Transforming Project Leadership: Microsoft D365 Project Operations In Action

Unraveling new dimensions of project-centric business

The traditional aspects of business operations are being challenged– as enterprises surge full steam ahead, rapidly migrating from legacy to modernized systems. The accelerated development driven by the increased adoption of digital technologies critically impacts project management and execution. With only 35% success rates observed in project completion, there is a growing need for tech maturity in project management.

Numerous project leads today are moving beyond conventional enterprise resource planning (ERP) to adopt Microsoft’s recently launched advanced project management solution. It can gather information from disparate systems, offer insights in real-time, and expedite the decision-making process – for an enhanced project management lifecycle.

What is Microsoft D365A and Project Service Automation (PSA)?

Microsoft D365A (MS D365A) is a comprehensive cloud-based module with some of the most inclusive and accessible technologies for daily business uses. Project management teams can effectively manage the following with Project Service Automation (PSA):

• Scheduling: Fill out timesheets, plan tasks, and track the progress of projects
• Estimation: Define, allocate, and approve expenses corresponding to specific project tasks or expense categories
• Forecasting: Resource optimization for ongoing and pipeline projects

With PSA, organizations can effectively streamline their project delivery processes and maximize ROI during project execution. Recently, Microsoft made a strategic move, releasing some new functionalities under its Wave 1 phase to further bolster project management — from inception to completion. The three-phase rollout is a step forward from PSA and will empower companies with improved project operations, from deal management to financials.

From PSA to Project Operations (PO): What can businesses expect from this transition?

In 2023, Microsoft upgraded from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation to Dynamics 365 Project Operations (PO). The third phase, which went live in 2024, included new features that integrated sales, resource allocation, and financials into projects, allowing businesses to create a cohesive ecosystem. The upgraded solution also embedded advanced technologies such as AI, ML, analytics, and NLP into its application suite.

Through PO’s centralized platform, project managers can foster deeper collaboration and effective resource management. With its intuitive, user-friendly interface, they can also gain a unified project management experience encompassing both front and back offices, from sales to delivery.

PO combines core enterprise (CE) products with financial products, providing the following salient features:

Diverse operation scenarios: Firms struggling with resource allocation or tracking resources and costs can opt from three main operation scenarios:

• Project Lite scenario: Construction, manufacturing, or software development companies can integrate this with non-ERP solutions and fulfill their business needs across Sales, Customer Service, and Field Service.
• Finance & Operations scenario: Companies dealing with contracts or professional services that do not stock their products or have independent inventories can use this scenario. Dual-write technology allows them to manage end-to-end operations, covering expenses, inventory, revenue recognition, and project accounting.
• Stocked/Production Order scenario: Engineer-to-order firms looking for robust project management or accounting can leverage this scenario to enhance functions ranging from sales to invoicing, revenue recognition, and project accounting.

Microsoft Power Platform: Enterprises can leverage various superior capabilities within a centralized platform across the Microsoft Ecosystem – M365, O365, and D365. The seamless integration helps project managers boost process efficiency across project planning, invoicing, time entry, and core transaction processing flows. Moreover, the integrated Purchase Order functions allow them to manage service procurement across diverse vendor scenarios effectively. Other enhanced functionalities include intelligent resource recommendations through criteria-based prioritization such as costs, utilization, skill match, and availability.

Microsoft CoPilot: Project management teams can now easily create Generative AI (GenAI) for assisted project plans, status reports, and risks and mitigation reports. They can utilize Copilot’s capabilities to streamline consultation, decision-making, and process optimization from the front to the back office, increasing operational efficiency.

PO is a formidable ally for the project leadership brass looking for an adaptable and comprehensive solution to manage project-based businesses and bridge the gap between sales, resourcing, project management, and financial teams.

Considerations before migrating from PSA to MS D365 PO:

Any organization transitioning to new platforms or frameworks must have clear expectations and conduct strategy revisions while tracking progress. Similarly, while transitioning to PO, migration experts and teams must implement the following measures –

Assessing enterprise readiness: Enterprise leads must brainstorm and determine the business needs for a unified project management platform. This includes identifying gaps and improvement areas across infrastructure, resources, and processes. Personnel must also build a comprehensive inventory of data sources and fields and select a suitable migration method (manual or automated) for a smoother transition.

Integrating necessary customizations and capabilities: Migration experts must ask themselves this question: What are the value additions of each capability and customization embedded into our project management systems? Based on their evaluation, they can deploy advanced analytics and reporting tools for data-driven decision-making, customer relationship management for better customer handling, and mobile capabilities for remote access and productivity management.

Ensuring completeness and security: Critical elements like data accuracy, functionality, and user acceptance must be thoroughly implemented during migration. To ensure enhanced compliance and data protection, migration leads must look into secure data transfer protocols like HTTPS and encryption algorithms, robust authentication mechanisms, and vulnerability-proofing measures.

The right guidance, best industry practices, and technical prowess can help enterprises overcome potential roadblocks and successfully migrate to PO.

The MS D365 PO advantage

PO’s powerful mobile capabilities empower project managers and members with secure access to vital project data – helping them with any time, anywhere status updation, documentation accuracy, and proper submission of time and costs. Take, for instance, a multinational consultancy company using PO to store client information, track project histories, and maintain communication logs. Right from contract creation to accounting, they can effectively manage client engagements and relationships without compromising global compliance policies.

Besides improved adaptability to expedite project delivery, here’s how project-centric businesses can benefit from PO:

Global industry-grade project management: Project managers can use PO’s customizable dashboards, scheduling devices, and built-in analytics tools to turn their visions into business potential. Unified platform integration with Microsoft Power Platform offers an agile environment for building solutions that can solve unique business problems through process automation, data visualization, analytics, and more.

Improved collaboration: PO offers project teams a 360° view of the project cycle across all touchpoints supported by omnichannel communication. Members can harness AI and business intelligence to gain intelligent insights into preemptive handling as markets evolve while reducing errors, inaccuracies, and manual intervention in their daily workflows.

Elevated productivity: Detailed project views, user-friendly interface, and effective communications across channels help project leads plan, adjust workloads, and allocate resources based on skills and availability. Task scheduling, financial planning, and inventory management can be easily managed through automated project delivery tools and progress monitoring.

Enhanced responsiveness: Specialized AI-led capabilities such as sales forecasting, relationship management, chatbots, and opportunity management enable improved decision-making across departments. Real-time insights can help firms offer personalized services and interactions, elevating customer satisfaction and trust.

Forging a smart future in project management

Today’s project leaders need the right tools, be it in managing up-to-date project costing information for sales quotes or generating statements of work (SOWs) while maximizing profitability. It only makes sense that 82% of senior leaders agree to AI’s growing impact on project management at their organization over the next five years.

Best practices are essential to successfully implementing PO and leveraging its superior capabilities to maximize business growth. As a solution partner, HTC can help enterprises smoothly transition to PO, build innovative solutions, and transform their project management lifecycle with the assistance of expert consultants in the D365 suite.