This in continuation to Episode 11 and Episode 12, where we had discussed how to create a Quote and a Project, respectively. If you are reading this episode directly, I would recommend you to have a look at those episodes first.
Creating Project Contact (Statement of Work)
Open the quote, which we had created in Episode 11.
Go to Quote Lines tab and check the details.
Check if the Project is assigned to the Project-based lines. For example, in this case you can assign the same Project, created in Episode 12, to the Fixed Price line.
Check details under each tab and once you are satisfied, on the Quote, click Close as Won.
This will create and open the Project Contract, in Draft state. Note that the Project Contract is similar to Order in Sales, however, the form is different.
Check all the details, which have been copied from the Quote.
You can still make changes to the Draft Project Contract.
In case you did not provide the Invoicing Schedule (for contract lines) at Quote level, the do it now, because this is the last stage where you can define the invoicing schedule.
Once you are satisfied with the Project Contract, click Confirm. This will Activate the Project Contract and the Status Reason will be set to Confirmed.
If you have installed the Add-in, you will see a tab Project Service. Open the tab.
Click Connect to connect to your D365 environment. If you are connecting for the first time it will ask for your credentials.
Once you provide the credentials and have successfully connected, you will notice that the Connect button is greyed out and other buttons (Publish, Read, etc.) are activated.
Click Read, PSA Project.
From the list of available project, select the project to read. Click Link project plan to Project Service Automation, if you want to manage schedule from MS Project.
No , you can manage the schedule in MS Project and use its various functions. Once you have made the changes you can click Publish, you sync the changes in D365 Project.
Note that the Schedule in D365 will be read-only in that case. This is because the link that has been established between D365 project and MS Project.
You cans use Unlink option in MS Project to remove the link and then you will be able to edit in D365.
Select the user to assign Project Online Essential License. After assigning the license, click Save Changes.
Click Home, Install Office.
For Project, change the Version (32 or 64-bit) as per your system requirement. Click Install to download the software. This will download the setup file.
Run the Setup file to install MS Project on your system.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation Add-in for Microsoft Project
Check the System Requirements and Installation Instructions
Download (32 bit or 64 bit), and Install.
After installing the Add-in when you open MS Project, you will see a Project Services tab, this settings under this tab will be used to connect to Dynamics 365 Project Schedule.
If you have been following the blog post, by now you would be familiar with creating an opportunity and quotation.
Now let’s see how you can create project and define schedule or work break down structure.
Whenever you are creating a quotation and you have different quote lines, for example, one line is for project implementation, second is for expenses, third could be for support services and fourth could be for training.
In Dynamics 365 for PSA you have an option to define project for each line. This means, if you have four project base quote lines then you can define four different projects Or you can choose to define only one project based on the requirements.
You can also use predefined Project Templates, based on which you can create Projects. You have an option to reuse the templates, so that you don’t have to recreate the schedule (WBS) and have resources defined again.
NOTE: In previous versions of Dynamics 365, Schedule was known as Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
Project Template
In Dynamics 365, on the navigation menu, click Project Templates.
Click New Template and specify the following fields:
Name
Description
Contracting Unit.
Click Save.
Go to the Schedule tab and perform the following actions:
Click Add, to add a new task.
You can use Indent or Outdent actions to create a hierarchy.
You can use Delete to delete an existing task.
You can also Move Up or Move Down tasks.
Specify the Predecessor, to define the prerequisite of each task.
You can specify Effort by specifying or editing the following columns. Change in any of these columns will result a change in other two columns:
Specify Effort in hours.
Specify Start Date and End Date
Specify Duration in days
In the Resource column click add to either select an existing resource of click Create to create a new resource (generic). You will have to assign a role to the resource. You can assign more than one resource for each task, i.e. the resources you would need in order to complete the task.
In the Summary tab, you will notice that the Estimated Labor Cost is generated based on resource assignment and effort.
Create Project (using Project Template) For Quote Line
Open the quote, “business Central Implementation for Adventure Works” in this example (see Episode 11).
On the Quote Lines, edit the Project Based Line, “Business Central Implementation Services” in this example.
In the Project field, click New Project.
In the quick create form, specify the following fields and click Save and Close:
Name Description
Is Template = No
Project Manager (automatically selected)
Project Template
Contracting Unit
Estimated Start Date
This will create the Project. Now click on the Project to open it.
In the Schedule tab, you will notice that the project is created and Schedule is generated based on the template. The dates are populated based on the actual start date we provided and the resourcing is available as well.
In the Team tab, you can see the resource part of the team, however, right now a Generic Resource is selected as this is still in planning stage. When the Project is commenced, actual Bookable Resource will be selected.
In the Estimates tab, you can see the estimates:
You can group the data by Category, Role, Resource.
You can see the Time-Phase by Cost (i.e. the cost you r company will incur) or Sale (i.e. what you will be charging customer).
You can see the Time-Scale by Day, Week, Month, Year.
You can make price changes and use Update Prices to refresh the data.
In the Summary tab, you will see that the Estimates are populated automatically.
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.
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.
Following
is the process flow that you can follow in Project Service Automation:
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.
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.
![ProJe
Opportunity
Pro]
Quotes
p rOJ
Proje
Planning
Contracts
Alloca e
Resources](https://i0.wp.com/www.tech-quantum.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/PSA-Process-Flow.png?fit=800%2C374&ssl=1)
