We’ve all been there. We’re on a website page, trying to understand it, and not really getting anywhere. Whether it’s about how to fill in a form, or technical instructions and information, our mind has gone blank. The words are on the page, but they’re just not making sense – and we don’t know what to do!
What would we say if suddenly a prompt came up, asking if we needed some help with understanding things, and offering to connect us with a live agent if we wanted some assistance? Well, quite a lot of people would be grateful for that, I’d think.
There are quite a few websites out there that have this functionality – I know that I’ve seen it on various sites I’ve been on, though it’s not always been implemented in the best of ways.
Well, now Microsoft have decided to bring in their own form of it, and it sits right within Omnichannel for Dynamics 365! It’s able to allow customers to interact either with a bot or with a live agent, depending on how you’ve configured it to work.
Currently it’s in Preview, but I’m expecting it to move to General Availability soon.
Even better, Microsoft have even released a short video around it!
There are two parts to configuring it:
Firstly, you need to enable Proactive Chat. Go to your Chat channels under Omnichannel Administration, open up the Chat record you’re wanting to have Proactive chat enabled for, and change the ‘Enable Proactive Chat’ option to Yes (obviously if you don’t have any chat channels set up, you’d need to create a new one)
Secondly, there’s some code that needs to be embedded on the actual web-page that the chat is active on. Now I know what some of you are thinking – ‘how the heck do I code’? (OK – so the developers aren’t thinking that – they’re thinking ‘oh goodie!!’. Well, I’m not from a development background myself, but I managed to get it to work quite easily. Take a look at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/omnichannel/developer/how-to/start-proactive-chat , where several different scenarios are shown (along with sample code), and you can tweak these as required.
The result then looks like:
This is really helpful. I can then click the ‘Chat Now’ button to start the chat. What I’m also really liking about the experience is that the chat option/window floats on the bottom right side of the screen, so no matter where I am in the page, it’s available (and easily able to be seen)
There are many different ways in which this can be configured. Some of the immediate ones that come to mind (but by no means all of them) are:
Someone staying on a webpage for a long period of time
Someone who keeps coming back to the same page (perhaps they’re lost, and not able to find what they’re looking for)
Someone on a support portal looking at a support case, and wanting to see more information on it
Someone coming from a specific webpage to another page
Someone accessing the webpage from a specific location (eg country) in the world
Special offers being available during a specific time-frame, and only website visitors during that time get the option for the special offers
It’s a really helpful addition to the current Omnichannel capabilities, and I’m sure that there will be many more to come!
Enabling/configuring the ability for chats to utilise skill-based routing
Yup – it’s somewhat more complex than just saying ‘I want skills!’
So this post is going to cover how to actually set up the skill record entries, which thankfully isn’t too difficult (especially if you’ve been bearing with me, and following the other setup instructions that we’ve been through so far).
To create skills, it’s necessary to have a skill type. Think of it as a hierarchy – if you’re wanting to provide customer services in multiple languages for technical issues, you’re going to want a Language skill type, and Technical skill type. Under each skill type, you’re going to have the applicable entries. So for Language, you’ll have English, Spanish, Chinese, etc.
At the time of writing, creating Skill Types are done from the Systems Customisation (this will likely move to the new Admin Centre at some point, but hasn’t yet). So make sure that you’re logged in as a Dynamics system Administrator, and open Advanced Settings:
Note: The process below is taking place in the default solution. It’s of course possible to deploy this as part of a custom solution – if you’re wanting to do this, then open the custom solution from the Power Platform admin centre, and continue with the steps shown below.
Hover over ‘Settings’ in the ribbon menu bar, and choose Customisations
Now select ‘Customise the System’
Select ‘Option Sets’ in the left hand navigation, then scroll down to ‘Bookable Resource Characteristic Type’ in the main window
Open up, and you’ll see the following window
Using our scenario, I’ve added Language and Technical Area as skill types. Now very importantly, ensure that you SAVE the record, and then PUBLISH it. If you don’t, the skill types won’t show to be used!
Right, now that we’ve done all of that prep work, we can get on with actually entering the skills that we want to use…
So, go back to the Omnichannel Administration section, scroll down in the left hand menu to Skills, and click it to open it. It’ll show all of the skills that we’ve entered (well, it won’t show any entries here yet, as none have been put in yet!). Click ‘New’ on the menu ribbon to create a new entry
You’ll be presented with the following screen, which after all of the above is thankfully quite simple.
The fields are as follows:
Name. What it says on the field – nothing complicated. It does need to be unique though, so have a careful think about your needs. You can always use multiple skills together to create a blend that you need across skills
Type. This is the Skill type (which we’ve just set up beforehand). If you don’t see the values that you’ve set up in here, make sure that you saved and published the customisations!
Description. Put something user-friendly in here to describe what the skill is (if you think it’s necessary…)
Then click ‘Save’ on the menu bar. Once the entry saves, the form will update, and now show a User (Agent) section:
You can now add users (agents, as they’re referred to) to the skill. Click the ellipse on the right hand side of the Users (Agents) grid, and then select the ‘New Bookable Resource Characteristic’ option (the names of these things just keep on getting longer and longer, don’t they!)
A nice simple window will open on the right of the screen, where you can enter the details:
This is done as follows:
Skill Value – this is the skill that you’re wanting to assign a user to
User (Agent) – this is the actual user. You can type to search through the available users. Very important to note that if you didn’t follow the steps to set up the user as a Bookable Resource, you won’t see them in this list (see https://thecrm.ninja/omnichannel-for-dynamics-365-users/ for instructions on how to do this)
Rating Value – this is used to rate the proficiency of the user at the skill. We’ll cover setting this up in a later post, but essentially think of using a 5 star scale. 1 would mean the user has basic ability at the skill, 3 would mean they’re alright with the skill, and 5 means that they’re at the top of their game with it
You can then click the ‘Save and Close’ button at the bottom of the window, and it’ll add them.
However if you have multiple users that you’re wanting to add, I’d HIGHLY recommend clicking the arrow next to this button, and selecting the ‘Save and Create New’ option. It’s not just to create with the same skill – you can change the Skill Value as well, and it’ll save you more clicks!
Hopefully you’re still following along, and managing to get the setup done correctly – well done!
To do this, we need to be in the Omnichannel Administration application (accessed through the Dynamics 365 navigation bar), and select the ‘Users’ option under ‘Queues & Users’
If you hover over a user, you get a quite useful little window, showing their status and some details
Double clicking on the user will open up the system user record. The important thing to note is that there’s now an ‘Omnichannel’ tab available.
From here, it’s possible to set the users default presence (such as Available, DND, Busy, etc – you’re able to add new entries to this list) and capacity.
Capacity is a sort of loose term. Essentially (as we’ll cover in another post) it’s possible to set up different enquiry types. Each enquiry type will have a capacity against it, based on how complex you think it’ll be. So for example checking an order may have a lower capacity set against it than someone dealing with a damaged item.
Capacity is used with routing rules (which will also be covered in another post). When a communication channel is opened up, the system will check to see which agent/s are showing as available, and of those agent/s, which one/s have available capacity for the session (as they may be already dealing with other sessions at the same time).
You’ll also be able to see a list of the Queues that the user has been assigned to.
What you’ll now do is add a Bookable Resource record for the user. What is this exactly?
A bookable resource is anything that can be scheduled. Field Service uses this as well, usually covering people, equipment, and physical spaces (facilities). Each resource can have different attributes that distinguish it from others, including but not limited to:
Characteristics (eg Accounting)
Categories (eg Manager)
Territories (eg United Kingdom)
Organisational Unit (eg Customer Service)
Location (eg London)
Resource Type (eg User)
Omnichannel uses scheduling to know which users are available, assigned to specific queues, etc. Due to this, we need to create this ‘Bookable Resource’ record (which is unique – you can only have one of these for each user!).
To create this, scroll down the page, until you get to the ‘Skills Configuration’ section. Here you should click the menu ellipse, and select ‘New Bookable Resource’.
This will open the ‘New Bookable Resource’ window. Leave everything as it is, and just fill in the ‘Name’ field with the name of the user
Click the save button on the menu bar, and it’ll then take you back to the user record. Well done! You’ve now created the Bookable Resource record for the user.
Well, to start off with, I wasn’t actually planning on writing this blog post – I was going to continue looking at the setup for Queues, but that’s going to have to wait until later on this week!
The subject of this post has come out of several conversations that I’ve been having with the lovely Tricia Sinclair on Omnichannel, who’s also extremely knowledgeable about Customer Service and DevOps.
This situation was regarding a company based in Australia. Their main tenant was set in the North America region (when you set up your tenant, you choose where the default should be).
They had also set up one of their organisations within the Australian region (ie not in their default tenant region), and were trying to install Omnichannel for it. However, they were running into an interesting error, and couldn’t get it to work, no matter what they tried to do.
In the end, the decision was taken to reach out to the Microsoft Product Team for Omnichannel, in order to try to solve the issue. Thankfully the product team identified the sticking point, which is actually a VERY important lesson to keep in mind when setting up Omnichannel.
The answer was that the organisation (environment) HAS TO BE in the same region as the tenant itself. Ie it MUST be in the default region. If it’s not, then it won’t be possible to set up Omnichannel!
This hadn’t helped with troubleshooting the issue, as these needed to be carried out as well.
So in summary:
It’s vitally important to ensure that the Organisation is set up in the same region as the tenant default region
It’s also vitally important to carry out all of the installation/configuration steps correctly (as per the above links) to ensure a successful Omnichannel for Dynamics 365 installation
With all of the functionality that has recently been released for Dynamics 365, I’ve been taking a look into the Omnichannel capabilities, and what it brings to enable clients and their customers from a technology standpoint.
I feel that this is really going to be a major benefit to many different sectors, and will allow users to benefit majorly in being able to retain and grow their customer base, through the general customer experience and behaviour.
The video below is the start of a new series in which I’m going to go deep into what Omnichannel actually is, how it works, and the capabilities that it brings.
Having recently completed several exams, including the new MB-900 Fundamentals for Dynamics365, I thought it would be useful to set out how the new exam structure works, and what paths can be taken within it. This post is meant to be for D365 CE, not for F&O (I’m hoping to do a separate post on that another time).
The first question that usually comes up around certifications is ‘why should I take the exams – I know how to use/configure/deploy the system!’.
The answer to this is actually quite easy – if you know the stuff, then the exams won’t be too hard for you. They’ll also give you a better overview of things, especially due to the new curriculum (eg including cloud offerings, etc).
Not only is it rewarding for you to take (and pass!) them, it shows that you’re able to do so (and you get cool badges…thanks Microsoft for gamifying things lol). Additionally it can also help your company to qualify for different Microsoft Partner tiers, which can be quite important in the grand scheme of things (I am NOT going to talk about the recent IUR situation…)
It can also help when applying for a job position, as recruiters will check to see if you’re current with the latest exams. Experience is great of course, but they’ll want to know why you may not have any (recent) exams to show your knowledge.
The first exams in the series that I’d recommend to take are:
The MB-900, as per the name, goes over the fundamentals of Dynamics 365, and also gets you used to the new format (it’s now 60 minutes, with approx 25 questions). There are now drag’n’drop questions, multiple choice answers, and ‘journey style’ questions (these are when the question presented depends on the answer given for the previous question)
The MB-200 exam covers the different deployment types, configurations and integrations, and click-based customisations. It expands on the base that’s set out in the MB-900.
The next question usually asked is ‘what area/app should I specialise in’? That’s ALSO quite simple to answer – there are (currently) 4 options available for exams (after the MB-900). These are:
So, pick which one you think would be most suitable to your role, and take them. Of course, that’s not stopping you taking some of the OTHER exams as well – why not try to get the whole set in!
Study tips:
Read the syllabus! Microsoft doesn’t just draw them up randomly – they cover the material needed. They’ve also been through Beta phases where feedback has been given (which Microsoft usually take some note of). It will give you an idea of where the focus is, what’s needed to check, etc
Practise – hands on experience. You really DO need this now. Fire up a trial, start playing around. Use the syllabus as a guide for this – if it says that you need to know about cases (eg case management, case routing, case rules, parent/child cases), then make sure that you DO know how to do these!
Talk to others who are studying at the same time – perhaps try to make a study group. I was fortunate enough to join twice-weekly session for one of my exams, hosted by an amazing Microsoft Trainer.
When taking the exam, if you come across something that you don’t know, and are guessing the answer to – DON’T CHANGE THE ANSWER LATER ON. In this sort of scenario the gut reaction is usually 85% correct, and it’s better to leave it than try to second guess yourself.
Also, don’t stress out about the exams. They’re not the Big Bad Wolf – once you do them, you’ll see that they’re not absolutely crazy. Sure, you may have to guess a question or two, but even very experienced people do that.
Ever wished that you had a single place to manage/create environments, see statistics for all of your systems, view data integrations, etc?
Traditionally, it’s sometimes been quite hard to see all of this – admins have had to go to multiple places to find this information, and then bring it all together manually. A tedious task at times! This was especially true if an organisation had multiple environments – truly a major headache.
But now…..there is an answer!
With the new Power Platform Admin Centre (note – it’s currently in Preview), this is all a thing of the past. It’s now extremely easy to see a massive amount of information in just one place. This covers environments, analytics (not only Dynamics environments, but now also the CDS, Flow and PowerApps for a tenant), Data Integrations, Data Gateways, etc.
You’re in the middle of editing the values of specific fields within Dynamics. Suddenly a colleague comes over to your desk to ask you something, or you get a phone call (obviously to assist with a technical matter!). You spend some time on the call, and deal with whatever is needed. You hang up, and look back at the screen.
Hold on. The train of thought is gone. You’re looking at the overall entity, and can’t remember if you did update a specific field, or you didn’t? And if you did, did you already publish the entity, or not?
You’ll need to open up each field that you’re needing to update, to see if you already dealt with it or not. MAJOR pain and headache, and loss of productivity.
Dynamics 365 is Microsoft’s business application suite, combining in a single system its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) capabilities. It includes four main applications: Customer Engagement, Finance and Operations, Talent and Retail.
Microsoft allows organisations to pick and choose the specific
applications they want to use to achieve their needs and objectives. This
allows organisations to use only the applications that they need, rather than
purchasing licenses to applications that may be left unused.
Dynamics
365 for Customer Engagement
Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement is Microsoft’s CRM system. It
contains a collection of separate applications that make up its CRM system,
including: Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Field Service and Project
Service Automation.
Dynamics 365 for Sales
This application enables organisations, and the users within these
organisations, to track sales across the entire sales lifecycle from beginning
to end, build and maintain close customer relationships through effective
management of customer accounts and gain valuable insights on the sales
process. The application also includes tips, suggestions and insights which
help to maintain customer relationships with ease.
Functionality includes:
Contacts/Accounts
Leads
Opportunities
Quotes
Orders
Invoices
Dynamics 365 for Marketing
Dynamics 365 for Marketing is an
application which seeks to optimise the way in which organisations generate
sales opportunities and turn them into business relationships. The application
seeks to bring together sales and marketing strategy to create a unified
approach for managing the whole sales lifecycle. Companies can use the
Marketing application to create a personalised marketing strategy which uses
data on previous activity to target specific individuals and deliver
personalised advertisement messages.
Functionality includes:
Event Management
Portals
LinkedIn Integration
Lead Management
Surveys
Email Marketing
Behaviour tracking
Customer Journeys
Dynamics 365 for Customer Service
This application provides
companies with the ability to provide personalised, high quality customer
service on a range of platforms. The Customer Service Hub within the application
provides a centralised GUI and includes many tools that companies can use to
improve and optimise the service they provide to customers. These tools provide
a complete view of customer cases and enable companies to provide personalised
support for customers. Users can create and view customer cases, record and
monitor progress, view previous customer interactions and see an overview of
all open cases, which can be broken down into categories, such as product,
priority and incident type.
Functionality includes:
Contacts/Accounts
Queues
Cases
Contracts
Knowledge Base Articles
SLA’s
Dynamics 365 for Field Service
The Field Service application focuses
on businesses’ operations in the field and provides companies with tools they
need to successfully operate and deliver high quality service to customers when
on-site. The application optimises the efficiency of resources through improved
scheduling, increasing the effectiveness of staff on-site and utilises Internet
of Things to identify and diagnose customer issues early on.
Functionality includes:
Resources
Bookings
Work Orders
Inventory
Agreements & Billing
Universal Resource Scheduling
Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation
Project Service Automation is an
application targeted towards companies that provide project-based services and
includes tools to increase productivity, efficiency and the quality of the work
being delivered. The application includes tools to assist these organisation
through the whole project lifecycle and allows users to plan projects, track
progress, forecast price and profitability, monitor the scope, review and
assess costs and time, optimise resource scheduling, amongst other things
Dynamics
365 for Finance and Operations
Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations is Microsoft’s integrated ERP
system. It includes a variety of features such as supply chain management, intelligent
analytics, financial management, operations support and human resources
management. One of the central features of Finance and Operations is its
financial management capabilities. This platform allows organisations to use
features such as general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable,
banking, budgeting and forecasting, fixed asset management and tax management.
Finance and Operations also includes a number of capabilities which aid
organisations to manage and optimise their supply chain operations. Some of
these capabilities include sourcing and procurement, inventory and warehouse
management, materials requirements planning (MRP), and manufacturing
management. These capabilities enable organisations to optimise and automate
their supply chain at every point throughout the process.
Dynamics
365 for Talent
Dynamics 365 for talent, Microsoft’s human capital management
application, provides organisations with the tools they need to optimise the
way in which they manage and engage with their workforce. Talent is made up of
three central parts:
Attract
Onboard
Core HR
Attract focuses on the all parts of the recruitment process, from
finding suitable candidates to submitting offers to successful applicants. Once
successful applicants become new employees, the Onboard part of Talent helps to
assimilate new joiners into the organisation. Finally, Core HR is designed to
enrich the experience of employees and managers in organisations by creating a
self-service portal. Within this portal employees can request time off, set and
track performance goals, receive feedback and monitor skills and capabilities.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest talent database and often the primary
system that recruiters use to find, communicate with, and source candidates for
the jobs that recruiters are looking to fill. LinkedIn Recruiter integration
with Dynamics 365 for Talent (Attract) makes it easier for users to hire, and
to keep the data in sync between the two systems
Dynamics
365 for Retail
Dynamics 365 for Retail works to bring together both front and back
office function to assists businesses in optimising inventory, merchandising,
store operations and hardware to create a unified multi-channel sales approach
that delivers a high-quality shopping experience.
Retail shares functionality with both Finance and Operations, and
Talent.
Dynamics
365 for Business Central
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Business Central is a cloud-based, all-in-one business management solution
which enables customers to upgrade from their entry-level accounting software
or legacy ERP system to one single, comprehensive solution to manage finances,
operations, sales and customer service. Helping organisations streamline their
processes, improve customer relations and enable growth through:
Business without silos—connecting
businesses and boosting efficiency with automated tasks and workflows, all
within the familiar Microsoft interface of applications such as Word, Outlook
and Excel.
Actionable insights—achieving more
and gaining a complete view of the business with connected data, business
analytics and guidance delivered by Microsoft’s leading intelligent
technologies.
Solutions built to evolve—get
started quickly, growing and adapting in real time with a flexible platform
that makes it easy to extend beyond Business Central based on evolving business
needs.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business
Central Essentials includes the following functionality:
Financial Management—general
ledger, workflows and audit trails, bank management, budgets, deferrals, bank
reconciliation, dimensions, fixed assets and currencies.
Customer Relational Management—contacts,
campaigns, opportunity management and built-in integration with Dynamics 365
for Sales.
Supply Chain Management—sales
order management, basic receivables, purchase order management, locations, item
transfers, and basic warehousing.
Human Resources—employees and
expense management.
Project Management—resources,
estimates, jobs and time sheets.
Other—multiple languages, reason
codes, extended text, Intrastat reporting, scheduled tasks and Outlook
integration
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Business Central Premium will include the above functionality, plus:
Service Order Management—service
orders, service price management, service item management, service contract
management, planning and dispatching.
Manufacturing—production orders,
version management, agile manufacturing, basic supply planning, demand
forecasting, capacity planning, machine centres and finite loading
Microsoft’s Common Data Service (CDS) is an Azure-based application which stores and manages the data that is used to create applications on PowerApps and explore insights on Power BI.
CDS is the collective name for two different services offered by Microsoft, CDS for Apps and CDS for analytics.
The former is built into PowerApps and it brings together and stores the data from Dynamics 365 applications and databases to enable users to create business applications.
The latter, on the other hand, is similar to a data warehouse or data lake. It pulls, aggregates, cleans, integrates and stores data from multiple sources which can then be used by organisations for analysis to produce visualisations, dashboards and reports.
Using CDS has a number of benefits, including:
Effortless data management: the data is stored in the cloud, so users can benefit from the lower costs associated with cloud storage, scalability. data redundancy and high availability.
Security: role-based access allows organisations to easily control who has access to the data
Dynamics 365 integration: users can easily utilise data on Dynamics 365 to create business applications
Data quality: business rules, workflows and process flows are used to ensure the quality of the data that is stored.
Common Data Model (CDM)
When using multiple sources to create
business applications or explore business data, each source may have a specific
way in which it categories, formats and structures the data. In order to aid
the development of business applications and data analysis, CDS uses the Common
Data Model to create standardisation and consistency across the data. The CDM
is shared data language that allows different business applications and
databases to communicate in the same language, so to speak.
The CDM contains a set of standardised schemas and semantic metadata that creates a standardised structure and format for data coming from different sources. It does this through the set of entities that standard across businesses, as well as the relationships between these entities. Entities are a set of individual data records.
Think of entities as tables within a database and records as specific rows within those tables. It is common for entities to share the same data and thus have a relationship.
For example, the entity “Discount” will likely share data with “Quote”, since businesses will quote a discounted price to attract customers. If a business requires an uncommon, specific entity they have the option of creating their own. Some of the standard entities included in the CDM are listed below.
