Dynamics AX provides the ability to quote to prospective business relations or existing customers. When quoting within Dynamics AX, you can easily create an activity or opportunity during the quotation process. This functionality feeds back to the CRM module and allows an opportunity to be tracked using standard lead tracking criteria (i.e. anticipated close, probability % of close, etc.).
Providing visibility to alternate quotations for the same opportunity is standard functionality within Dynamics AX through both CRM and Trade & Logistics quotations. The basic use of this function is to create the original quotation, tied to the opportunity / lead. The second quotation, or alternate quote, is then ‘linked’ to the original quotation using the Alternate Quote functionality. The screen provides a list of existing quotes for the same business prospect or customer to select from. Once selected, both quotations become very visible from the CRM opportunity.
The ability to manage multiple / alternate quotations for the same opportunity (despite the business relation or customer) is necessary to avoid inaccurate results when providing management analysis for open opportunities. The standard Dynamics AX alternate quotation functionality cleanly provides this data.
But, what happens in the case where the alternate quotation can be a quote to a different business prospect or customer but for the same opportunity? When using the standard functionality of an Alternate Quotation quotes, other than to the original quote business prospect or customer, will not be selectable in the drop down that appears (as stated above). To work around this limitation, select the original quote, access the Alternate quotation function, and type the quotation number of the alternate quotation in the quotation field. Two things occur when this process is completed.
The opportunity ID is tied to the alternate quotation and,
All quotes, regardless of whether it is tied to the same business prospect or customer, will appear in the list of quotations for the opportunity / lead. Note: The original opportunity will carry the original business prospect or customer.
When completed, regardless of the business relation or customer, multiple quotations for the same opportunity can be linked together to provide accurate management reporting.
There are a few ways to slice and dice your sales personnel in Dynamics AX. Some are in the CRM module and some are in the AR module.
The Sales Unit: In order to report sales by department, team or individual, you must group sales personnel into sales units. Units can be defined by an area of responsibility such as geographical area, customer size, and customer type. From this form you can create a team or unit, staff it and assign managers, and assign activities. Sales targets are set by Sales units and Sales unit members. CRM > Setup > Sales management > Sales unit/team
The Sales Group: Also known as the Sales Commission group, this is where you assign employees to the “commission groups” that have employee and commissions set to them. First you set up the group, then assign employees and their share of commissions. AR > Setup > Commission > Sales group
On question I get from clients is “Can I assign a sales person to a customer?”. Well yes and no. You can assign a Sales group to a customer (NOTE! This is actually the Sales Commission Group). Since the sales group is tied to employees, then you are in effect tying employees to a customer. If you need to tie one employee to a customer, then create a one employee team with 100% of the distribution. It is important to note that both the Sales group and the Sales unit can both be designated on the sales order form.
AX 2009 includes SysImport functionality which can be used to import leads and contacts. Using this usually requires some development in Microsoft Visual Studio, but Microsoft has made available the files necessary to get this going without development. The files are available here: CRMImports.zip
Here’s the process:
1. Basic >Setup > Import > Documents
In Dynamics AX2009, the Global Address Book is a repository for every Person OR Organization that your organization comes into contact with. When you create a customer, vendor, employee, business relation, contact or competitor, a record is automatically created in the global address book. This is handy, as you have visibility of relations between all people and organizations.
However, when some important contact data does not synch up between, say, a business relation’s credit rating and the corresponding contact record, it can leave users scratching their heads and searching in vain through parameter settings. The error lies in the limitation of synchronization in the Global Address Book. Only certain common fields are shared:
• Name
• Address
• Communicaitions (Telephone, fax, etc)
• Number of employees
• Organization number
• Category
One of the nice upgrades in AX2009 is the addition of Opportunities in the CRM module. During a recent AX2009 -CRM module training event, it became clear that the term “Opportunities” doesn’t always fit nicely into the way some organizations think about their CRM process. Here’s a quick overview of Opportunities and how they fit into AX.
One way to think about Opportunities is your Pre-Sales Bucket. This bucket contains everything you need to create, develop and close sales deals. Opportunities pick up where Leads end. In most organizations it is important for there to be separate definitions for recording and working with potential-sales that are unqualified (Leads), and qualified (Opportunities). In AX2009, Opportunities keep up with:
Communications
Contacts
Competitors
Partners
Products being quoted
Quoted Prices
Quantities
Sales Stage
Associated documentation
Opportunities are not necessarily companies, and they can contain multiple contacts. From AX2009:
When your lead record has become an opportunity record, you can start to track more sales-related information such as quotations and competitors. Tracking the competition for the sale can give you valuable information about how to win the opportunity and gain another customer.
When you manage your opportunities, you can also give probability percentages and prognosis ratings to the opportunity and track the probability percentage, or chance that the opportunity will become a customer.
As soon as you have provided quotations and the contact at the opportunity has made a decision, you can track whether you won the opportunity and the reason why you won it. If you have lost the opportunity, you can list why and to whom you lost the opportunity, as this information might be useful later.
The slide below illustrates how Opportunities and Leads fit into the AX2009 – CRM flow:
AX 2009 has a lot of great upgrades in the CRM area, including the use of linked and alternative quotations. Sometimes, a customer may request two or more quotations that may relate to mutually exclusive projects or purchases. The first quotation is the parent quotation and the suceeding quotations are children.
To link the quotations:
CRM–>Quotations Details –> Functions –> Alternative Quotations. This will open the competing quotations form. From here you can select the quotes you would like to link.
Some important points to remember:
When a linked quotation is won or lost, you must manually update the related quote to keep the integrity of the sales statistics. But remember if the linked quotaion is lost, you should cancel the related quotes, not update as ‘lost’. This would have a negative effect on sales statistics.
Linked quotations are only available for quotes in the same business relations. A client recently requested linked quotations for different contractors on the same project, but AX currently does not allow this.
It seems like the more customers know about the Dynamics AX 2009 CRM module, the more they seem to like it as their CRM solution. We have had a few inquires lately about Dynamics AX 2009 CRM-module integration with Microsoft Outlook. Outgoing messages from Dynamics AX are stored in Outlook, and lists of email address can be managed as well. “Contacts” in the CRM module has an “Add to Outlook Contacts” button in the ribbon, but without the proper set-up, you won’t get very far. The following quick tip should get you started. First confirm that the user’s email address is set-up properly in AX. Human Resources » Common Forms » Employee » Select Employee (Contact Information Tab) Next, get back to the CRM module and go Setup » MS Office Outlook » MS Office Outlook Setup Wizard. Begin the wizard. When you run the wizard, you’ll see that it will pick up the current user’s name and you are able to use current Microsoft Office Outlook profile. From here you can select which folder to use for syncing Contacts, Calendars and Tasks. Remember you can always set-up new Outlook folders if you need to. Finish the Wizard. In CRM, go to Contacts and find the Add to Outlook Contacts button on the ribbon. Please note that this is not available in the Contact Details, just the Contacts. Now you can select the Contact you want synchronized, and you should get an Infolog that tells you the contact has been added for synchronization. Next go to CRM Periodic » MS Office Outlook synchronization » Synchronize. This should synchronize your contacts or any other Outlook item you have set for syncing. If you’re not into periodic syncing, then they should synch automatically every time you close and reenter Dynamics AX 2009. Now open up Outlook, check out Contacts, and you should see the contacts you have selected. If you had any Tasks, Calendar Items, they would have synced up as well. For more advanced options, the Mapping feature allows you to determine synchronization direction and types of data to sync up. Questions or request for assistance If you have additional questions or need assistance, please feel free to contact us at I.B.I.S., Inc. Brad KoontzSenior ConsultantI.B.I.S., Inc. 30 Technology Parkway South, Ste. 400 Norcross, Georgia 30092 Direct: (404) 435-1668 | Main: (770) 368-4000 | Fax: (770) 368-1186 | Mobile (404) 435-1668 bkoontz@ibisinc.com www.ibisinc.com Two-Time Winner of Microsoft Dynamics Outstanding Partner of the Year – US 2007 Winner of the Worldwide Dynamics GP Partner of the Year
