D365

How a document flows or moves through the system, by showing who must complete a task, make a decision, or approve a document.

Example

1. Susan submits an expense of $8000.
2. Ivan must review if expense amount between $1000 and $10000: Approve, Reject, Delegate
3. Patrick must review if expense amount greater than $10000: Approve, Reject, Delegate
4. Suzi (at the end) must review any expenses: Approve, Reject, Delegate

Workflow configuration is based on workflow type.
Can create multiple workflow configurations for each workflow type.
Can develop new workflows and extend F&O apps using Visual Studio – Before developing a new workflow, make sure you’ve checked all available workflow types

Modules that contain workflow type templates: General Ledger, Accounts payable, Accounts receivable, Budgeting, Fixed Assets, Human resources, Procurement and sourcing, Inventory management, Project and accounting, Time and attendance, Cash and bank, Commerce

Example workflow type templates in General Ledger:
– Ledger daily journal workflow: to create approval workflows for daily journals
– Ledger allocations journal workflow: to create approval workflows for allocation journals
– Ledger eliminations journal workflow: to create approval workflows for eliminations journals
– Advanced Ledger entry workflow: to create approval workflows for advanced ledger entries

Create and setup a workflow using workflow editor
E.g. to create a Purchase requisition workflow

1. Select the correct LE
2. Procurement and sourcing > Setup > Procurement and sourcing workflows
3. List of current workflows appears. The “Association” column is Organization-wide, or shows the LE it applies to.
4. Click on +New at the top. The available workflow types templates appears.
5. Pick one of the workflow types templates (let’s choose Purchase requition line review and run the file it downloads. If problems, it is due to Chrome, do it from IE)
6. Make your modifications on the template
   1. we are in Workflow editor now. Click on properties, you can give it the name, an owner, submission instructions eg Review this purchase requisition line amount: %Purchase requisition lines.LineAmount%- can add any of these placeholders with insert placeholder which is any of the fields available on the document. Can also under Activation, provide some conditions for running this workflow, Notifications tab)
   2. Can add conditional decisions, name it Amount is Greater than 10000, and add the condition where Purchase requisition lines.Amount > 10000
   3. In these conditional decisions, there is an Assignment tab. Can’t have None for this one, but can set it to a specific user, or a hierarchy, e.g. manager
7. Save it with a name that makes sense
8. Activate the newly created workflow – can choose Set as Default (Workflow tab at the top when viewing the Workflows)

General ledger: used to define and manage the Legal Entity’s financial records. It is a register of debit and credit entries. These entries are classfied using the accounts that are listed in a chart of accounts.
Cash and bank management: can be used to maintain the legal entity’s bank accounts and the financial instruments that are associated with those bank accounts. These instruments include deposit slips, checks, bills of exchange, and promissory notes. It can also be used for reconcile bank statements andprint bank data on standard reports.
Tax: The sales tax framework supports many types of indirect taxes such as: sales tax, value-added tax (VAT), good and services tax (GST), unit-based fees, withholding tax. These taxes are calculated and documented during purchase and sales transactions. Periodically, they must be reported and paid to tax authorities.
Accounts payable: Manage your vendor accounts, vendor invoices
Accounts receivable: Track your customer invoices, maange their payments
Credit and collection: You can manage credit limits for your customers and perform collection activities when they become necessary.
Budgeting: It allows to capture required information to enable finance team to generate reports of Budget vs Actuals. Also to control budget within the processes.
Fixed assets: Items of value such as buildings, vehicles, land, and equipment. You can set up and enter acquisition information for fixed asseets, then manage them by depreciating them and setting a capitalisation threshold to determine depreciation.
Cost accounting: It lets you collect data from various sources, such as the general ledger, sub-ledgers, budgets, and statistical information.

General ledger

• Define and manage the Legal Entity’s financial structure
  • Chart of accounts
  • Account structure
  • Financial dimensions
  • Defining fiscal calendar
• Centre of Finance
  • Recording all financial transactions from any other modules
• Register of all debit and credit entries of all transactions

 

Features

• Accruals
  • Used in accrual accounting (Revenue recognition)
  • To track revenue that is recognised in the period that it’s earned in, not when the payment is received
  • To track expenses (costs) that are recognised when they occur, not when payment is made.
• Allocation
  • You can allocate or distribute, monetary amounts to one or more accounts, or to account and dimension combinations, based on allocation rules
  • The two types of allocations are fixed and variable
  • You can also settle transactions between ledger accounts and revalue currency amounts.
• Year-end closing process
  • Close transactions
  • Prepare accounts for next fiscal year
  • Consolidation functionality
• Financial reporting
  • Consolidate multiple companies during report generation
  • These reports can be run at any time
  • These reports provide ability to drill down to all companies and dimensions

General ledger integration:

• Accounts payable / Procurement and sourcing: all purchase order invoices and payment transactions are recorded in the general ledger. The accounts payable clerk matches the purchase order with the recorded invoice to determine if the vendor invoice is qualified to be paid and upon the due date generates payments which through the general ledger will impact cash and bank management.
• Accounts receivable / sales and marketing: All sales order invoices and receipts payment transactions are recorded in the general ledger
• Inventory management: integrated with general ledger through item groups
• Cash and bank management: all incoming and outgoing funds will be recorded in the general ledger and each bank has a corresponding account in the general ledger chart of accounts, therefore this module simplifies our ability to reconcile bank statements with financial management transactions and periodic processing
• Production control: integrated by general ledger for posting production estimated and actual costs during pre-flushing and back-flushing process
• Budgeting: budget plan can be generated from general ledger data
• Project management and accounting: via cost and revenue accounts
• Fixed assets: Integrated with GL (General Ledger) through acquisition and depreciation transactions

Chart of accounts and main accounts
General ledger > Chart of accounts >

• Accounts
  • Main accounts
    • a main account is an account in the general ledger. It is used to record financial transactions, balances, or totals that pertain to assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, and owner equity.
    • Can define account type (asset etc), account category (cash etc), debit or credit, in which LE the account can be used.
    • Can also provide info for posting validation.
    • Some configuration for financial reporting for this particular account (e.g. currency exchange rate type)
    • Advanced rules, such as from this account to that account, what are the available financial dimensions that always have to be provided once a transction or journal entry is being created. Can be set up in General Ledger > Structures > Advanced rule structures
  • Chart of accounts: COA is an index of all the financial accounts in the general ledger of a company
    • General ledger > Ledger setup > ledger
      • Each individual company has one ledger setup. So within each ledger we should always set up which chart of accounts we are using for this particular company. If you click on the chart of accounts within there, it will show you all the associated main accounts
• Dimensions > Financial Dimensions
  • E.g. for Cost Centre, the dimension values might be 007 Trade Shows, 008 Marketing Campaign, 009 Service Operations etc. A combination of the main account and financial dimensions usually allows you to overview your financial transactions from different angles
• Structures
• Funds

General ledger > Currencies

• Can set currencies, exchange rates, can define yourself or import them from exchange rate providers such as central bank of europe

Fiscal calendar setup
General ledger > Calendars > Fiscal calendars

General Journal
General Ledger > Journal entries > General journals
Here you can set up your general journals
New Journal entry can be created, then clicking “Lines”, it takes you to the journal voucher (one line per journal line – e.g. this line is 1000 debit)
In the journal voucher, you can Post the line (there is a Validate > Validate option you can do before if you like or a Validate > Simulate posting)

All the things you can do within General Ledger:

• Prepare pre-closing reports
• Create electronic documents
• Process closing transactions
• Allocate transactions
• Maintain ledger accounts
• Close books
• Close period and fiscal year
• Revalue currency amounts
• Convert accounting currency
• Allocate cost and income
• Consolidate transactions
• Forecast cash flow & requirements

Accounts Payable

• Vendor management
  • Create or modify vendors
  • Create vendor groups
• Purchase order management
  • Create purchase orders
  • Create purchase agreements
  • Prepare prepayment invoices and a prepayments overview
• Invoice management
  • Receive and enter vendor invoices
  • Invoice matching and approval process
  • Resolve discrepencies
  • Setup default offset accounts
• Vendor payment
  • Define vendor payment terms and fees
  • Create vendor payments
  • Set up and generate positive pay files
  • Credit vendor payments for a partial amount
  • Reverse a vendor payment
  • Settle a partial vendor payment

Accounts Payable > Vendors > All vendors

• Choose your vendor then Procurement > New > Purchase order

Purchase Order > Confirm (approved by the authorised people defined in the system) > After receiving products, create Product receipt for your purchase order > Generate Invoice against your Product receipt > Post the invoice

Accounts Payable > Purchase Orders > All purchase orders
If status is Approved, it has been approved and it ready to process. Click on your purchase order, go to Purchase tab, and choose Confirm
Then can go Receive > Product receipt – give it a number, click the lines you want to be part of your receipt
Then can go to Invoice > generate > invoice – give it a number, Save. Can click on Match Product Receipt to match the product receipt, then Update match status.
Then Post

Accounts Receivable

• Customer management
• Create of modify customers
• Maintain customer posting profiles
• Sales order management
• Create sales order
  Create sales agreements
• Create pickling list and packing slip for a sales order
• Customer Invoice management
• Create customer invoices
• Create free text invoices
• Correct free text invoices
• Set up and process recurring invoices
• Customer payments management
• Receive payments
• Setup credit cards, bills of exchange, cash, cheques, credit card, or electronic payments (SEPA – Single Euro Payments Area)
• Centralised payments for multiple legal entities
• Distribute transaction amounts
• Handle customer payments for a partial amount
• Prioritise payments

Accounts receivable > Customers > All customers, click on customer, Sell > Sales Order. Add lines. Can add discounts.

Accounts receivable > Orders > All sales orders. New, enter customer account etc. Can add sales order lines. Then Invoice > Generate > Invoice

Cash and bank management

• Manage letters of credit and import collections
• Manage letters of guarantee to manage agreement by a bank
• Perform bank reconciliation
• Deposit and transfer bank funds
• Cancel wrong deposits
• Update and maintain bank balances
• Define formats for cheques
• Use the cash flow forecasting tools

Cash and bank management > bank accounts
Cash and bank management > letters of credit
Import letter of credit (organsiation = buyer or applicant (makes the payment))
Export letter of credit (organsiation = seller or beneficiary (will receive the payment))

Supply chain management

• Product information management: define the goods and services and assign to appropriate legal entities so they can be transacted. Product type: item or service.
• Procurement and sourcing (identfying a need for product and services, procuing the product. Receiving, invoicing, processing the payment with vendors)
• Warehouse and inventory management: inbound operations, quality assurance, warehouse operations, outbound operations, inventoy control
• Production control: production life cycle: follows specific steps that are required to complete the manufacturing of an item. Begins with creation of the production order. Ends with a manufactured item ready for a customer of another phase of production
• Master planning: allows companies to determine and balance the future need for raw materials and capacity to meet company goals.

Product Information management > Products > Products
New. Then can set up new product or service. Then release it into the appropriate legal entity. Then can use it in sales and marketing in sales orders.

Number sequences
SO-0001
SO-0002 -> cancelled
Next number for next sals order in
Continuous: SO-0002 (has a large effect for performance so not recommended if not requirement for continuous)
Non-Continuous: SO-0003
Accounts Payable > Setup > Accounts payable parameters > number sequences

Number sequence wizard:
Organisation administration > workspaces > number sequences > number sequences
New > Number sequence > generate

Global address book
A centralised repository for master data that must be stored for all internal and external persons and organisations. When an address changes, the update only needs to be made in one place.

Organisation administration > Global address book > global address book
Set organisation or person when creating new.

Authentication (Azure Active Directory): users

Authorization – grants access (detects access at runtime):
Security Roles > Duties | Privileges > Permissions for application elements (user interface elements, tables and fields, SSRS reports, Service operations)

Data Security – denies access
Data security policies | table permissions framework

Database

Uses role based security. Users are assigned to security roles based on their responsibilities in the organisation and their participation in business processes.
Duties are assigned to security roles (Duties correspond to parts of a business process. The administrator assigned duties to security roles.
Duties contain privileges. A privilege specifies the level of access that is required to perform a job, solve a problem, or complete an assignment.
A privilege also contains permissions to individual application objects, such as user interface elements (menu items and forms), tables and fields, forms, services, reports.
Each function such as forms or services, are accessed through entry points, e.g. via Menu items, web content items, service operations

E.g. Maintain bank transactions duty contrains the generate deposit slips and cancel payments privileges.

E.g. The cancel payments privilege contains permissions to them menu items, fields, and tables that are required to cancel payments.

System administration > Users > Users. Click the user that interests you and you can see the roles associated to that user.

System administration > Users > Online users: shows you all the users currently connected
System administration > Inquiries > User log

System administration > Security> Security configuration
Shows all the roles
AOT name is Application Object Tree, which contains all of the definitions of elements that are used to build Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O, such as classes, tables, forms, and so on.
Once made any changes, go to unpublished objects, reviw the changes to publish and click publish all

Segregation of duties
E.g. generate goods receipt note and process payment to vendor might be better to have 2 people, to avoid fraud

Regulatory requirements
SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley), IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards), Food & Drug Administration (FDA)

System administration > Security > Segregation of duties > Segregation of duties rules
Then can define the duties you want segretated (first duty, second duty, severity (low, medium, high), security risk, security mitigation)

Then when roles assigned, you can click System administration > Security > Segregation of duties > Segregation of duties conflicts, to find any conflicts.
Also System administration > Security > Segregation of duties > Verify compliance of user-role assignments

Security reports
System administration > Inquiries

System administration > Inquiries > Security > User role assignments. Then can change filter to find what you are looking for.

System administration > Inquiries > Security > Role to user assignments
System administration > Inquiries > Security > Security role access

Users are able to personalise their UI
Customisation:

• address the gap identified in customer’s requirements
• Needs coding and development to extend the application by adding tables, entities, field, user interfaces
• Needs to be done by a developer
• Takes more time and higher cost

Personalisation:

• Changes in user interface such as add or remove fields.
• Deliver content and functionality that matches a specific role, user, or group of users’ needs
• Can be configured by business analysts / functional consultant
• Less time to implement and lower cost

Settings gear in top right, User options
Visual, Preferences, Account, Workflow

In a details page, Options > Personalise, can then right click on a field and have options to personalise: hide, skip (removes from page keyboard tab sequence) etc.

Personalisation toolbar, from details page, CTRL+Shift+P, or right click any element, personalise > personalise this page

Can add something a little custom, right click personalise, add a field, create new field > choose table name, name prefix, type (eg checklist), field name, label, help text

In personalisation toolbar, 3 dots, can add an app from Power Apps
In personalisation toolbar, 3 dots, clear will remove any personalisation you have done on the page
In personalisation toolbar, 3 dots, import / export: customisations come out in xml and can be imported by other users

Most pages containing lists, if you go to options > personalise > add to workspace

Administrate personalisations. Either can do them, export, give to others and they import, or
Admin can apply personalisations to many users:
System administration > setup > personalisation
Can choose the role, then import personalisations from a file or select existing personalisations

Excel add ins
Load data from F&O into Excel (static)
Publish data from Excel into F&O

E.g. Accounts receivable > All customers
Icon in top right corner of page: Open in Microsoft Office
Export to Excel is the static option

Open in Excel option, this is the two way version where updates go back to D365

Workbook designer:
Common > Common > Office integration > Excel workbook designer
Can pick fields and create your workbook

It is the central repository for most of the tools that we use to prepare and deploy a project for F&O apps
It is a cloud-based collaboration workspace

Access via lcs.dynamics.com
Implementation projects can be created here
Go into your project, can see the project methodology, and the tasks that should be performed (recommended by microsoft)
Can only get to next phase if all previous tasks ticked off as done

2 environments by default: preprod (for UAT), and prod (high availability). Any other environments can be purchased as add ons.

Asset libary: a repository for storing various types of artifacts used in an implementation project

Tier 1 sandbox:

• Build environment (golden configuration environment) – only module configurations without transactional data. Also used as a baseline for data migration testing and eventual go-live.
• Test (QA) environment: is where QA test all the stuff that was put in the build environment

Tier 2 sandbox:

• UAT (pre-prod): Once Test QA all passed, move changes and configurations here for functional users to test

Production

An asset library helps us to manage code updates across the above different environments, and manage data movement across the above different environments. E.g. we can move configuration from one environment to another one.
Also helps us manage business process models.

2 levels of asset libraries, shared vs project. Shared can be used between for example the F&O implementation project, and the commerce implementation project. The F&O implementation asset library is just for that project, and the commerce implementation asset library is just for that project.

Shared Asset Library available from the LCS homepage.

Business Process Modeler (BPM):
Let’s you create, view and modify standard process flows.

Go to project, then hamburger icon, and choose business process modeler.

Clicking on one of these gives you options, such as to see it as a diagram, or to download the steps with Word. Also, the download button downloads as an axtr file, so it can be used by the regression suite automation tool (RSAT).

Task recorder:
From BPM:
Add process (as child or sibling (same level))
E.g. Order to cash
Add new process, child

Now can go to the task recorder to create the guide for this process.
In F&O D365 environment, click on cog in upper right > task recorder
Create recording, Play recording as a guide
Create recording > give it a name > start
Now go to accounts receivable > Orders > All sales orders
You can see the first step has been written in the task recorder
New
Do the rest of your steps.
Choose stop recording.
Save to lifecycle services > choose your preferred library (e.g. our DEMO library, then save it in the new business process we just created.

Issues:
Project > hamburger icon > Issue search
Can find hotfixes and download them

Data movement across applications is called integration.

Integration pattern:
Synchronous: blocking pattern: process A: calls B, waits for return, then continues A.
Asynchronous: non-blocking: process A: calls B, and continues without waiting for a response.

OData
Client <> CRUD operations <> D365 F&O data source
Based on REST API (representational state transfer) – HTTP, JSON format (Javascript Object Notation)

Interact via RESTful web services, broad integrarion across products.
Recommended for synchronous integrations, usually used for not very high volume, frequency of call could be low like ad hoc

Batch data API
Client <> Batch data API <> D365 F&O data source

Asynchronous integration
Used to import / export high volume data

Custom service
Clients <> Custom service <> D365 F&O data source

Excel integration
D365 <> read and write data <> ODATA <> Excel data connector <> Excel

Data entity: encapsulates one or more tables. Intended to be easily understood by users familiar with business concepts.
Data Project: contains configured data entities.
Data Job: contains an execution instance of the data project, uploaded files, and schedule (recurrence)
Data package: A single compressed file that contains a data project manifest, and data files. Generated from a data job

System administration > Workspaces > Data management

Can import and export from here.
Copy into legal entity is useful to copy data from one LE to another one.

 

There is an expense management mobile app

General Ledger > Ledger setup > financial reporting setup
General Ledger > Inquiries and reports > financial reports

Pick a report, then click edit to open the report designer
Can edit rows and columns

Batch jobs
Printing reports, performing maintenance, sending electronic documents, additional scheduled tasks
Reduces performance impacts during standard working hours

Batch job, can contain batch tasks.
Batch group lets admin specify which AOS instance runs the batch task.

Good to run a long running task on a server, instead of from a user as it locks up the screen for a long time.

E.g. Credit and collections > Periodic tasks > Age customer balances