Professional Project Management
with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations
Project management
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations
There is a clear trend: more and more companies are working with projects, both internally and for external purposes. Behind this is also the desire for interdisciplinary teams to work on topics, for more agility to emerge, and for initiatives to be clearly delimited from the planning to the financial dimension. As the number of projects increases and there is a risk of losing the overview, professional tools are needed for these tasks.
With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations, the project management function can be fully integrated into the ERP from a wide range of application areas. That is because a project does not always have to be related to a product. Projects are used to provide a service, to plan or budget marketing, to achieve x arbitrary result and of course to create a product.
A project is a group of activities, with start and end dates. The project must provide information about time, cost and performance.
Project Overview
Project management in Dynamics 365 Project Operations can be initiated by various business units
- Services (internal / external)
- Internal projects for the implementation of initiatives
- In marketing for project tasks up to the campaign
- In manufacturing up to the product
- In service with the various service tasks up to completion
- In design up to product release
- In product planning up to the start of production
- In acquisition, to find out the real costs for the offer
Project initiation
Intro
Several important processes occur during project startup. You can use a project quote to enter pre-calculated tasks. Or, you can use the work breakdown structure to plan and evaluate upcoming work.
The following graphic shows the structure of a project:
Project initiation overview
Options in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations during initiation phase:
- Create a project proposal and project order
- Create work breakdown structures
- Create project plans and budgets
Project budgets will be according to:
- Effort
- Fixed price
- Investments
- Cost project
- Internal projects
- Time projects (used to record non-invoiceable and non-productive activities)
Run projects
Intro
While the projects are carried out, the employees or project team members record their times and expenses. The project managers have the tools to monitor the times with the budgeted amounts. The integrated Power BI in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance enables the project manager to monitor several projects simultaneously. Multi-project management thus becomes simple.
Project initiation overview
The project manager can do the following:
- Manage work breakdown structures
- Manage budgets and planning
- Create production order
- Provide products or services
- Process project invoice
- Determine the percentage of completion of the project
- Calculation of completion costs
Intercompany Project Accounting
Intro
Your organization may have several departments, subsidiaries and other legal entities that transfer products and services to each other for the same project. Your goal is, to make cost control, revenue recognition, taxes and transfer prices for intercompany project postings more flexible and efficient.
Intercompany project accounting functions
The following functions are also available:
- Create customer invoices for a project in a lending legal entity using intercompany time sheets, expenses, and vendor invoices
- Support of tax calculations and indirect costs
- Delays in revenue recognition in a lending legal entity and cost recognition
- Define transfer prices, which can be based on different pricing models
Orders for a project
In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance you can use several methods to create purchase orders for a project. The method that you use is determined by the purpose of the purchase order, the time of consumption of the purchased items, or the time of billing of the purchased items for a project.
The following are methods for doing this:
- Creating a purchase order directly through a project
- Creating a purchase order from a project
- Creating an order from an article requirement
Project offers
A project proposal will specify services calculated for the project, basic contact information, special trade agreements and discounts, and possible taxes and surcharges. In addition, activities or tasks can be selected for a project and a hierarchy of tasks and sub-tasks can be created. For each activity, you can enter details about the time and duration of the activity, as well as the qualifications and experience of the work force.
The project offer is a non-binding preliminary cost estimate of the planned work. However, if the information in the quotation is copied into a project that is assigned to a project contract, the information becomes part of an agreement between two parties.
If the customer approves the project quotation, the information in the project quotation can be copied into a project.
Team collaboration and document sharing: Cooperation made easy!
In Microsoft Dynamics 365 it is possible to attach any kind of documentation to the project task. Or, the project information is created in Microsoft OneNote, edited in the team and then stored in Microsoft OneDrive. With the direct link to the project task in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, the document can be accessed at any time. The automatic visualization shows the team members who last edited the document. With Microsoft OneNote you have unlimited possibilities to store project information that you want to share or edit with your team.
Are you interested in this topic? I would be pleased to answer any queries you have.
Andreas Pascutto, Head Sales ERP
andreas.pascutto@!ambit-group.com
+41 79 351 00 38
