Preface

This one-of-a-kind book, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations, will help you deliver profitable projects with effective project planning and productive operational workflows. What makes it one of a kind is how we build a comprehensive story and working examples that the reader can follow along with and see the results of their efforts. It is designed to outline the foundations for project success while laying out recommendations that are the culmination of years of project operations experience.

Specifically, this book will cover project and sales methodologies, which combine to give the reader a clear picture of the life cycle, from the lead to project close. We will explain the implementation options, configuration, customization, and integration capabilities of the solution. Further, we will solidly present the sales processes from bid to win and the project processes from kickoff to revenue recognition.

By the end of the book, the reader will have a solid understanding of project processes, sales processes, and how they integrate to create an integrated solution for the project operations team. We will also explain the project accounting and operations processes with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations.

Who this book is for

This book is for project managers, project leads, business consultants and leaders who want to have a deep understanding of Project Operations and how it can benefit their business.

This book provides the reader with a solid understanding of how Project Operations builds upon the Microsoft 365 framework, leverages the Dynamics 365 platform, and brings the project manager into a modern Project for the Web environment.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing Project Operations, begins with the end in mind by understanding the key principles of project operations and how Dynamics 365 Project Operations meets the needs of a modern project business.

Chapter 2, Using the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Framework for Success, provides a foundational understanding of Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and all the components of Project Operations.

Chapter 3, The How-Tos of Setting Up Project Operations, dives deep into the heart of project operations setup and configuration. This step-by-step chapter is indispensable to the project implementation process.

Chapter 4, The Account Manager – Project Selling, explores the vital part of any professional services firm: selling. Sometimes called business development, account management, or other terms – the results are the winning of new business for the firm.

Chapter 5, Project Contracts and Pricing, provides you with the knowledge to structure multi-dimensional pricing and sophisticated contracts for your clients.

Chapter 6, Practice Manager Functions – We Won the Contract! What Now?, outlines decisions, the practice manager's concerns and duties, and how they will drive the firm's profitability.

Chapter 7, Resource Manager – Staffing for Success, focuses on centralized staffing. Centralized staffing is common among many professional services firms and project businesses. This chapter provides details on how best to accomplish these tasks.

Chapter 8, Managing the Project to Success, focuses on the execution phase, showing how managing the project timeline, budget, costs, and resources is imperative for the success of the firm.

Chapter 9, Team Member Activities, focuses on entering time and expenses, while effectively using Microsoft Teams and Outlook as a single entrypoint will also be outlined and leveraged in this chapter.

Chapter 10, Approvals and Exceptions, outlines project exceptions and how Project Operations handles them through many mechanisms that the project biller, administrator, and other authorized users can leverage.

Chapter 11, Project Accounting and Operations, outlines how billing and accounting for all the good work done through the Project Operations system is critical to accurately capture revenue and provide overall project net profit calculations. This chapter outlines the Project Operations billing integrations and revenue recognition considerations.

To get the most out of this book

To get the most out of this book the reader should have a desire to improve their project management and operations. Anyone concerned with being able to effectively set up, staff, bill, and recognize revenue will be interested in this book. The reader should have an average level of understanding of Microsoft technology, Microsoft 365 (Office 365), and Microsoft Dynamics. The following are some basic skills that you will need:

• Microsoft 365 framework administrator knowledge
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE administrator knowledge
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE customizer knowledge
• Microsoft Project knowledge

Code in Action

Code in Action videos for this book can be viewed at (https://bit.ly/3abRHw7).

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it from https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781801072076_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Click on the Close as Won button."

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Required if you want to create a custom URL, such as ProjectOperations.crm.dynamics.com."

Tips or Important Notes:

Appear like this.

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