Better Together: Dynamics 365 & SAP — Part 6

In my previous blog post, we took a tour through Dynamics 365 Field Service and showed how it could be used to extend the reach of SAP for frontline workers executing work orders out in the field. Today, we’ll wrap up our Dynamics 365 and SAP series by looking at Dynamics 365 Project Operations.

D365 Project Operations: The Basics

Of all the CRM modules within the Dynamics 365 product suite, D365 Project Operations stands alone in the sense that it overlaps with both CRM and ERP functionality. In a nutshell, D365 Project Operations is an amalgamation of:

• A trimmed-down version of Dynamics 365 Sales
• Microsoft Project Online
• Some limited finance/operations capabilities that allow customers to either run D365 Project Operations in standalone fashion or in conjunction with ERP systems such as Dynamics 365 Finance or, as we’ll see in this blog post, SAP.

Figure 1: Positioning of D365 Project Operations within the Dynamics 365 Product Portfolio

From a process perspective, D365 Project Operations starts with the basic lead-to-opportunity process flow from D365 Sales. As deals progress through the pipeline, D365 Project Operations diverges from the typical sales process to guide users through the project planning and quoting process. Here, users can build high-level project plans and use those plans to generate estimates/quotes.

Then, as deals are won, the process evolves further as sales orders are replaced with project contracts. These contracts have a bit more meat on them to address some of the complexities of project-based delivery (e.g., different contract types, subcontracts, retainers, and so forth).

Once the project contract is in place, time and expenses captured in reference to the project are aggregated up and used to create pro-forma invoices. Here, customers have the option to determine where D365 Project Operations ends, and downstream ERP processes begin.

Project Management

As noted above, D365 Project Operations integrates Project Online. This means that whenever you define projects, you have that familiar Project look-and-feel to define your work breakdown structure (WBS) as shown in Figure 2 below. Behind the scenes, the raw data for the project and its tasks are stored in both Dataverse and Project Online. This enables you to slice and dice your project in several different ways.

Figure 2: Project Management Experience

Once you hammer out your project plan, you can lock in dates and assign resources to work on the project. Here, the project plan is broken down as follows:

• Project Tasks: Project plans are broken down into discrete tasks, which can further be divided into sub-tasks to create as complex of a WBS as desired.
• Resource Roles: Project tasks are setup to be carried out by different types of resources. In D365 Project Operations, these resource types are defined as resource roles. Depending on the nature of your business, you might define resource roles such as “Project Manager”, “Architect”, “Business Analyst”, or “Developer”.
• Bookable Resources: The actual individuals working on the project (e.g., John Smith or Jane Doe) are defined as bookable resources. Bookable resources point to both internal (employees) and external (contractors and other contingent labor resources) resources that will be working on the project. Depending on the project, a bookable resource might wear multiple hats and therefore perform in multiple resource roles.
• Price Lists: Price lists describe both the internal and external costs for resources working on the project. As you build your price lists, you can specify rates for your company as well as rates for vendors you work with. These rates are defined in terms of resource roles as opposed to actual resources, so there’s a lot of flexibility in terms of how pricing is determined.

One of the benefits of building project plans this way is that you can start generic during the up-front sales cycle and then firm up details as the deal matures. For example, when building a quote, we can create a project plan that points to generic resources (operating within specific resource roles). This gives D365 Project Operations enough information to pull an estimate together during the quoting process and also provides flexibility to the sales and delivery teams that are (incrementally) building out the estimates.

If, during the course of this process, you discover gaps in resources, you can create a “resource requirement” which is basically a job requisition that you can use to kickstart recruiting efforts. These requirements are taken into account during the scheduling process and allow you to firm up your project assignments before the project starts in earnest.

Resource Management

Much like D365 Field Service, resources working on projects in D365 Project Operations are defined as bookable resources. Besides capturing the basic details for employees/contracts working on projects, bookable resources also define work schedules and other scheduling parameters. Here, you can also define “characteristics” which rate resource skills and track certifications. From a scheduling perspective, these characteristics are great for managing a searchable resource database that can be used to find resources that can work on a particular project requirement.

Figure 3: Managing Bookable Resources in D365 Project Operations

Time & Expense Management

Once project tasks are assigned and the project contract is finalized, resources can begin entering time and expenses against the project using either the web app (see Figure 4) or the standard mobile app. As you can see in Figure 4, D365 Project Operations is smart enough to know what project(s) and task(s) you’re assigned to, so your resources don’t have to go hunt down charge codes or anything like that.

Figure 4: Entering Time & Expenses in D365 Project Operations

D365 Project Operations: Advanced Features

In this section, we’ll highlight some of the more advanced features of D365 Project Operations. Here, once again we will see how Microsoft builds on the foundations of Power Platform and Azure to modernize and re-imagine project delivery processes.

Copilot in Dynamics 365 Project Operations

With the recent(ish) addition of Copilot in Dynamics 365, project managers now have a tool that they can use to streamline project management activities. Some notable features here include:

• The ability to autogenerate task plans based on the Copilot’s knowledge of similar projects.
• The ability to generate project status reports for both internal and external stakeholders.
• The ability to monitor project health and generate risk alerts.

For a live demonstration of how this works, check out this video: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/videoplayer/embed/RW15m5N.

Embedded Analytics

D365 Project Operations is stuffed with embedded analytical views that can be used to monitor project budgets, track resource utilization, profitability, and so forth. Figure 5 shows an example of the built-in budget tracking view within a project. These embedded views provide a single pane of glass for various user personas.

Figure 5: Project Budget Tracking

Schedule Board

Much like D365 Field Service, D365 Project Operations provides resource managers with a schedule board experience that they can use to build resource forecasts and assign resources to projects. As you can see in Figure 6, this schedule board is flexible and makes it easy to match up resources with project requirements.

Figure 6: Project Schedule Board

Invoice Management

As we noted earlier, the last step in the D365 Project Operations project sales process is the creation of a pro-forma invoice. Here, D365 Project Operations has built-in intelligence to work through the project contract terms to determine invoice frequency, milestone billing, and retainer calculations.

D365 Project Operations also includes built-in checks to ensure that items are not invoiced until they’re ready. As time and expenses are entered into the system, they are subjected to a flexible approval process that confirms the expense and flags the item as ready to invoice. These checks ensure that mistakes are not made during the billing process.

Figure 7: Generating Invoices in D365 Project Operations

Integrating with SAP (and Beyond)

Unlike the other CRM-related modules we’ve explored to this point in the blog series where the integration is mostly transactional, the integration between SAP and D365 Project Operations is somewhat more disconnected.

To put this into perspective, consider a use case we’ve worked through with one of our electric utility customers. This customer had a self-service portal that end customers would use to create service requests. Although these requests were logged as customer service orders in SAP, many of these requests spawned full-scale construction projects.

Before, those projects were largely processed by hand — with service consultants coordinating activities with local municipalities, construction subcontractors, electricians, and the end customer. D365 Project Operations provided a much more robust and flexible alternative.

1. Residential and/or commercial customers enter service requests in a self-service portal (Power Pages).
2. The details from the service request form were then used to create a project in D365 Project Operations.
3. Upon receipt, service consultants could jump in and start building out project plans from templates (e.g. overhead installations, major underground, etc.).
4. From here, a variety of project stakeholders could help refine the project plan and formulate an estimate for the construction work in D365 Project Operations.
5. Once all the details were worked out, the project header information was used to create a lightweight service order in SAP while the day-to-day project delivery tasks were managed in D365.
6. Finally, at the culmination of the project, the actuals and other details were used to create confirmations to settle up costs and so forth in SAP.

Figure 8: Big Picture Look at the Project Execution Process

In much the same way that D365 Customer Service and D365 Field Service extend the reach of SAP to frontline workers, D365 Project Operations provides service agents with a flexible and mobile-friendly user experience for managing unstructured projects.

If you’ve ever worked with the SAP Project System (PS) module, then you can probably appreciate the benefits that this offers by comparison. SAP PS certainly has its place, but it is not user friendly when it comes to managing ad hoc or unstructured projects — something D365 Project Operations excels at.

Whether the projects are initiated outside of SAP or in response to a service request that comes into SAP, the self-contained nature of D365 Project Operations means that you can pretty much use it to drive the entire project execution process and then just figure out how to settle up costs after the fact.

Final Thoughts

We hope that you’ve enjoyed this final installment of the Better Together series with SAP and Dynamics 365. Selecting the right CRM solution(s) for your business is never easy, but we hope that this series helped paint a picture of what’s possible whenever you use Dynamics 365 to extend the reach of SAP and level up user experiences.

If you’re wondering how this might work for your business, we’d be happy to sit down with you and walk through the possibilities. You can schedule a call with us at your convenience here. As always, we welcome feedback and would love to learn more about your CRM journey.