- [Bob] Hello and welcome.
The Microsoft Dynamics Migration Program
is an exciting opportunity for our customers.
Microsoft is making a significant investment
as a way for older AX customers to move to Dynamics 365.
Our offer includes a two day, paid assessment engagement.
The compelling reason for you to move
is to take advantage of the avalanche
of new functionality in Dynamics.
This video is intended as a short teaser demo
to share the history of Dynamics 365
Finance and Operations since AX2009.
Our speakers from Microsoft today are Tom Higginbotham,
Deb Vermilion and me, Bob Pederson.
We are Dynamics technical specialists.
In this slide, you see the original release date
of AX2009 in 2008.
Dynamics AX has over 85 major module adds
and enhancements since then.
The product has changed in five big ways.
It is a cloud-based app running on Microsoft Azure.
The updated UI is modern
and uses an Edge, Chrome or Safari browser client.
The app can be access on most desktop and mobile devices.
Development is now done via extensions
using Microsoft Azure Dev Ops.
Five, Microsoft invested heavily to improve the product
to compete in the Tier One space.
This demo is in three pieces.
Come on, let's go.
The agenda for the video today
consists of three main topics, as you see here.
We added some video timestamps,
so viewers could move to other sections quickly.
Note the timestamps are pretty close.
Enjoy.
- [Tom] Notable improvements
and enhancements to Dynamics 365,
beyond transformation to a cloud-based service
are noted here.
I'll cover a few of these over the next few minutes.
A collection of prebuilt analytic dashboards
are included with the service
and are based on the Microsoft Power BI
visualization platform.
These dashboards are available automatically
and, unlike prior versions of AX,
require no additional purchase or configuration.
Business users consume and interact with the analytics
just like any other Power BI report.
In addition, users can edit the analytics
in the Power BI authoring experience.
Dual Write is the data integration service
used specifically by Dynamics 365
and is configured in this
low code/no code configuration page.
Dual Write is a tightly coupled, near real time,
and bidirectional integration
between finance and supply chain apps
and customer engagement apps in the common data service.
Any create, update or delete in either direction
results in writes in near real time
to the common data service.
For example, creating a customer in finance and supply chain
creates an account in the common data service
and vice versa.
Lifecycle Services is the implementation,
support, and collaboration portal
for Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain.
It delivers a single view of the project implementation
that all stakeholders in the organization can visit
to see the up-to-date status of the project at any time.
LCS also provides visibility
and management access to the environments that are deployed
in the cloud service subscription.
The Task Recorder allows you
to create tutorial-based experiences
that can guide users through specific business processes
that you've implemented.
Task recordings are published
and made available to business users
in the online help system.
This allows new users or new hires
to get up to speed quickly on the system
or serve as reference for tasks
that users infrequently perform.
Finally, task guides can generate documentation
in the form of Word documents, including screen shots.
This concludes this brief discussion
of technology and platform enhancements
to Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain,
above and beyond Dynamics AX.
- [Bob] Hello, here you see a list of the major modules
and enhancements since AX2009.
We will look at a few of the major ones.
Warehouse Management was acquired in July 2013
from the Dynamics ISV Blue Horseshoe for version AX2012.
It features advanced warehouse management,
supporting all inbound and outbound inventory tasks.
Also, supporting directed put aways and wave picking,
location and palletizing functions.
RF and handheld devices
support automatically generated work.
Also, bar code and labeling, load and shipment building,
with TMS integration.
TMS, or Transportation Management,
extends the WMS to automate rate and route calculations,
plus freight reconciliations.
Dynamics Retail released in AX 2012
as an omni-channel retail system,
unifying the back office, in-store,
call centers and eCommerce.
Modern POS and mobile POS support
are both featured as configurable interfaces
across multiple hardware devices and platforms.
In Dynamics 365 Commerce
customers can now create, customize,
and deploy retail websites
using the new Commerce functionality.
Dynamics 365 Commerce releases in 2020
as one Dynamics product,
bringing all the pieces together as a single solution
to provide a delightful shopping journey
for consumers across the different touchpoints.
Benefits to Dynamics customers include
building brand loyalty, increasing revenue
through improved employee productivity,
optimizing operations to reduce cost
and driving supply chain efficiencies.
You can read about how Patagonia
and Chateau Ste. Michelle Wineries
use Dynamics 365 Commerce at Microsoft.com.
Lean Manufacturing was introduced in AX 2012
and complemented our AX Discrete Manufacturing
to make it a mixed-mode model
for both pull and push styles of production.
Lean uses kanbans and fixed schedule and event styles
to support made to order and make to stock
types of planning and production.
Process Manufacturing was introduced in AX 2012
as an ISV acquisition,
fully formed with formulas and recipes,
by-products and coproducts, and reverse manufacturing.
Process batch order use batch sizes and batch attributes,
can account for scalability, potency and yield management.
We could address the needs of industries like pharma,
chemical, proteins and consumer packaged goods.
Dynamics manufacturers can now adjust production real-time,
create accurate process models,
account for loss and yields,
and get full visibility and traceability.
It gives them a tailored, mixed-mode production style
that Discrete systems alone could not offer.
This concludes the discussion of changes made
to Supply Chain Management in Dynamics 365.
Now, let's turn it over to Deb.
- [Deb] So many great things have happened
with Financial since AX 2009
and continue to be enhanced in D365 for finance.
I will touch on four or five of these key enhancements
in the next few minutes.
The first big change
was expansion of the financial framework
for unlimited financial dimensions.
This allows for table-driven dimensions,
such as items, customers, projects,
but also adding your own custom dimensions
that you may set up for unlimited traceability
in the ledger.
Along with that came shared chart of accounts
across legal entities
and configuration of account structures,
which allows you to control what dimensions
can be used with what accounts
and if blanks are allowed,
minimizing financial posting errors.
I love our two-way Excel integration,
as well as the predefined Excel template
where the business logic editing and data selection
let's me create general journal entries directly in Excel
and publish back to the client.
This can also be done with master data files,
improving efficiency and productivity of maintaining data.
A huge benefit of the new UI is the workspaces
that provide actionable tabs, key visuals, lists,
and links to your functional activities.
This Credit and Collection Workspace
is key for monitoring credit status,
for aged balances, over credit limits and past dues.
You can also organize credit collection process
with the use of our case framework
to formalize and workflow the collection process.
Another major addition
is the new Enterprise Credit Management module,
to proactively automate credit cases, suggest credit limits,
manage credit risk scores, put orders on hold,
and much more to reduce bad debts and improve cash flow.
One of my favorite other workspaces
is the Financial Period Close Workspace.
This lets you track your financial period close process
across multiple companies, functional areas and people.
This formal organization and tracking
allows companies to close books faster
and make financial decisions quicker.
One CFO at a large home furnishing and lending retailer
said they reduced the closed process by 40%.
Another major addition was Revenue Recognition Management,
which provides automation to help comply with IFRS 15
and Accounting Standards ASC 606.
Its built in capabilities to automatically defer
and recognize revenue based on ASC 606
and full traceability back to the source document
from general ledger is key in complying to these standards.
I look forward to drilling down
in these new, amazing capabilities with you,
as well as many more.
- [Bob] Look for deeper dives
into these three topics in the future.
Thanks for your time today.