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Periodic sales opportunity reports

Dynamics 365 Sales is an excellent solution supporting the sales process, but Microsoft as its creator did not foresee all possible organizational scenarios – it would be practically impossible. Instead, it provides us with many tools that allow us to extend solutions, tailor them to customer needs, or expand them with other Microsoft family modules and tools without the need for complex integrations.

Sample Requirements:

  • The company sells products in various versions, each with a different revenue recognition scheme over time, e.g., one-time, in installments, etc.
  • The activity involves the development of detailed reports related to projected revenue in future periods, based on sales opportunities and their probabilities.
  • It also analyzes the variability of engagement, probabilities, and values of sales opportunities from week to week.
  • These changes and the associated values should be easily presented to decision-makers.

Problem to Solve:

  • Dynamics 365 Sales does not have a native data snapshot function at a given moment. This means that cyclic reports cannot be easily generated, comparing the current situation from a given day with the situation from the previous week.
  • Forecasts partially solve the situation; however, they have their limitations - they only cover the specified period backward and do not take into account the entire data set. They do not leave room for selecting data, which is necessary in this case.

Solution:

  • Together with the client, data and values to be compared were determined. They include numeric fields, values, options, and relationships to companies, salespersons, and sales support, etc.
  • A BI report, which uses Dynamics 365 Sales data in real-time, reads data from the file after determining the date range. File names are decoded as hints regarding the date of the data state in the snapshot and the data contained therein.
  • A FLOW was built, which at specified times - in this case, once a week - retrieves the current state of data, builds a CSV file, and saves it in a selected folder on SharePoint with the appropriate date. This creates an automatic snapshot of the necessary data.
  • The combined data is displayed as a user-friendly chart of changes in sales opportunities on a week-to-week basis, which does not require knowledge of the source of the data.

Significant Application Benefits:

The preparation time of the entire environment and solution is measured in hours, not days or months.
  • Thanks to a coherent, internally integrated Microsoft environment, the solution does not require additional integration or the use of APIs.
  • Using no-code, low-code solutions, not a single line of code was written.
  • Modifying the solution is relatively easy and quick. If the business decides to add new fields in CRM, mapping them in reports will be straightforward and will not require a significant amount of time.
  • Access to aggregated data is managed through access to the Power BI report.

Tools Used:

  • Microsoft Power Platform - for creating "low-code" applications enabling rapid and effective development of programs while providing easy access to key business information.
  • Cloud Flow, triggered according to the schedule, retrieves data from the CRM system and saves it in a defined CSV file structure on SharePoint. This constitutes another data source for the Power BI report, which is automatically updated and taken into account when generating the report weekly.
  • Microsoft Power BI for presenting an interactive report.
  • Microsoft SharePoint - for storing data/snapshots and retrieving them for the Power BI report.
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales as the main source of data and events.