Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers the ability to streamline your business process through an often overlooked and underutilized feature called Business Process Flows. Business process flows are displayed visually in Dynamics 365 as a heading across the top of an entity form, and can carry from one entity to another, and can be configured for both out of the box and custom entities. Not only that, you are not limited to a single business process flow; you can configure one or more distinct business process flows, allowing different departments to have a flow unique to their daily requirements.

A business process flow is composed of Stages (highlighted in red below), which contain multiple Steps (highlighted in green below). In the business process flow heading, a user can see which stage they are currently working through (which is indicated by the flag), and the steps they need to complete (what fields need to be filled in) before they can advance to the next stage in the process.

Business process flows enable you to require users to complete certain steps before advancing to the next stage of the process. They also allow for branching logic based on data elements collected which may require a different path. There are a couple out of the box business process flows pre-configured for system entities, but you can modify these and create your own business process flows to meet the particular needs identified for your organization.

Create a Business Process Flow:

1. Go to Settings > Processes to create a new Process

Office 365 is one of the most popular applications to make any business go paperless. Companies that use Microsoft O365 suite don’t have to worry about, documents or files getting misplaced. Here are three ways that any business can leverage Microsoft O365.

Flexibility and Scalability

Microsoft O365 is both flexible and scalable for any business. Microsoft O365 is available on a monthly or annual plan and can be scaled to cater to your business. It is very easy to add and remove users. Here at Websan, it can be done by filling in a form on our support page. Microsoft O365 has customized packages available so the right employees and departments access the best tools.

Moving to the Cloud

Microsoft O365 is in the cloud which means updates are done quickly by Microsoft with little to no interruptions. This will ensure that your business is using the latest versions of O365 and your business email and mailbox will never go offline. When O365 is deployed in the cloud, all the licenses will be active at once, making updating quick and secure by Microsoft.

Dynamics 365 is a sophisticated Microsoft business application, it grants the ability to better manage the relationships of your Sales, Customer Service, Field Service and Operation processes. But how can you access your data while you are out in the field, the internet is down or you are not anywhere near your PC? Dynamics 365 for phones and Dynamics 365 for tablets apps are the solution when you're on the go. These apps give you immediate access to accounts, contacts, opportunities, cases, and so much more!

How to get the App:

Go to the app store on your device and download either Dynamics 365 for phones or Dynamics 365 for tablets, depending on the device you are working with. Both phone and tablet users alike will appreciate the new Unified Interface. The Unified Interface provides an optimized viewing and interaction experience, relative to screen size, device, and orientation.

 Accessing the App:

Once you have the app installed, open the app on your device, enter your Dynamics 365 URL (web address), and click the arrow to continue. Next you will be prompted for your user name and password. If you are unsure of any of these values, contact your Dynamics 365 administrator.

WebSan Solutions Inc. is proud to announce that our team has won the 2018 Microsoft Canada Modern Marketing Innovation award.  These annual awards recognize Microsoft partners who demonstrate excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Microsoft prides on having the largest partner ecosystem in the industry, with over 14,000 partners across Canada. Each of these partners play an integral role in unlocking new opportunities for Canadian companies and Microsoft is committed to helping their partner ecosystem build profitable businesses and successfully take their solutions to market.

Microsoft Canada presented these awards in 16 categories on July 16, 2018 at the Microsoft Inspire conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Winners were selected based on the outstanding work the companies provided to their customers and community.

“This year’s IMPACT award winners represent the best and most forward-thinking innovators coming out of our partner community in Canada,” said Suzanne Gagliese, Vice President, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Canada. “Microsoft’s partner ecosystem plays a fundamental role in driving Canada’s innovation agenda forward, and ultimately strengthening our position as a globally competitive and prosperous country. We congratulate all of the winners on this amazing achievement and their continued dedication to bringing cutting-edge solutions to complex business challenges and providing digital transformation opportunities for our shared customers.”

“To be among great company and win the Modern Marketing Innovation award is such a great honour. For me, it validates the hard work and tireless efforts of our marketing team to achieve outstanding results.

Our accomplishment illustrates our ability to stay ahead of the curve and serves as a testament to all our marketing efforts.” stated Andrew King, Managing Director at WebSan Solutions Inc.

WebSan Solutions Inc. is proud to announce that our team has won the 2018 Microsoft Canada Modern Marketing Innovation award.  These annual awards recognize Microsoft partners who demonstrate excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Microsoft prides on having the largest partner ecosystem in the industry, with over 14,000 partners across Canada. Each of these partners play an integral role in unlocking new opportunities for Canadian companies and Microsoft is committed to helping their partner ecosystem build profitable businesses and successfully take their solutions to market.

Microsoft Canada presented these awards in 16 categories on July 16, 2018 at the Microsoft Inspire conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Winners were selected based on the outstanding work the companies provided to their customers and community.

“This year’s IMPACT award winners represent the best and most forward-thinking innovators coming out of our partner community in Canada,” said Suzanne Gagliese, Vice President, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Canada. “Microsoft’s partner ecosystem plays a fundamental role in driving Canada’s innovation agenda forward, and ultimately strengthening our position as a globally competitive and prosperous country. We congratulate all of the winners on this amazing achievement and their continued dedication to bringing cutting-edge solutions to complex business challenges and providing digital transformation opportunities for our shared customers.”

“To be among great company and win the Modern Marketing Innovation award is such a great honour. For me, it validates the hard work and tireless efforts of our marketing team to achieve outstanding results.

Our accomplishment illustrates our ability to stay ahead of the curve and serves as a testament to all our marketing efforts.” stated Andrew King, Managing Director at WebSan Solutions Inc.

Dynamics 365 Business Central Inventory Planning

Do you know what items you currently have on hand? Do you know which items are needed? Join our webinar to see how the inventory planning system works in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

This session will include:

• Extensive inventory planning capabilities for procurement and manufacturing
• Reorder point planning and full MRP
• Planning combination of location and item (stock keeping units)
• Dashboard/Reporting in Power BI

Date: Thursday July 26, 2018
Time: 11:00AM - 11:30AM EST
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE WEBINAR TODAY!

Microsoft Flow, your simple solution for synchronizing data!

Looking for a simple way to synchronize data between the various business applications which you run your business on? Attend our webinar on Microsoft Flow to learn how you can create automated workflows bridging the gap between your business-critical apps and services. Microsoft Flow currently offers over 200 connectors, with new ones being added all the time.

This session will include:
• What is Microsoft Flow
• Available Connectors
• Use Cases
• Creating/Managing a Flow

Date: Wednesday August 1, 2018
Time: 11:00AM - 11:30AM EST
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE WEBINAR TODAY!

Analyze Dynamics 365 data to gauge performance. Recognize trends. Mass edit thousands of records. Share data with someone that is not a D365 User. These business requirements and so much more can be accomplished when you export your data to Excel or Excel Online from Dynamics 365. Plus extracting a large number of records is a non-issue because you can export up to 100,000 records in a single export file.

The Export to Excel feature has proven to be a vital asset in the D365 application over the years due its ease of use, and its obvious connection to Excel. With the continued enhancements in Dynamics 365, and the technology which can be integrated with the application, you can certainly do so much of your data analysis without ever leaving the environment, thereby reducing the need to export your data. Fact is though, so many have come to know, love and depend upon the tools and functions in Excel which bring data to life, thereby making the Export to Excel feature a much-coveted feature still.

Besides the need to extract data for data analysis, the Export to Excel feature carries another extremely valuable purpose. What if you have a query of 10,000 Account records, for example, and want to update the Industry field on all of them to the same value? Sure, you could select a maximum of 250 records per page and mass edit them. But consider this, 10,000 divided by 250, you would need to repeat the process 40 times. And let’s be realistic, out of the 10,000 records, chances are slim you would be modifying the Industry field value to the exact same value for all.

By leveraging the export to Excel function, not only can you view thousands of rows of data at once, you can also update all of them at once too. Data is exported in the same format as you see in your View, so text remains text, numbers remain numbers, and dates remain dates. The cell format in Excel may change for some formatting types, so you will need to be aware of this and be sure to update the affected rows accordingly.

Make any necessary changes in the exported file, and then import the file back into Dynamics 365. Just like that, your 10,000 Account records have been updated in a fraction of the time, and you have significantly reduced the risk of making an error.

Out of the box, Dynamics 365 has many great out-of-the-box entities such as accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities. However, it is often the case, that the out of the box entities may not be the right fit or the only fit for every business. Businesses often have their own special requirements, and when these requirements do not fit the D365 mold, we look to custom entities to accomplish the desired result. Through the configuration of custom entities, D365 can be tailor fit to meet any business’ unique needs. That means custom forms, fields, business process flows, views, charts, and dashboards, all based on your specific requirements.

D365 out-of-the-box is like a good suit, you purchase it because you like the suit, but know that to get the “right fit,” your next stop will be your tailor. Custom entities are your D365 tailor. With custom entities you can construct entities based on your organizational needs. These custom entities can drastically elevate your D365 experience. By creating custom entities you’ll have a unique, one of a kind system, unlike anything on the market. This could be as simple as an entity to capture employee data in your organization, to a collection of custom entities working together to bring you a whole new experience.

The following is an example of some custom entities built to manage human resource activities. The below demonstrates a custom navigation tile built to clearly distinguish the custom entities which have been built to fall within the Human Resources component of the system, thereby easily distinguishing it from the out-of-the-box areas of the environment.

The Candidate entity in the collection had fields created and a custom business process flow built to manage the hiring process. This entity had relationships built which further tie it to the other custom entities which fall within the human resources collection. Being this is all custom built, the skies the limit. If you can imagine it, you can make it a reality.

Custom entities truly transform your D365 environment to fit your business requirements, so you never have to compromise. D365 out of the box is a great base to get started, but one size does not fit all, and that is where the ease and flexibility of the system is best recognized and where custom entities shine. Talk to your team and determine how you can leverage custom entities in D365, then email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to discuss your ideas and get started on the path to building your perfect D365 environment.

Microsoft Canada has announced that it has named WebSan Solutions Inc., a cloud Microsoft Dynamics Certified Partner and IT consulting and solutions provider, a finalist for the Modern Marketing Innovation Award of the 2018 Microsoft IMPACT Awards for the second consecutive year.

Each year, Microsoft Canada hosts the IMPACT Awards to celebrate innovation in technology recognizing the outstanding work our partners do to deliver virtually seamless solutions to customers. The IMPACT Awards showcase the excellence and innovation within our Canadian Partner community.

The Modern Marketing Partner of the Year Award recognizes a partner who is using modern/digital marketing practices to acquire, convert and retain customers. The Modern Marketing Innovation Award recognizes an exceptional partner who excels at developing and delivering the use of campaigns using SEO, SEM, Search, Content Marketing or Social and demonstrates their Impact to drive leads and opportunities.

Microsoft IMPACT Award winners and finalists will be recognized at the IMPACT Awards Finalist Dinner of the Microsoft Inspire event on July 15, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. A listing of all winners and finalists are on www.microsoft.com/en-ca/sites/impact-awards.

“We are thrilled to be recognized as one of the finalists of the Microsoft Modern Marketing Innovation Award for the second year in a row,” says Andrew King, Managing Director at WebSan Solutions Inc. “WebSan Solutions’ digital marketing solutions have always achieved the goal of making Microsoft Dynamics products easily accessible and readily available to both customers and prospects through our unique marketing efforts.”

One of the most common tasks for users in Dynamics 365 is entering data. Often users are required to enter data while on the call with a potential client or customer. Opening a new form and having to switch back and forth between screens can eat up valuable time for you and your client. It can also cause the user to lose focus and forget important information. Quick create forms give users a way to capture key information quicker and with less distractions.

To deploy quick create forms for your D365 environment, simply follow the steps below and you will be on your way to creating a more efficient data entry screen in no time.

Firstly, to use quick create forms you must enable it on the entity level. To do so, go to Settings > Customizations > Customize the System.

In the customization window navigate to the entity you wish to create the quick create form for and confirm that the ‘Allow quick create’ box is checked, otherwise select it to enable this feature.

Now that this has been enabled, go to the entity’s form section > click new > pick quick create form. This will open the quick create form editor.

Dynamics Integration With O365 Productivity Tools Webinar

Join our webinar on “Dynamics Integration with O365 Productivity Tools“ happening on Wednesday June 27, 2018 at 11:00AM – 11:30AM EST. See how your business can become more productive using the O365 suite and integrating it within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Seamless communication with out of the box solutions including,

O365
SharePoint
OneNote
Power BI
Microsoft Teams
OneDrive
Office Lens
Exchange

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.

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.

The records you store in Dynamics 365 typically share some association with other records of the same type. Whether it be leads owned by a specific user, accounts of the same relationship type, contacts located in a specific city, opportunities created in last “X” days. The list is endless and limitless. With a little planning, you can create Views which automatically filter records for you based on the criteria you set.

So, what are Views in D365?

Views display all the records of a specific entity type in your D365 environment. Out-of-the-box you are provided with a variety views, but you can add to these, creating custom views which are significant to you. Clicking the drop-down arrow next to a view name reveals all the views you have at your disposal.

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

Creating a Personal View

Quick View forms are a great way to view information from different entities while remaining on a single record. Quick view forms enable you to surface data from associated entities and display the data in read only mode on the form. This is done through linking the two different entitles together using a lookup field. Below you’ll learn how you can setup your own quick view form in just 3 easy steps.

1. Create a Lookup field

The first step in setting up a quick view form is to ensure you have a lookup field to the entity where the data is stored. If you do not already have a lookup field created, you will need to create one. To do so, go to Settings > Customizations on the navigation bar and select Customize the System.

Next navigate to the entity you wish to add the lookup field to, and thereby surface the Quick View form on. Click the Fields node, and create a new field.

Once you click new, the following pop up window will appear. Indicate a display name and change the data type to Lookup and select the entity you wish to associate to. Once that is done, click save and close.

Get Ready, Get Set, Get Marketing with Dynamics 365 for Marketing!

Have you heard the buzz that Microsoft has launched a new marketing application, Dynamics 365 for Marketing?! The target market for this solution is small to medium-sized organizations who require an end to end marketing solution. Large organizations need not count themselves out, this solution has a little bit of everything. Join us for this session which will serve as an introduction to one of the newest Microsoft product offerings.

• Dynamics 365 Out-of-the-Box Marketing vs Dynamics 365 for Marketing
• What comes with Dynamics 365 for Marketing
• Navigating the Application
• Standout Elements of the Application

Date: Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Time: 11:00AM EST – 11:30AM EST

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE WEBINAR TODAY!

Crystal Williams, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc.,a 2017 Microsoft Modern Marketing Innovation Award Winner

Five Reasons Why You Need A Payroll System

It takes a lot of time to keep track of the total hours worked by employees, stay up-to-date with tax preparation and update employee profiles. It’s time to get a new Payroll system if the HR department can’t keep up with daily operations. Here are five reasons why you need a payroll software.

1. Save Time: Payroll can be very strenuous with the mass amount of operations needed to keep everything in order. Calculating hours, tax preparation and employee data maintenance can take multiple hours to complete when it's done manually. Investing in a good payroll system will allow information such as direct deposits pay, up to date tables, and even updating your general ledger to be automated.

2. Reduces Human Error: When businesses manually enter employee wages, there is always the possibility of human error. Use a payroll system to reduce human error is and save the company money.

3. Always Up-To-Date with Taxes: When tax season is approaching it can take hours to ensure that all information that has been entered manually is correct. Payroll systems will always have the tax tables up-to-date, so your business will always be compliant without the added stress.

4. It is secure. One of the most essential features that a payroll system needs is security. Payroll contains very sensitive data, which is kept confidential and can be stored away safely in the cloud. The only person who has access to this data is granted permission through role assignments.

5. Easy Integration: It is important to have your systems talk to each other. Your ERP system and payroll system go hand in hand. Payroll software can easily be integrated with well-known systems such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Microsoft Dynamics Business Central is an all in one system that allows businesses to work digitally and became scalable. Insight Works has developed a Canadian Payroll add-on that integrates with Dynamics 365 Business Central. Join our Canadian Payroll with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Webinar to learn how their system makes the whole process of employee administration and finance much easier.

Date: Thursday, May 24, 2018

Time: 11:00AM EST – 11:30AM EST

You can now brand your Dynamics 365 environment! Themes allow you to apply your distinct logo and color scheme to your Dynamics 365 environment. Three simple clicks and you are well on your way to a D365 environment with a look all your own.

1. From the Navigation Bar, select Settings

2. Select Customizations

3. Select Themes

In-Depth Cash Flow Analysis and Forecasting

Having enough cash flow to keep your business going is a primary focus for a business owner who wants a successful business. That's why we developed a series that will provide you with all the accounting tools you'll need to run a successful business. In this webinar, the following topics will be covered.

• In-Depth Cash Flow Analysis
• Cash-Flow Forecasting

Time: 12:00PM EST - 12:30PM EST
Date: Thursday May 24, 2018

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE WEBINAR TODAY!