Relationships in Sales and marketing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM

 
You can use Sales and marketing to obtain, store, and use various types of customers in the sales and marketing flow. This data includes the original marketing initiative, future follow-up action, and additional stages of clients becoming a real customer.

Below you may find the illustration of the Relationships from Sales and marketing

Business scenario:

When any responsible person finds a potential customer or account who hasn't yet done any business with the company, such customer will be recorded as the Prospect in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM.

When Prospect is recorded, company lacks of information from him (which products he's interested in, what is the time frame he's planning the purchase or what his budget for purchase is). Upon communication, sales people qualify them, communicate with them to figure out what specifically they are interested in, when they plan the purchase and what their budget is. As the result, prospect get's converted to Opportunity.

Another branch of finding the potential customers is marketing. Marketing team might execute different campaigns to attract new clients and generate new leads. If client responds to marketing campaign, such customer will be recorded as the Lead. Lead it is a not yet qualified opportunity. 

Once lead is handed over from marketing to sales, sales people qualify them, communicate with them to figure out all the details. This process is called lead qualification and as a result of this process lead, if he meets qualification criteria (which may be different from company to company), get's converted to opportunity. 

Opportunity is then taken by sales people and usually goes through a series of steps that are a part of sales process. Sales job is to convert opportunities (qualified leads) to Customers.

Royalty contract management in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM

Royalty contract management is intended for companies that exercise the right to use a third party's assets and/or intellectual property.

Business scenario:  

A company (the "licensee") has an agreement to pay royalties to a third party (the "licensor") for use of their intellectual property, for instance, designs for the manufactured products. Payment terms are monthly based on the recorded sales invoices. 

Walkthrough:

First off all, you will need to create a contract with intellectual property owner

Create new Royalty agreement (Accounts payable > Broker and royalties > Royalty agreements)

In the Cumulate sales by field select Invoice to calculate the royalty amount every time that a sales order line is invoiced

In the Approval required option set to No, since we don\t want a royalty program owner approve the claims before a royalty can be turned into an invoice that is payable to the licensor.

Set the Accrual account and Expense account fields that will receive accrued amounts during the intermediate stage between approval and processing.

Under Selection tab in the lower part of the page select the products that qualify for a royalty fee.

Under Royalty amounts tab in the lower part of the page set up royalty rates

Click Validation button to validate the agreement. After validation agreement would be closed for editing. 

Note: If you need to change the agreement, click Validation button and check Remove validation flag. It will work if you don't have unprocessed claims. 

The next steps is to sell products that qualify for a royalty fee and generate a claim

Create new Sales order

Add line that was added to the Royalty agreement

Click Sales order line > View > Price details > Royalty FastTab to see royalty fee

Note: If you cannot see Price details option, navigate to Accounts receivable parameters page, on the Prices tab, on the Price details FastTab, set the Enable price details option to Yes.

Once sales order is invoiced, royalty claim will be generated.

To view all the claims, select Accounts payable > Broker and royalties > Royalty claims.

If Approval required option was set to No, royalty claim will be automatically processed, a vendor invoice for the royalty amount will be created and posted. As a result, the vendor's payable account is credited, and the Purchase expenditure for expense account for the category defined in the parameters is debited.

If Approval required option was set to Yes, royalty claim will NOT be automatically processed. A/P clerk must complete the royalty claim. On the Royalty claims page, on the Action Pane, A/P clerk needs to select Approve and then Process buttons. The following events occur upon process:

- the claim's status is changed to Completed:

- a Royalty accrual journal posting reverses the previous interim amounts on the accrual payable and expense amounts.

- a vendor invoice for the royalty amount is created and posted.

More details can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/finance/accounts-payable/royalty-contract

How to scrap the defective units in Quarantine order in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM.

Let's imagine the following scenario: 

The company has 6 units of the Surface Pro 128 GB that is under inspection in quarantine zone. Quality inspector finds out that 2 of them are defective and need to be scrapped. What are the steps to perform this operation in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM?

Create Quarantine order for 6 pieces of the Surface Pro 128 GB (Inventory management > Periodic tasks > Quality management > Quarantine orders).

Quarantine order status is Created.

Notice that inventory transactions with the reference Quarantine order will be created:

Issue status is On order from the main warehouse

Receipt status is Ordered to the Quarantine warehouse

Start the order inspection by clicking Start button. Quarantine order status is Started.

Notice that inventory transactions with the reference Quarantine order will be updated:

Issue status is Deducted from the main warehouse

Receipt status is Received to the Quarantine warehouse

Issue status is Reserved physical from the quarantine warehouse

Receipt status is Ordered to the main warehouse

From Quarantine order, select Split function

Enter a split quantity of 2

Notice that new quarantine order of 2 units is created. Status and transactions are inherited from the parent order.

Select the Scrap function

Enter a scrap quantity. 

Notice that inventory transactions with the reference Quarantine order will be updated:

Issue status is Sold from the main warehouse

Receipt status is Purchased to the Quarantine warehouse

Issue status is Sold from the quarantine warehouse

Receipt transaction to the main warehouse is removed.

Quarantine order status is Ended.

End the order inspection by clicking End button for the 4 units. Quarantine order status is Ended.

Notice that inventory transactions with the reference Quarantine order will be updated:

Issue status is Sold from the main warehouse

Receipt status is Purchased to the Quarantine warehouse

Issue status is Sold from the quarantine warehouse

Receipt status is Purchased to the main warehouse

Commitment types in the Sales/Purchase agreements in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM

Default commitment type must be selected upon sales/purchase agreements creation. Each option is defined below, but generally speaking, an agreement needs to differentiate between value (price) and quantity.

The commitment type indicates whether you agree to purchase a specific quantity of products or products for a specific amount from the vendor. If you change the default commitment type, and then create a new line, the line is defined by the commitment type that you selected. 

Product quantity commitment: You agree to purchase a specific quantity of products; The lines that use this commitment type are defined by an item number, and the quantity and unit that were agreed on; The Amount field is not editable. 

Product value commitment: You agree to purchase products for a specific amount; The lines that use this commitment type are defined by an item number and the amount that was agreed on; The Quantity and Unit fields are not available. 

Product category value commitment: You agree to purchase for a specific amount and from a specific procurement category; The lines that use this commitment type are defined by a procurement category in the hierarchy of procurement categories and an amount; The Quantity and Unit fields are not available. 

Value commitment: You agree to purchase for a specific amount, and from a top-level procurement category or the category's subordinate categories; The lines that use this commitment type are defined by the top-level procurement category in the hierarchy of procurement categories and an amount; The Quantity and Unit fields are not available.

Data cache clean up in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM

In addition to the ways described here: https://gfeaxblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/ax-2012-clear-the-cache/

you have a couple of additional options to refresh the cache

#1 Run the class from browser

https://Environment name/?cmp=Company name&mi=SysClassRunner&cls=SysFlushAOD

Note: Please replace the text highlighted with your environment data

#2 Run Data cache clean up from the System parameters

System administration > Setup > Data cache > Data cache parameters > Cache refresh tab

PowerBI embedded in Tier1 and Tier2 environments

What is the proper way to access the data tables for Power BI in Production, Sandbox, etc?  

If you need to connect PowerBI to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations you have several options depends on the environment that you are using.

Tier2 (PROD/UAT/TEST) or Tier1 (developer onebox)

• Tier2 environments have Azure SQL AXDW database which can be configured for automatic updates using System Administration > Entity Store > Refresh all cubes/measures. In that form you can setup update recurrence(some cubes you can update once a day, some once an hour). To access data in Tier2 you can use Direct Query. Direct Query connection to the cubes (AXDW database) is done through  Azure SQL database

Note: ODATA has access only to AXDB and does not have access to cubes, only to AXDB data.

• Tier1 environments have only SQL databases and that is real headache to configure PowerBI embedded for onebox environment. It requires external AXDW configured in Azure. 

How to create KPI measure in Power BI

If you want to build KPI visuals as it is presented on the screen below, you can achieve this by adding new measure and use the following DAX expression

KPI =

SWITCH (

TRUE (),

[Profit/Loss] > 0, unichar(9650),

[Profit/Loss] < 0, unichar(9660)

)

If Profit/Loss value is negative, you will have black down-pointing small triangle. If Profit/Loss is positive, you will have black up-pointing small triangle.

If you want to have different colors based on the values, you may use Conditional formatting as it is presented below.