Dynamics 365 is a powerful suite of applications, designed to simplify management and boost performance across your key business areas. Better yet, you can choose which modules you want to create a bespoke platform that improves connectivity between departments and centralises data.
But the biggest question you should ask of any system is ‘what can it actually do?’. Or maybe more accurately, ‘what can it help me to achieve?’. We’ve listed 100 things you can do in Dynamics 365 across its core modules to answer that very question.
- Dynamics 365 Business Central
- Dynamics 365 Sales
- Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
- Dynamics 365 Field Service
- Dynamics 365 Customer Service
- Dynamics 365 Project Operations
- Dynamics 365 Contact Centre
Dynamics 365 Business Central
1. Customise financial reports
Business Central stores hundreds of report templates so you can easily get started with your finance reporting. However, if none of those fit your needs, you can also entirely customise reports to match your aims.
This can include filtering reports, add and removing rows and columns, changing schedules, formatting and even connecting to Power BI to visualise your data.
2. Automate accounts receivable
You can set up automatic payment reminders and collection letters within Business Central, so clients know when they need to pay you. This is on top of automated workflows for payment posting, credit memo creation and report scheduling and distribution.
It means your finance team can save precious time while minimising cash flow blockages.
3. Track and report emissions data
Business Central has set features to monitor your emissions. Sustainability Journals enable manual input of known emission data, while built-in formulas calculate emissions based on specific parameters like sources and accounts, promoting accuracy and efficiency.
Image taken from Microsoft
As many businesses seek to reduce their eco footprint and share their progress with customers and partners, this can help you to document your achievements and take steps to lower emissions.
4. Manage multiple currencies
Business Central can work across multiple currencies, enabling you to operate on a global level.
All you need to do is set up currency codes for each currency that you use to buy or sell. Bank accounts can also be created using currencies. This will enable you to generate reports and VAT entries both in your local currency and secondary currencies for a streamlined process.
5. Automatic bank reconciliation
Business Central can help you match transactions by importing your bank statements directly. The system automatically matches transactions between the bank statement and your accounting entries based on amount, date and other criteria.
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You can also manually match transactions that the system cannot automatically match. If you use Copilot within Business Central, the AI will match even more transactions for you.
6. Generate invoices
You can quickly customise invoice templates with Business Central. All you need to do is select the customer, add item, quantity and price lines and review before you post. You can also set default payment terms and process invoices in batches.
If you’ve already created a sales order, you can easily create an invoice from it.
You can also upload your logo and other branding, so every invoice looks professional and ready to go.
7. Uncover insights
Business Central enables you to aggregate data from accounting, sales and inventory, so you can uncover financial insights. By utilising features like account schedules, financial reports and dimensions, you can create custom reports that reveal valuable trends and patterns.
For example, you can analyse sales data by product category and region to identify high-performing products and markets. Additionally, by combining inventory data with sales figures, you can calculate key performance indicators like inventory turnover and gross profit margin.
Another option is to get AI-generated cash flow forecasts.
8. Set up subscriptions for customer segments
Within Business Central, you can create customer segments based on shared characteristics, like industry type, purchase history or business relationship. You can then create recurring sales orders with predefined products or services and pricing, as frequently as you wish.
This can also be used to automatically generate invoices for those sales orders.
9. Manage fixed assets
You can create a detailed asset register with Business Central, categorising assets by type, location and depreciation method. You can track the acquisition cost, accumulated depreciation and current book value of each asset.
Business Central also automates the depreciation process, ensuring accurate calculations and timely updates. You can define different depreciation methods (e.g. straight-line, declining balance) and set up depreciation periods to match your organisation’s accounting practices.
Additionally, Business Central helps you manage asset disposal, generate reports on asset utilisation and track maintenance schedules.
10. Manage item master data
Business Central provides a robust framework for managing item master data, ensuring accurate and up-to-date information. You can create and maintain detailed item cards, defining essential attributes like item number, description, category and unit of measure.
Additionally, you can set up item variants to manage different variations of a product, such as colour, size or material. This can make inventory more accurate.
11. Manage vendor relationships
Within Business Central, you can create and maintain vendor records, capturing essential information such as contact details, payment terms and delivery addresses.
To streamline the purchasing process, Business Central allows you to create purchase orders directly from vendor records. You can track purchase order status, monitor delivery schedules and manage vendor invoices. Additionally, you can analyse vendor performance based on factors like delivery time, quality and pricing to identify reliable and cost-effective suppliers.
To foster strong vendor relationships, you can use Business Central to communicate with vendors, share documents and resolve disputes efficiently.
12. Analyse inventory turnover
Business Central offers several tools to analyse inventory turnover and identify areas for improvement. It provides analysis tools that allow you to drill down into specific product categories, locations or time periods.
This granular analysis helps you identify products with low turnover, optimise inventory levels and reduce holding costs.
13. Negotiate prices and terms
Business Central provides a host of tools that support price and term negotiation. By leveraging tools like price lists, discount schemes and RFQs, you can streamline the negotiation process and achieve favourable outcomes.
For sales, you can define multiple price lists to cater to different customer segments and negotiate discounts based on various factors. Additionally, you can create sales orders with customised pricing and payment terms.
Image taken from Microsoft
On the purchasing side, you can send RFQs to multiple vendors, compare quotes and negotiate prices and delivery terms.
14. Manage inventory locations
You can define multiple locations to track inventory levels at different warehouses, stores or distribution centres.
Each location can have its own inventory setup, including bin locations for precise storage management. You can also configure transfer orders to move inventory between locations, ensuring optimal stock levels across your operations.
15. Analyse purchasing performance
You can monitor KPIs like purchase order lead-time to identify bottlenecks in the procurement process and take steps to expedite order fulfilment. Additionally, you can track purchase order accuracy to measure the percentage of orders received without errors.
Dynamics 365 Sales
16. Score leads
Within Dynamics 365 Sales, there are two options to score leads.
Firstly, you can manually score leads by defining your score model by company size, industry, job title or engagement level. You can choose how each of these factors should be scored, which will then be consistently and automatically applied to leads.
Alternatively, you can utilise in-built AI algorithms to analyse historical data and predict the likelihood of a lead converting, giving them an automatic score based on past behaviour and attributes.
17. Gain conversation intelligence
Dynamics 365 Sales, powered by AI, offers powerful conversation intelligence capabilities that provide valuable insights into customer interactions. By analysing sales calls, meetings and emails, you can uncover key trends, identify opportunities and improve sales performance.
One of the core features of conversation intelligence is call analytics. By recording and analysing sales calls, you can identify key moments, such as product discussions, pricing negotiations and objections. This information can help you identify areas for improvement, such as product knowledge or negotiation skills.
Image taken from Microsoft
18. Create and manage sales quotes
You can easily create quotes directly from opportunities or independently.
When creating a quote, you can add products or services, specify quantities, prices and discounts. You can also include terms and conditions, shipping details and payment terms. To ensure accuracy, you can configure pricing rules and discounts to automatically calculate quote totals.
Once a quote is created, you can track its status, send it to customers and manage any revisions or negotiations. You can also convert quotes into sales orders or opportunities as needed.
19. Manage product information, pricing and inventory
The Product Catalog feature enables you to efficiently manage product information, pricing and inventory.
You can create detailed product records, including descriptions, specifications, images and pricing information. This helps sales reps stay informed and provide accurate product information to customers. Additionally, you can organise products into categories and subcategories to improve search and navigation.
20. Get personalised guidance
Dynamics 365 Sales leverages AI to provide personalised and real-time guidance to sales professionals, directly into the sales process.
By analysing historical data and current trends, AI can predict customer behaviour, identify high-value opportunities and suggest optimal sales strategies. For example, AI can recommend the best products or services to offer based on a customer’s past purchases and preferences.
To streamline pricing, you can define multiple price lists for different customer segments or sales channels. This allows you to offer flexible pricing strategies and negotiate deals effectively. You can also set up discount rules and promotions to incentivise sales.
21. Visualise and manage the sales pipeline
Dynamics 365 Sales provides customisable pipeline views, allowing you to track deals at different stages, from lead generation to closed-won.
By using drag-and-drop functionality, you can easily move deals between pipeline stages as they progress. This visual representation helps you identify bottlenecks, prioritise deals and allocate resources effectively. Additionally, you can set up alerts and notifications to stay informed about important milestones and potential risks.
Image taken from Microsoft
22. Predict future sales performance
One key feature in Dynamics 365 Sales is predictive forecasting, which uses machine learning algorithms to predict future sales based on various factors such as deal size, stage and probability of closing. This helps you identify potential revenue opportunities and allocate resources accordingly.
Additionally, you can leverage sales analytics to track KPIs and identify trends. By analysing sales data, you can identify top-performing sales reps, identify areas for improvement and optimise your sales strategies.
23. Generate customised sales reports and dashboards
You can create custom reports from scratch or modify existing ones to display relevant data.
To create a custom report, you can use the Report Wizard, which guides you through the process of selecting data sources, adding fields and defining filters. You can also use the Advanced Find feature to create more complex queries and filter data based on specific criteria.
Once you have created a report, you can customise its layout, formatting and visualisation. You can add charts, graphs and tables to present data in a visually appealing and informative way. Power BI integration can support this.
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Additionally, you can group and sort data, apply calculations and use conditional formatting to highlight important information.
24. Motivate sales teams with gamified challenges and rewards
You can create gamified challenges within Dynamics 365 Sales, such as sales contests or leaderboards, to motivate sales reps to achieve specific goals.
Additionally, you can use gamification to recognise and reward top performers. By celebrating successes and acknowledging individual contributions, you can boost team morale and inspire others to strive for excellence.
25. Enhance collaboration and customer engagement with LinkedIn
Dynamics 365 Sales integrates with LinkedIn Sales Navigator to help you connect, engage and build relationships with potential customers. By seamlessly integrating these two platforms, you can streamline your sales process and improve your overall sales performance.
With LinkedIn Sales Navigator embedded directly into Dynamics 365 Sales, you can access valuable insights about your prospects and customers. You can view detailed company information, identify key decision-makers and track their activities.
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This integration also allows you to send InMail messages directly from within Dynamics 365 Sales, making it easier to initiate conversations and build rapport. Additionally, you can track the performance of your outreach efforts, measure engagement metrics and optimise your sales strategy accordingly.
26. Identify high-potential customer lists
By leveraging predictive lead scoring, you can uncover valuable information about your target market and identify customers most likely to convert. By analysing various factors such as company size, industry, job title and engagement behaviour, you can assign scores to leads, prioritising those with the highest potential.
Additionally, you can use account-based marketing techniques to identify and target high-value accounts.
27. Share sales literature
Dynamics 365 provides a centralised repository for sales-related information such as brochures, product specifications and other relevant documents. This feature allows sales teams to easily access and share essential materials with customers and prospects.
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Additionally, sales literature can be linked to specific products, competitors or opportunities, providing context and facilitating informed decision-making. This powerful tool enhances sales efficiency and improves overall customer engagement.
28. Drive marketing and sales efficiencies
Dynamics 365 Sales integrates with other Microsoft products like Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Power Automate to provides a unified platform to streamline processes and optimise marketing ROI.
One of the key benefits of this integration is the ability to track leads from initial contact to closed deal. By tracking lead source, marketing campaign and sales activities, you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and attribute revenue to specific campaigns.
Another advantage is the automation of repetitive tasks. Using Power Automate, you can automate workflows like lead scoring, lead assignment and email notifications. This frees up time for your sales and marketing teams to focus on strategic initiatives.
29. Get lead introductions
By using the LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration, you can also see recommended leads based on your target criteria. The system analyses your existing customer base and identifies similar companies or individuals who may be interested in your products or services. This helps you expand your reach and uncover new opportunities.
Additionally, you can leverage mutual connections to facilitate warm introductions. By identifying shared connections with potential leads, you can increase your chances of getting a response and building trust. Plus, you can gain useful icebreakers to fuel conversations!
Image taken from Microsoft
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
30. Segment customers
Within Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, you can group customers based on demographics, such as age, gender, location and income level. This helps you tailor your messaging and offers to specific demographic groups.
Or you can segment customers based on their behaviour, such as purchase history, website activity and email engagement. This identifies high-value customers, loyal customers and customers at risk of churn.
Additionally, you can segment customers based on their preferences, such as product interests, brand loyalty and communication channels. By understanding customer preferences, you can deliver personalised marketing messages and improve customer satisfaction.
You can even use interactive visualisations to bring your segments to life.
31. Identify overlapping segments
Through segmentation, you can uncover customer groups who share overlapping characteristics. Once you’ve identified overlapping segments, you can refine your targeting strategies and avoid sending redundant messages or offers.
For example, if you have two segments that share similar interests, you can combine them into a single segment and deliver a targeted message that resonates with both groups.
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32. Rank segments based on value or potential
You can also rank segments based on their revenue potential. By analysing factors such as purchase history, average order value and customer lifetime value, you can find segments with the highest spending potential.
Another approach is to rank segments based on their growth potential. By analysing factors such as customer acquisition costs, customer satisfaction and product adoption rates, you can identify segments with high growth potential.
33. Map customer journeys
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights can also be used as a customer journey mapping tool.
One effective way to map customer journeys is by analysing customer interaction data. By tracking customer interactions across various channels, such as email, website and social media, you can identify the steps customers take to engage with your brand. This helps you visualise the customer journey and identify potential pain points or bottlenecks.
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Additionally, you can use segmentation to analyse customer journeys for specific customer groups.
34. Analyse conversion rates
Customer Insights provides a comprehensive view of customer journeys. This enables you to track key metrics like lead-to-opportunity conversion rates, opportunity-to-win rates, campaign conversion rates and website conversion rates.
Customer Insights allows you to visualise these conversion rates through interactive dashboards and reports.
You can also segment your data to analyse conversion rates for specific customer groups, marketing channels or product categories.
35. Track customer lifetime value (CLTV)
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights provides a built-in model to predict CLTV based on historical customer data.
To leverage this feature, you need to ensure that your customer data is unified and accurate. This includes data on customer demographics, purchase history and engagement metrics.
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Once your data is prepared, you can use the Customer Insights prediction model to calculate the estimated total revenue a customer is expected to generate over their lifetime. This valuable information can help you prioritise high-value customers and optimise marketing efforts.
36. Suggest product recommendations
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights leverages advanced machine learning algorithms to predict product recommendations based on a customer’s historical behaviour, preferences and purchase history.
One of the key techniques used is collaborative filtering, which recommends products based on the preferences of similar customers. By analysing the purchase history of customers with similar demographics, behaviours or preferences, the system can identify products that these customers are likely to purchase.
Another powerful technique is content-based filtering, which recommends products based on their attributes and characteristics. For example, if a customer has purchased a specific product, the system can recommend similar products with similar features or benefits.
37. Predict churn rates
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights empowers you to build predictive models to forecast future customer behaviour and make data-driven decisions.
One key application of predictive modelling is customer churn prediction. By analysing customer data, you can identify customers at risk of churning and take proactive steps to retain them.
Image taken from Microsoft
38. Trigger real-time actions
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights offers powerful capabilities to trigger real-time actions based on customer behaviour and preferences.
One way to trigger real-time actions is to set up event-based triggers. For example, you can configure the system to send a personalised email or SMS message to a customer when they abandon their shopping cart or visit a specific page on your website.
Another approach is to use predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs and proactively engage with them. By predicting customer behaviour, you can send targeted promotions or offers at the right time, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
39. Implement A/B testing
Dynamics 365 can support you in A/B testing. You can create multiple versions of your marketing materials, such as emails, web pages or social media posts. You can then randomly assign different segments of your audience to receive each variation.
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By tracking key metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates and customer engagement, you can compare the performance of different variations and identify the most effective approach.
40. Personalise customer experiences
You can drive personalised experiences through targeted marketing campaigns. By segmenting customers based on demographics, behaviour or preferences, you can deliver tailored messages and offers that resonate with specific audiences.
Another effective personalisation technique is product recommendations. By analysing customer purchase history and browsing behaviour, you can recommend relevant products or services. This not only enhances the customer experience but also drives additional sales.
41. Analyse customer feedback to gauge sentiment
One of the core features of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is sentiment analysis, which allows you to categorise customer feedback as positive, negative or neutral. This helps you understand overall customer satisfaction and identify areas for improvement.
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42. Monitor social media for brand mentions and customer feedback
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights can be integrated with social media platforms to monitor brand mentions and customer feedback. By tracking social media conversations, you can gain valuable insights into customer sentiment, identify potential issues and respond to customer enquiries promptly.
You can set up alerts for specific keywords or phrases related to your brand, products or services. Additionally, you can analyse social media data to identify trends and patterns in customer conversations.
43. Create and send personalised email campaigns
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights can be integrated with marketing automation tools to create and send personalised email campaigns. By leveraging customer data and segmentation, you can deliver targeted messages that resonate with individual recipients.
You can personalise email content based on customer preferences, purchase history and demographics. This allows you to create more relevant and engaging campaigns that drive higher open and click-through rates.
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Additionally, you can use A/B testing to experiment with different subject lines, email content and call-to-action buttons. By analysing the performance of different variations, you can identify the most effective approaches and optimise your email campaigns.
44. Analyse website traffic and user behaviour
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights can be integrated with web analytics tools to analyse website traffic and user behaviour.
You can analyse key metrics such as website traffic, page views, bounce rates and time on site to understand overall website performance. Additionally, you can track user behaviour, such as click-through rates, conversion rates and product views, to identify areas for improvement.
Dynamics 365 Field Service
45. Create and manage work orders
You can create work orders directly in the Dynamics 365 Field Service system or generate them from service agreements or customer cases.
Once created, you can assign work orders to field technicians based on their skills, availability and location. The system can automatically schedule work orders, optimising routes and minimising travel time.
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Field technicians can access work order information, including customer details, problem descriptions and required parts, through mobile devices. They can update work order status, add comments and attach photos or videos to document their work.
46. Estimate work order costs and duration
Dynamics 365 Field Service provides robust tools to estimate work order costs and duration, enabling accurate planning and budgeting.
One key feature is the ability to create work order templates. These templates include predefined tasks, estimated labour hours and material costs, which can be easily applied to similar work orders. This helps streamline the estimation process and ensure consistency.
47. Schedule field technicians based on skills, availability and location
Dynamics 365 Field Service offers powerful resource scheduling capabilities to optimise technician assignments and improve operational efficiency. By considering factors like skills, availability and location, the system can automatically schedule work orders to the most suitable technicians.
The system can also account for travel time and traffic conditions to minimise technician downtime and optimise route planning.
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48. Reallocate resources in real-time
Dynamics 365 Field Service provides real-time resource scheduling capabilities, allowing you to dynamically adjust technician assignments as conditions change. This helps you optimise resource utilisation and respond to unexpected events.
For example, if a technician becomes unavailable due to illness or unforeseen circumstances, the system can automatically reassign their work orders to other available technicians. This ensures that customer service levels are maintained and minimises disruptions to service delivery.
49. Track resource utilisation
By analysing utilisation data, you can identify underutilised or overutilised resources and take steps to optimise their workload.
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Dynamics 365 Field Service can track the number of hours worked, the number of work orders completed and the average time spent on each work order. This information can help you identify bottlenecks, improve scheduling and allocate resources more effectively.
50. Forecast resource demand
Dynamics 365 Field Service provides forecasting capabilities to help you anticipate future resource needs. By analysing historical data and current trends, you can predict the demand for field technicians and plan accordingly.
The system can forecast the number of work orders expected in a given period, the required skill sets and the optimal number of technicians needed to meet demand. This information helps you optimise staffing levels, avoid resource shortages and allocate resources efficiently.
51. Capture photos and videos of work performed
Dynamics 365 Field Service empowers field technicians to capture photos and videos of work performed directly from their mobile devices. These can easily be attached to work orders.
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This visual documentation provides valuable evidence of completed work, improves communication with customers and supports quality control efforts.
52. Access customer information and history on the go
Dynamics 365 Field Service provides field technicians with access to customer information and history directly on their mobile devices. This enables them to view customer accounts, past service records and specific preferences while on site.
By having access to this information, technicians can provide personalised service, address customer concerns effectively and build stronger customer relationships. Additionally, they can identify potential upselling or cross-selling opportunities based on the customer’s history.
53. Guide engineers through mixed reality
Dynamics 365 Field Service leverages mixed reality technology to enhance field service operations and improve technician productivity. By combining the physical and digital worlds, mixed reality enables technicians to access real-time information, receive step-by-step instructions and collaborate with remote experts.
One of the key capabilities of mixed reality in Field Service is remote assistance. Experts can remotely guide technicians through complex tasks using augmented reality, providing real-time visual instructions and troubleshooting advice. This reduces downtime, improves first-time fix rates and enhances knowledge transfer.
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54. Use GPS tracking to monitor technician location
Dynamics 365 Field Service provides robust tools to monitor technician location in real-time. By tracking the GPS coordinates of technician devices, you can visualise their location on a map, optimise schedules and improve response times.
The system can also generate real-time alerts if a technician deviates from their assigned route or is delayed. This enables supervisors to take proactive measures to address issues and keep customers informed.
55. Access knowledge base articles and troubleshooting guides
Dynamics 365 Field Service provides a comprehensive knowledge base that allows field technicians to access relevant information and troubleshooting guides directly from their mobile devices. This enables them to quickly resolve issues, reduce downtime and improve customer satisfaction.
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The knowledge base can be organised into categories and subcategories, making it easy for technicians to find the information they need. Additionally, you can use AI-powered search to quickly locate relevant articles based on keywords or specific problems.
56. Analyse inventory usage and costs
Dynamics 365 Field Service provides robust tools to analyse inventory usage and costs, enabling you to optimise inventory levels and reduce expenses. By tracking inventory consumption, you can identify trends and adjust your inventory stocking levels accordingly.
The system can also generate reports on inventory usage by technician, work order or customer. This information helps you identify areas of overconsumption or waste and take corrective action.
57. Create purchase orders for parts and supplies
Dynamics 365 Field Service provides a seamless process for creating purchase orders for parts and supplies. You can create purchase orders directly from work orders or independently.
The system allows you to select vendors, add items to the purchase order and specify quantities, prices and delivery dates. You can also track the status of purchase orders, from creation to receipt of goods.
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58. Set up inventory alerts and notifications
Dynamics 365 Field Service allows you to set up inventory alerts and notifications to proactively manage stock levels and prevent stockouts. You can define thresholds for minimum and maximum stock levels and receive alerts when these thresholds are reached.
These alerts can be sent via email, SMS or push notifications, ensuring timely action. Additionally, you can configure the system to automatically generate purchase orders when inventory levels fall below a certain point.
59. Manage warehouse
Dynamics 365 Field Service offers basic warehouse management capabilities to track inventory levels and movements. You can create warehouses to represent physical locations, assign products to warehouses and record inventory adjustments like stock transfers and returns. This helps field service technicians manage their inventory efficiently, ensuring they have the right parts for their jobs.
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Dynamics 365 Customer Service
60. Prioritise cases based on severity and impact
Dynamics 365 Customer Service empowers agents to efficiently prioritise cases, leveraging factors such as severity, impact and customer importance.
Intelligent case routing and assignment features enable the system to automatically distribute cases to the most qualified agents based on their skills, availability and workload. This ensures that cases are handled by the right people, improving efficiency and resolution times.
61. Track case status and progress
Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides robust tools to track case status and progress, offering real-time visibility into the resolution process. Agents can easily update case status, add notes and attach relevant documents.
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The system can also generate detailed reports on case resolution times, agent performance and overall customer satisfaction. This data helps identify trends, measure performance and identify areas for improvement.
62. Escalate cases to higher-level support
Dynamics 365 Customer Service offers seamless case escalation capabilities. This ensures that critical issues are addressed by experts and resolved efficiently.
When a case requires escalation, agents can easily transfer the case to a higher-level team or individual. The system can automatically notify the assigned team or agent, providing them with all relevant case details.
63. Set case SLAs
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) can be defined to set specific response and resolution times for different case types. You can configure SLAs based on factors such as case priority, customer segment or product type.
The system can automatically monitor SLA adherence and generate alerts when SLAs are at risk of being breached. Plus, cases that violate SLAs can be automatically escalated to higher-priority levels, ensuring timely attention.
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64. Generate case reports
Dynamics 365 Customer Service offers the capability to generate detailed reports on specific cases, providing valuable insights into the case history, interactions and resolution process. These reports can help you identify trends, improve future case handling and enhance customer satisfaction.
You can generate reports that include:
- Case timeline: A chronological view of all activities and interactions related to the case
- Email and chat logs: A record of all email and chat conversations with the customer
- Call recordings: Transcripts or recordings of phone calls with the customer
- Knowledge article usage: A list of knowledge articles accessed during the case resolution
- Agent activity: A detailed breakdown of the agent’s time spent on the case
65. Create and manage knowledge articles
Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides a robust knowledge base management system that allows you to create, manage and share knowledge articles. These articles can contain information on troubleshooting steps, FAQs, best practices and other relevant topics.
By creating a comprehensive knowledge base, you can empower agents to quickly find answers to customer questions. You can organise knowledge articles into categories and subcategories to facilitate easy search and retrieval.
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Additionally, you can use AI-powered search to quickly find relevant articles based on keywords or natural language queries.
66. Track knowledge article usage
You can also track the usage of knowledge articles, providing valuable insights into their effectiveness and relevance. This includes identifying the most frequently accessed articles or potential gaps in your knowledge base.
The system can track metrics such as the number of times an article is viewed, the average time spent on it and the number of cases resolved.
67. Handle customer enquiries via multiple channels
Dynamics 365 Customer Service offers robust omnichannel capabilities. This unified approach allows customers to interact with businesses through their preferred channels, such as phone, email, chat and social media.
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By centralising customer interactions, Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides a single view of the customer, allowing agents to access relevant information and context regardless of the channel. This ensures consistent and personalised customer experiences, even when switching between channels.
68. Collaborate on knowledge creation
Dynamics 365 Customer Service allows multiple users to contribute to the creation and editing of knowledge articles, ensuring that the knowledge base is accurate and relevant.
Additionally, you can assign ownership of articles to specific individuals or teams, promoting accountability and ensuring timely updates.
69. Use sentiment analysis to gauge customer sentiment
Dynamics 365 Customer Service leverages advanced AI capabilities to analyse customer sentiment across various channels, including emails, chats and social media. By processing customer interactions, the system can identify and categorise sentiment as positive, negative or neutral.
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Sentiment analysis helps businesses understand customer satisfaction levels, identify potential issues and take proactive steps to address negative feedback.
70. Use AI-powered virtual assistants to provide 24/7 support
Dynamics 365 Customer Service incorporates AI-powered virtual assistants to provide 24/7 support to customers. These virtual assistants can handle a wide range of enquiries, from simple questions to complex troubleshooting.
By leveraging natural language processing and machine learning, virtual assistants can understand customer queries, provide accurate answers and guide customers through self-service options. This reduces the burden on human agents.
Additionally, virtual assistants can learn from customer interactions, continuously improving their ability to provide accurate and helpful information.
71. Conduct customer surveys
Dynamics 365 Customer Service offers a robust survey tool to create, distribute and analyse customer surveys. You can design surveys with a variety of question types, including multiple-choice, rating scales and open-ended questions.
You can also trigger surveys based on specific events, such as case closure or product purchase.
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After customers complete the surveys, the system automatically collects and analyses the responses. You can generate detailed reports that provide insights into customer satisfaction, product usage and overall experience.
72. Analyse customer feedback
Dynamics 365 Customer Service allows you to gain valuable insights, in four core ways:
- Sentiment analysis: AI can automatically categorise customer feedback as positive, negative or neutral.
- Text analysis: You can use text analysis techniques to extract keywords and themes from customer feedback. This allows you to identify common issues.
- Survey analysis: By analysing customer survey responses, you can measure customer satisfaction, identify areas for improvement and track changes over time.
- Social media monitoring: By monitoring social media channels, you can track brand mentions and customer sentiment.
73. Use screen sharing to provide technical support
Dynamics 365 Customer Service empowers agents to provide technical support to visually guide customers.
Agents can initiate screen sharing sessions directly from within the customer service application, allowing them to see the customer’s screen in real-time.
Additionally, remote control functionality allows agents to take control of the customer’s device remotely, performing actions on their behalf. This is particularly useful for resolving technical issues that require advanced troubleshooting or configuration.
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74. Implement self-service portals for customers to find answers
You can create self-service portals where customers can access information, troubleshoot issues and find answers to common questions. These portals can be customised to your specific needs and can include:
- Knowledge base: A searchable repository of articles, FAQs and how-to guides.
- Community forums: A platform for customers to interact with each other and share knowledge.
- Case management portal: A portal where customers can view and manage their own cases.
Project Operations
75. Assign tasks to project team members
Dynamics 365 Project Operations allows you to assign tasks to specific project team members. You can assign tasks based on the skills, availability and expertise of team members.
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Once tasks are assigned, team members can view their assigned tasks, track their progress and update the status of their work. This helps in monitoring individual performance and identifying potential bottlenecks.
76. Define project phases and milestones
Within Dynamics 365 Project Operations, you can create a hierarchical structure of project phases, each representing a distinct stage in the project lifecycle.
Each phase can be further broken down into smaller tasks and milestones, providing a granular view of the project timeline. By defining clear project phases and milestones, you can easily track progress and allocate resources efficiently.
77. Estimate project costs and revenue
You can estimate project costs and revenue, enabling accurate budgeting and financial forecasting. You can define cost categories, such as labour, materials and overhead, and assign estimated costs to each project task.
The system can also calculate revenue based on billing rates, contract terms and project milestones.
Additionally, you can track actual costs and revenue against the estimated figures, enabling you to identify variances and take corrective action.
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78. Identify and mitigate project risks
Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides a risk management framework to identify, assess and mitigate project risks. You can define potential risks, assess their impact and likelihood and develop mitigation strategies.
The system allows you to track the status of identified risks and monitor for emerging risks. You can also assign ownership for risk mitigation and track the effectiveness of mitigation strategies.
79. Analyse project performance
Dynamics 365 Project Operations offers a suite of tools to analyse project performance:
- Project timeline analysis: Compare planned versus actual timelines, with Gantt charts to visualise timelines
- Financial performance analysis: Track project costs, revenue and profitability to assess financial performance
- Resource utilisation analysis: Create resource utilisation reports to identify underutilised or overutilised resources
- Earned value analysis: Measure project performance by comparing the planned value of work completed to the actual value
Image taken from Microsoft
80. Generate project reports
Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides a comprehensive suite of reporting tools to gain deep insights into project performance. You can use the system’s built-in reporting capabilities or integrate with Power BI for more advanced reporting.
By utilising the system’s data and configuration options, you can create customised reports that meet your specific needs. These reports can be scheduled to run automatically at regular intervals, ensuring timely insights.
You can generate a variety of reports, such as:
- Project financial reports
- Resource utilisation reports
- Task and milestone reports
- Customer satisfaction reports
81. Forecast resource demand
Dynamics 365 Project Operations can analyse historical data, project pipelines and resource utilisation patterns, so you can predict the demand for specific skills and capacities.
The system can generate forecasts for different time periods, such as weekly, monthly or quarterly, allowing you to plan resource and staffing levels in advance.
Image taken from Microsoft
82. Manage resource skills and certifications
Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides a robust framework for managing resource skills and certifications. You can create a skills library, defining specific skills and their required certifications.
By associating skills and certifications with individual resources, you can ensure that the right people are assigned to the right tasks.
Additionally, you can track the expiration dates of certifications and set up reminders for renewal, ensuring that your resources are always up-to-date and qualified.
83. Track project timelines and deadlines
Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides a robust timeline management system to track project timelines and deadlines effectively.
The system allows you to set start and end dates for each task and milestone, and it can automatically calculate critical paths to ensure timely project completion. You can also track actual progress against the planned schedule and identify any potential delays.
Image taken from Microsoft
84. Manage resource time off and overtime
Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides tools to manage resource time off and overtime effectively. You can define different types of time off, such as vacation, sick leave and personal time, and set up approval workflows for time-off requests.
You can also analyse time-off patterns and identify potential staffing shortages.
85. Manage time and expense accruals
Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides a robust framework for managing time and expense accruals. You can define accrual policies, set accrual limits and track employee time off and overtime.
Image taken from Microsoft
The system can automatically calculate accruals based on predefined rules and generate reports on accrued time and usage. This helps you monitor employee entitlements and prevent overutilisation.
86. Analyse project profitability
You can track project costs and revenue, calculate profit margins and analyse the impact of different pricing strategies. By comparing actual performance to budgeted figures, you can identify variances and take corrective action.
Additionally, you can analyse the profitability of different project types, customers or regions to identify high-margin opportunities and areas for cost reduction.
87. Set up revenue recognition rules
Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides a flexible framework for setting up revenue recognition rules, ensuring accurate and timely revenue recognition in accordance with accounting standards. You can define revenue recognition schedules based on project milestones, delivery milestones or usage-based models.
Image taken from Microsoft
The system can automatically calculate revenue to be recognised based on the defined rules, simplifying the process and reducing the risk of errors.
88. Track resource utilisation
You can monitor the utilisation of individual resources, teams and entire projects.
By analysing resource utilisation data, you can identify underutilised or overutilised resources, optimise workloads and improve resource allocation decisions. Additionally, you can track the time spent on different project activities, such as planning, execution and reporting.
89. Manage project budgets
Within Dynamics 365 Project Operations, you’ll find robust tools for managing project budgets, enabling you to track costs and revenue throughout the project lifecycle. You can create budgets for individual projects or for the entire project portfolio.
Image taken from Microsoft
The system allows you to allocate budgets to different project phases, tasks or resources. You can also track actual costs and compare them to budgeted amounts to identify variances.
Dynamics 365 Contact Centre
90. Guide agents with pre-defined scripts
Dynamics 365 Contact Centre provides agent scripting capabilities that guide agents through customer interactions, ensuring consistency and efficiency. These scripts can be customised to suit specific scenarios, such as handling common customer queries or resolving technical issues.
The system can dynamically populate scripts with relevant customer information, such as account details, purchase history and recent interactions. This helps agents provide a more tailored customer experience.
91. Record calls for quality assurance and training purposes
The platform offers robust call recording capabilities that allow you to capture and store customer interactions for quality assurance and training purposes.
Image taken from Microsoft
Call recordings can be used to analyse agent performance, identify areas for improvement and provide coaching and feedback. Additionally, they can be used to resolve disputes, investigate complaints and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
92. Transfer and conference calls
Dynamics 365 Contact Centre provides seamless call transfer and conference capabilities, allowing agents to efficiently handle complex customer inquiries. Agents can easily transfer calls to other agents or departments, ensuring that customers are routed to the right experts.
Conference calling enables agents to bring multiple parties together for discussions and complex problem-solving.
93. Optimise agent schedules and staffing levels
Dynamics 365 Contact Centre offers advanced workforce management tools to optimise agent schedules and staffing levels. By analysing historical data and real-time metrics, the system can predict call volumes and staffing requirements.
You can create agent schedules based on historical data, forecast demand and specific business needs. The system can automatically generate optimal schedules, considering factors such as agent availability, skill sets and shift preferences.
Image taken from Microsoft
94. Manage call queues to prioritise and route calls efficiently
The queue management capabilities in Dynamics 365 Contact Centre can prioritise and route incoming calls efficiently. You can configure multiple queues based on various criteria, such as customer type, issue severity or agent skillset.
The system can automatically route calls to the appropriate queue based on predefined rules. Additionally, you can set up call waiting times and prioritise calls based on urgency.
95. Provide targeted training and coaching
The system has tools to track agent performance and identify areas for improvement. By analysing call recordings, chat transcripts and customer feedback, supervisors can identify training needs and provide targeted coaching.
Image taken from Microsoft
The system can also generate reports on agent performance metrics, such as average handle time, first call resolution rate and customer satisfaction. These reports can be used to identify top performers and areas for improvement.
96. Track KPIs
Dynamics 365 Contact Centre provides robust reporting and analytics tools to track KPIs, such as:
- Call metrics: Average handle time, average wait time, abandon rate and first call resolution rate
- Email metrics: Email response time, resolution time and customer satisfaction
- Chat metrics: Average chat duration, average response time and customer satisfaction
- Agent performance metrics: Handle time, adherence to scripts and customer satisfaction ratings
By tracking these KPIs, you can measure the effectiveness of your contact centre operations.
97. Forecast customer behaviour and needs
Dynamics 365 Contact Centre leverages AI-powered analytics to forecast customer behaviour and needs. By analysing historical data, such as customer interactions, purchase history and demographic information, the system can identify patterns and trends.
This predictive analytics capability enables you to anticipate customer needs and address issues. For example, the system can predict potential service requests, proactively reach out to customers and help before they even contact support.
Image taken from Microsoft
98. Optimise staffing levels
The system also has tools to optimise staffing levels and ensure adequate coverage. By analysing historical data, real-time metrics and predicted call volumes, the system can generate optimal staffing schedules.
The system can also account for factors such as agent availability, skill sets and time-off requests to ensure that the right number of agents are available at the right time.
99. Route calls to agents with the appropriate skills
Dynamics 365 Contact Centre offers advanced routing capabilities to ensure that calls are directed to the most qualified agents. By analysing customer information, call context and agent skills, the system can automatically route calls to the best-suited agent.
This intelligent routing helps to improve first-call resolution rates and reduce customer wait times.
Image taken from Microsoft
100. Monitor and assist agents in real-time
Dynamics 365 Contact Centre provides powerful call monitoring and coaching tools, including call barging and whispering.
- Call barging: Supervisors can silently listen in on live calls to monitor agent performance, quality, and adherence to scripts. This helps identify areas for improvement and provide real-time coaching
- Call whispering: Supervisors can privately communicate with agents during a call to provide guidance or additional information without interrupting the customer interaction
By effectively using call barging and whispering, supervisors can improve agent performance, enhance customer satisfaction and ensure consistent service delivery.
Getting started with Dynamics 365
With modules covering core business areas, there’s plenty you can do in Dynamics 365.
If you’d like to find out more about how to get business value across the Dynamics 365 suite, join us on 20th March in Birmingham for our latest event: Unlocking the power of Microsoft Business Applications.
During the day, you’ll gain expert insight into Dynamics 365 and ways to use it to unlock greater benefits. You’ll also get a chance to network with industry peers, attend tailored workshops that address your pains and ask your burning questions.
