Work smarter by combining Dynamics 365 with Microsoft Office 365

If your software doesn’t work together, how can your people?

If you use business software tools that don’t integrate with each other, you’ll miss many opportunities to work more productively and smarter (together).

1. What if… your CRM system and email software aren’t integrated?

To track emails in CRM, your employees must first store the email locally and then upload it to CRM. This is so cumbersome and complex that few of your employees are going to do this. Result: far too few emails are kept in CRM, which means that the relevant contact history is missing. If you ensure that your CRM environment integrates with your email software, you can track an email in CRM with a simple click. In addition, CRM automatically associates an email with any contact or lead record based on the matching email address.

Microsoft Outlook + Dynamics 365

The specific Dynamics 365 App for Outlook ensures that Microsoft Outlook and Dynamics 365 can ‘talk’ with each other.

• Link Outlook emails, meetings, and appointments to a Dynamics 365 record with one click.
• View information about contacts and leads from Dynamics 365 while you work in Outlook.
• Open Dynamics 365 records directly from an Outlook email to search or enter more detailed information.
• Create Dynamics 365 records and actions (phone call, task or appointment) directly from any email.
• Add Dynamics 365 email templates, knowledge articles, or sales documentation when creating an e-mail or making an appointment.
• Track Outlook contacts in Dynamics 365.

2. What if … your CRM software does not allow to generate documents from business data?

Then employees “copy-paste” data from CRM to documents. That’s not a good idea, because it creates multiple inconsistent versions. For example, an employee manually prepares a quotation, lowers the sales price directly in the quotation document itself and forgets to adjust the Quote record in CRM. If you then send an invoice from CRM, the customer will receive a higher invoice than what was stated on the signed quotation. Can you already imagine the reaction of your customer?

Microsoft Word + Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 works perfectly with Microsoft Word. First you create a Word template in your own style and then import it into your Dynamics 365 application. You can then generate a standard document from a Dynamics 365 record with the correct personalized data. This way you always send professionally and consistently formatted documents (e.g. order forms, invoices, contracts, …) to your customers.

If you do generate documents automatically from CRM, but there is no integration with document management software, it’s a hassle to store the generated documents centrally and in a structured way. If your employees have to manually transfer documents to the correct location, there is a good chance that they will not do this consistently and that documents can sometimes be difficult to find.

Microsoft Sharepoint + Dynamics 365

Therefore, use the document management options of SharePoint with Dynamics 365. Thanks to the integration of Microsoft Dynamics 365 with Word and Sharepoint, it is easy to automatically save generated Word documents in a Sharepoint folder that is linked to the corresponding CRM record.

Quotations, proposals, project plans and other documents in Sharepoint can also be opened directly from the Dynamics 365 interface. This way you and your colleagues can consult all important documents related to a specific customer from Dynamics 365. This not only facilitates document management, but also saves valuable CRM database space.

3. What if… you want to export and import data from CRM?

Sometimes it is useful to export CRM data to Excel. For example, to do quick data analyzes or to edit large amounts of CRM records. That is a serious challenge if your CRM tool is not integrated with office software.

Microsoft Excel + Dynamics 365

• From within Dynamics 365, use the “Export to Excel” button to export CRM data to a static or dynamic Excel file or to a PivotTable. If you export data to a dynamic Excel file or a PivotTable, the data remains linked to Dynamics 365 and your reports are updated dynamically. And because the data comes from Dynamics 365, the security roles are also enforced.

• If you choose “Open in Excel online”, you will work in a familiar Excel file in Dynamics 365 itself. As a sales manager, for example, you can see open opportunities in Excel-online and, for example, perform a “what-if” analysis of different incentive scenarios for your sales people.

• To import Excel data into Dynamics 365, such as Excel files with contacts, leads, and accounts, download the specific “Data Import Templates” from Dynamics 365.

4. What if … you can facilitate communication between colleagues?

Working smarter also means ensuring that everyone on a team, no matter where and on what device they are working, can easily participate in the team conversations.

Microsoft Teams + Dynamics 365

With the seamless integration between Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365, you can easily collaborate with colleagues remotely on a quote or sales opportunity for example.

• Pin individual Dynamics 365 records to Team Channels to increase collaboration across accounts, deals, and projects.
• Meet, chat, and call from your Dynamics 365 workspace without having to switch to Microsoft Teams.
• Securely access records and business processes in Dynamics 365 while working in Teams.
• Easily find information and access records on the go with the Dynamics 365 bot for Microsoft Teams.

Conclusion: Better together!

When you connect Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Office 365, you bring people and processes together, you work smarter and more productively and you also provide much better customer experiences. A win win!

Read more? Download the free e-book “Working as one, working smarter. Unify business and productivity applications.”