Dynamics AX 2009 CRM implementation: the Fit gap analysis and solutions

Fast Quotations with Dynamics AX

How to increase sales agents productivity using Microsoft Dynamics AX

Julien-Robert Lecadou lecadou@gmail.com

Cover: Bete tribe Mask of Ivoiry Coast in West Africa

Contents

Introduction to CRM ............................................................................................................................................... 3

Project background ................................................................................................................................................. 3

Project Objectives ................................................................................................................................................... 4

Methodology and Scope of this paper ................................................................................................................... 4

Project Requirement ............................................................................................................................................... 4

Send quotations directly from Dynamics AX 2009 to Customers and Prospects ............................................... 4

1. Problem of the sending the sales quotation .......................................................................................... 5

2. Another problem: how to build the email message that will be sent out ............................................. 5

3. Solution: Create and send a sales quotation .......................................................................................... 5

Create a Sales Quotation Item .......................................................................................................................... 10

1. Problem one: We create new items 90% of the time send a sales quotation ..................................... 10

2. Problem two: Clone Quotation items for fast customization ............................................................... 10

3. Problem three: It is very difficult to search sales quotation items ....................................................... 10

4. Solution : Create a sales quotation item .............................................................................................. 11

Create Inventory item when the opportunity is won ....................................................................................... 14

1. Challenge : Sales Quotation Item does not exist .................................................................................. 14

2. Solution: Create Inventory Item ........................................................................................................... 14

Conclusion............................................................................................................................................................. 15

Introduction to CRM

As per Robert Shaw (1991), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a widely implemented model for

managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients, and sales prospects. It involves using

technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes - principally sales activities, but also

those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win

new clients; nurture and retain those the company already has; entice former clients back into the fold; and

reduce the costs of marketing and client service.

For Ella Nooren (2012) “Customer Relationship Marketing can be described as the practice of using

marketing activities to establish, develop, and maintain successful long-term customer relationships. CRM

has numerous implications for market planning, employee training, advertising, promotion, public relations,

direct marketing, package design, and more.”

Project background

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 contains a CRM module that allows the users to interact with the

organization’s business relations. Note that the CRM module was replaced by the Sales and Marketing

Module in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 (RTM, R2, R3). While the CRM module is a great module, there are

few features that needed to be improved in order to make the CRM module fully functional.

The document is dedicated on how to make the sales quotation feature in the CRM module more powerful

and also avoid the usage of multiple software in order to send, amend and track sales quotations.

Project Objectives

- Being able to create and send quotations to customers quickly

- Being able to synchronize emails between Dynamics AX 2009 and Outlook 2010 and

Microsoft Exchange

- Allow dynamics AX to synchronize documents with designed customer’s account

- Create Items only if the opportunity is won

- Update the Sales Quotation reports

Methodology and Scope of this paper

A Microsoft Dynamics AX implementation generally uses the Microsoft Dynamics SureStep implementation

methodology. According to the SureStep methodology, the Analysis, Design, Development, Deployment

and Operation phases represent the five phases of solution delivery, with the Operation phase also

encompassing post-delivery activities, covering the transition of the production solution to support.

Project Requirement

Before we start our project, we have attended several meetings and given multiple trainings to the end

users. These meetings and trainings were designed to help us understand what users are looking for when

it comes to the Sales Quotation functionality. At the end of these meetings and training cycles, we came up

with two documents:

The Functional Requirement Document

And the Function Design Document

Below are the main points of the improvements that concern the sales quotation functionality

Send quotation directly from Dynamics AX 2009 to Customers and Prospects

Create Sales Quotation Item

Search Sales Quotation item for future quotation

Create Inventory item when the opportunity is won

We will not discuss about the details of the function design documents here, rather we will

show you how we have implemented the functional design document.

Send quotations directly from Dynamics AX 2009 to Customers and Prospects

1. Problem of the sending the sales quotation

In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 CRM standard version, you can create and “send” a sales quotation to a

customer or a prospect. Even though, Microsoft Dynamics AX “sees” that quotation as “sent” to the business

relation, that quotation was never sent to the business relation.

The standard version of Dynamics AX CRM just acknowledges that a sales quotation has been created by

the sales representative. So, when the sales representative (here the user) clicks update >>Quotation, the

status of the quotation changes from “Created” to “Sent”.

Thus, our goal is to operationalize this feature so that the sales representative can actually make a real sales

quotation to a business relation without leaving Microsoft Dynamics AX.

2. Another problem: how to build the email message that will be sent out

The second issue with the Standard version of the Sales Quotation form in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, is

that there is no way can write an email message using this form.

3. Solution: Create and send a sales quotation

Scenario: Sales Quotation to Zin+ AXlab Shoes (Zin+)

A customer Zin+ wants to use a new type of plastic bags to protect its shoes boxes. During

the negotiation there will be several quotations that will be sent to Marthe Domoro, to the

buyer and the shipping manager of Zin+.

Procedure

Create a Sales Quotation

To Create a sales Quotation go to : CRM >> Common Form >> Sales Quotation details

In the Sales Quotation Form, click on the New Icon or Ctrl + N to create a New Sales Quotation

In the Create Quotation form do the

following :

In the Account type field, select

“customer”

In the customer Account Select “Zin+

AXlab Shoes”

Contact Field Select “Marthe Domoro”

Leave everything else as is and click on

the “OK” button

Now , we will create 1 sales quotation line

for the following bag “API-

28x12x50HDXHD1LAVOS-100”. At this

stage of the negotiation, we are only

sending 5 cases as a sample.

Email message

Note: We decided to use the document fieldgroup in the Other tab, to implement the emailing

functionality.

Benefit : The document fieldgroup uses preset texts. These texts are entered through the

Quotation Group in Setup >> Contact Management >> Quotation group . We will go in details

about this matter in this document. In the Quotation form ( upper pan), click on the “Other”. Find the Email fieldgroup and do the following : In the Subject field select : Quotation In the Message field select : Default message In the footer field select : sales

Send the sales quotation by Email

Note: The sales quotation email will be sent by email . Mrs. Marthe Domoro email is .

Click on the Update button located in the

upperpan of the quotation form and then

click on Quotation The Send Quotation form will open as shown below

Notice that the “OK” button is not activated. In order to activate the OK button, you need to

preview the quotation report. To do this , click on the Preview button .

Here is the snapshot of the sales quotation report.

Note : The OK button is now activated and the system will open outlook for a final inspection before you can send the email to your customer or prospect.

When the Outlook security dialog box appears , click on the Allow button to proceed.

Here is the snapshot from the Outlook client window

Note: You can see that every information about Marthe was prefilled by Microsoft Dynamics AX into Microsoft Outlook. ( Here MS Outlook 2013)

You can now hit the Send button in MS Outlook to send the quotation to the customer/Prospect

Checking with Microsoft Exchange

You can see that using a simple process, any sales quotation sent out of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 will be available on Microsoft Exchange. Using Microsoft Exchange server , it is now possible to access your email anywhere and do more with it.

Create a Sales Quotation Item

A Sales Quotation Item can be considered as a virtual item (or a phantom item) that only

exists for the quotation activities’ purposes. One of the benefits of using a sales quotation item

is that you can create as much items that you want without impacting your inventory table.

Thus only exist in the inventory, items that have been ordered at least once by a customer.

The Sales Quotation Items are very important where people sell lots of customizable items and

not necessary where you have few items that can be maintained in inventory.

Note 1: In this section of the document, we will use the sales quotation in

conjunction with the product builder form.

Note 2: the user should have the access right to configure an item or more

precisely the access right to use the Product builder.

1. Problem one: We create new items 90% of the time send a sales quotation

A sales agent working in the customizable manufacturing environment, usually makes lots

of quotation to customers and prospects. The conversion ratio is very slim. For example a sales

agent can make 100 quotation for 200 different items without converting any of these

quotations into an actual sales order.

The problem here is that if he /she is using the Standard version of Microsoft Dynamics

AX 2009, he/she will be creating 200 items into the inventory table. And because the items will

never be ordered, the inventory table will end up with lots of empty items (or I call them

Scraps items).

2. Problem two: Clone Quotation items for fast customization

You cannot clone an item from a sales order line when you are Microsoft Dynamics AX

2009 standard version. The sales agent may need to clone a sales quotation line when he/she

needs to go faster.

3. Problem three: It is very difficult to search sales quotation items

With Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 standard version, you cannot search sales quotation

items because there is no such type of items.

4. Solution : Create a sales quotation item

Scenario: Create a Sales Quotation

Add a new sales quotation line from Product Builder

Note: In the previous example, we copied an item from another sales quotation that was sent to another customer.

We will get back to that functionality later.

- Open the Sales Quotation

Form using this path: CRM

>> Common Form >> Sales

Quotation details.

- Locate the previous sales

quotation and click on the

lower pan of the form to

activate that area of the

form.

- Click on the “Create using PBA

“to open Product Builder.

In the Product Builder Form enter the characteristics of the new bag. Here we will enter width : 24 ; Gusset = 6; Gauge : 1.2; length: 50 and the bag color will be Brown. After filling out the product builder form and clicking on the “OK” button and new sales quotation line is created as shown below

You can see that the new item

number is “SQI000046” and in the General attributes” field group (on the right cell) contains the attributes of the item.

To send the updated sales quotation, proceed as it was illustrated in the Scenario 1

Below is the snapshot of the updated sales quotation report. You will notice that the item number “SQI000049” does not appear anywhere in the quotation report because we only show the item description in the report or the requested name given by the prospect or the customer

Search a Sales Quotation Item

To open the Search Quotation Item Form go to :

CRM>> Inquiries >> Search Sales Quotation Item

Quotation search can be used to search and to filter Sales Quotations and Sales Quotation Items and by : Sales Unit Employee Customer and Business Account ( Prospect) Material , Color, Width and Gauge

Copy Sales Quotation Item

There are 2 ways to copy a sales quotation item, when you are using the sales quotation form.

The first way is to copy a sales quotation from the opened sales quotation

The second way is to copy a sales quotation item from another sales quotation

Copy from an opened sales quotation

Open the sales quotation that was sent to customer Zin+.

There should be 2 sales quotation lines.

Now, we will add a new line by copying the sales quotation

item “SQI000046”.

To do this, click on the “Copy this line” button

This will open the product builder with every fields prefilled.

We will change the color of the bag from Brown to Black and

make it individually folded. Then we will click on the “OK”

button to finalize the change.

The sales quotation line number 3 will be created as shown below.

Copy from another sales quotation

To copy a sales quotation item from another

sales quotation, do this :

- Create a new sales quotation

- In the lower part of the sales quotation line, click

on Functions >>Copy from all button

- In the copy From All form, highlight sales

quotation from the Quotation tab. (Or click on

“Search quotation item “ button to quickly find

the desired item )

- Select the desired item and click on the OK

button to proceed.

- The copy is complete

Create Inventory item when the opportunity is won

1. Challenge : Sales Quotation Item does not exist

We created the sales quotation item to avoid the creation of inventory items every time a

customer or a prospect requests a sales quotation. Now that we have successfully

implemented the solution of that issue, we face a new challenge that is to: covert the Sales

Quotation Item(s) into inventory items.

2. Solution: Create Inventory Item

The following walkthrough will help you understand who we convert a sales quotation

Item into an inventory item. The conversion of a sales quotation item into an inventory item

happens when we are confirming a sales quotation. In other words,

Scenario: Confirm a sales quotation

The customer Zin+ has accepted our sales quotation of the new type of plastics bags that it will

use to protect its shoe boxes. After a back and forth emailing and several quotations to Mrs.

Marthe Domoro, the buyer and shipping manager of Zin+, the sales agent was able to win the

opportunity. When an opportunity is won, we will have to confirm the quotation and at the

same time we will convert the sales quotation item into an inventory item

Procedure

Confirm a Sales Quotation

In this example we will confirm the sales SQ-00043 sent to Customer 18208 “Zin+AXlab

Shoes”. The confirmation process starts with the conversion of the sales quotation item into

an inventory item.

Note:

- Open the Sales Quotation Form using

this path: CRM >> Common Form >>

Sales Quotation details.

- Locate the sales quotation sent to

customer Zin+. Here the sales

quotation number is SQ-000043.

- In the upper part of the sales quotation

form, click on the

Updates>>Confirmation button to

confirm the sales quotation

The sales quotation confirmation will also convert the sales quotation into a sales order.

After clicking on the confirmation button

a new form will pop up every time an

item is not found in the inventory.

And that is the case here, the sales

quotation item “SQI000048” does not

exist because it is a sales quotation item.

During the confirmation, we will give it a

meaningful name, we will call in Zin+ bag

strong and click on the insert button to

insert the newly created item into the

inventory table.

Conclusion

The sales quotation process is an important activity for an organization’s Sales and

Marketing department. We have used the power of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 to create a

tool that will ultimately increase the productivity of the sales department agents.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 is a powerful system that has lots of prebuilt features, and

when well customized, can greatly improve a company’s business process.

In this document, we customized the following features that the CRM module of

Dynamics AX 2009 was lacking:

Sending the sales quotation document by email directly from Microsoft

Dynamics AX 2009

Creating a Sales Quotation Item to avoid filling the inventory table with

unnecessary items that will otherwise never have been produced

Creating the Inventory Item when confirming a sales quotation

This project is part of the whole CRM implementation into Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, where we

will enhance the Business Relation form functionality as well as many other features such as call

handling, activities and the email synchronization with MS Outlook and ultimately Microsoft

Exchange.

Reference

Robert Shaw (1991), Computer Aided Marketing & Selling, Butterworth Heinemann

Ella Noreen (2012), the Impact of CRM on Fujitsu as a Service Providing Company, Retrieve