0Introduction
Dynamics 365 is a cloud service launched by Microsoft.
It combines its Cloud CRM and ERP services into a single offering.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the next generation of intelligent business applications in the cloud.
- Microsoft Dynamics AX - business software with global business management features for financial, human resources, and operations.
- Microsoft Dynamics GP - ERP software for small and midsize businesses: helps manage financials, supply chain, and employees
- Microsoft Dynamics NAV - Business Management solution that allows small and mid-sized companies manage their financials, supply chain, and people. It features multiple languages and multiple currencies.
- Microsoft Dynamics C5 can assist with finance, manufacturing, supply chains, analytics and electronic commerce for small and medium-sized enterprises.
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management application from Microsoft.
What is CRM?
CRM is an “analytics platform” which helps to reduce costs and increase the profitability of the organisation by organising and automating the business process.
CRM is a term that refers to practices, strategies and technologies that companies use to manage and analyse customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle, with the goal of improving business relationships.
CRM Deployments
- CRM Online: CRM Online is a cloud-based offering of Microsoft Dynamics CRM where all the backend processes (such as application servers, setups, deployments, databases, licensing, etc.) are managed on Microsoft servers.
CRM Online is a subscription-based offering which is more preferred for organisations who may not want to manage all the technicalities involved in a CRM implementation. You can get started with setting up your system in few days (not weeks, months or years) and access it on the web via your browser.
- CRM On-Premise :
CRM On-premise is a more customised and robust offering of Microsoft Dynamics CRM where the CRM application and databases will be deployed on your servers. This offering allows you to control all your databases, customisations, deployments, backups, licensing and all other network and hardware setups.
Organizations who want to go for a customised CRM solution prefers on-premise deployment as it offers better integration and customisation capabilities.
Office 365
Office 365 is the brand name Microsoft uses for a group of software and services subscriptions, which together provide productivity software and related services to subscribers.
For Consumers
The service allows the use of Microsoft Office apps on Windows and macOS, provides storage space on Microsoft's cloud storage service OneDrive, and grants 60 Skype minutes per month.
For Business Users
Office 365 offers service plans providing e-mail and social networking services through hosted versions of Exchange Server, Skype for Business Server, SharePoint and Office Online, integration with Yammer, as well as access to the Microsoft Office software.
Administrator in Office 365
Global Administrator
By default, the person who creates the account over Office 365 is the Global Administrator who is responsible for undertaking all the required actions and modifications in the applications which are available in the Instance of Office 365.
Roles of Global Administrator
Office 365 comes with a set of administrator roles that you can assign to users in your organisation. Each Admin role maps to common business functions and gives those people permissions to do specific tasks the Office 365 admin centre.
We have six admin options we can assign to a user
- Global, Billing
- User Management
- Service
- Password
- User Admin
Global Admin is the only Admin who can assign other admin roles.
We can have more than one global admin in your organisation. As a best practice, we recommend that only a few people in your company have this role. It reduces the risk to your business.
To give these administrators access to additional areas, such as the Sales, Marketing, and Service areas, a Dynamics 365 (online) license must be added to the Office 365 Global administrator or Office 365 Service administrator user account, by using the Office 365 admin centre.
Global Admin has the rights to purchase the license for the organisation also the Global Admin can decide the roles & responsibilities of individuals by authorising them appropriate access as per the job requirement. Global admin can view and access all required tabs.
Application Administrators:-
Administrators, specific to the Application which has been hosted under Office 365, who are responsible for undertaking the required actions over the Applications including managing the Instance: Updates: Upgrades: Health etc.
Roles of the Application Administrator
The Office 365 admin centre is a portal site rich in features for the administrator. Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) takes advantage of the features on this site to simplify and consolidate management of user accounts, billing, licensing, and more.
Backup and restore your CRM Online Instances
Protecting your CRM data and providing continuous availability of service is essential.
System Backups:
System backups take place without you having to do anything.
- All your instances are backed up.
- System backups occur daily.
- System backups are retained up to three days. Check your expiration date.
- System backups do not count against your storage limits.
- System backups are identified as created by System on the Manage backups page.
On-Demand Backups :
With on-demand backups, you can make your backup before making some significant customisation change or applying a version update.
- You can back up Production and Sandbox instances.
- You can only restore to a Sandbox instance. To restore to a Production instance, first switch it to a Sandbox instance. See Switch as an example.
- Only CRM Online 2016 Update 1 or later versions are supported for backup.
- On-demand backups are retained for up to three days. Check your expiration date.
- On-demand backups are identified as created by someone other than System and by the presence of Edit | Delete | Restore in the details section. System backups only have Restore.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Services Environment
Tenant:
A tenant is the account created in the Microsoft Online Services Environment when we signup or purchase the subscription. A tenant contains users, security groups and subscriptions and can include multiple instances.
When we purchase a subscription for dynamics 365 a global admin is created, this global admin is known as the Tenant in Dynamics 365 as it organises multiple instances, users and other subscriptions for an organisation.
Instances:
When we signup or purchase Dynamics 365 subscription, the production instance is created. We can create multiple instances under one tenant.
That instances have their ADMINS. After the Global admin creates a user, it is visible to all of the cases.
E.g. When a global admin creates a user A1 without Security group, it is visible to all the instances created or available to tenant. Just like CRM1, CRM2, CRM3...etc. So the user may have access to all the, and this causes the security breach.
To avoid this Dynamics 365 is having "security groups".
When a new user is created in Dynamics 365 a license is provided for the user, and default security roles assign it to all the instances, or it is visible in all the cases of 365 which is available.
Security roles control a user's access to data through a set of access levels and permissions.
If the security group is not assigned, then the data is seen by all user. If the security group is added then information is visible to the limited user, and if we remove the security group form existing user, it will automatically go to default security group.
Microsoft Dynamics by default provide UAT with production Environment with limited storage of 5GB cloud space for meta-data and if the user wants to use the data for their files and applications then share point is provided with cloud data which is cheaper is cost as compared to 365 storage.
Production environment can be converted to UAT for testing purpose if some application or any data is malfunctioning, but UAT to production is not possible in Dynamics 365.
Steps for setting up an instance of CRM
- Sign up for the office 365 portal by entering the required information and undertaking the verification call.
- Once the Account is created over office 365, one need to login in the Admin Center.
- Login to the Admin Center as shown in the figure, and opt for the subscription for the CRM
- Select the Subscription as shown in the figure
- Login to the Admin Centers, which would be visible once the installation for the CRM is completed and you may now access the instance of CRM
- Click on the Arrow Button to access the instance which has been implemented and installed.
Why CRM?
Modules of CRM
Organizational Benefits of CRM
- Acts as a Central Repository for all the information
- Can be Accessed from Anywhere: Anytime
- No software is needed to be installed on the user’s machin
- Powerful Search Mechanism
- Powerful Dashboards with Drill Down Reports for Analytics
- Well integrated with Microsoft Products (Office 365)
- Easy to Learn: Implement: Deploy: Administer
