How to Create Project Opportunities? (Episode 10)

Posted on April 1, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

Project Opportunities are warm leads from customers who are interested in contracting your services.

Scenario:

  • Adventure Works would like to implement Business Central.
  • Adventure Works contacts Tech Quantum – AU and share their requirements.
  • Add Product based and Project based lines.

Let us create a Project Opportunity for the same.

Create Account

  • In the change area click Sales > Customers.
  • Click New to create a new Account or use an existing one.
  • Specify the required fields on the Summary tab.

     

    • Relationship Type = Customer.
    • Select the relevant Product Price List.
    • Additionally, add Primary Contact (or other contacts as well).

  • On the Project Price List tab, add the project price list containing the role prices, price list items, etc.

  • On the Details tab specify additional details, such as Company Profile, Description, Contact Preferences, Billing information, etc.

  • Save the record.

Create Opportunity

  • In the change area click Sales > Opportunities.
  • Click New to create a new opportunity. You will notice that the Opportunity Sales Process is also activated showing the different stages, which can help users to navigate through various stages of the opportunity and capture relevant details.
  • Specify the Topic and make sure to capture details.

  • Capture other details such as Stakeholders, Sales Team and Competitors.

  • On the Opportunity Lines tab, capture:

     

    • Product -based Lines
      Here you can add the products that you are selling to the customer. Please note that the product should be available in the product price list that that you have attached to the Opportunity.
    • Project-base Lines
      Here you can capture the breakdown of other services related to the project, such as project expenses, implementation services, maintenance, etc. These can be either Time and Material or Fixed Price.

  • You can add more lines or make changes to the existing lines. The Total Amount will be updated accordingly.
  • You can keep updating the Opportunity and the Notes in Timeline as and when you get more details.
  • Also, you can progress through the business process to keep track of the stage you are in the Opportunity.


Watch the video:

 

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Create Project Opportunities? (Episode 10)

How to Setup Cost Price and Sales Price? (Episode 09)

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

Cost Price

  • Cost Price is the cost incurred by your organization.
  • For your Organization Unit, you can define Cost Price per Resource.
  • It determines what resource cost is going into a project which will ultimately be used for determining profitability of a project.

Scenario:

  • Organization Unit: Tech Quantum – AU
  • Resource Role and Cost (example) 

Resource Role

AU Resource Cost (Per Hour)

Technical Consultant

$90/Hour

Functional Consultant

$100/Hour

Business Analyst

$125/Hour

Process:

  • On your Project Service Automation App, click the change area and click Sales.
  • Click Price Lists > New to create a new price list.
  • Specify fields on General tab and make sure to select Context = Cost.

  • Click Save.
  • On the Role Prices tab, click New Role Price. You can specify Role, Resourcing Unit and Price.

  • Under Category Prices tab, click New Transaction Category to add various expenses:

  • The Cost Price is ready, now you can attach this Cost Price to the Organization Unit:

Sales Price

  • Sales Price is what you charge to your customer.
  • It determines what price you are going to charge for a project.

Scenario:

  • Organization Unit: Tech Quantum – AU
  • Resource Role and Price (example)

Resource Role

AU Resource Cost (Per Hour)

Technical Consultant

$190/Hour

Functional Consultant

$200/Hour

Business Analyst

$250/Hour

Process:

  • On your Project Service Automation App, click the change area and click Sales.
  • Click Price Lists > New to create a new price list.
  • Specify fields on General tab and make sure to select Context = Sales.

  • Click Save.
  • On the Role Prices tab, click New Role Price. You can specify Role, Resourcing Unit and Price.

  • Under Category Prices tab, click New Transaction Category to add various expenses that you sell:

  • Under Price List Items tab, add the products that you are selling:

  • The Sales Price is ready. You can attach this sales price to a Customer account, under Project Price Lists tab:

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Setup Cost Price and Sales Price? (Episode 09)

How to Configure Resource? (Episode 08)

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

When you install Dynamics 365 for Project Service, Resource Scheduling is also enabled that allows you to manage resources.

Resource Management Includes:

  • Working Hours
  • Resource Skills
  • Resource Roles
  • Target Utilization
  • Characteristics

Scenario:

  • For Tech Quantum – AU we are implementing Dynamics 365 Business Central.
  • We need 3 Resource Roles: Functional Consultant, Technical Consultant & Business Analyst.

Create Skills:

  • In your Project Services App. Click the change area to go to Resources.

  • Click Skills. This will list all the skill set available in the system.
  • Click New to create the following skills:
    • Business Central (Functional Skill)
    • C# (Technical Skill)
    • Business Analyst (Analysis Skill)

    There may be instances that the customer requires certifications. In that case you can create skills where the Characteristics is Certification.

    Create Roles:

    • Click Roles. This will list all the roles available in the system.
    • Click New to create the following Roles:
      • Functional Consultant
      • Technical Consultant and
      • Business Consultant
    • While creating the Roles specify the:
      • Target Utilization for the role. This is a percentage value.
      • Click New Role Competency to add Skill set required for the Role. While specifying the role competency, you can specify the Proficiency (rating value), i.e. the level of skill/ knowledge required for the role.

    NOTE: After adding the Skills in the role, if the Name field is blank, edit the record to specify the name.

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Configure Resource? (Episode 08)

How to Configure Work Hour? (Episode 07)

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

Every resource has work hours defined in Dynamics 365, i.e. how many hours a resource will be working for an organization.

You can set the working hours in a Work Hour Template which will be used in Projects.

It defines how many hours resource will be available to work on a project.

Work Hour Template is also used for scheduling resource for a project.

Scenario:

– For Tech Quantum – AU, the resources are available from 09:00 AM till 05:00 PM AEST.

– There is a lunch break of 30 minutes.

– Working days are from Monday to Friday.

– Not observing holidays.

– Set Work Hours for a user – Spencer Low.

Personalized Settings

  • Click on Personalized Settings.

 

  • Change the Time Zone that suits you. In this example it is set to AEST.

Set Work Hour

  • Click on Advanced Settings.

  • Click Settings > Security > Users.
  • Select a user, in this example “Spencer Low”.
  • Select Work Hours.

  • Click Set Up > New Weekly Schedule.
  • Click Setup Work Hours. Set the work hours as required and provide the split / break as well.
  • Setup Recurring Weekly Schedule.

  • Click Ok. Check result.

 

NOTE: If you see “Cross Day” on the calendar, you might need to change the Time Zone in your personalized settings.

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Configure Work Hour? (Episode 07)

PSA Process Flow (Episode 04)

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

Following is the process flow that you can follow in Project Service Automation:

ProJe Opportunity Pro] Quotes p rOJ Proje Planning Contracts Alloca e Resources

Project Opportunity

  • Here you register warm leads that are interested in your project services.
  • Here you define product and project related information.
  • For example if you are implementing Business Central, you would specify the licenses and implementation fees related information or maybe the expenses that you want to quote.

Project Quotes

  • You can create quotation from the opportunity and send it to the customer.
  • It will copy all the information, that you have captured in opportunity, and put it in the quotes.

Project Planning

  • In project planning you go into details of planning, for example the number of activities involved, number of resources  and man days required, scheduling and project planning.

Project Contracts

  • When you mark the project quote as “Won”, it automatically creates a project contract.
  • It is also considered as statement of work , like what kind of things will you deliver to the customer and also define the invoice frequency for each of the component.

Allocate Resources

  • Once your project contract is defined, you are going to allocate resources to the project.
  • The resource allocation is done based on the requirements.
  • The resources then start working on the project.

Time and Expense Booking

  • When resources are working on a project they start booking their time against the project.
  • The resources start entering their time daily/weekly and also start registering the expenses that are incurred in the process. These expenses are monitored by the project manager and once approved can be billed to the customer.

Project Monitoring

  • Project monitoring is not a single step, but a continuous process.
  • So the moment you do planning you start performing project monitoring as well.

Project Invoicing

  • Once you have reached the project contract milestone, you create an invoice and send it to the customer for billing.

Project Analytics

  • Finally you perform project analysis where you can make use of the graphs, charts to identify how you are doing in the project.
  • Based on the information, you can make necessary adjustments.

Watch Video:

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on PSA Process Flow (Episode 04)

How to Configure Organization Units? (Episode 06)

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

Let us first understand what are Organization Units:

  • Organization Units represent different offices your company may have.
    For example, you may have offices in US, UK and India. In that case you will be creating three organization units as each unit may be executing their projects.
  • You can create any number of Organization Unit as required.
    Depending on your location.
  • If you have just one office, you can use a single Organization Unit.
    It is not mandatory to have multiple Organization Unit.
  • For each Organization Unit, you define Currency.
    For example if your company is in Australia then you will be dealing in AUD and if you are in US you will be dealing in USD, etc.
  • Also, you can define cost prices for an Organization Unit.
    For example if you use resources in US, what cost will you incur when you execute a project as compare to if you do the same in India. So you define cost prices for your Organization and in that you define the cost of each resource such as for Technical Consultant, Functional Consultant, Business Analyst, System testers, etc.
  • When you create a project, you need to define the Organization Unit that project belongs to.
    You can use resources from same Organization or from Different Organizations.

NOTE: By default, when you install or register for a trial of Project Service Automation, you will have an Active Organization Unit (with Name containing alphanumeric characters). You can rename it as well.

You can create a New Organization Unit and specify the following information and Save:

  • Name : Unique name of the Organization Unit
  • Description: A short description of the Organization Unit
  • Currency: The currency that will be used by this Organization Unit

Based on your requirement, you can create as many Organization Unit as you want.

We will discuss the setup of cost price and sales price in upcoming episodes.

Watch Video:

Posted in D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Configure Organization Units? (Episode 06)

How to Install Project Service Automation (PSA) and Sample Data? (Episode 05)

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

Download Sample Data

Use the following link to download Dynamics 365 for Field Service and Project Service Automation Sample Data: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56050.

  • Run the Executable file to extract the package
  • Extract the Package to for its contents

NOTE: Read the System Requirements and Install Instructions carefully.

  • Within the package:
    • You will use Dynamics 365 for Field and Project Service Demo Data October 2017.pdf file for detail installation instructions.
    • If FPSDemoData.dll file is blocked, you need to unblock it.
    • You will use ImportUserMapFile.xml file to update data mapping.
    • You will use PackageDeployer.exe file to run the package deployer wizard.

Install Project Service Automation and Field Service

Since the sample data is for Field and Project Service, so you need to install both the solutions in Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Go to Dynamics 365 Admin Centre:

  • Select the instance
  • Edit the Solution
  • Find “Field Service” and “Project Service Automation” and install

NOTE: This can take several minutes.

Create and Configure Users

As per instructions in Dynamics 365 for Field and Project Service Demo Data October 2017.pdf file create and configure users.

  • The following users are created:
    • David So
    • Jamie Reding
    • Molly Clark
    • Spencer Low
    • Veronica Quek
    • William Contoso
  • Provide the System Administrator Role.
  • You will also need to update the ImportUserMapFile.xml data mapping file with email addresses of these users in your system.

  • Finally, in the Enabled Users view, select and open the System Administrator whose credentials you will use for the sample data installation (“Spencer Low” suggested).
    • Go to the navigation bar at the top of the page and open the “Work Hours” option.
    • Edit the existing Work Hours, schedule, selecting the “Entire recurring weekly schedule from start to end” option, and make sure that the work hours are set to “9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (8 Hours)” with Monday through Friday and the Time Zone set to “Pacific Time (US & Canada). This is required to ensure that Schedule Board settings and already schedule Work Order and Project work appear correctly post installation.

Run the Package Deployer Installation

Please note that since you install the sample data, this step cannot be undone, so do not perform this on Production Environment. This sample data is meant more for testing or demo purposes.

  • Find and run the PackageDeployer.exe.
  • Agree to terms.
  • On the next window:
    • Select deployment type Office 365.
    • Use the user and password of the system administrator configured above.
    • Make sure Display list of available organizations is checked.

  • Select the appropriate Dynamics 365 organization.
  • Click Next twice. You should see something like the following:

  • Click Next to start the sample data installation process. Load of sample data can take up to 4 hours to complete. Ensure your client computer remains on and connected to the Internet during the process and that your session remains active.
  • After loading completes, click Finish to exit the package deployer.

Verify the Install

After the demo data completely loads, log in as the “Spencer Low” and confirm the following:

  • Go to Project Service > Settings > Price Lists and confirm that Bill Rates and Costs Rates exist, with the appropriate Currency, for each country/region in the data set.
  • Go to Project Service > Settings > Organizational Units and for each Org Unit (excluding city entries), confirm that a Cost Price List with the appropriate Currency has been associated. If any are missing, find and associate the correct Cost Price List.

Watch the video:

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Install Project Service Automation (PSA) and Sample Data? (Episode 05)

About Project Service Automation (PSA) (Episode 03)

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

About PSA

  • Project Service Automation (PSA) provides an end-to-end project management capabilities to teams who are execution projects.
  • PSA is built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Framework.
  • Almost all kind of projects can be managed using PSA.
  • You can access PSA from Unified Interface.
  • With PSA solution installation, Resource Scheduling is also installed. PSA lets you define the projects, opportunities, quotations, orders and contracts whereas Resource Scheduling helps you define resource skills, resource roles and pricing.

Important Terms In PSA

  • Customers

    A customer is an organization. This includes

    • Customer
    • Vendor
    • Partner
    • Affiliate or Other
  • Contacts

    A Contact is an individual.

    • Associated with maximum one Account (through Contact form)
  • Project Opportunities

    Opportunities are warm leads who are interested in you project services (similar to sales)

    There is a separate form for Project Opportunities.

  • Project Quotes

    When a potential customer asks for more information about project such as product, pricing, etc., a quote is sent.

    You can create one or more quotes for a project opportunity.

  • Project

    Under Project you can define scope, estimates, timelines and resources required to meet an objective.

    Alternatively, you can quickly create a project using Project Templates.

  • Project Contract

    When you win a quote, you create a project contract to make it official.

    You can create one or more project contracts for a quote.

  • Invoices

    An invoice is used to bill customer for the project.

    When you create a project contract, you set the frequency to generate invoices.

    You can modify the created invoice before confirming.

  • Schedule Board

    Schedule Board shows all resources, their availability and allows you to book resources for a project.

    Multiple views are available like Hours, Days, Weeks and Months.

  • Resources

    You can book resources against a project for scheduling and invoicing.

    Resources can include users, contacts, accounts or equipment.

  • Time Entries

    Resources working on a project can enter their timesheet (time entries) explaining how much time they spent working on a project.

    Users enter duration in minutes, hours or days.

  • Expenses

    Expenses against a project can be entered by resources so you can be invoicing your client.

    Frequency of entering expenses may vary based on project requirements.

Watch the video:

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on About Project Service Automation (PSA) (Episode 03)

What is Project Management? (Episode 02)

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Paresh Sharma
Project Management is the application of Knowledge, Skills, Tools and Techniques to Project Activities to Meet Project Objectives.

 

– By PMI )Project Management Institute).

The statement above is the definition of a Project Management by Project Management Institute. Let us have a look at some of the terms:

  • Knowledge – What you should do when a project comes and what are the different processes.
  • Skills – How do you manage your projects, do you have team managing skills? Or do you have daily reporting skills?
  • Tools – What mechanism are you using to meet your project objectives? For example, Project Service Automation is that tool that you will use to manage your projects.
  • Techniques – The approach that basically helps you to implement things in your project.
  • Project Objective – This is the core thing that you need to meet.

Project Management Triangle

A s a Project manager, when you want to implement a project, you will need to consider the concept of project triangle:

  • If you are implementing a project you should ask yourself a question “Do I know the scope of the project?” and “Can I meet the agreed and defined scope?”.
  • The project must be delivered within the cost. Now, this is the cost that your company is incurring to execute the project to maintain the profitability.
  • The project must be delivered on the agreed schedule.
  • You must maintain the quality while you meet the agreed scope and deliver within the cost and agreed schedule.

Watch Video:

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on What is Project Management? (Episode 02)

What is a Project? (Episode 01)

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Paresh Sharma
A Project is a Temporary Endeavour undertaken to create a Unique Product, Service or Result.

– By PMI )Project Management Institute).

The statement above is the definition of a Project by Project Management Institute. Let us understand few words from this definition:

  • Temporary Endeavour – It means that a Project will have a start and an end date. So a Project cannot just keep on going. That is not called a Project but an Operation.
  • Unique Product / Service / Result – Whenever you are trying to create a new Product, it’s going to be different, in other words “unique” (it can be a software, hardware or anything that can be used by your customers). The same is with the service which is going to be unique for each customer (for example implementing Business Central for different customers) Or it can be a unique Result.

Example:

  • New Product – Building a Time Management Software.
  • New Service – Implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
  • Improvement to Existing Product / Service – New Feature Addition to the Business Central Implementation.
  • Producing A Result – Creating a Document Explaining How Dynamics 365 Business Central Purchase Process Works.

Project Vs Operation

Following are some parameters, based on which you can differentiate and understand how you can use Project Service Automation for your Projects.

Parameter Project Operation
Duration Temporary Ongoing
Output Unique Repetitive
Purpose Create a unique product, service or result. Sustain the business
End When specific objectives are attended Adopt a new set of objectives and the work continues

Watch Video:

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Project Service Automation (PSA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on What is a Project? (Episode 01)