DynamicPoint Blog
Can Service Automation Advance Your Business?
Did you know that despite advancements in technology, up to 52% of field service companies still coordinate their work and perform functions manually [i]? The adoption of automated tools can free up time to concentrate on team development and maximize revenue. In this post, we explore three ways an automated service tool can help increase customer satisfaction and advance your business.
1) Maximize efficiencies and reduce waste
Time spent by employees traveling to customer sites comes at a cost to your business. They are on the clock during this time and yet it’s not a billable event for your customers. That’s where automated route and traffic mapping can help. And with ERP and CRM integration, you can create and update service orders on-the-go, and respond to customer queries quickly with customer information, service call and billing information at your fingertips.
2) Manage unexpected changes
No matter how carefully a schedule is planned, unexpected and last-minute changes can occur. Automated software solutions can minimize these risks while maximizing efficiencies. Re-optimization happens in real time when changes occur, giving both the employee and customer an immediate update, even down to a specific time slot for an engineer’s arrival. You can also notify technicians via text/call/email of new or adjusted service cases, and add workflows and approvals for items changed by customers.
3) Improve team productivity and customer satisfaction
Providing your customers with self-service account access can increase customer satisfaction, ease reporting and payment processing, while also freeing up your service teams to respond to more complex customer requests. Also, a well-optimized schedule can reduce your team’s travel-to-work time ratio and increase job-satisfaction levels for field personnel.
Learn more
See how DynamicPoint’s fully integrated Customer Portals for Key2Act can advance your business and provide a next level experience for customers. In this free, 30-minute webinar, we’ll show you how our service portals leverage the power of Microsoft PowerApps and Flow, creating mobile apps and workflows that automate your service processes and tasks. We’ll also provide an overview of our Vendor Portal and EasyAP365, our new, affordable invoice automation app that streamlines accounts payable through flexible submittal methods, OCR, predefined templates and integration to your ERP.
Watch the on-demand webinar now.
If you are interested in learning more about DynamicsPoint’s Office 365 Customer Portal check out our demonstration video below or contact us for a more personalized demo for your business.
[i] https://www.servicepower.com/blog/top-5-field-service-industry-trends-for-2018
3 Ways Adding Live Chat Can Improve Your Customer or Vendor Portal
At DynamicPoint we love the reviews and feedback we receive on how powerful and enjoyable our customer and vendor portal solutions are to use. So why stop now?
Try adding live chat for an even better, more engaging experience. Virtually any chat service can be added directly to the portal home page and it’s an easy way to improve your customer response time.
Here are just a few ways you can use a live chat to improve your customer or vendor experience:
- Connecting a chat with Accounts Payable or Accounts Receivable can allow users to view invoices directly from your ERP application
- Sales Orders can go directly to the Sales or Operations department
- Purchase Orders can be directed to Procurement
You can also set up separate chats depending on the data the user is interested in. The options are limitless.
These are just a few ways you can offer your customers and vendors a truly engaging experience. You’ll be providing them 24/7 access to all the information that applies to them with direct connection to your staff, so you can answer any questions they have immediately in real time without having to pick up the phone or send an email.
This is yet another benefit of our Portal Application being an Office 365 SharePoint app. This feature comes direct to you with no additional costs from us. Just sign up for your favorite chat service and simply add the code to your portal page to start engaging your customers and improving your response times. We all expect this type of service as customers– and so do they.
Want to learn more? Check out our recent demo videos, view pricing details or schedule a 1:1 product demonstration.
By Mike Marcin, DynamicPoint
Office 365 Apps for Purchase, Invoice, Expense, & Portal that extend the reach of your ERP & CRM application.
Connections Matter: 10 Ways to Maximize and Improve Your Enterprise Software
Success is all about your connections.
At DynamicPoint we take that statement to heart. By building our applications on the Office 365 framework and offering connectors to all of our products, you can integrate our applications with virtually any other application or data source, enabling you to maximize your current ERP or CRM investment.
Here are 10 easy ways to improve your existing enterprise software with our solution workflows and integrations:
Customer Service & Order Fulfillment
- When a customer creates an order, workflow triggers are initiated that can send an email, create a task or generate a mobile notification
- If a purchase order delivery date is updated, you can immediately have the change generate an approval and update a plan in Microsoft Project or Jira
- If an order is fulfilled, you can follow it up with a customer satisfaction survey provided by Survey Monkey
- You can send a new customer / vendor boarding form with the ability to upload the required documents and contracts with Microsoft Forms
- The ability to provide employees a mobile service app with PowerApps to improve customer service
Learn more about this functionality with our Customer and Vendor Portal application.
Invoice Automation
- Send new invoices to OCR for data extraction with DocParser
- Store documents in your favorite document management system such as SharePoint, Box, Dropbox or OneDrive
- Obtain electronic signatures using DocuSign or Adobe Sign
- Send W-9 forms to vendors in Adobe PDF
- Route invoices for approval using Microsoft Flow or K2 Workflow
Learn more about this functionality with our EasyAP365 application.
Keep in mind, these are just a few examples. Our solutions are incredibly flexible and can be modified to suit your unique business needs. By enabling these integrations, you can accomplish tremendous functionality with little to no additional costs to your organization. We believe this connectivity is not only the key to our success, but to yours as well.
Want to learn more? Check out our recent demo videos, view pricing details or schedule a 1:1 product demonstration.
By Mike Marcin, DynamicPoint
Office 365 Apps for Purchase, Invoice, Expense, & Portal that extend the reach of your ERP & CRM application.
How SharePoint Can Help You Automate Your Invoice Approval Process
Are you interested in automating your invoice approval process? If so, have you looked at the various options that exist on the marketplace? An evaluation of AP automation applications usually entails an assessment of the following functionality:
- Ability to receive an invoice from a vendor in various ways, including email, web site, mobile app, scanner, etc.
- Workflow to route the invoice for approval
- Storage of the documents in a secure fashion that can be managed and reported upon
- Collection of data inputs throughout the approval process that determine how the invoice is to be coded to the proper GL account
- Notifications when documents have not been paid, managers are taking their time to approve and invoices don’t match purchase orders
- Verification if budgets exist and if they have they been exceeded
Why rent an apartment when you already own a house?
What if you already own an application that can do all of this for you? What is that application? Try Microsoft Office 365 SharePoint. It contains document libraries for receiving invoices, version control and tracking, workflow for approvals, reports for analytics, reminders including mobile notifications and emails, OCR integration for data extraction, mobile apps for uploads and the list goes on. And the best part, most of us already own it.
The missing link is the ERP integration and GL coding of the invoice after it has been approved. That is where DynamicPoint’s EasyAP365 app comes in. It provides the last piece of the puzzle to create the invoice directly in your ERP application without the need for manual entry. Since most of this functionality is already provided by Office 365, we can offer our solution at a fraction of the price as the competition.
Learn more about our EasyAP365 solution and how Microsoft Flow with SharePoint can be leveraged.
By Mike Marcin, DynamicPoint
Office 365 Apps for Purchase, Invoice, Expense, & Portal that extend the reach of your ERP & CRM application.
New Microsoft Flow Features that Enhance Your Customer Portal Experience
Are you looking to improve customer satisfaction, streamline operations, and improve efficiencies at your company? Customer and vendor web portals do just that while providing 24/7 self-service access to critical data. DynamicPoint’s portal application makes it easy to access and share customer, vendor or employee information from your ERP or CRM systems. And with new enhancements to Microsoft Flow, our features and workflow options just got even better.
Earlier in the Spring, Microsoft announced many new enhancements to the Microsoft Flow platform. We had a chance to not only review these enhancements but begin leveraging them for workflow applications in our Office 365 SharePoint customer and vendor portals. Here is a list of the ones that have already excited us, our customers and more importantly, their customers and partners!
Customer Satisfaction Surveys
After an order is complete, do you want to see how you did? A customer satisfaction survey can be automatically sent upon shipment or invoice, soliciting feedback on your customer’s experience. That data can be captured, routed for review and approval, and even generate remediation tasks if they are not fully satisfied.
Guest Users in Approvers
You are no longer limited to approvers being a part of your organization. Now you can involve either your customers, vendors or contractors in the approval process. For example, if a customer submits a new order or a vendor makes a change to a purchase order, in addition to your own team reviewing, you can have individuals from the client or vendor also involved in the approval of the change.
Attachments in Approvals
It is now possible to add attachments directly in your approval request. So as opposed to a user having to link back to the portal to see the details of a new order, expected receipt date change, or dispute filed on an invoice, the details can be added as attachments directly to the approval task.
Extract Data from Emails and PDFs
Most of us are still receiving partner communications over files and emails. Now you can extract that information, use it as criteria for workflow conditions and even capture it directly in your ERP/CRM system.
Convert Documents to PDFs
Have the desire to send your customer and vendors PDF confirmations, order specifications, contracts, etc. in PDF format? These can now be dynamically generated directly from a document and emailed to your partner contact. Are you still manually generating an order confirmation, shipment or receipt notice or invoice and emailing it? Combine this automation with your SharePoint Office 365 Portal to offer a truly efficient and automated experience.
These are just the latest features that continue to build upon the workflow capabilities in DynamicPoint customer and vendor portals. We’ll keep you posted as new enhancements become available.
Want to learn more? Check out our recent demo videos, view pricing details or schedule a 1:1 product demonstration.
By Mike Marcin, DynamicPoint
Office 365 Apps for Purchase, Invoice, Expense, & Portal that extend the reach of your ERP & CRM application.
Extend and Improve Your Customer Service Portal with a Mobile App
In today’s increasingly mobile world, customers are demanding faster and more reliable service and support- anytime, from anywhere. With DynamicPoint’s customer service portal, your customers can create service or customer support cases using a mobile application with direct integration to your ERP or CRM application. You can see existing cases, make edits to the status or severity of a ticket, or create new ones directly from a phone or tablet, while giving your customers the self-service capability to request support when they need it most. This feature has been added to DynamicPoint’s existing web portals using the functionality of Microsoft PowerApps and is a perfect complement for the mobile workforce.
Service Cases in ERP
For some clients, service cases are managed directly within their ERP application. This approach allows for integration with resource allocation, utilization management, inventory, and of course, cost accounting. Such applications as Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central Service Management, Dynamics GP Field Service, Dynamics AX and Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Case Management, Key2Act Signature and others offer many features for the management and operation of your service organization. DynamicPoint’s portal solution allows your customers to log on and interact directly with this information in a secure fashion.
Here is a sample of what a customer portal dashboard would look like using our portal product:
Such features as creating new service calls, printing service call reports and editing existing information can be added with simple configuration:
A web layout may work for some users, but others require a more mobile friendly interface that they can use on the go. Here is a sample of what their Google Play or iPhone app delivered using Microsoft PowerApps would look like:
Including the ability to see details and edit existing cases:
As well as create new ones:
Service Cases in CRM
Other customers are looking to manage support case within their CRM system. This approach allows for the integration with sales and marketing efforts, including serving as a centralized location for all customer contact and engagement management.
The basic principles of the portal and app are the same as with ERP integration, with slight differences in calls to action:
And the mobile app can be configured specifically for your company’s business requirements, including approval, email / mobile notifications and other workflow functions:
With the flexibility and portability of DynamicsPoint’s Office 365 portal apps, you get to define your own unique business requirements, branding and fields of interest. This is because DynamicPoint brings the best together with a cloud application that is deployed and configured directly on your Office 365 tenant. This method is also highly secure as we rely on the security provided by the Microsoft 365 framework working together with your ERP/CRM application. There is no concern of data being hosted elsewhere on some else’s platform. It all remains within your control.
If you are interested in learning more about DynamicsPoint’s Office 365 Customer Portal check out our demonstration video below or contact us for a more personalized demo for your business.
By Mike Marcin, DynamicPoint
Office 365 Apps for Purchase, Invoice, Expense, & Portal that extend the reach of your ERP & CRM application.
Office 365 Portal App for Customer, Vendor & Employee Portals
Want to improve customer and partner satisfaction, encourage engagement and collaboration, and do it as efficiently as possible. Web portals do just that while providing 24/7 self-service access to critical data?
DynamicPoint’s portal application makes it easy to access and share customer, vendor or employee information from your ERP or CRM systems. Using the Office 365 platform you can share ERP or CRM data securely with users. We establish a private connection to on-premise or cloud ERP data using the power of ODATA / REST web services to ensure the portal can provide any page, view or table. Plus the data is filtered to show only the relevant information for the customer, vendor or employee. You may also extend security permissions such as information is to be read only, editable or even allow for the creation of new transactions such as sales orders, support tickets, or returns. Additional functionality allows you to expose reports directly within the portal as a PDF for ease in downloading and sharing.
Our cloud solution doesn’t require any hardware or the installation of intensive applications. And the platform works on desktops, tablets, mobile devices, including numerous iOS and Android Apps. Once the critical organizational data you deem most relevant is within the portal, you can take advantage of SharePoint Office 365’s document libraries, Microsoft Flow workflows, Power App Forms, Power BI Reports and Dashboards. Incorporate your brand and corporate style to ensure the portal delivers the experience and look and feel you have worked hard to develop.
The end result is a quick to build, easy to use, Customer, Vendor or Employee Portal that incorporates relevant structured business data. You may also benefit from using unstructured collaboration tools such as document libraries, workflows, newsfeeds, asset libraries, blogs, wikis, analytics and so much more.
By Tiffany Allen, DynamicPoint
Office 365 Apps for Purchase, Invoice, Expense, & Portal that extend the reach of your ERP & CRM application.
Request more information below, view pricing details or schedule a product demonstration.
DynamicPoint Adds Perpetual License Option to Pricing Model on Office 365 SharePoint Apps
DynamicPoint’s Office 365 SharePoint Apps for Invoice Automation and Customer & Vendor Portals now include a one-time, flat fee, perpetual license option. The SAAS affordable monthly fee option still exists and now you have either licensing model available.
Choosing the right option for your organization is dependent on many factors but keep in mind with DynamicPoint the following is inclusive for both models:
- Unlimited number of users
- Unlimited number of environments (test, development, production)
- Unlimited number integrations/transactions/invoices
As you discern the best option for your organization review the benefits and potential cons for each:
Perpetual Licensing
First, a Perpetual License is a “One-Time, Flat Fee, Paid in Full” based software. Upon purchase you own the software therefore there are no recurring fees, no per user or per transaction fees assessed at month or year-end. Therefore, if you don’t like to make payments and you have the means to pay the full price of the software, you may do so. With annual maintenance you are safeguarded against the product becoming obsolete or outdated over time.
Pros:
- You OWN the software
- Software can be used indefinitely
- Total Cost of Ownership is less in long term
Cons:
- Higher upfront costs
- New hardware or software maybe required
SAAS Licensing
SaaS or Software as a Service License can be best described as a “subscription” based software service. With this model you may take advantage of a lower cost at time of purchase however the recurring cost will exist as long as you are operating the software. If cash flow is of concern this can be an extremely attractive option to implement much needed software to fit your budget.
Pros:
- Lower Upfront Cost
- Pay As You Go Licensing
- Upgrades, Maintenance is Inclusive of Subscription Fee
Cons:
- Total Cost of Ownership Maybe More After a Few Years
- No Asset at End of Agreement Period
Whether you are looking to own your software outright or need to take advantage of lower upfront costs with DynamicPoint you have options.
Check out pricing for yourself online or contact DynamicPoint with any additional questions.
By Tiffany Allen, DynamicPoint
SharePoint Business Automation Solutions. Office 365 Apps for Purchase, Invoice, Expense, EasyAP365 & Portal that extend the reach of your ERP & CRM application
Can your Invoice Automation do this?
With DynamicPoint’s upgrade of the AP Automation product, EasyAP365, we had 16 confirmations on why to use Microsoft Flow to trigger the review and approval of invoices. Some are no-brainers, but many push the envelope on your wildest automation thoughts!
No-brainers for workflow… 
1. Create approval tasks and send email notifications
2. Assign a task in Outlook
3. Generate reminders if reviewers don’t act in a timely fashion
4. Generate mobile notifications for reviewers
Thinking outside of the box…
5. Store invoices in Dropbox, OneDrive or SharePoint for collaboration with team members
6. If a review is needed, create a meeting in Outlook or GoToMeeting to discuss with your team
7. Have the invoice electronically signed using Adobe Sign or DocuSign
8. Kickoff new vendor process and/or form if the vendor doesn’t exist
9. Automatically notify the vendor if there are any issues, questions, or requirements for additional documentation
But can your Invoice Automation solution do this?
10. Allow mobile uploads of invoices from iPhone and Android apps
11. Post status updates back to your vendor portal such that they can check payment status or respond to any requests
12. Convert pdf invoice format into a searchable form using OCR
13. Create a task in your project management system such as Microsoft Project or JIRA
14. Notify individuals of review tasks using Skype, Slack, or Basecamp
15. Trigger SMS text messages to escalate the review of an aging invoice task
16. Translate to a different language for international review
Plus, you likely get all 16 automation reasons with your current Office 365 subscription! Start leveraging this functionality without any additional costs and streamline your AP Automation process today.
By Mike Marcin, DynamicPoint
SharePoint Purchase, Invoice, Expense, EasyAP365 & Portal applications built exclusively for Dynamics ERP & CRM Solutions.
Vendor Invoice Approval with Microsoft Flow
So, if anyone out there is using Office 365 and has not automated (or is paying a ton to do so) their vendor invoice approval process, welcome Microsoft Flow. Using your existing Office 365 subscription in conjunction with SharePoint and Microsoft Flow, you can achieve a robust invoice automation system with minimal costs to your organization. If you currently don’t own these technologies, signing up for them can literally be a matter of a few bucks per month.
So What Exactly Do You Mean By Invoice Automation?
It is a buzz word that gets thrown around a lot. From our perspective, Invoice Automation comes down to three main areas, namely receipt of the invoice from the vendor, workflow for review and approval, and integration with Dynamics for payment processing. Let’s look at each of these functions separately and explore how Microsoft Office 365 can streamline them.
Invoice Receipt
So, the goal here is to make it easy for a vendor to get an invoice to you. The first answer that comes to mind is email submission. The issue with email is that typically the account is associated to one person and doesn’t offer a lot of visibility for the rest of the company. Don’t worry, Microsoft Flow and SharePoint to the rescue. A Flow can be setup to take an email from any inbox or alias, say invoices@contoso.com, and move it to a SharePoint document library. This library will provide the control, versioning, visibility and management for everyone to see the invoices that have been submitted for payment. A template already exists for setting this up. Details can be found here: https://us.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/galleries/public/templates/f7a46809e53c42108034e56acf83bb79/save-my-email-attachments-to-a-sharepoint-document-library/
If you’d prefer invoices to be submitted from your website, mobile app, or vendor portal, those are all options as well. In each of these scenarios the invoice still makes it way to the SharePoint document library.
Workflow
After a vendor has submitted an invoice for payment, the typical next step is that it needs to be reviewed by managers or accounting. Flow is a perfect tool for this as well. Email or mobile app notifications and approval tasks can be generated and assigned to the appropriate reviewers.
Your resulting flow will look something like this:
Payment
Now that the invoice has been submitted and approved, it is ready for payment. At DynamicPoint we focus on using Microsoft Dynamics to accomplish this objective. Our EasyAP365 product will bring the invoice directly into the SharePoint App dashboard for automatic assignment to vendor templates, including GL account distribution. We integrate directly with Dynamics web services to create the invoice and hand it over for payment.
So How Much is this Going to Cost Me?
The good news is if you have Office 365, you most likely already own Microsoft Flow and SharePoint. Even the base Enterprise E1 plan includes both of these technologies: https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plans If you care to take the approved invoice and automatically bring it into Microsoft Dynamics, DynamicPoint EasyAP365 will be required. More information can be found here: https://www.dynamicpoint.com/easyap365/ So for under $260 a month you can have a fully automated invoice management application.
What Does the End Result Look Like? After all is setup and complete the resulting process will be an integrated invoice automation system that looks like this:
By Mike Marcin, DynamicPoint
SharePoint Purchase, Invoice, Expense, EasyAP365 & Portal applications built exclusively for Dynamics ERP & CRM Solutions.
Why Customers Love DynamicPoint
