Posted by Bailey Springs
​

​In the past few years, many organizations have been hopping on the “work from home” trend and have installed remote policies into their everyday workforce.  Recently, this trend has been accelerated due to the Coronavirus outbreak.  Many professionals, however, may not have worked from home often enough to have a routine established and may struggle with staying focused, on track and productive.  Here are 10 tips for staying productive while working from home:
​

Posted by Lise'Cummings and Ashley Kennally
​

With the Microsoft Dynamics GP release in October 2019 a new support initiative was put in place, called the Modern Lifecycle.

This new Modern Lifecycle shows that Microsoft, more than ever, has a continued commitment to the Dynamics GP product and has provided a clear roadmap for what customers can expect going forward. 

Let us help you break this down and explain what it means to you.

This means that they've done away with the 5 year Mainstream Support on versions released on/after October 2019.  In this new support model, customers will now be encouraged to stay current with new releases and apply at least one update per year if at all possible. 

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015        Mainstream Support end date 4/14/2020
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2016        Mainstream Support end date 7/13/2021
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018*        Mainstream Support end date 1/10/2023
*Version 18.00.0727 and prior (anything prior to October 2019 release)        

With that being said, if a customer has not applied an update in 2 years, Microsoft has said they will not refuse support to someone on an older version unless they have a data integrity issue.

As long as you remain current on your annual enhancement, the Modern Lifecycle policy will include at a minimum: a rich feature release in October, the usual November and December year-end updates, and a mid-year update depending on regulatory changes.

Don’t fret, these updates won't happen automatically.  The decision of when the update is installed will still be at your discretion. 

Contact your Strategic Account Manager if you still have questions or if you would like to learn how our new VisionFlex plan can provide yearly upgrades to stay on the newest version.

Posted by Anne Diaz

​The October 2019 release of Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC), which is one of two major updates released for BC each year, contains a variety of new features that will help end users save time and enhance their access to useful data and shortcuts. These enhancements were driven largely by the requests of users on the Dynamics Experience site.  Here are the top ten features in the latest release from our team to yours:

​1. Multi-tasking
 
You can now open a second page of Business Central in another tab or window so you can do different tasks at the same time in the same company.  With a click of the new banner button in top right of the screen you are working in, you can open the page in another window and multi-task like a boss.  

Posted by Jonathan Crowell

Nothing… sort of.  You may also be asking yourself “What is Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement?” I’ll address both questions.

As of November 1, 2016, Microsoft Dynamics CRM was renamed and became part of Microsoft Dynamics 365. The Dynamics CRM we have known and loved was more or less re-labeled and licensed in a different manner. At that time, there was set to be two “editions” of the CRM applications – Business and Enterprise. The Business Edition was geared towards companies with more basic requirements in Sales and Customer Service and aligned with then called Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, Business Edition, which is now called Dynamics 365 Business Central (see my blog “What Happened to Dynamics NAV” for more information on the evolution of Business Central). Things changed, as they do, and there never really was a business edition for CRM. Meanwhile, the Enterprise Edition offered more robust functionality in Sales and Customer Service, as well as more applications for Field Service and Project Service Automation. Marketing was somewhat of an unknown in 2016, as Microsoft positioned Adobe Marketing Cloud for “enterprise” needs, and was in the process of sunsetting Dynamics Marketing for a “business edition” version of the marketing app. You could license individual applications or plans for users who needed access to multiple apps, and there was tiered pricing for the plans if you had a large number of users.

Fast-forward to October 1, 2019, and the above seems like a faint memory. In true Microsoft fashion, the naming and licensing has changed, again. I’ll attempt to make sense of it all in this blog, but if you’d prefer to discuss these changes, we welcome you to give us a call (704-846-6750)!
Let’s start with the name. Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement is the name, and it’s the full suite of “CRM” applications available from Microsoft. Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Service Automation, and Marketing are all included within Customer Engagement. There are no longer Business and Enterprise versions of these applications, but rather “Professional” and Enterprise versions. Nothing has changed with the Enterprise applications, as far as functionality, and the Professional versions look and feel the same as Enterprise, but with limited functionality (mainly around what entities are included and extensibility – see our video on Professional vs Enterprise). As of now, only Sales and Customer Service are available as “Professional” SKUs. Licensing will be covered below, but before I do that, I want to address some of the under-lying technology changes for Customer Engagement.
​

Posted by Paul Haag
​

​Posted by Chelsea Schlepp
​

Posted by Chelsea Schlepp
​