MB-340: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce Functional Consultant (beta)

Kurt Hatlevik - Dynamics 365 Blog

Microsoft have released a new exam for the Commerce functional consultant.  I did take this exam in the beginning of July, and it can take a few weeks before the results come.  But I’m pretty sure I will fail.  The exam was quite hard and there was just too little time. I got 62 questions, but only managed to answer approx. 45 of them within the timeframe of 90 minutes.  If you think MB-300 was difficult, then MB-340 is harder!

This blogpost is therefore my study notebook to retake the exam(if I fail😊).  You will not find any of the exam questions or answers here, but if you follow this steps, I think you will be closer to achieving your goal of passing the MB-340 exam, and also to understand the topic better.  The chapter and headlines are organized accoring to the skills measured list of MB-340.

Disclaimer:  Some…

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New Modules in D365 ERP you might know yet

There are many new major functionalities and modules in D365 ERP which are not known to so many consultants yet and they still suggest modifications or other ISVs to their clients for these requirements. I recommend everyone to go through this article below so you have a high level understanding of the new capabilities added into the system. You might not get the depth of this yet but it will at least widen the horizon of your understanding.

sometimes, we don’t commit to new things but if someone introduce us to that new thing briefly, it opens up a window to a new world. I hope it will be that window for you as well.

Some of these new modules are introduced to meet specific IFRS requirements (IFRS 15 and IFRS 16), some are major new functionalities (Landed Cost, Rebate, ECM) and some are just performance enhancements (Planning optimization)

Here is a brief overview of these modules but I will try to cover it in detail in future blogs.

Revenue Recognition

This feature is a fantastic add into D365 ERP and helps the organizations to meet the requirements related to IFRS-15. Subscription is the new buzz word of today’s market. Everything is available in subscription model which means the customer will pay monthly OR they can pay lumpsum, but they can revoke the contract anytime, so ideally the revenue should not be recognized until that event has happened (which is called performance obligation in IFRS-15). 

This is the 5 step model of IFRS-15 and I will explain this in detail in my next blog.

Here is a glimpse of change in the sales order and its posting due to this new functionality

Scenario- A computer company (e.g. Dell Inc) sells a laptop with 12 month support plan and installation service.  The revenue for the laptop is immediately recognized (there is no revenue recognition schedule). The revenue for the support plan will be deferred and recognized over 12 months, as defined by the date range in the contract. The installation service will be recognized when the installation is done.

Revenue schedule feature has been added which can be linked to each line where we need to defer the revenue.

And here is the final accounting entries. Please note there is a new accounting entry (Deferred Revenue) which takes that portion of the revenue which is not recognized immediately.

Lease Accounting

Asset leasing complies with International accounting standards (IFRS 16) and US GAAP standards (ASC 842). 

IFRS 16 follows the approach of ‘right-of-use’ model. It means that if an organization has control over (or right to use) an asset they are renting, it will be treated as a lease for accounting purposes and must be recognised in the company’s books.

Now, it is not allowed for significant financial liabilities to be held off-balance sheet, as permitted for certain types of leases (operating leases) under the previous rules. The objective is to ensure that companies report information for all of their leased assets in a standardized way and bring transparency on companies’ lease assets and liabilities.

Microsoft has given a very detailed explanation and details of the new module in the following link-

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/finance/asset-leasing/asset-leasing-quick-start

here is a summary from the above website how this module handles the accounting for lease as per IFRS-16.

Credit Management Hold

Credit hold feature is a fantastic addition to the credit management module. This was acquired by Microsoft recently from a partner and it is very well integrated with standard features now. I have personally implemented it with two of our customers.

Here are the high level features in this module-  

• Introduction of the credit hold functionality to block the sales order from further processing
• Configure different types of blocking rules-
  • days overdue
  • account status
  • terms of payment
  • expired credit limit
  • overdue amount
  • sales order (block orders more/less than certain amount)
• Functionality to clear the hold through workflow. (only applicable to sales order and does not cover free text invoice and project invoice)
• Checking the credit limit at different checkpoints (e.g. order confirmation, picking list, release to warehouse, packing slip, invoice)
• Workflow on adjustment of credit limit and restrict manual editing of limit.
• Setting up the credit limit for group of customers. There is a new grouping which can be defined for customers across multiple legal entities)
• Temporary credit limit feature (to handle the peak season sales)
• Risk scoring based on certain parameters.

Here is the parameter screen where you can define the checkpoints for credit check.

 New options and menus in the credit and collection module.

Landed Cost

This module is the most important addition in D365 in last few years. It was originally developed by an Australia based company ‘Sable37’ (acquired by DXC in 2018)  and Microsoft bought the module recently.  

Here are the high level features in this module:

• Estimate landed costs at the time of voyage/shipment creation. Multiple templates can be created, and standard cost can be published from there.
• Apportion landed costs to multiple items and purchase orders or transfer orders in a single voyage. (based on weight, volume, quantity, value, volumetric)
• Support the transfer of goods between physical locations by recognizing landed costs. (using transfer orders)
• Recognize accruals for goods in transit. We can invoice the purchase orders without receiving it physically which moves the goods in a transit warehouse and accrue the liability for FOB scenario.

See the details on Microsoft documents page and how this module works in comparison to the transport modules of D365.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/supply-chain/landed-cost/landed-cost-vs-tms

Rebate Management

Here is another module bought by Microsoft from DXC.  D365 already had inbuilt capabilities on rebate management since ever but this new addition provides more flexibility and serves more scenario of rebate management. Interestingly, this new module is intendant of the existing capabilities which means that there are now two sets of rebate calculation mechanism in D365 now.  There is no plan to deprecate the older functionality yet in the roadmap since many existing customers must be using that.

The main difference in the old and new module is that the new module does not calculate the rebate provision on the run time (i.e. when you post the sales order), rather you have a batch job to process it periodically or every day.  I believe it is a problem in the new module but it should be just a temporary thing while both the functionalities do co-exist currently.

In other words, the old rebate functionality is very integrated at the transaction level but the new one is a periodic process and you don’t see the rebate amount when you see the margin etc. on the sales order.

No wonder, if you don’t see this module, since it has to be enabled from the feature management.

Here is some documentation from Microsoft

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/supply-chain/rebate-management/rebate-management-overview

Planning optimization to replace traditional Master planning of D365

The traditional planning engine of D365 will be deprecated and ‘Planning optimization Add-in’ will replace it.

The Planning Optimization Add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management enables master planning calculation to occur outside Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and the related SQL database. The benefits that are associated with the Planning Optimization functionality include improved performance and minimal impact on SQL database during master planning runs. Quick planning runs can be done even during office hours, so that planners can immediately react to demand or parameter changes.

See the below image from MS website to understand the benefit of this.

See more details on Microsoft document page.

Master planning home page – Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Docs

ECM

It is a version control management system which is valid for manufacting organizations who maintain BOM and Route in D365.  Following is the summary of features:

• Product Lifecycle  The lifecycle of the product can be tracked from the product.
• Engineering change requests Any change in the BOM and Route can be initiated and sent in workflow for approval.
• Engineering change orders Changes in the BOM/Route can be linked to change requests and sent into workflow and versioning can be maintained.

See more details on Microsoft document page.

Engineering change management overview – Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Docs

I hope your liked this blog and the content. Thanks for your time.

Do you need to report Balance sheet for each business segment or department? It works with D365

IFRS 8 and IAS 14 demands certain types of organizations to report their financials per segment along with a consolidated view of the organization. So it is very critical for the business to tag their all the transactions with the reportable segment (which is known as financial dimension in D365). In my experience, it has been always a challenge to decide the number of dimensions and what dimensions will be mandatory for each type of accounts. Generally, the CFOs are very clear how do they want to report their profit and cashflow as the stock market is always after cash and profit but when it comes to balance sheet, they tend to cut short the dimensions need. I have see organizations which don’t care about reporting assets/liability per segment and keep everything under ‘corporate’ or ‘head office’ dimension. But there is still requirement to meet IFRS 8 and IAS 14 at the year end or quarterly for several countries.

Secondly, large organisations want to keep the reporting very transparent for each product line or business line so that it is easy for them to sell that business line. Investors will not get comfortable if the don’t see that segment separately. Definitely, there are valuation companies who deal with mergers & acquisitions but they will also need to dig deeper into your books for valuation which can be a cakewalk if your segment reporting is robust.

Generally this type of reporting was done offline or with some magic working in excel but with D365 you can do without any hassle. Yes you heard it correct, it is just a small trick which can save hundreds of hours for your team. It is called ‘Inter-Unit Accounting’

Inter-Unit Accounting

This feature is one of my favorites in D365. Many of our clients had a requirement to have segment wise balance sheet. The segment can be a business unit, department, Production site and so on. It was a common requirement from Profit & Loss perspective but maintaining balance sheets for each segment comes with a lot of overhead. For example- accountants have to make sure that they have to enter the same business unit dimension in the debit line and credit line while posting a transaction.

1. Balancing financial dimension

Define the dimension which is required for balance sheet. In the example below, ‘business unit’ has been set up as a balancing dimension.  Please note, you can choose only one dimension to get the balance sheet. If the management wants to get balance sheet based on business unit and department, it will not be possible.

2. Define the debit/credit accounts for balancing.

You might need to create these two new accounts in your chart of accounts if you don’t have these already. They will be the balancing account or you can say that they will be used to complete an accounting entry at the segment level.

3. Another important thing to note is that when you enable a particular segment as a ‘balancing financial dimension’ in the ledger, you must make sure that this dimension should be mandatory for every transaction. Technically, you can make sure of this control using the ‘configure account structure’ in general ledger setup.

See the example below, there are two account structures in this entity, and both have ‘business unit’ as a mandatory dimension to enter.

Technically, you just must make sure that ‘allow blank value’ is not checked for any of the account structure for that segment.

Let’s see this inter-unit accounting now in action after we have configured everything required.

We entered a voucher with two different business unit (e.g., 002 and 001 in the example). Obviously, when you post the voucher the debit will go to 002 and credit will go to 001 which makes creates the imbalance at unit level.

But as we have configured the inter-unit accounting and business unit is defined as balancing dimension, any imbalance at the BU level will be balanced by the newly created accounts. See the below voucher after posting in D365, there are two extra lines which just to balance.

To make it easier, see the same data in the below grid. Set-1 represents the set of lines which are balanced at 002 level. Debit is under ‘Freight expense’ and credit is under ‘Interunit payable’ account. If you just see the balance sheet of ‘002’ business unit, you will see that there is a liability amounting to $2,500 under ‘interunit payable’ account.

Similarly, if you analyze the balance sheet of ‘001’ business unit, you will see an asset of $2,500 in the name of ‘interunit receivable.’

Hope you liked this simple tip in D365! Send me message if you like to hear more on this or you have any feedback

10 things you should know to earn MB-700 F&O Solution Architect certification

10 things you should know to earn MB-700 F&O Solution Architect certification

This is the certification that does not test you only on your knowledge on the ERP product but also other products & tools required for a successful implementation of Microsoft D365. I spent some time to prepare for this exam in September, 2020 and my experience as a solution architect helped me a lot to earn this certification easily but I experienced some of the topics do not fall under the solution architect in the real world, were also covered in this exam.

Probably, Microsoft expects you as a Solution Architect to know these topics (at least on a high level) but in my experience either Project Manager or technical leads should be handling some of these areas (e.g. LCS, Server architecture, Testing strategy, Integration strategy, reporting tools). Fortunately, in Hitachi Solutions, all Solution Architects were also supposed to handle project management role (with help of a project coordinator), I found these questions easy to handle and I am always grateful to Hitachi management and their approach that I had such a wide range of experience.

So, I will strongly recommend you go to go through following list before attempting this exam- (Points 2, 3, 4 and 10 were a bit challenging for me where I had to focus more for this exam)

1. How well you can map an end to end scenario (some case studies are asked in the exam). You should be a person who can see the big picture in a project instead of just focusing on a feature/functionality
2. Integration strategy & Tools (Dual Write, Odata, Batch Data API, Custom Service, Web service call, JSON, Excel Integration)
3. Synchronous vs Asynchronous integration
4. Testing Strategy (including performance testing) and how to best utilize the tools available in MS eco- system (RSAT, PerfSDK, Task Recorder)
5. Different tiers of servers (Tier1, Tier2, ……) and their relevance for Production, UAT, Build etc.
6. Environment Management using LCS, continuous updates from Microsoft, feature management workspace in D365
7. Training Tools (Task Recorder, BPM)
8. Upgrade from AX2009 to D365 & Upgrade from AX2012 to D365 (Data and Code)- Data Migration Tool, DIXF, Data Management Workspace
9. Tracking of work progress using Azure DevOps
10. Reporting tools (SSRS, Power BI, Embedded BI, Financial Reports, Excel) PowerApps, LogicApp ( Basic of power platform will be asked in this exam)

Also as you see in the link above, you need MB-300 and any of the four functional certifications available right now.

This is the official link of the certification from Microsoft. Please note that the this is still in preview and MS will be changing it from October onward but I believe the content will remain more or less same. Moreover, there are some questions floating around on internet which can give you some sense of the exam but this exam will really test you on your real life experience which is the beauty of this.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/mb-700

If you have any question on the exam, feel free to comment and ask. Happy to help. My email ID is skejriwal@paretodata365.com

Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations: 2020 release wave 2 plan

Finance and Operations

• Dynamics 365 Finance continues to focus on automating common tasks to reduce the number of manual processes and add insights and intelligence in Finance. Asset leasing enhances the core capabilities of Finance and the global coverage for Finance continues to expand in this release wave.

Core financials

This release focuses on automating common tasks to reduce the number of processes that Finance users complete manually. It also introduces Asset leasing to enhance the core capabilities of Finance.

CORE FINANCIALS

Feature	Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
Financials embedded Power BI is enhanced and renamed	End users, automatically	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
Notification of related prepayment invoices marked for settlement	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
Trial balance report with transactional detail and unposted GL transactions	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
Update the invoice quantities to match product receipt quantities in workflow	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
Cash flow forecast calculation – enhanced scheduling (via process automation)	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Sep 2020	Oct 2020
Asset leasing	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Nov 2020
Automatic collection task creation	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Oct 2020	Nov 2020
Touchless email reminders to customer	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Oct 2020	Nov 2020
Vendor invoice automation – Enhanced historical information experience for vendor invoices	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Jan 2021
Vendor invoice automation – Analytics and metrics	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Oct 2020	Jan 2021
Vendor invoice automation – Match product receipts to invoice lines that have a three-way matching policy	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Oct 2020	Jan 2021
Vendor invoice automation – Prevalidate vendor invoice posting	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Oct 2020	Jan 2021
Vendor invoice automation – Submit imported vendor invoices to workflow	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Oct 2020	Jan 2021
Vendor invoice automation – Tracking imported invoice amount and imported sales tax amount	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Oct 2020	Jan 2021
Vendor invoice automation – Tracking the Invoice received date	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Oct 2020	Jan 2021
Vendor invoice automation – Resume automated processing for multiple invoices	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Feb 2021

 

• Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management expands planning optimization for Manufacturing to perform supply and production planning in near real time with in-memory services. Enhancements to Product Information Management include engineering change management and production versioning capabilities. Cost Management includes new features that will enable global companies maintain multiple cost accounting ledgers by allowing dual currency and dual valuation. Enhancements to the job card device include a new user experience and a new feature to enable reporting serial numbers.

 

Costing

COSTING

Feature	Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
Enhanced cost allocation	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Mar 2021	–

Inventory management

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

Feature	Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
Enterprise-scale inventory performance improvements and archiving	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Oct 2020	Oct 2020

Manufacturing

Manufacturing features shipped for 2020 release wave 2.

MANUFACTURING

Feature	Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
Enter serial numbers while reporting as finished from the job card device	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
New user experience for production floor execution	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Sep 2020	Oct 2020

Planning

Planning optimization support for creation of planned production orders.

PLANNING

Feature	Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
Planning optimization enhancements	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Oct 2020
Planning optimization support for materials requirements planning (MRP)	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Apr 3, 2020	Oct 2020

Product information management

New inventory dimensions for product version tracking and enhanced extensibility.

PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Feature	Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
New inventory dimensions for product version tracking and enhanced extensibility	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Oct 2020

Trade and source

TRADE AND SOURCE

Feature	Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
Default RFQ reply fields for vendor bidding	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Sep 2020	Oct 2020
Vendor RFQ search by procurement category	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Nov 2020
Approve and save vendor-submitted bank details	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Jan 2021
Vendor-submitted certifications	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Jan 2021
Preserve vendor bid data for amended RFQs	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Feb 2021
Vendors can request approval for procurement categories	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	–	Feb 2021
Landed cost and inbound transportation management	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Feb 2021	Mar 2021

Warehouse and transportation management

WAREHOUSE AND TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT

Feature	Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
Confirm outbound shipments from batch jobs	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
Order-committed reservation based on license plates	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
Work pick line overview	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
Work policy enhancements for inbound work	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
Outbound workload visualization	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Aug 2020	Oct 2020
Create and process transfer orders from the warehouse app	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Sep 2020	Nov 2020
Manual sales line picking	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Sep 2020	Nov 2020
Process warehouse app events	End users by admins, makers, or analysts	Sep 2020	Nov 2020

 

D365: How to create product attributes and assign to the product

AX tutorials: tips and tricks

In order to specify the characteristics of a product (raw material or finished good) you have a configurable way to add as many additional informational to the product as desired. It can be done thought Attributes. For example, for the laptop product, attributes might be: memory size, screen resolution, color, etc.

Before adding an attribute, you must configure attribute type. Attributes must be linked to an Attribute Type. The attribute type identifies the type of data that can be entered for a specific attribute. The attribute type also defines a list or range of valid values that can be used for the attribute.

Attribute Groups are optional allowing the user to group related Attributes together to ease Attribute administration and better organizing Attribute information. In the example above, attribute types are: memory size, screen resolution, color; attribute values are: what color is laptop, what memory size is in laptop.

And…

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Why you need one page resume?

I am a big fan of one page communications whether it is one page project report, one page project plan or one page job resumes.
In my career of 15 years, I have interviewed hundreds of people from trainees to executives. As per my experience, 95% of the resumes are not effective and either very lengthy or very vague in the messaging. With the passage of time, our attention span gets shorter and shorter and we tend to avoid the things which takes more than 5 minutes to read or dig the important information out of it. A recruiter hardly goes to 2nd or 3rd page of a resume. According to a survey, your chances of getting shortlisted are 80% higher if you can say your message in first 5 lines of your resume.

It is very much like google search, hardly anyone goes to second page of google search results. If you don’t find your desired results on 1st page, you will most likely change your key words and search again. So if you cannot tell key information about yourself in one page, there is really something wrong.

Dexter Digitals, a digital marketing company interviewed me recently and asked what I focus most when I interview people. I gave them 7 points and asked if it is really possible to crunch all these in one page and make it more visual instead of descriptive. (A picture paints a thousand words).  I was inspired by a recently viral resume of  Elon Musk.  But I wanted to go one level further and make it more attractive.

Dexter Digitals noted down all these points and took this ‘One Page Resume challenge’ . I was amazed to see the result, let’s check out these points-

1. How many companies you have worked with and for how long  
   Loyalty for the employer and stability matters a lot to me. It is debatable how long you should stay in an organization at the least but it really depends on the industry as well. Nevertheless, minimum 3 years is a good span. Giving a timeline view in the CV for your past experience makes it very easy to convey this message to the interviewer.
2. What is your exposure to other nationalities, cultures, religion, languages?      As more and more businesses are working on offshore model and more people choosing to work outside their ow countries, maintaining a good communication between individuals and teams is very crucial. If the candidate has worked in such environment, generally I assume that the candidate knows how to respect different religions, cultures and diverse view-points. Showing a visual (e.g. map view) for your multi location project is a smart way. 
3. What are the latest technologies you have worked with?                                              Most of the candidates start in a technology and never move from there since they get into comfort zone with that. It is important to assess the candidates how often they sharpen their axe (Aka skill set)? So, I recommend to highlight the latest and greatest technologies you have worked on.
4. How do you define your skill set in 1-2 lines?                                                                    Even LinkedIn asks for a summary for your profile since the recruiters goes through thousands of resumes every day and they should be able to see the desired skill in that summary. Secondly, it also brings out the capability of the candidate to be ‘precise’ and ‘to the point’ instead of beating around the bush.
5. What are the top 5 things in career you are proud of?                                                  It is my favorite question and most of the candidates find it hard to answer if they have not already thought through it. So, always highlight your achievement and success moments from your career. It is also an opportunity to show your passion and love for your work. Secondly, it also helps to drive the interview around your favorite things.
6. What is your strength area technically?
   I generally interview people on the things they know instead of asking them to fail. Nobody knows everything but you should be good in what you have done in your previous jobs. So, don’t forget to rank your strengths and there is no harm in rating yourself low on the areas where you are not comfortable.
7. Where are you busy after 6 pm or during weekends?
   What you do during weekend tells a lot about your personality, you cannot fake it. Generally, it does not impact the interview result directly but it helps to strike a chord with the interviewer. I believe people who have some interesting things to do after office can handle stress beautifully and are less complaining.

So, here is the resume created by Dexter Digitals .  Click on the below link to open with PDF. Satya Kejriwal-D365 Functional-Aug 2019

So, this is my version of resume and I believe we can have another optional page for details of the project but my most critical information is contained on the first page.  Give you opinion and feedback on this. Like this if you really liked this

 

Master Data Management in D365 Finance & Operations (FinOps)

In all of my implementation projects, master data management has always been a big discussion.

There are several Master Data Management tools in the market which are quite popular to maintain a single source of truth in the whole IT eco system of an organization. Microsoft also has a MDM (you can read more about this herehttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamicsax-2012/appuser-itpro/master-data-management-in-microsoft-dynamics-ax )

After reading the above article you see the scenario when this tool should be used and this effort might not be worth spending in small to medium level of projects. For such organizations, the base ERP can itself play the role of master data management and feed data into other systems if required.

Chart of Accounts, Customer, Vendors, Fixed Assets, product data, project master are mainly the master data which is also known as reference data. Dynamics 365 FinOps like any other ERP has all of these masters in various modules. But  all of the clients have following concerns around master data management-

 

1. Completeness of master data– Since master data is a manual exercise, it is highly likely that some of the important field might be missed out while creating a record.
2. Workflow on master data– There is no workflow on masters in D365 which makes people nervous since they have to rely on the data entry clerk for accuracy. There are some tools in the market now (e.g. MS flow, Xflow etc.) which can be configured somehow to support workflow on any data but again it is a lot of effort and there will be customization required to make it fully functional.

While the above concerns will always be there without adopting the 3rd party tools, there are some out of the box features in D365 F&O which are barely leveraged by the partners and the customers.

Master Data Template

Master data templates is a very useful feature in D365 FinOps. It is almost same as AX 2012 but not many people know about this since it is not quite intuitive  to enable this feature.

Let’s cover all the master data in Dynamics 365 FinOps and how can be templatize those masters.

(A) Using the ‘User Template’ from record info screen

This option works for all the master data in D365 except project master. Following master data supports this feature:-

• Chart of Accounts
• Customer
• Vendor
• Bank
• Fixed Assets
• Item

We will take Chart of Account to understand this concept and it applies to all of the above master data

Step-1

Select the main account from this path-

General Ledger–> Chart of Accounts–>Accounts–>Main Accounts

Step-2

Click on the Record Info under option tab.

It opens a pop up window in the right side where you will see ‘User template’ option.

Step-3 Click on the User template button to create a template using the main account selected in the screenshot.

Step-4

How to use the template

Now, let’s see how this template plays when you create a new main account. Click on the new button to create a new main account which will give you a new pop up window to ask if you want to use the template to create a new account. Ideally you must create a template for each type of account (Asset, Liability, Expense, Revenue, Statistics etc.).

(NOTE- this pop up window was not there if you don’t create a template)

Select the template you want to use to create your account

 

If you click on OK button to accept the template and you will see all of the fields are copied over from the template except the main account number. Now, you can enter the main account as per your requirement and proceed.

Please note that there is an option to turn off this template if you don’t want to use the template anymore.

Alternate way (only for Main Accounts)

Chart of accounts has another way of creating template which is available on the following path in D365. Here you have to create the template from scratch instead of taking any existing account as a template.  Similar to the previous way, you can create multiple templates here which will be visible and available to use when you start creating new account

There is an option ‘new from template’ on the main account form which will work only if you have created templates with this 2nd method.

Project Wizard

Project module has a wizard to create a project master data from a template. Project creation is the most complex and strenuous process in D365 but the existence of this wizard makes it easier at least by 70%-80%.

Following is the process to set up the template and using a template in the wizard

Step-1

How to create a template

There is toggle button on the project master data which can be enabled to make any project as a template. Ideally, you should create one template for each type of project. (e.g. Fixed price, time & material, internal, cost etc.)

Step-2

How to use the template

Always use ‘copy project’ option if you want to create it from a template.

You will see the following wizard which will guide you through all the steps and fields required for project creation.

On the 2nd stage of the wizard, you will be asked to give project ID and name.

It will default all the information from the template and you have option to modify it.  On 3rd stage, there is an option to create a new contract which enables you to create contract from the same window.

On this stage, there are options to copy several different set up from the template or create your own.

At the last step, you will be notified for the number of records created as a result of this exercise.  Click on finish and you will see your projects and other information in D365

Hope you liked this post and it gives you some insight on making master data management more manageable without using any 3rd party tool.

4 consideration for selecting an EDI system

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) has helped to standardized the way businesses are exchanging information with each other. But there are so many system integrators (SI) are working in the market with their own APIs that are pretty scalable and can support the ever evolving requirement of the business. On the other hand, EDI standards are taking time catch up with the business.

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The most common EDI standards include:

• ANSI ASC X12, or X12 for short, represents EDI standards for finance, transportation, supply chain, and insurance in North America
• EDIFACT is a common standard outside of the U.S.
• RosettaNet, based on XML, is used broadly in the supply chain, manufacturing, and services industries
• GS1 EDI is used in retail globally
• TRADACOMS or GS1 UK is dominant in retail in Great Britain
• ODETTE is the standard used by the European automotive industry
• HL7 required by HIPAA regulation is predominant in U.S. healthcare

So lack of standard of EDI makes it important to and a bit hard for the business to select an EDI system. Here are a 4 considerations and steps which you can follow while finalizing an EDI vendor and system.

Integration

• Always ask for a real live demonstration of the system with the people in your team who know how EDI is supposed to work
• Is the integration supported by the same company or it is outsourced to someone?
• Is the integration tool standard solution or will be customized for you
• Will it need customization in your ERP or there are native integration with that?
• What is the upgrade plan for EDI system and how it responds to the regular updates on ERP
• This system is only giving you some files and accepting files Or it gives you the whole package which takes care of all file transfers as well.
• How the system integrates with other systems (using different protocols i.e. Odata endpoints, SOAP webservices, HTTPs, message queues etc.)

Technology

• Can it be deployed to cloud/private cloud?
• Can the solution be deployed on premise?
• Check the scalability and support for multi-threading.
• User friendliness of the system i.e. functional users or IT team will handle the exception and day to day operations

Cost of Ownership

• How many staff required to manage EDI system?
• Can you directly connect to your trading partner or you need to pay any middleware transactions fees?

Compliance

• What are the T&C for support from the EDI provider if we make any change in the ERP? Does it go out of support?
• Is there any flexibility of mapping the system on your own or you need permission from the EDI vendor always?

 

Most Popular EDI Documents in the Industry

Following are the most popular EDI documents that are quite indispensable for an organization when it comes to automate the interactions between two organizations.

X12 Transaction Number	EDIFACT Transaction ID	Transaction name	Transaction Usage
850	ORDERS	Purchase Order	Purchase order comes from the customer to the supplier to order the goods. It has all the list of items with the required details as you see in normal purchase orders.
855	ORDRSP	Purchase Order Acknowledgment	As the name suggests, PO acknowledgement sends the confirmation of acceptance or rejection of the purchase order
869	ORSSTA	Order Status Inquiry	In case of delay in orders, customers send the status inquiry on the orders
870	ORDREP	Order Status Report	It is response to 869 (order status inquiry)
810	INVOIC	Invoice	Generally it goes with the shipping documents. It is the confirmation of the shipping and has all the payment terms and tax details.
820	REMADV	Payment Order/Remittance Advice	This document is triggered from the customer to the vendor and confirms that the invoice has been remitted.
990		Response to a Load Tender	This is sent by motor carrier to the warehouse for acceptance or rejection of the load or acceptance with some condition.
940		Warehouse Shipping Order	It is used to instruct to warehouse (it can be 3 pl as well) to ship an order with details of the customer, quantity, delivery date, shipping address etc.
945		Warehouse Shipment Advice	Used by warehouse (or fulfilment centre) to the vendor and customer both that shipment has been sent. T
856	DESADV	Shipment Notification ASN	It is advance notice of the shipment from vendor’s warehouse to the customer. The customer will use it to receive the orders automatically in the warehouse.

And this is a comprehensive list of  EDI documents

 

Supplier Collaboration
X12 Transaction Number	EDIFACT Transaction ID	Transaction name
832	PRICAT	Price/Sales Catalogue
879		Price Information
888		Item Maintenance
889		Promotion Announcement
830		Planning Schedule
846	INVRPT	Inventory Inquiry/Advice
852	SLSRPT	Product Activity Data (‘PAD data’)
Order Cycle
X12 Transaction Number	EDIFACT Transaction ID	Transaction name
850	ORDERS	Purchase Order
875		Grocery Product Purchase Order
855	ORDRSP	Purchase Order Acknowledgment
869	ORSSTA	Order Status Inquiry
870	ORDREP	Order Status Report
860	ORDCHG	Purchase Order Change – Buyer Initiated
865		Purchase Order Change Acknowledgement/Request – Seller Initiated
876		Grocery Product Purchase Order Change
856	DESADV	Shipment Notification ASN
857		Shipment and Billing
Finance
X12 Transaction Number	EDIFACT Transaction ID	Transaction name
810	INVOIC	Invoice
880		Grocery Product Invoice
811		Consolidated Service Invoice/Statement
812		Credit/Debit Adjustment
820	REMADV	Payment Order/Remittance Advice
823		Lockbox
894		Delivery/Return Base Record
895		Delivery/Return Acknowledgment or Adjustment
210		Motor Carrier Freight Details and Invoice
882		Direct Store Delivery Summary Information
Transportation/Logistics Management
X12 Transaction Number	EDIFACT Transaction ID	Transaction name
204		Motor Carrier Load Tender
211		Motor Carrier Bill of Lading
990		Response to a Load Tender
215		Motor Carrier Pickup Manifest
214		Transportation Carrier Shipment Status Message
753		Request for Routing Instruction
754		Routing Instructions
300		Reservation/Booking Request
301		Confirmation
315		Status Details (Ocean)
Warehouse Fulfilment
X12 Transaction Number	EDIFACT Transaction ID	Transaction name
940		Warehouse Shipping Order
943		Warehouse Stock Transfer Shipment Advice
944		Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice
945		Warehouse Shipment Advice
947		Warehouse Inventory Adjustment Advice
861	RECADV	Receiving Advice/Acceptance
Manufacturing/Material Handling
X12 Transaction Number	EDIFACT Transaction ID	Transaction name
840	REQOTE	Request for Quotation
843	QUOTES	Response to Requested Quotation
830	DELFOR	Planning Schedule with Release Capability
862	DELJIT	Shipping Schedule
Other
X12 Transaction Number	EDIFACT Transaction ID	Transaction name
180		Return Merchandise Authorisation and Notification
816		Organisational Relationships
845		Price Authorisation Acknowledgement/Status
844		Product Transfer Account Adjustment
867	SLSRPT	Product Transfer and Resale Report
849		Response to Product Transfer Account Adjustment
824	BANSTA	Application Advice
864		Text Message
997	CONTRL	Functional acknowledgement