Microsoft Dynamics is a line of Business Applications, containing enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). Microsoft markets Dynamics applications through a network of reselling partners who provide specialized services.[1] Microsoft Dynamics forms part of "Microsoft Business Solutions". Dynamics can be used with other Microsoft programs and services, such as SharePoint, Yammer, Office 365, Azure and Outlook. The Microsoft Dynamics focus-industries are retail, services, manufacturing, financial services, and the public sector. Microsoft Dynamics offers services for small, medium, and large businesses.[2][3][4]
Products
Microsoft Dynamics is largely made up of products developed by companies that Microsoft acquired: Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains), Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision; now forked into Dynamics 365 Business Central), Dynamics SL (formerly Solomon), and Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta; now forked into Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations). The various products are aimed at different market segments, ranging from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to large organizations with multi-language, currency, and legal entity capability. In recent years Microsoft Dynamics ERP has focused their marketing and innovation efforts on SaaS suites that includes the following products:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Enterprise Edition (formerly Microsoft Dynamics AX) - ERP and CRM software-as-a-service product meant for mid-sized and large enterprises. Integrating both Dynamics AX and Dynamics CRM features, consisting of the following modules: for Financials and Operations, for Sales Enterprise, for Marketing, for Customer Service, for Field Service, for Project Service Automation. Easily connected with Office 365 and PowerBI.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (formerly Microsoft CRM). Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement contains modules to interact with customers: Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Field Service. The Customer Service is a module used to automate customer service processes providing performance data reports and dashboards.[5] It gives access to several modules such as direct chat, social channels, or live visual support like ViiBE.[6]
Product updates
October 2018 update
The update released in October 2018 included new features for sales, marketing, customer service, and recruitment.[7][8]
April 2019 update
This update was released on April 5, 2019. The features added after the update, included a user interface (UUI) to embed canvas apps created in PowerApps and it also brought back the tabs facility. The update also led to the removal of the Xrm.Page.data.[9]
February 2020 update
An update was announced on February 19, 2019. The update included additions to the Customer Insights, Microsoft's customer data platform (CDP) such as new first and third-party data connections. In addition to this, this update brought forth new sales forecasting tools and Dynamics 365 Sales Engagement Center. The Dynamics 365 Project Operations was introduced in this update.[10]
October 2021 update (Wave 1)
An update was announced on October 5. 2019. This update included a replacement of bank reconciliation reports. The payment reconciliation journal was improved to support preview posting, separate number series, and user-defined documents numbers. Microsoft Dynamics 365 also welcomes Correct Dimensions action. With this update, Microsoft Dynamics 365 has welcomed integration with Microsoft Teams search box, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Universal Print technology.[11][citation needed]
Related products
Microsoft Dynamics includes a set of related products:
Microsoft Dynamics Management Reporter. Management Reporter is a financial reporting and analysis application. Its main feature is to create income statements, balance sheet statements, cash flow statements and other financial reports. Reports can be stored in a centralized Report Library along with external supporting files. Security on reports and files may be controlled using Windows Authentication and SQL Server.
Microsoft Dynamics for Retail (formerly Microsoft Dynamics RMS, QuickSell 2000 and Dynamics POS)
Microsoft Dynamics for Marketing (formerly MDM and MarketingPilot 2012)
Microsoft Dynamics Social Listening (formerly Netbreeze 2013)
Power Automate, formerly Microsoft Flow (until 2019[12]), a toolkit similar to IFTTT for implementing business workflow products.
Power Automate Desktop, a robotic process automation software for automating graphical user interfaces (acquired in May 2020)[13]
Parature customer engagement software in the customer support and service channels (acquired in January 2014)[14]
Microsoft also sells Sure Step as an implementation methodology for Microsoft Dynamics for its re-sellers.
In July 2018, Microsoft announced Dynamics 365 AI for sales applications.[15]
