Whether you’re leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Office 365 today, or considering a technology switch to standardize your ecosystem, there are a number of efficiency-boosting features between these products that you should be aware of. This article will first highlight the benefits of combining these tools together, then show concrete examples of what can be done in each tool.
In short, integration between these tools will allow your employees to save time by performing common tasks and automatically sharing data without having to switch between applications repeatedly. This will both increase employee satisfaction from a better user experience and increase your team’s efficiency. These efficiencies can generally be leveraged both from the Dynamics side, or from the Office/Teams side, wherever your team is most comfortable working.
From Dynamics 365, there are a number of useful features that Microsoft has enabled to allow your teams to work where they work, from Dynamics directly. For example, you can now:
You can interact in a Teams chat conversation from within Dynamics 365 while working on a record. This can be done by opening any Dynamics 365 customer engagement record and selecting the Teams chats and channels integration icon at the upper-right corner of the page.
You can easily connect a Dynamics 365 record to an existing Teams channel or create a new team or channel. Simply open any record, then click the Collaborate button at the top.
This will then allow you to add this record to a new or existing channel, connect it with a new or existing team, and share the record with other members of your organization.
If your organization is currently using Teams for voice calls, there are a number of productivity-boosting shortcuts to allow your teams to engage customers at high velocity without having to switch between applications. For example, if you open a contact record, a call can be made simply by clicking the phone icon next to the customer’s number:
Additionally with the use of Teams, you will have access to features such as call Transcription and Recording, as well as tying notes from a particular call directly to the customer record in D365.
Beyond just making calls with Teams, you can also set up meetings directly from the Timeline in D365, using the quick create function:
In a similar fashion, you can also join a meeting directly from D365:
Features like these allow your team to stay in the flow of work, keeping the focus on the customer instead of the tools.
Shifting focus to the Office/Teams side of house, there are a number of similarly valuable shortcuts to make collaboration a breeze.
If there’s a particular record or view that you’re wanting to engage with frequently, you can add it as a new tab in a Teams channel for easy access. This will mean that when you select the tab, the relevant data is displayed directly in Teams, removing any need to switch between applications. In much the same way, you can add specific views like My Open Opportunities as a tab. Then when you select that tab, you will see all your open opportunities.
An additional time-saving feature made possible via Teams (working with SharePoint) is automatic file syncing between Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365. Once configured, your team will be able to co-author documents using Microsoft 365 and automatically sync with Dynamics 365 records that are linked to a Teams channel. The relationship is also bi-directional, in the sense that files uploaded to a Teams channel are associated with the Dynamics 365 record, and files uploaded to the linked Dynamics 365 record are visible in the Teams channel automatically.
One additional time-saving integration is that you are able to view your personal dashboard from Dynamics in Teams. This will allow you easy access to your most relevant information without have to set up the same view twice.
Lastly, but certainly least, is an add-in you should be aware of called Dynamics 365 for Outlook. With this powerful add-in you will be able to:
To get started, simply download the add-in and click the Dynamics 365 button:
We hope this article has been helpful in providing insight into some of the possibilities for increasing efficiency and improving the user experience of your team members. If you’re interested in receiving a detailed walkthrough of configuring any of these features, or learning more generally about what M365 & D365 can do for your organization, click below to set up a free consultation today!
