Customizing Your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM) Solution

This is a rewritten version of an older blog post. As the information is still relevant today, we decided to revisit some of our older content and update it.

One of the main benefits of a customer relationship management solution is its flexibility and adaptability: it can be customized to enhance your processes and take your business to the next level. A CRM such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement will not only help you manage clients, contacts, customer service and marketing activities, it will also improve productivity across your organization by streamlining your processes.

Here are some of the questions we are asked by customers considering Microsoft Dynamics 365:

• What are the benefits of customizing your CRM? A customized CRM solution works the way you do. It increases efficiency across your organization by adapting your system to your processes and operations, and not other way around. This includes customizing the solution to match your company’s specific needs and internal jargon, and consolidating all activities, clients, and other resource details. This also ensures a high user adoption rate as users have an easier time getting used to the solution.

• What can you customize? Almost anything can be customized in your CRM, from fields to forms, not to mention business processes and workflows. For example, you can automate manual tasks, connect data for detailed reporting and business intelligence, and facilitate project management and invoicing. The integration to Outlook, SharePoint and OneNote helps connect processes usually managed in shared drives, Excel spreadsheets and other non-connected tools. Views and reports can be customized to give you the data and detail you need when you need it.

• Can anyone do these customizations? Microsoft has made it easy to customize your solution thanks to a variety of tools. Microsoft Power Automate lets you automate tasks and connect apps, while custom entities can be created with a little training. The upcoming unified interface for Dynamics 365 even lets you create model-driven apps, no-code or low-code apps that can be created to meet specific needs. First timers may want to consult their CRM provider to validate how to best achieve their goals and vision.

The ability to customize and adapt a CRM solution to your specific needs is one of its main benefits. However, it’s important to understand the core philosophy of a given CRM solution before implementing it within your environment. Different systems meet different needs, and customizations can only go so far to adapt the solution beyond what it was designed to do. To know how to find the right CRM solution, read our article One Size Does Not Fit All: Finding the Right CRM Solution for Your Organization.

By JOVACO Solutions, Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation specialist in Quebec