0:02 a cast is now starting all attendees are
0:10 hello everybody good afternoon this is
0:12 Nick Sarnoff America Lucian's welcome
0:15 from snowy New York City here today
0:17 we've got a fun event planned for us
0:19 today super excited as our organization
0:21 to lodge the first of a few of these
0:23 webinar series coming up in the next
0:27 couple of weeks and months ahead so for
0:29 the folks that don't know me my name is
0:31 Nick Sarno I'm a director with our
0:34 organization and our agenda today is
0:37 going to take us through a couple of
0:39 different areas really my main role in
0:41 this event here today is to give us some
0:44 overview some content and some material
0:47 about our organization at a high level
0:50 supporting customers implement and
0:54 utilize Microsoft Dynamics 365 it's
0:57 really for the next 10 or 15 or so
0:59 minutes I'm going to spend talking with
1:02 you to set the stage for our actual deep
1:05 dive demo with Chris Berg I'm in the
1:06 agenda in front of us here today you'll
1:07 see we've got a couple of different
1:10 areas to walk through Josh if you can
1:19 thank you so to really set the stage for
1:23 context and perspective really wanted to
1:25 reinforce a few points here with what
1:26 we're working with here today as we're
1:29 all familiar with by the world today
1:31 around us is rapidly changing probably
1:33 faster than at any other point in
1:36 history it's really the way we gauge
1:38 this is the indicator of the fourth
1:40 Industrial Revolution that is emerging
1:42 which is what we call the digital
1:45 revolution really all of this driven by
1:48 the rise of big data the growth of the
1:50 cloud as well as a new era of
1:54 intelligent capabilities utilizing
1:56 mobile IOT machine learning and
2:01 artificial intelligence so really those
2:03 technologies have the power to disrupt
2:06 almost every industry which is why we're
2:08 super excited to be playing in this
2:11 space here today and really the depth
2:14 and breadth of changes resulting in the
2:17 transformation of these systems can be
2:18 felt across production management
2:23 governance etc so so really all this to
2:25 say that at Microsoft and merit
2:27 solutions our ambition really as a
2:30 company is to help democratize this
2:33 fourth Industrial Revolution by
2:35 providing organizations the building
2:38 blocks to actually empower them to build
2:41 innovate and ultimately transform so
2:42 really that's setting the stage for us
2:46 here today and really at the core of all
2:49 this is data so we view data as a key
2:52 strategic asset which combined with the
2:54 cloud really has the potential to
2:56 provide some really unique intelligent
2:58 the capabilities to help these
3:01 organizations grow Josh if you can go to
3:03 the next slide please
3:11 so really at the forefront of this what
3:13 I wanted to spend a couple minutes
3:14 walking through is you know what is
3:17 Dynamics 365 and why is it so relevant
3:18 to this fourth Industrial Revolution
3:21 that I just shared about so so for folks
3:24 that don't know Dynamics 365 is a
3:26 product line of enterprise resource
3:30 planning ERP and customer relationship
3:33 management CRM applications announced by
3:37 Microsoft in July of 2016 the product
3:39 itself was generally released in
3:43 November first 26 2016 as part of the
3:47 Microsoft Dynamics product suite roughly
3:49 in terms of numbers there are
3:50 approximately to date about 5 million
3:53 individual users of the software and
3:56 approximately 40,000 customers globally
4:00 utilizing Dynamics 365 and really across
4:07 industries etc there
4:10 dynamics 365 so dynamics 365 is really a
4:14 business application platform for
4:16 digital transformation that ultimately
4:19 combined the tools that people are
4:21 already familiar with the familiar
4:23 Microsoft tools that folks are familiar
4:25 with so so whether you're familiar with
4:30 office 365 power bi power apps etc
4:32 really booths are all things that play a
4:37 key part with the dynamics 365 product
4:39 suite so really on the outside are the
4:42 familiar applications that that most
4:44 users are familiar with on the inside
4:47 and that wheel they're really those are
4:50 the individual applications that are
4:53 components of the broader Microsoft
4:57 Dynamics 365 suite so really what it
4:59 allows organizations to do is pick and
5:01 choose which particular application
5:04 their organization wants to take
5:07 advantage of and start utilizing here so
5:09 really for the purposes of today we're
5:12 going to focus only actually on one of
5:14 those applications namely the finance
5:17 and operations application but the point
5:20 being that really the application itself
5:24 Dynamics 365 allows organizations at
5:25 their own pace to actually adopt
5:28 different key workloads and different
5:29 different processes as their
5:32 organizations grow and evolve
5:35 Josh got on that slide please
5:39 Thanks and so as I shared earlier really
5:41 today we're going to focus only on the
5:43 Microsoft Dynamics 365 for finance and
5:46 operations application and so really
5:48 wanted to drill a little bit deeper into
5:51 it to give some context into the actual
5:54 functionality and solution skill sets
5:57 that are available within it so so
6:00 really from the point of actually using
6:02 the application there's multiple ways
6:04 users can actually use the software so
6:05 whether that's you know from their
6:07 computers from their laptops from their
6:11 phones really from other services with
6:13 power bi there's multiple ways to
6:15 actually interface with the application
6:17 then in terms of the actual business
6:19 rules and capabilities there's numerous
6:22 actually functional areas within finance
6:25 and operations such as supply chain
6:27 management production and Finance itself
6:29 that actually are folded under that
6:32 broader umbrella and then finally at the
6:34 core for all of that is really the the
6:36 power of the Microsoft cloud so the
6:38 solution set is actually hosted on
6:41 Microsoft as your network software as a
6:43 service based and really they're getting
6:45 the best capabilities with Microsoft
6:48 Azure stack at the core of this product
6:51 so I should go to next slide please
6:54 thank you so kind of wrap up my talking
6:56 points here today before I turn over to
6:57 Chris just wanted to give some
6:59 perspective of who married solutions is
7:02 and how we've had similar success in the
7:05 marketplace before so really married
7:07 solutions is a consulting services firm
7:09 we're focused a hundred percent on
7:13 Microsoft technologies our main industry
7:15 focus and vertical area of expertise is
7:17 working with manufacturers but more
7:19 specifically those that are
7:22 fda-regulated like Ben device companies
7:25 diagnostics providers my pharmaceutical
7:28 companies etc in terms of our global
7:30 footprint we have customers on all
7:33 continents today roughly 600 customers
7:35 globally which is very important to us
7:37 additionally in the center here of this
7:42 slide you'll see that I'm an actual
7:45 screenshot of our client satisfaction
7:47 scores or ratings and so really as a
7:51 client centric organization very key to
7:53 us is actually how our customers are
7:56 rating us regularly so each quarter we
7:57 actually assess from our customers and
7:59 ongoing projects how we're doing as an
8:01 organization to meet their needs
8:04 until you'll see why it's relevant as we
8:06 really maintain high customer service
8:08 levels throughout the labs in this
8:09 particular case three years but even
8:11 beyond that as well
8:13 and finally I'll kind of plug one unique
8:16 thing about us as well the company we
8:18 actually were the first organization to
8:21 actually implement the Microsoft
8:24 Dynamics product on Azure and so really
8:25 our organization's been at the forefront
8:28 of helping democratize that fourth
8:30 Industrial Revolution or digital
8:33 revolution as I shared earlier today so
8:34 with that I'm going to turn it over to
8:36 Chris Berg for actually our deep dive
8:38 demonstration and then certainly
8:39 throughout the day here today if you
8:41 have questions please feel free to chime
8:45 in via chat to other chat function thank you
8:46 you
8:49 sounds great Thank You Mick so today on
8:51 today's demo we're going to be doing
8:54 over a demonstration of the navigation
8:57 and user interface of Dynamics 365 for
8:59 operations I'm going to give you a you
9:02 know quick navigation overview go
9:04 through the Microsoft ecosystem and more
9:06 depths and and how the Microsoft
9:08 applications are actually embedded into
9:10 the solution then we'll talk about
9:13 workspaces and really how easy it is to
9:15 personalize various forms and features
9:18 within the application and then we will
9:19 move into the help and search
9:23 functionality showing you the the power
9:26 of being able to fully utilize the the
9:29 platform to its capabilities I want to
9:31 walk through some task guides because
9:34 those are some new and exciting tools to
9:37 dynamic 365 and really helps user
9:39 adoption then we're going to open some
9:41 forms and excel and show you how that
9:44 direct integration to excel can work
9:45 within the platform and then we'll
9:48 finish off by talking about power bi and
9:50 if we have time wrap it up with some
9:54 some some natural query language so with
9:57 that being said I am going to to go over
10:04 and launch the application right now and
10:08 what you're seeing is the landing spot
10:10 or essentially the home page of
10:13 Microsoft Dynamics 365 for finance and
10:17 operations going back to our agenda the
10:20 navigation overview is one of the key
10:21 pieces we're going to focus on today
10:23 simply because having a familiar
10:26 interface is so important to a
10:29 successful GRP project not just from an
10:31 implementation standpoint but from a
10:33 usability standpoint and when we look at
10:37 Dynamics 365 and compared to other ERP
10:39 platforms and systems the learning curve
10:42 is really much smaller Microsoft has
10:44 done a great job of ensuring that the
10:46 user interface is all about the users
10:49 ensuring that there is easy adoption
10:52 taking advantage of the familiarity and
10:53 similarities to other microsoft project
10:55 products such as Excel Word PowerPoint
11:00 and all of those applications
11:01 they know that they have a lot of
11:03 business users or power users that are
11:06 familiar with those and enabling those
11:09 users to move forward and evolve into
11:12 the dynamic 365 platform is a that's
11:14 that's a huge piece of their roadmap so
11:16 they're definitely going out of their
11:18 way to make sure that all their users
11:21 can take advantage of that prior
11:23 knowledge and in that history that they
11:25 have working with Microsoft products so
11:27 one of the first things to discuss is
11:29 what I have highlighted here and that's
11:32 a URL bar what does this mean well in
11:36 dynamic 365 everything is completely
11:38 web-based Nick mentioned the hosting the
11:41 azure so let's talk about that just a
11:43 little bit and some of the advantages
11:45 with everything being online in the
11:49 cloud with this being online you can
11:52 access dynamics 365 from any device at
11:55 any place with Wi-Fi whether it's from a
11:57 tablet or a phone in a restaurant or
11:59 you're on an airplane with Wi-Fi and
12:01 productivity is really no longer limited
12:04 to a dedicated machine or server also
12:06 one of the pieces to to discuss here is
12:09 a Microsoft support and flexibility with
12:11 the cloud and Azure I think a lot of
12:13 people out there have a misunderstanding
12:16 about owning their own code or you know
12:19 having their own servers you know with
12:22 this product and with the Azure services
12:25 you are still able to control your own
12:28 instances your own code base and you
12:30 still own your own data so you still
12:33 have all of that ownership you're just
12:34 utilizing the power of the Microsoft software
12:35 software
12:39 additionally the Dynamics 365 platform
12:41 is now fully scaleable with licenses
12:44 they have what's called a subscription
12:46 model allow you to only pay for what you use
12:46 use
12:48 and then ramp up and/or scale up with
12:50 your business so it's no longer a
12:52 shotgun approach where you have to buy a
12:56 huge bulk of user packages and licenses
12:58 you can gradually implement more and
13:00 more functionality as time goes on
13:02 through different phases and add key
13:05 users during those phases so essentially
13:07 as your business grows the ERP grows
13:10 with you so I'm going to go ahead and
13:14 start diving into some of the navigation
13:16 I'll go ahead and choose our little icon
13:18 over here on the left and one of the
13:20 things you'll see is we have the ability
13:22 to tag all of our different favorite
13:25 modules and workspaces into our
13:27 favorites bar we also have the ability
13:31 to tag our recent and really is it gives
13:35 you that browser like approach so and
13:37 it's really key to have this you know
13:40 especially ERP systems people can think
13:43 of them as being complex and having the
13:45 fear that Microsoft makes us easy to
13:47 navigate through you can tag favorites
13:49 in the recent we'll get into the
13:51 workspaces and modules a little bit
13:53 later but wanted to just reiterate the
13:55 fact that they really make it more like
13:57 a browser approach and while we're
14:00 talking about that with the dynamic 365
14:02 for operations platform being online you
14:05 can easily navigate back and forth with
14:07 your browser you can refresh screens you
14:11 can actually you know save this homepage
14:13 to you know to a link or a tab within
14:16 your browser it really is its its own
14:19 webpage which is a which is a great
14:21 piece of functionality to have another
14:24 thing to cover is from our home page
14:25 what you're seeing here is we obviously
14:27 have a calendar but we're also able to
14:29 view work items assigned to me so
14:31 particular to my role these are system
14:33 generate alerts that either require my
14:35 approval or tasks that I need to
14:38 complete throughout the day moving in
14:41 onto the Microsoft ecosystem I talked
14:42 about this before
14:45 about the direct embeddedness with the
14:47 Microsoft products I'm just going to go
14:50 ahead and and launch our our bar up here
15:06 and as you can see we have a number of
15:08 different options for applications that
15:11 are part of the Microsoft ecosystem but
15:13 additionally to what you're seeing here
15:16 I can go ahead and choose all apps and I
15:17 can specify all these different
15:20 Microsoft apps and pin them to my
15:23 Dynamics 365 solution this includes the
15:26 Microsoft Office 365 suite we're looking
15:29 at Excel onedrive OneNote outlook
15:32 PowerPoint power bi all of these
15:35 different apps or applications are like
15:37 I mentioned fully embedded into the
15:40 solution so it really is all the
15:42 solutions under one roof which is a key
15:45 advantage of this product in particular
15:48 compared to others also as we go ahead
15:52 and scroll down here to get more apps I
15:54 did want to to bring up the fact that
15:57 Microsoft also uses a system called app
16:01 source which is very similar to the App
16:03 Store and iTunes if you've ever used it
16:06 before essentially you get a whole
16:10 robust number of apps that are either
16:12 Microsoft built or third-party apps and
16:15 I did want to mention that if it is a
16:17 third-party app it goes through rigorous
16:19 approval process that are and these apps
16:21 are fully supported by Microsoft you're
16:23 not just going to get some junk up on
16:26 this app source website this has to be
16:28 fully vetted and qualified and approved
16:29 to Microsoft and it's actually a
16:32 rigorous process to go through that but
16:33 while we're here I'm just going to go
16:37 ahead ahead and and specify or drill
16:38 into some of these apps I'll choose
16:40 finance and operations and I'll choose
16:42 operations and supply chain and
16:44 furthermore moving down out to
16:47 healthcare and life sciences is one of
16:49 the industries that we specialize in as
16:52 you can see over here we have our own
16:54 Macs life solution through merit
16:58 solutions posted on app source it just
17:01 gives you this great user interface and
17:03 ability to go and see what is out there
17:05 what is approved by Microsoft on on
17:09 their apps or storefront and be able to
17:11 you know put you in touch directly with
17:13 these vendors or you know if it's a
17:14 Microsoft based product go ahead and
17:16 download install
17:19 apply or apply so a lot of great
17:23 features from from app source I did want
17:26 to bring up the the point that the
17:29 Microsoft ecosystem is not only directly
17:30 connected with these other Microsoft
17:33 products but the look feel and usability
17:35 is consistent what does that mean well
17:36 it's going to be easier to adopt
17:38 application and its features and take
17:40 advantage of the tools that your users
17:44 are already familiar with so moving into
17:46 personalization and usability so
17:50 dynamics 365 as I mentioned before does
17:53 a great job of making the system
17:55 flexible easy to navigate easy to use
17:58 but also easy to customize and
18:00 personalize to each of your users
18:02 obviously in different industries or
18:04 different companies you're going to have
18:06 different users with different roles
18:08 that want to you know want to look at
18:09 different forms or they want to see
18:11 forms in different ways some might want
18:13 to see tiles some might want to see
18:16 lists pages so what Microsoft Dynamics
18:18 has done they have taken the traditional
18:20 approach of workspaces and I'll just
18:23 show you what a workspace looks like for
18:27 example I will go ahead and excuse me
18:29 when I meant when I said workspaces I
18:31 meant module they have taken the
18:34 traditional module approach and this is
18:35 what we're looking at here is a
18:36 traditional module of all of these
18:39 different forms that could be either a
18:42 set up in config form it could be a
18:45 report form it could be a list page form
18:47 all of this data and they have chunked
18:49 it out and they put it into the form of
18:51 these workspaces what you're seeing here
18:54 are these tiles from my home page and
18:59 the benefit of doing this is it allows
19:02 you to pull all of those pertinent
19:04 pieces of information required for
19:05 day-to-day activities and work streams
19:08 and put them in a single place now
19:10 unlogged in as an admin access user
19:12 right here but I'm going to go ahead and
19:14 open up a different browser window and
19:17 go ahead and launch the home page for
19:20 finance and operations in this example I
19:23 am logged in as a accounts receivable
19:25 manager and logged in as the accounts
19:29 receivable manager I only have access to various
19:30 various
19:35 work excuse me workspaces and modules
19:37 that are pertinent to my role and to
19:39 take that a step further I want to show
19:41 you how easy it is to personalize some
19:43 of these workspaces so if I'm an
19:45 accounts receivable manager I can go
19:48 ahead and launch my workspace from the
19:50 workspace which I mentioned is new to
19:53 the dynamics 365 product we have a
19:56 number of different tiles on the left
19:57 hand pane this is going to be consistent
20:00 across all the workspaces summary tiles
20:02 we're going to have transactions and
20:04 list pages in the center and then
20:05 related information over on the right
20:07 whether that's navigating to a report or
20:11 set up in config of various areas but if
20:13 I am posting cash and I'm an AR manager
20:15 one of the things I might want to see
20:18 our customers that are past due and if I
20:20 don't have that tile already in my
20:22 workspace how would I go ahead and add
20:25 that well it's very easy all I need to
20:27 do is go ahead and go to the source
20:31 within the module find my customers path
20:35 do load that list page and from that
20:37 list page I can add this particular list
20:42 directly onto my workspace simply by
20:45 choosing options at - workspace I will
20:49 add it as a tile I can type in the name
20:52 of the tile and I can even have the tile
20:53 display account
20:56 I choose ok and I will go ahead and
20:58 close out of my customers pass-through
21:01 form and go ahead and launch customer
21:03 payments and here we are just as quick
21:05 as a couple you know as easy as a couple
21:07 of clicks I now have my customers
21:08 past-due tile
21:11 directly embedded into my workspace
21:14 that's particular for my role another
21:18 nice feature is the ability to take this
21:20 data from my workspace and actually add
21:23 it back to my home page dashboard so all
21:25 I need to do right click on the tile
21:27 choose personalize pin to my dashboard
21:32 and click off the tile and close my
21:37 workspace refreshes our dashboard home
21:41 screen so excuse me and sure enough all
21:43 all of a sudden
21:45 have our customers past due in a tile
21:48 format with our count right here on our
21:50 home page this is incredibly useful
21:53 especially for users that are using
21:56 these tiles with different counts we
21:59 like to say it merit a lot as we're
22:01 implementing the software that you know
22:03 if you're a user and your number counts
22:05 down to zero at the end of the day you
22:07 can clock out and go home for the day so
22:09 a lot of great uses
22:12 you know usability particular to
22:13 different users and different roles
22:15 within your organization from the
22:17 summary tiles the transactions list the
22:20 related information there's a lot of
22:21 great power here to ensure your users
22:24 only have access to the various areas
22:27 that they need I'm going to from our
22:29 other environment I'm going to go ahead
22:32 and launch what the security looks like
22:34 and what those roles look like within
22:37 Microsoft Dynamics 365 just to give you
22:39 an idea of what roles are available out
22:41 of the box as you can see we have a
22:43 number of different roles as I scroll
22:46 down this page so what does that mean it
22:49 means you all you have to do is simply
22:52 specify your users or assign your users
22:55 to these various roles and you are
22:57 running out of the gates
22:59 yes it's very easy to modify the various
23:01 capabilities of each of these roles or
23:03 you can add different capabilities for
23:04 each user
23:06 but just from a starting point these
23:08 roles don't have to be built from
23:10 scratch they're already available and
23:13 from a quick ease of adoption starting
23:14 point it's great to take advantage of
23:17 all of those current security roles
23:20 right from the get-go
23:22 now we're going to move on to the help
23:25 and search features within the the
23:29 dynamics 365 platform it may seem really
23:31 simple but one of the key features for
23:34 Dynamics 365 right now is having the
23:36 search functionality and the search
23:39 functionality doesn't just trigger some
23:42 help text and results if I if I am a new
23:43 user to the system and I need to
23:45 generate a trial balance and I forget
23:48 what module or I forget what workspace
23:50 that's in I can easily easily just go
23:53 ahead and type in here trial balance and
23:55 the system is going to bring up all of
23:56 the different results
24:00 are specific to that search text so
24:02 trial balance can be found in a number
24:04 of different areas but it's telling me
24:06 right here that okay our top hit is
24:08 going to be our trial balance form I can
24:10 just click into trial balance and it
24:12 brings me right into my trial balance
24:15 form so incredibly powerful I've been
24:18 using the Dynamics ERP software for for
24:20 over eight years now and I will tell you
24:22 it seems simple but it's small all
24:26 things like this that really really
24:28 separate it from other a RP systems
24:30 being able to bounce around navigate and
24:32 easily take advantage of the forms and
24:35 the tools of the application another
24:40 nice feature is the is the help piece
24:44 which if I am lost in the system and I
24:48 don't know or if I forget my tasks it's
24:53 very easy for me to to utilize help text
24:57 was in the excuse me within the
25:00 application so what I'm going to do is I
25:02 am going to go ahead and launch finance
25:05 and operations and I'm going to show you
25:07 what that help looks like so all I have
25:09 to do is choose help and support and
25:12 then choose help and Terp type in mice
25:15 in my text let's say for example I am
25:17 new to the application and I need to
25:20 create and submit a purchase order so
25:21 what I'll do is I'll just go ahead and
25:24 type in submit into my help text and the
25:26 system is going to look for various
25:29 results of how can we find a particular
25:33 task guide or how can we find help text
25:35 that's going to help me process this
25:37 create and submit purchase order I'll go
25:39 ahead and choose create and submit
25:42 purchase order and when I do that it's
25:44 going to launch what it's called a task
25:47 guide and the task guide as you can see
25:49 here is a description of steps that
25:51 tells me how to actually perform my role
25:53 within the system but guess what it's
25:56 way more than just a text or description
25:58 of steps the task guides are fully
26:01 interactive so I will go ahead I'm going
26:03 to hit start task guide and what it's
26:05 going to do is it's actually going to
26:08 walk me through performing this task
26:10 interactively within the applet
26:12 Asian so it's telling me to click
26:14 purchase order preparation I click
26:16 purchase order preparation and it opens
26:18 the purchase order preparation workspace
26:20 it's now telling me to choose new
26:23 purchase order I specify a right click
26:25 new purchase order and a new Pio is
26:27 about to be generated I have to specify
26:29 my vendor and the vendor account field I
26:31 go ahead and do that and when I am ready
26:34 all the system tells me to click OK to
26:37 generate purchase order so from here
26:40 similar to before all I need to do is
26:43 walk through what this task guide is
26:46 telling me I can simply specify in this
26:48 case the item it's going to ask me to
26:51 scroll right and tell me to specify a
26:53 quantity of this item and when I'm done
26:55 with this it's going to say hey go ahead
26:56 and add a new line until you are
26:58 finished I'll just come in here and
27:01 specify my second line of my purchase
27:03 order and I'll specify my quantity and
27:05 after I've done that the system is going
27:07 to tell me that say go ahead and save
27:09 and when I'm done with that it's going
27:11 to ask me to submit to workflow and
27:13 while we're here I did want to bring up
27:15 as a sidebar workflow is an incredibly
27:18 powerful capability within Dynamics 365
27:20 it's an engine that tracks approvals and
27:22 requests for approvals we see a lot of
27:24 this on purchase requisitions and
27:26 purchase order approvals with our
27:27 customers but just to let you know that
27:29 workflow and a number of its
27:30 capabilities are available out of the
27:32 box so I'm going to choose workflow and
27:40 submit this purchase order after I submit
27:41 submit
27:43 disorder the fast guide is going to tell
27:45 me to go ahead and close the page but
27:48 and then when I'm finished all is said
27:50 and done my purchase order has been
27:53 submitted which is incredibly powerful
27:55 to be able to walk through that whole
27:58 process from end to end you know a lot
28:00 of times in the ERP systems you know
28:02 you're looking at ten fifteen steps for
28:04 users to perform a role to have these
28:06 task guides available there in the event
28:10 you forgot step 9 out of 15 or what do I
28:12 do next where do I go having those task
28:14 guides there are incredibly great
28:16 feature to have not just from a
28:19 standpoint of you know I forgot how to
28:21 do my job or how do i process this
28:22 transaction but it's great to have these
28:24 task guys you can document all of your
28:26 standard operating procedures within the
28:28 software you can save them out to
28:31 lifecycle services library and that's
28:32 that's great in case you ever have
28:35 employee turnover you need to train new
28:37 users get them up to speed also saves
28:39 paper from you having to come in and
28:41 custom customize user documents another
28:44 great piece of these task guides is that
28:47 you have the ability to simply edit if
28:49 there's a 20 step task guide and you
28:50 change a new process within your
28:52 organization all I have to do is edit
28:55 the task guide insert one step and bam
28:57 I'm out of the gates I don't have to
29:00 come back and completely redo all of my
29:03 task guides I did want to bring up the
29:06 fact that within merit solutions we
29:10 actually have our own task guides as
29:14 part of our rapid 365 solution and
29:19 what's nice as I mentioned we can access
29:21 all these tasks guides directly from
29:23 what's called LCS or lifecycle services
29:25 so I'll go ahead and choose this link
29:28 and I can access our full library
29:30 straight through the task recorder
29:33 within the D 365 for operations
29:35 application and as you can see we have a
29:38 whole number of different task guides
29:42 for various work streams if I look up
29:44 and up financials or drill down into
29:47 general ledger these are all specific
29:49 tasks that we have developed at merit
29:51 solutions that follow industry best
29:53 practices that are included as part of
29:55 our rapid 365
29:57 methodology and other projects we use
30:00 these tools quite frequently as well but
30:03 to give you an idea of the task guides
30:05 just another nice piece you can actually
30:07 play back the recording of these task
30:09 guides automatically so I'll just come
30:11 into vendor management and I'll choose
30:14 put a vendor on hold choose okay and
30:16 when I do that I'll just go ahead and
30:19 hit start and what that's going to do is
30:21 that's going to launch our task recorder
30:23 I can play one step at a time or I can
30:26 navigate to a particular pending step or
30:28 I can choose play all pending steps I
30:29 will click this leave my mouse in the
30:32 same place and what's going to happen is
30:34 a system is actually going to run
30:37 through this transaction without me
30:40 clicking any icons or buttons this is
30:43 great for testing regression testing if
30:45 you need to apply an update you want to
30:47 make sure all of your processes are
30:50 still working this task recorder is a
30:52 it's a game changer tool in the ERP
30:54 space right now so I'll just go ahead
30:58 and stop the task recorder and the next
31:01 thing I wanted to to bring up with with
31:04 everyone is the ability to work directly
31:09 within Microsoft Office 365 I know I
31:11 mentioned the direct integration to
31:13 Excel before so let's come back to that
31:16 Microsoft ecosystem I'm going to go
31:19 ahead and open up my environment and I'm
31:22 going to navigate to a general journal
31:26 and show you the processing power and
31:29 that direct integration with Excel I'll
31:32 go ahead and find my general journal it
31:33 is an open journal right now I'm going
31:36 to choose the lines button and it's
31:37 going to show me the lines that I have
31:40 in my journal well from here I have a
31:43 number of features that I can use I can
31:45 you know directly add lines to the
31:47 journal in this form but if I'm more
31:49 familiar in Excel or if I want to dump
31:52 this out to excel I have the ability to
31:54 open it in Microsoft Office I also have
31:56 this ability to add attachments to it if
31:59 I have a scan or if there's something
32:01 I've received that I need you know need
32:03 to make sure I add to this journal I can
32:05 do this and this is consistent across
32:08 almost every form within Dynamics 365 you
32:08 you
32:11 ability to add attachments and then
32:13 finally being able to open this up in a
32:14 new window
32:17 this is really nice excuse me to be able
32:20 to open up these different these
32:22 different windows sorry I had my popup
32:25 blocker on there but being able to work
32:27 in multiple windows if you have multiple
32:30 monitors it's really powerful and again
32:31 you can do this on every single form
32:34 within the application so what I'm going
32:36 to do is I'm just going to show you how
32:38 easy it is to actually open this in
32:47 let me close out of this form I'm going
32:49 to go ahead and just do a quick refresh
32:53 real quick now as you can see it was
32:55 simple refresh within the browser I'll
33:02 choose my lines and then open in Excel I
33:07 choose open general journal line entry I
33:15 will just download it to excel open in
33:18 Excel and I'm going to choose enable
33:20 editing and what's going to happen when
33:22 I do that there's going to be a
33:24 microsoft dynamics office Adhan or a
33:27 data connector that syncs excel directly
33:31 back to Dynamics 365 it's going to spend
33:32 a second or two here retrieving the data
33:35 from my particular journal but then it's
33:37 going to populate all of these forms in
33:40 Excel to mirror exactly what we just saw
33:43 in the application now what's great
33:45 about this integration and I mentioned
33:47 this before was the ability to be able
33:50 to make changes to our journal and then
33:53 go ahead and publish that back up into
33:56 the ERP just to keep things simple I can
34:01 go ahead and copy this line and add a
34:04 new line to our excel
34:13 I could also choose to add a new line
34:15 here and when I add a new line I can
34:18 specify a date it's going to walk me
34:20 through these fields very similar to
34:23 what I would see in the ERP I specify my
34:26 legal entity specify my account type all
34:31 of these pieces mirror the D 365 for
34:33 operations application but when I'm done
34:35 with my journal all I need to do is hit
34:38 publish and as you can see previously I
34:40 had a single line journal entry within
34:43 the application here I'm just going to
34:45 check check the refresh button and sure
34:47 enough our second journal line is now
34:49 part of our journal it is really that
34:52 easy it's a it's a great piece to have
34:53 especially for those that are really
34:57 familiar to utilizing excel regard to
34:59 easy adoption I know a lot of business
35:01 power users spend a lot of time in Excel
35:04 so this just helps bridge that gap
35:07 between the Microsoft power of Excel and
35:11 the D 365 for operations capabilities so
35:13 I'm going to go ahead and close out of
35:16 our general journals and I did want to
35:18 showcase some of those new features that
35:21 we talked about regarding workspaces and
35:23 take that a step further and show you
35:25 some of the power bi in the included
35:28 features that actually come standard in
35:31 Microsoft Dynamics 365 product so the
35:33 first thing I'm going to launch is
35:35 what's called the CFO overview workspace
35:40 and as I launch the workspace it's going
35:42 to bring up a number of different
35:45 dashboards within the workspace that are
35:47 particular to either the company on the
35:49 inn or the organization that I'm in so
35:53 it it does include a number of different
35:55 tabs here on the bottom in this case
35:57 we're looking at CFO workspace so this
35:58 is something that would primarily be
36:03 used by a CFO or a you know Finance VP
36:04 someone that wants to get an immediate
36:07 snapshot of the health of their business
36:09 being able to look at either a current
36:12 ratio or margin cost of goods sold just
36:14 at a real high level one thing to keep
36:17 in mind too is these dashboards are real time
36:18 time
36:21 so that means that a number of these key
36:23 metrics or these deep dashboards that
36:26 you are seeing this is real-time data as
36:29 it gets posted into the application a
36:32 lot of times you need to have a team of
36:36 data analysts that go extract you know
36:39 different data from different modules
36:41 and different forms and scrub and
36:43 cleanse and and slice and dice that data
36:46 and then you know by the time they get
36:48 done putting analysis behind that data
36:50 that data is already stale so it's
36:52 really nice being able to have that real
36:55 time data and that power to log in to
36:56 these dashboards and get that immediate
36:59 pulse and performance of your business
37:02 so I'll just click through a couple of
37:05 these different tabs one of them is the
37:06 tabs I wanted to show is the sub-ledger
37:09 insights here in this case we're looking
37:12 at top 10 products or by revenue and top
37:15 10 customers these dashboards are fully
37:17 interactive so when I click on this
37:18 high-end speaker here it's actually
37:21 going to show me out of my customers
37:22 which ones purchased that speaker the
37:25 most I will click on again the toggle
37:26 off and if I want to come down and take
37:29 a look at my top 10 customers my revenue
37:31 if I choose kanto so europe and click
37:33 Encanto so europe up top it's going to
37:35 show me the top products that canto so
37:37 europe you know purchases it's
37:39 incredibly powerful to be able to click
37:42 and navigate between these dashboards to
37:45 get this view and in real time and
37:47 consumable data in the format that then
37:49 it's incredibly powerful but it's also
37:53 really easy to use I did want to show
37:55 one of the new features that Dynamics
37:57 365 is added they have actually pulled
38:00 financial statements out of management
38:03 reporter and pulled them into various
38:05 dashboards and when I say pull them out
38:06 they're still obviously available in
38:08 management reporter and there is a
38:10 direct connection from management
38:13 reporter to Dynamics 365 now but on top
38:15 of that these financial statements are
38:18 now part of various workspaces in these
38:20 dashboards and to take that a step
38:23 further I can actually drill into these
38:25 financial statements directly from the
38:28 dashboard if I want to look at the at
38:31 the columns of this particular 12 months trend
38:31 trend
38:34 income statement I just go ahead and and
38:39 I choose columns and I drill in columns
38:41 and it's going to break out all of my
38:42 quarters by month of what I've just
38:45 selected and drilling into that
38:47 transaction level it's as easy as
38:49 clicking a value or double-clicking a
38:52 value and diving in to that individual
38:55 transaction in this case it has brought
38:56 me to the voucher I'll just go ahead and
38:59 choose voucher transactions and from
39:01 here I can choose original document and
39:04 from the original document I just choose
39:06 view details and it's going to actually
39:08 step me right back into that invoice
39:09 journal it's going to show me the sales
39:12 order number the items on this
39:14 particular sales order the quantities
39:16 the prices the discounts the margins the
39:19 contribution rates ratios all there so I
39:22 have the ability to drill back all the
39:24 way from my workspace that has a
39:27 embedded power bi dashboard with a
39:30 financial statement into a specific
39:32 voucher transaction in original document
39:35 it's incredibly powerful but it's also
39:37 user friendly and one of the things I
39:39 did forget to mention and I'll just come
39:42 back to our financial overview is the
39:44 ability to apply filters to our
39:46 different dashboards here what we're
39:48 looking at is a dashboard for one legal
39:52 entity for the USMS entity but within
39:55 dynamic 365 for operations we have the
39:57 ability to have a whole number of
39:59 different legal entities within the
40:01 solution and you can process
40:03 consolidations eliminations intercompany
40:06 trade and the great part about that is
40:09 that I can now get visibility into all
40:11 my organization's in one place for
40:14 example if I choose organization you SMF
40:17 but I also select organization DM D EMF
40:20 I'll go ahead and let the system to
40:22 respond and what it's going to do is
40:25 it's actually going to pull in the same
40:28 information for data as it does excuse
40:30 me the same information as US MF and
40:32 it's going to let me see side by side
40:36 and so that power of having multiple
40:38 legal entities or multiple operating
40:40 units within your organization being
40:41 able to slice and dice on these
40:44 dashboards to get real-time analysis and view
40:45 view
40:46 the performance of each of these pieces
40:50 is its to be honest it is a game-changer
40:52 in the ERP space not just because of how
40:54 powerful it is but because of how simple
40:56 it is to come in here and specify these
40:58 pieces imagine being able to showcase
41:02 this to a CFO or you know you know an
41:04 owner of a company being able to get
41:08 this data on the fly to conclude the
41:12 presentation I did want to bring up some
41:14 of the natural query language that we
41:18 have in the power bi application itself
41:21 this is a power bi app this one is not
41:25 embedded into the dynamics 365 solution
41:29 however there is some great great
41:32 functionality that that is included with
41:34 the power bi application and that's
41:36 called natural query language before I
41:38 jump into that I just wanted to dive in
41:40 some of the dashboards here it's very
41:42 similar to what we saw within the
41:44 application being able to look at you
41:45 know in this case we're looking at a
41:48 supplier quality analysis dashboard I'm
41:50 trying to track the you know or manage
41:54 the quality of different components of
41:56 different suppliers that I have it
41:59 points out outliers that I might have or
42:01 areas that I need to adjust or make
42:03 quick decisions on but in terms of that
42:07 decision making where the where the
42:12 natural query language really really has
42:16 a lot of power is the ability to use
42:18 what's called ask a question about your
42:21 data what this means is I can actually
42:24 come in to my power bi app and I can
42:26 explore and I can drill into my data on
42:29 an ad hoc basis so in this case if I
42:31 just want it to look at my total defect
42:34 quantity I can go ahead and type that in
42:37 and by doing that the system is going to
42:40 recognize what my search tech did text
42:41 is and it's going to tell me what is my
42:44 total defect quantity but the nice part
42:47 about this is I can continue to add to
42:50 my search text if I wanted to look at
42:53 total defect quantity by category
42:57 and sure enough the system adjust and it
42:59 breaks out all of my defect quantity by
43:02 category I could look at my total defect
43:05 quantity by category in in pie format or
43:09 I could look at my total defect quantity
43:13 by category let's say by material type
43:17 and now I start as I drill into this I
43:19 start figuring out ok I have some
43:23 outliers here I have some key decision
43:25 points or key decisions that I need to
43:28 make based on these KPIs and it's
43:31 incredibly powerful to be able to come
43:33 in here on an ad-hoc basis now keep in
43:35 mind these what I've been typing in here
43:37 is not defined it's not a report that I
43:39 come in here and generate every single
43:40 day and I run in the background I can
43:44 just free form text and and click into
43:46 all of my results and I can drill into
43:51 all these pieces so that was going to
43:53 conclude my call today I know we went
43:57 through a lot of information and from an
43:59 overall standpoint hopefully everyone
44:02 got a great feel for the user interface
44:05 navigation some of the tools such as the
44:08 searching the help text the the task
44:11 guide the Microsoft apps and the direct
44:14 embedded application with the Microsoft
44:16 platform and all of the the new
44:18 workspaces and features and
44:20 functionalities that are included with
44:23 the product I did want to mention we did
44:27 look at that CFO overview a key added
44:30 point here as well is that all of these
44:33 pieces they come included pre-built into
44:35 the software so what does that mean that
44:37 means that when you purchase a software
44:39 all you need to do is perform
44:41 transactions and these dashboards will
44:43 come alive for you yes they can be
44:45 configured they can be custom spec to
44:48 meet your needs most of that can be done
44:49 on the front end it won't need a
44:52 developer for it so it's it's easy to
44:54 use like I mentioned before but having
44:57 the ability to you know from a early
44:59 adoption standpoint to just get my
45:00 transactions into the system and and
45:03 start having these charts and graphs
45:04 start populate form ease and it's
45:07 incredibly beneficial and
45:08 a implementation and deployment
45:12 standpoint it really is a major time
45:13 saver rather than having a developer
45:16 come in here and custom spec all of
45:17 these different dashboards for me
45:19 another piece I did want to mention as
45:22 well a lot of these workspaces in
45:25 embedded dashboards of power bi they
45:27 keep getting enhanced by Microsoft just
45:29 in the last three months
45:32 this siesta CFO workspace has seen a
45:34 number of improvements one of them was
45:36 including these financial statements as
45:39 part of the dashboards so you know
45:40 between that and number of other new
45:43 content packs it's still the the feature
45:45 set just keeps growing and growing it's
45:48 very powerful and you know is funny I
45:49 was talking with a co-worker the other
45:52 day and he asked if I you know how would
45:53 I like to add more horsepower to my car
45:55 with just a quick system enhancement
45:57 knowing that it was at no cost I mean
46:01 it's truly a no-brainer there so you
46:03 know that would conclude my
46:05 demonstration on the the navigation and
46:09 overview section for today's demo I did
46:11 want to leave some time for for any
46:14 questions if anyone has anything they
46:16 want to bring up based on what they've
46:18 seen based on you know what I've walked
46:21 through today was a you know hoping
46:23 needs to get feedback or see if there
46:24 was a question that I could address so
46:27 I'll go ahead and turn it over to to the
46:31 group and we will we will progress with
46:33 any questions thanks Chris
46:35 I am NOT saying oh it looks like we have
46:38 our first question coming in give me one second
46:38 second
46:41 to pull it out again you can use your
46:44 your right hand Q&A section if you want
46:47 to ask any questions I don't know this
46:49 one comes from rohi that says maybe CI
46:51 a-- trail logging in action I don't know
46:53 if that's something you can do right now
46:54 or well he did that's something we can
46:57 take offline Chris is that something you
47:00 can show right now you know what I would
47:03 I could but it could be a long
47:05 discussion not because it's difficult to
47:10 navigate to but it actually is pretty
47:13 easy like I said with the search bar I
47:16 get a number of different areas to go
47:19 ahead and search on my audit trail I can
47:21 dive into each of these
47:22 ouch er transactions for this particular
47:25 audit trail so from a simple standpoint
47:28 yes audit trail is right there front and
47:33 center that is the only question we have
47:35 so far we'll give it a couple more
47:39 seconds here Nick or Chris any final
47:44 comments as we wait Josh this is Nick
47:45 the one with one question I bring up
47:48 your comment rather for the group is is
47:50 in customer conversations I've had
47:52 recently you know what's the what's the
47:56 integration between Dynamics CRM or what
47:59 they call sales and the ERP which is
48:00 what Chris has just showed here today
48:02 and really the integration is seamless
48:05 so really these two solutions are
48:07 integrated together as one common
48:09 application using the common data
48:13 service platform as the two connector
48:15 between them I just wanted to make sure
48:17 that was clear that the sales front-end
48:19 component is integrated to the system as
48:24 well the backend great well I'm not
48:26 seeing any more questions come through
48:29 we did record this session I will follow
48:30 up afterwards and send this out to
48:32 everyone if you have any questions at
48:34 that time please don't hesitate to reach
48:36 out and I can direct you to the
48:38 appropriate person thanks everyone for
48:40 your time thanks to Nick thanks Chris
