Following up on our webinar series "Restarting with Dynamics 365", we would like to provide you with another look at the end-to-end "Order to Cash"-process. In the scenario shown, we have used several business apps from the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform to show you how they interact with each other using a process.
What does the scenario look like?
Imagine the following:
Scene 1:
The sales representative of our electrical equipment wholesale company is on the road in his sales territory and visits a potential new customer. During the conversation, the prospective customer signals his willingness to place an initial order. To process this order as effectively and quickly as possible, our field sales representative uses Dynamics 365 for Sales and a Power App to quickly enter an order.
Scene 2:
The office sales representative is responsible for checking the order, completing the customer master data and sending the order confirmation.
Scene 3:
Finally, the Dynamics
365 Finance and Operations Warehousing App is used to handle the logistics
before the invoice is automatically sent via the nightly batch run. A
Power Automate flow informs the customer and the sales representative about the
dispatch of the goods using a shipping notification.
STEP 1: Dynamics for Sales - Creating customers
In the first step, the sales representative creates a customer in his Dynamics 365 for Sales. To do this, the predefined mandatory fields are filled in and further information is added.
The advantage: You only have to do this once in the entire process!
By integrating with Dynamics Platform Apps, this customer is also automatically included in all other apps.
STEP 2: Quickly enter a Power App order
Now, our order entry app comes into play. The sales representative selects the customer, creates an order, and adds the desired items.
This Power App can be accessed on any popular smartphone or tablet (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) or as a browser application.
The advantage: The field service employee can do this on-site, saving time for themselves and the customer.
STEP 3: Dynamics for Finance & Operations - Check order
Our office staff are permanently provided with current information and KPIs on their dashboard. Here, they receive information about the newly created order.
It is also possible to alert the employee using Power Automate or through internal system alerts.
In the next step, the customer master data can be further completed in Dynamics 365 F&O and the customer can be sent an order confirmation in real time.
The advantage: Internal sales staff receive a prompt and automatic notification.
STEP 4: Dynamics for Finance & Operations Warehousing App
In the next step, the processes of picking and, if necessary, packing are carried out in the Dynamics Warehousing App. This app can be used on a tablet as well as on common mobile handheld devices (PDAs) and can be downloaded as an app from popular app stores.
STEP 5: Power Automate – The Shipping Notification Flow
Once the shipping documents have been drawn up, the goods can be delivered by a service provider or our own fleet of vehicles. The customer is automatically informed about the progress of their order. A corresponding flow is set up In Power Automate and triggered when the status of the order item changes, the order information is exported into an e-mail and then sent through a mailing service of our choice.
Shipping notification via email
Flow process in Microsoft Power Automate
We used Microsoft
Power Automate, as the standard Dynamics 365 F&O does not include the
dispatch of shipping notification. Instead of complex programming, we use a
flow, which can be set up by power users with a graphical user interface.
The advantage: A
complex development is unnecessary and the functional gap can be closed by simple
and low maintenance code.
STEP 6: Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations - Send invoices
Finally, the outgoing invoice is generated with a regularly ran batch job and sent as an e-mail through SMTP.
The perfect integration of Dynamics 365 products
You can see that the products of the Dynamics 365 platform can interact seamlessly with each other. The boundaries of the individual applications merge, resulting in flows rather than hard borders between systems.
You can use low/no code Power Platform products to quickly create effective apps and flows for your company-specific processes.
