ensure that your inventory never runs out by letting you order more when quantity is running low. Other tools are in place to accelerate processes, such as approval workflows and personalized, real-time reports, reducing your needs for labor and related costs.

All these features make Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central a powerful yet flexible business management solution. With a streamlined and user-friendly interface, automated processes and cloud-based access, it provides a very intuitive experience, drastically reducing the learning curve for new users. This, along with the fact that it can be easily tailored to organizations’ specific needs and budgets, makes it an especially attractive option for SMBs looking for a full-feature solution to manage all aspects of their business.

By JOVACO Solutions, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation specialist in Quebec

Switching to Dynamics 365 Business Central can boost your ability to care for your customers and allow you to provide service that keeps people coming back for more. If you want your business to be set apart from the competition, a difference in service is one of the best ways to do so. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the vital key to improving performance and offering your customer the best experience you have to offer.

Why Switch to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Watching our latest webinar, you have the ability to see the new features that will streamline your processes and skyrocket your productivity.

Start with a free trial tour of this versatile solution; there is no limit to the number of users, company size or database size. Flexibility is at the heart of this subscription-based system. Our latest webinar is a dive into the functionality of Dynamics 365 so you can see what this solution can do for your organization. You’ll learn:

• How to make the most of Microsoft App Source to empower your team and your developers to create custom applications that work.
• How to easily integrate your existing systems and familiar programs like Office, Outlook, Excel, Word, and more into one simple but powerful platform for your team.
• What Microsoft Power BI, the Cortana suite of tools, and the increasingly popular Azure IoT tools can do for your ERP program and how they can streamline your workflow and operations.
• The best ways to use Dynamics 365 Business Central to boost your team’s productivity, efficiency, and empower them to fulfill orders with ease. Collaboration and easy access to real time, up to date data makes it easy for everyone in the workflow to see exactly what is happening to any order. Your sales, inventory, accounting and fulfillment teams can easily meet customer needs and ensure that every order placed runs smoothly.
• To incorporate powerful automation tools including Microsoft Flow to streamline and boost operations. Automated notifications can be set at any level order and allow you to be alerted when something comes through that needs your attention or a closer look from a team member.
• How to streamline operational costs by determining which components and solutions provide you with the most value and how licensing fees work within the system; allowing you to create fully customized solutions that can be scaled – you’ll only pay for what you need now but can easily scale as your business grows.

Learn More About your Options with Dynamics 365 Business Central

From migrating your legacy systems to the versatile, innovative Dynamics 365 Business Central, to the considerations you need to think about as you work through your options, we’ve covered everything you need to know to make a decision about this powerful solution. Start with our latest webinar, found here, then try a free trial so you can test Dynamics 365 Business Central and see all that it has to offer.

Save money by switching before June of 2019! Contact Crestwood at (866) 299-1001 or email us at sales@crestwood.com for more detailed information on discounted pricing for existing Microsoft customers!

Are you currently doing your bank reconciliations in either Excel or on paper?  If yes, then you should consider doing your recs within Dynamics SL.  The 2 modules that handle this requirement, shown below, are the Bank Reconciliation Module and the Cash Manager Module.

How do I choose between the two modules? 

Both modules allow:

1. Downloading of bank cleared transactions and importing to clear related system transactions.
2. Bank reconciliation recap reports.
3. Both are part of the financial series of modules
4. Both require a matching of external transactions to be cleared. If your bank statement transactions are summarized, then both modules will have problems reconciling the transactions.

What are the differences between the two modules?

Cash Manager Module:

1. Clearing of a range of checks or deposits. This works well for organizations with a lot of transactions per reconciliation period.  You are not limited to “Clear All” or manually clearing individual transactions.
2. Viewing the transactions that are Cleared, Outstanding or Both
3. Cash flow Forecasting
4. Float Analysis
5. Daily Cash Balance reporting
6. Does your organization have someone whose job it is to keep track of cash, like a CFO or Controller. Then this could be their module.
7. Date driven transactions. If a transaction has a transaction date outside of period to post, the transaction will not show up until the transaction date for reconciliations is reached.  This is a very important requirement in Cash Manager.  Example:  $100 check with Period to Post 12-2018 but Check Date 01/01/2019.  When you prepare your December bank reconciliation, this transaction will not show up because the date falls outside of the December reconciliation period.  You must make sure all your transaction dates make sense.  In the previous example, the period to post should have been 01-2019 instead of 12-2018.  This transaction will cause an out of balance condition in your reconciliation because it will reduce the G/L balance as of period 12-2018, based on the period to post.  It will, however, not be a part of the checks to be cleared until the next reconciliation period.
8. Three-way reconciliation between:
   1. Cash Manager Balance – Checkbook
   2. Bank Statement Balance
   3. General Ledger Balance

Bank Reconciliation Module:

1. Simpler for organizations with smaller numbers of transactions.
2. Screen is set up just like your bank statement.
3. Just for Bank Recs. No cash flow capabilities.
4. Smaller number of transactions makes it easier to reconcile.
5. Period driven transactions. If a transaction has a transaction date outside of period to post, the transaction will still show up to be reconciled.
6. Two-way reconciliation between:
   1. Bank Statement Balance
   2. General Ledger Balance

Questions you should ask yourself are:

1. Am I in a business in which regulations force me to perform by-transaction reconciliation?
2. Can my bank produce a BAI2 format or some .csv file that makes sense for me to download?
3. If the bank won't help, do I have a small volume of monthly bank transactions so doing it by hand is not so crazy?
4. Are there any business related procedures that would prevent a meaningful by-transaction reconciliation? Like branch office consolidating deposits from many AR transactions, or a non-SL POS software, or a voucher delay issue?
5. How much time do I spend doing my bank reconciliation?

Further questions about bank reconciliations in Dynamics SL? Contact us at info@t3infosystems.com

The post Dynamics SL: Cash Manager vs. Bank Reconciliation Module appeared first on ERP Software Blog.

It’s hard to believe that the calendar has already flipped to 2019. In many ways, 2018 flew by at PowerObjects: new clients, new employees, new global offices, a new (to us) building in Minneapolis… good changes were all around us all the time. But there are a few things at PowerObjects that simply don’t change: our four pillars, our five Guiding Principles, our laser-focus on Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Business Applications, and certainly our commitment to publishing the number #1 Dynamics 365 Blog in the world.

For the 11^th year in a row, we blogged information, guidance, training, and helpful hints – all freely accessible and relevant to the entire Dynamics 365 user group community. Since the inception of our blog in late 2007, we’ve penned nearly 1,800 blogs, 227 of which were posted in 2018 alone! And as has been our tradition in recent years, we like to reshare the top ten most popular blogs from the previous year. So, without further ado, we present the ten most-read 2018 PowerObjects blogposts:

10. Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM Configuration Migration Tool
Here, readers learned about an often-overlooked option for migrating configuration data between environments. Indeed, the Dynamics 365 CRM Configuration Migration Tool assists in moving entity configuration data without the use of custom code. It’s a great no-cost, no-code tool!

9. Using Virtual Entities with Dynamics 365
Virtual entities allow Microsoft Dynamics 365 users to utilize record information from external data sources and view the information in fields, search results, and even Fetch XML-based reports within Dynamic 365. You can read all about it in this blogpost.

8. How to Find the Object Type Code for Any Entity
Each entity in your system has an Object Type code. For simplicity’s sake, think of it as a numbering system for all entities, including both out-of-the-box and custom. As a CRM expert, you could easily encounter a situation in which you need to identify the Object Type code for a given entity. We show you how!

7. Authentication to Dynamics 365 using Azure Apps
Need to make a connection to Microsoft Dynamics 365 from an outside source like a single-page application, a mobile application, or other service? Typically, authenticating to Dynamics 365 can be pretty darn challenging – but not if you read this blogpost.

6. How to Integrate Power BI with Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
Power BI is a suite of business analytics tools that allows users to analyze data and share insights. This robust tool provides extensive modeling capabilities, real-time analytics, and the option for custom development. Here you can read about how Power BI provides a great platform to create your own reports or simply tweak existing ones.

5. Electronic Reporting in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
In this Top-5 post, you’ll learn everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about Electronic Reporting (ER) – a tool for configuring incoming/outgoing electronic documents in accordance with legal requirements of your specific country or region. ER lets you manage these configurations throughout each document’s lifecycle.

4. How to Install and View Organization Insights for Dynamics 365
If you’ve ever longed for a simple and intuitive tool for tracking your organization’s metrics, the fourth-most-popular blogpost of 2018 is for you! Organization Insights for Dynamics 365 (online) is a free yet powerful tool that provides your system administrator with access to all the key metrics.

3. How to Bulk Update CRM Records Using the Bulk Workflow Execution Tool
Cracking the Top 3 is this popular post that shows you how to avoid the 250-record limit when doing mass updates. Indeed, Bulk Workflow Execution is a great tool that allows users to run – in bulk! – an On-Demand Workflow against a set of records pulled from a System or Personal View.

2. Using the Ribbon Workbench in CRM 2016
In the #2 spot is a post that describes a helpful and fun-to-use tool for customizing buttons and actions in your CRM: the Ribbon Workbench. There are many scenarios in which this tool may come in handy – for example, let’s say you wanted to be able to resolve a case with a single click… this would be the tool for you!

1. How to Configure a Point of Sale in D365 for Retail in a Day
Our most-read post of 2018 is a richly-detailed, articulately-described, and loaded-with-screenshots beauty describing the Point of Sale (POS) system available in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Retail. Setting up a new POS system in a retail environment can be done quickly, but the steps carefully outlined in this post must be followed closely. If you’re in retail, this is a must-read.

Well, dear reader, that’s it for our countdown. We hope you enjoyed our stroll down 2018’s Memory Lane. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog to receive the latest posts in your inbox!

Here’s to another 225+ blogposts in 2019… oh, and happy D365’ing!