Our team at Endeavour Solutions and GP Support North are thrilled with today’s confirmation of a new extended Great Plains / Dynamics GP Roadmap showing 2021 to 2028 and beyond. Released online and via an official Microsoft blog on July 8, 2021, the new Microsoft Servicing of Dynamics GP aligns with similar schedules for Dynamics 365 and Officially serves to give approval to the future of Dynamics GP.
Clients, as well as our consultants, have been frustrated with the lack of clarity over the past two years as Microsoft has had an aggressive focus on their Cloud-based Business Central ERP platform, leaving their updates to roadmap announcements on the back burner. Unfortunately, over this time, there were a large number of competitors trying to state that Dynamics GP is Dead, which was entirely untrue and in many cases a flat-out lie. It shows the lack of trust and integrity of certain individuals who mislead business leaders into making rash decisions for migration to other platforms.
At GP Support North and Endeavour, we are confident in the power of Dynamics GP and its longevity. So much so that we have increased both our team and the number of new GP clients during 2020 and 2021. Maybe now is the time to consider a New Microsoft Dynamics GP partner.
Visit our new dedicated website for Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) consulting services – GP Support North to learn more about what’s new for Dynamics GP 18.3 and our support for Dynamics GP USA and Canada clients.
Dynamics GP Support North America – GP Consultants for USA and Canada
KPI’s, Business Intelligence, Custom Reports and Datamarts are nothing new to Microsoft Dynamics GP, but the potential for user adoption and ease of access has improved significantly with the release and recent updates to Microsoft Power BI – Microsoft’s new cloud based dashboard and reporting tool. As a testament to Microsoft’s backing of this great tool, we’ve been told that Power BI will be embedded across the entire 2018 Microsoft Dynamics portfolio including Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM.
What is Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence (BI) is a technology-driven process for analyzing data and presenting actionable information to help corporate executives, business managers and other end users make more informed business decisions.
Embedding Power BI Dashboards and KPIs in your organization
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be used as a defined measure to gauge the performance of how your business operations and strategies are being implemented and executed. Microsoft Dynamics GP can obviously give you the answers, but typically only if you are looking for them, and periodically additional outside information is needed to form a more complete story. Additionally, there are users that may be outside of your core GP team, who would love to gain access to AR, Sales and other KPI. PowerBI can be a good means to help expose such valuable insights. For example, Endeavour’s GP Bistro product connects GP with Dynamics 365 for Sales (CRM) and used Power BI within CRM to provide dashboards for sales by custom, AR aging by customer, and popular products sold. www.endeavour365.ca/gpbistro
Telling a story with KPIs and dashboards via Microsoft Power BI can serve to “keep a pulse” on such metrics, supporting an aggregation of information and a more frequent review of metrics by business users. This higher frequency (weekly, daily, even multiple times a day) of reviewing and taking action based on specific metrics relevant to each department is what is referred to as “embedding KPIs” within your organization. Before we look at user adoption in relation to your efforts to embed dashboards and KPIs, let’s take a quick look into what makes a great dashboard and set of KPIs in the first place.
What makes a great Power BI dashboard and set of KPIs?
Most KPI’s and related visualizations seen on a dashboard (graphics, numbers, pie charts, maps, bar graphs) represent specific metrics. Each metric can tell its own story and together with other related metrics on the same dashboard, can tell a broader and more complete story, including storytelling elements such as a timelines, cause and effect relationships, and a shared context.
Each KPI on your dashboard should follow the M-C-A method for KPIs; an acronym representing: Measurable, Common understanding and Actionable.
Great KPIs require all three (M-C-A) and typically start with a Measure represented by a $, # or %. The measures should be supported by a Common understanding around the source of the data, the timeline represented, the method of calculation, and the desired targets. Periodically our consultants will host a cross-functional team meeting to assist clients in reaching an internal agreement on specific measures such as % Available Inventory. Finally, great KPIs should be Actionable. Actionable refers to the underlying business commitment to keep a pulse on business performance and to hold specific people accountable for the results. Actionable also refers to the documented set of future actions that will be used to adjust the ‘people, processes or technology’ if the KPI targets are missed.
Supporting User Adoption of Embedded KPIs
Once the dashboards and KPIs are designed and published using Microsoft Power BI, there is a need to ensure that the business users are able to embrace and accept these dashboards within their daily practices. Without adoption, your team will be hard pressed to achieve any positive action and performance improvements if the dashboards are not used.
Borrowing from our Project Managers at Endeavour Solutions, user adoption is best supported by facilitating three key inputs: Knowledge, Attitude and Practice, or what has also been referred to as reaching the user’s head, heart and hands. Our lead Consultants and Project Managers often include a change management plan (communications and training) that strives to anticipate and address potential user gaps such as the following:
• Knowledge of what the change is, including the difference between the old and the new.
• Attitude towards the change, sometimes boiling down to either: WIIFM – “what’s in it for me”, or addressing any issues of ‘trust’ related to the questionable success of past changes.
• Ability to Practice, test, trial, and live through the change. From a Dashboard and Power BI perspective, this would involve a short training session and clear set of communications on what the KPI’s mean, how they are calculated, desired thresholds, future targets and the actions that can be taken to improve results.
Next Steps
Dashboards and KPIs serve to keep a view of specific tactics, keeping a scorecard on the actions and programs that are implemented to support your organization’s efforts and strategic goals. We’ve found that the ease of deployment, when using Microsoft Power BI, has been greatly increased, and thus reducing the cost of deploying Dashboards and KPIs within your organization.
As a next step, we recommend watching our Power BI Demo video (39min) accessed on-demand via our website at www.endeavoursolutions.ca/businessintelligence , then talking with your peers and broader business community around the types of KPIs (that are M-C-A) and dashboards that can help to improve your organization’s performance. In the video, we outline a project methodology as well as additional recommendations and next steps for you and your team.
Need help?
Our consultants at Endeavour Solutions have a number of pre-defined KPIs, sample dashboards and a defined project methodology, that can help to accelerate the adoption and embedding of dashboards and KPIs as part of your next Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Intelligence project. www.endeavoursolutions.ca/about-us
With the power of the Cloud, remote desktop access, and increasingly refined processes we’ve found that more and more of our client work for Microsoft Dynamics GP (ERP) and Microsoft Dynamics 356 (CRM online) implementations, upgrades and integrating 3rd party products, has been completed remotely via secure connections from our offices rather than traveling onsite to our client’s location (in Atlantic Canada, Central Canada or USA).
So what’s changed? We did a quick poll among our Endeavour Solutions’ Canadian consultants in Toronto, Halifax, London and Montreal, the results were much along the lines of what you might expect, but do indicate a clear trend none the less.
1) Change in customer mindset
2) Improvement in technology and remote connections
3) A refinement of processes and the more predicable nature of consulting engagements
Now, most of the consultants interviewed, still stressed the need to meet with clients as part of their relationship building process, but some did concede that they’ve been able to build and maintain a number of strong long-term relationships via phone, email and webcam.
Change in customer mindset. The general consensus was that more and more clients, new and existing, were willing to have their Endeavour consultants work remotely. This was both due to their comfort and trust in working with Endeavour Solutions, as well as a general shift from what used to be a lot of collaboration and joint discovery of the issues and potential solutions, to more of a reliance on Endeavour as a trusted adviser and a more simplistic, get-it-done attitude. To sum it up, more and more clients are buying ‘results’ and are less concerned with paying for ‘bums in seats’. For example, on an eight-week project, one of our consultants traveled to the client’s office (Dynamics GP Michigan client) only once for an initial kick-off, and the rest of their Dynamics GP upgrade was performed remotely, including the implementation of a new manufacturing module along with the associated testing and training.
Technology Improvements. This is thanks to both better network stability and bandwidth that is seen across Canada and the majority of the United States. It’s also because of the greater prevalence and use of proven network security, firewalls and systems being extended to external stakeholders. Our technical consultants also stressed that the newer versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM were designed for browser use (web client) incorporating a modern Service Based Architecture which provides a streamlined means of supporting mobile, cloud and secure remote connectivity. This is further echoed in Microsoft’s “mobile-first, cloud-first” mantra in support of its efforts to help Dynamics Users “Re-invent [their] productivity and business processes” with mobile, cloud and applications such as Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016.
Refined Processes: Endeavour is now in its 27th year in business as a Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP (Great Plains), Microsoft Dynamics 365 for CRM and Microsoft Office 365, Azure & cloud consulting firm. With over 400 active clients coast to coast in Canada and internationally including the United States and South America, we have refined, updated and optimized a number of internal processes to help improve efficiency and predictability of customer engagements. These methodologies, used by our consultants in Toronto, Halifax, London and Montreal, with additional remote support for Edmonton Alberta and Ottawa Ontario, have also created an increased level of predictability and confidence in delivering projects on-time, on-budget and now remotely.
To learn more, contact Steve Ewing, Director Business Development @ Endeavour Solutions Inc.
Excel has been a key part of Microsoft Office and continues to be enhanced in Office 216, part of Microsoft Office 365 (Office 365 Consulting in Canada). As a complement to Microsoft Dynamics, Office 365 and Excel 2016 not only provides additional functions and usability, but there are now dedicated mobile apps, browser-based online versions as well as the traditional Office desktop workhorse apps for Mac and PC.
The following are a quick Top 3 Excel Functions for Microsoft Dynamics
1. Excel templates in Dynamics CRM and GP.
There are a number of great ‘canned’ reports within Dynamics GP and CRM. Some of the more popular GP ‘canned’ reports include: Export Chart of Accounts, Sales Analysis, Purchasing Analysis and Inventory Analysis. New within Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016, you can now create your own Excel templates and reports. This is an exciting new function within Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016. Excel templates can now be formatted and embedded within CRM and made available as a personal or system-wide template. This means the full capabilities of Excel formatting, including Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts, conditional formatting or offline calculations that can’t be easily handled inside CRM, can now be created as templates and made available to all users.
2. Excel PowerPivot for advanced slicing and dicing.
This this free add-in within Excel, simply type into the search “Power Pivot”, Excel will point you to the data analysis add-in called Power Pivot. Vlookup and Hlookup are good, but being able to use a graphical interface to create joins between multiple tables via Power Pivot makes the consolidation and analysis of information a breeze. Within Excel 2016, Power Pivot has been expanded to include that ability to preview and filter (ETL) before extracting data from a view, instead of downloading the entire Dynamics View or SmartList. This is a great time saver when you are dealing with large data sets with, hundreds of thousands or millions, of rows of transactional data. We recommend that you get some help from an expert (Endeavour Microsoft Dynamics Consultants) to build and create the custom connections to views or database tables in Dynamics CRM or Dynamics GP before performing your slicing and dicing. Be sure to periodically reconcile a simple PowerPivot report against your current reporting system to confirm that you are capturing each of the right tables and transactions.
3. Creating budgets within Excel and re-importing them back into Dynamics GP.
Under the Financial Card in Dynamics GP, you can use the ‘Budget Wizard for Excel” to create GP friendly budgets that can be re-imported into GP for actual vs. budget comparisons. To help kick-start your budgeting process, you can export an Excel budget template with starting data from Microsoft Dynamics GP based on:
A percentage change +or- from the open year, or
A percentage change +or- from a previous year, or
A percentage change +or- from a previous budget, or
A blank Excel budget template that you can populate from scratch before re-importing back into Dynamics GP.
For more sophisticated budgeting and forecasts, you may also want to consider Endeavour Solutions’ approved Dynamics ISV partner, Prophix for automated budgeting workflows in support of a collaborative approach to setting budgets and forecasts. With their new cloud-based options, Prophix is now more affordable for Microsoft Dynamics users in the mid-market. See Endeavour’s dedicated Prophix page at www.endeavoursolutions.ca/Prophix
About Endeavour Solutions Inc.
Endeavour Solutions is a Microsoft Gold ERP and Microsoft Silver CRM Partner focusing on development, implementation, upgrades, support and training for Dynamics GP, Dynamics CRM. and Office 365. With offices in Toronto, Halifax, London, Montréal and Edmonton we have more than 400 active clients in every province in Canada. In 2016, Endeavour was named to the Microsoft President’s Club – The top 5% of Microsoft Partners Worldwide. See our Innovative projects @ www.endeavoursolutions.ca/dynamicsprojects
Deciding to leave Dynamics GP is bittersweet. Our team at GP Support North will miss you, however, our Business Central migration and support team at Endeavour Solutions is eager to help you succeed.
