Leave the spreadsheets to your data analysts, and appreciate the effectiveness that charts provide. Dynamics 365 comes with a handful of charts out-of-the-box which you can pair with corresponding views to surface data visually. Like most companies, you likely have unique measures which the standard charts do not account for. That is where the flexibility and ease of creating your own charts in D365 shines. Dynamics 365 provides a variety of chart types allowing you to create column, bar, pie, funnel, and many more chart types, to fulfill your business needs.

Charts interact with the view which is chosen, and the data reflected in the chart is refreshed when you toggle between views. So, if viewing My Opportunities, the chart will depict that information, if you switch the view to All Opportunities, the Chart will change to reflect the data of the newly selected View. Similarly, you can switch Charts to display the View data in another way.

There are two types of Charts which can be created, system charts and personal charts. System Charts are created by a System Administrator or System Customizer, and are available to everyone in the organization. Personal Charts are those that a User can create for themselves, and are only viewable by that User (or Users they “share” the chart with), and what this blog will focus on.

Creating a Personal Chart

To create a chart, navigate to the entity (Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities…) for which you want to create a chart and choose the view which best demonstrates the data you want to visualize. Click the charts pane to expand this section.

Creating views and charts are a meaningful way to analyze and visualize your data, but they often live in multiple entities in Dynamics 365, and truth be told, you probably overlook or do not use them to their fullest potential. Custom dashboards in D365 give you the ability to pull together a variety of views and charts into one place, providing you a single stopping point to easily view metrics which span multiple entities.

Dashboards can be made up of views, charts, web resources and iFrames, allowing you to build your own collection of business intelligence metrics.

There are two types of Dashboards which can be created, system dashboards and personal dashboards. System Dashboards are created by a System Administrator or System Customizer, and are available to everyone in the organization. Personal Dashboards are those that a User can create for themselves, and are only viewable by that User (or Users they “share” the Dashboard with), and what this blog will focus on.

Creating a Personal Dashboard

You can create a personal dashboard by going to the dashboard area of Dynamics 365, and selecting an existing Dashboard and performing a “Save As” or create a new one. You are presented with layout choices, select one and click Create.

Has your business grown to the point where it’s too much for you to handle your own finances? If this is the case, you must be wondering if it would be better to hire a bookkeeper or an accountant. Gaining a better understanding of both professions will help paint a better picture of who you should hire. Both positions will be responsible with managing your finances, but each one will contribute differently to the company’s accounting objectives.

Bookkeeping is more of the administrative role of the company’s accounting process but is still a key component. Daily tasks include collecting and sorting, through the receipts and invoices then inputting the required data into the general journal. The bookkeeper would have to maintain the general ledger on a constant basis and monitor the ongoing finances of the business. Additional responsibilities for the bookkeeper are but not limited to;

Recording Transactions
Processing Invoices, Receipts, Payments
Processing and Maintaining Payroll System
Reconciling Accounts and Preparing Reconciliation Reports
Managing Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable
Calculating HST
Preparing and Lodging BAS
Tax Preparation

Bookkeeping is only half of the accounting process. An accountant helps business owners make better financial decisions. The accountant has a more of an analytical position and will create reports based on past financials performances. These reports are generated from the financial reports that the bookkeeper has created during a specific time. Their accounting certification (CPA, CGA, CMA, CA) and strong financial background makes them best suited to provide feedback and advice for the company’s future objectives. Other responsibilities of the accountant are but not limited to;

Financial Projections
Future Financial Elements
Preparing Adjusting Entries
Preparing Company Financial Statements
Analyzing Costs of Operations
Auditing
Business Establishment Assistance
Financial Management Advice
Taxation Advice and Planning

Ever had your boss ask you to pull a report which meets a specific set of criteria or sat scratching your head trying to pull up a record, but could not recall the exact details? With Advanced Find in D365, you can find exactly what you are looking for in just seconds. Advanced Find is the most powerful and robust tool in Dynamics 365 for searching. Using intuitive, user friendly features, you can quickly create queries and search your entire D365 database with ease.

At first glance Advanced Find may appear a bit intimidating, however once you become familiar with it, you will find yourself using it all the time, and wonder how you ever worked without it.

Continue reading to learn everything you need to know to get started using Advanced Find today!

The Advanced Find button is simple to locate, no matter which screen you are on, because it is housed in the D365 navigation bar.

Once you click on the  Icon, a window like the following will appear.

Isn’t it maddening to fill out the same fields, with the same info, when creating a child record directly from its parent form? Well -- Stop Doing It! Let the system fill out those fields automatically for you, instead of eating up your own time on it!

One of the “quiet” features of Dynamics 365, that will significantly save you time and protect data integrity, is Field Mapping. The purpose of field mapping is to copy certain values (e.g. address fields) from a record to an associated record (e.g. a contact created from an account)

The following details how simple it is to create field mapping relationships.

In Customizations, locate the Account Entity, and go to the “1:N Relationships” node.

Ever have the problem of scrolling down a long list of options only to miss what you were looking for? What if there was a way to limit your option choices based on values previously selected? Well now there is!

Dependent options in Dynamics 356 gives users the ability to filter down a long list of option values to just a handful of choices based on previously selected parent fields. This feature dynamically updates the options users see based on pre-set business logic.

Take the following transpiration data model as an example.

Traditional Option Set

Traditional option sets simply display all the options for each field without any consideration for previously selected option values. This method is cumbersome when it comes to long lists and can feel very redundant when looking through lists where some of the options obviously shouldn’t be there based on previous values selected.

Wouldn’t it simplify things if you could go to one record and see everything you need to see? Ever find yourself heading into a meeting, and wish you could quickly “ramp up” on all interactions with the Customer? Getting the total picture in one place, enabling you to see every touchpoint, this is the benefit that sub-grids afford you.

One of the great things about Dynamics 365 is that it allows you to customize entity forms to display the information most relevant to your business. You will quickly find that providing your users with the ability to see, at a glance, a subset of related records when viewing a lead, contact or account record provides immeasurable value.

For example, your salespeople may benefit from seeing all tasks related to an account directly on the account record. Instead of having to navigate to a separate page or running an advanced find query, you can easily set this up by adding a task sub-grid to the account form.

To add a sub-grid to your account form, open the D365 form editor directly from the account record’s ribbon menu or by opening the general customizations menu, navigating to the account entity forms, and selecting the account main form.

Once you’re in the form editor, select the section that you want to add the sub-grid to, switch to the form editor’s Insert tab, and click the Sub-Grid button.

Picture This.

It’s a lovely Tuesday afternoon, and the sun is shining birds are singing as you are packing up your car to go to your first meeting. As a business owner, there is no such thing as a 9-5 schedule but today seems possible, you only have two meetings today and maybe even have time to make a pit stop to the office.

After your first meeting, you realized that you missed a call from the office and tried calling back, but there is no answer. Your first meeting took a little longer than normal, and you’re running a little behind schedule, so you check your email just to double check and no luck. Once you have finished with the second meeting you check again to see if there is anything and finally there is an email from one of your employees about a possible lead that wants to schedule up something today.

Now you are running behind schedule even more now cause the last meeting took longer than expected with a whole bunch of questions. Now, as you’re on route to your “final” meeting you try following up with this lead and no answer on the phone call and you send them a quick email right before you walk into your third meeting. The final meeting ends and as you check your email, you see that they had an opening for today but are booked until Friday and could book something then. You realize that you could be Missing Opportunities.

We are in the year 2018, the time of digital transformation and moving to the cloud; missing opportunities is not an option anymore. With the hectic life of a business owner, you need something that can help you and your company work in harmony and work more in sync. With Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales your team can add a lead into your system with little information and you can get a notification about the new lead.

Download Our FREE Microsoft Dynamics 365 Demo

If you’re looking for a cost-effective ERP solution that combines sales, customer service, operations, financials, field service, project service automation, Marketing and Customer Insights, Dynamics 365 Business Central offers all these capabilities plus familiar tools that can grow with your business. Designed to work seamlessly with Office 365 and Dynamics 365 for Sales, Dynamics 365 Business Central encourages users to start small by using only apps that they need and expanding as their business requirements change.

Below, we outline the differences between Dynamics 365 Business Central and Enterprise editions: