Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales functions as a high-powered Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, specializing in sales pipeline management and full transparency into relationship activities. It also offers powerful flexibility, allowing it to go far beyond traditional CRM functionality.
Dynamics 365 Sales can be implemented to help your sales team manage their sales cycle, from lead capture through to closing the opportunity to generating an order. It can also integrate together with your other business applications, providing a streamlined experience with shared data across multiple applications and departments.
This article will cover D365 Sales features, limitations, integrations, and more. Let’s start with a quick overview table.
Main features
Tracking, managing, and governing the sales pipeline
Accounts & Contacts
✓
Leads & Opportunities
✓
Competitor Tracking
✓
Tasks & Activities Logging and Tracking
✓
Sales Goals & Interactive Dashboards
✓
Sales Literature & Product Catalog
✓
Quotes, Orders, & Invoices
✓
Common Use Cases
- Build better relationships through aggregated target customer data
- Collaborate with colleagues and communicate with customers inside the application
- Save time with advanced automations and workflows
- Advanced revenue and procurement forecasting along with KPI tracking with real-time, interactive analytics
Pricing
Starting at $65/user/month USD
($83.20/user/month CAD)
Limitations
- No specific tracking of certain customer service-related issues, such as tickets
- No bulk communication tools governed by subscription management
Integrations
- Office/Microsoft 365 – fully integrated Outlook, Excel, Teams, and Word tools
- Other Dynamics 365 solutions – combines with any other solution in the suite
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator – capture and track data, communications, and processes within D365
Note: Dynamics 365 Sales is one of the five different Dynamics 365 apps that serve various CRM needs. In some contexts, you may also see those products referred to as “Customer Engagement” or “CE” apps.
Features of Dynamics 365 Sales
The key features of Dynamics 365 Sales offer reliable sales forecasting enabled by process governance, comprehensive activity tracking, and automating complex workflows.
Dynamics 365 Sales provides configurable automation, enforces business rules, and guides users through company best practices as they perform day-to-day sales tasks. With Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) integration, Dynamics 365 Sales surfaces all communications, appointments, and tasks — including upcoming scheduled ones. It also provides rich relational data, such as hierarchies and defined connections, to give your users a 360-degree picture. It supports employee satisfaction by limiting manual data entry and repetitive processes through machine learning and automation.
Dynamics 365 Sales will help you:
- Understand where leads come from and their success rates.
- Track all activities associated with the sales pipeline.
- Use aggregated customer data to provide insights and build relationships.
- Create prioritization in all sales processes.
- Create efficiency and uniformity, along with flexibility, in your sales processes.
- Collaborative selling and internal information sharing.
- Track and control the quote-to-invoice process.
- Understand win/loss causalities.
- Share marketing and sales collateral in a completely transparent way.
- Understand and pivot against a customer’s interactions with your business.
- Create forward-looking, interactive reports with live data.
Dynamics 365 Sales Use Cases
Dynamics 365 Sales is commonly used for companies that are sales-led organizations or who have a strong, integrated salesforce. While the increasing license levels offer more advanced functionality as you move up the tiers, the same common use cases remain.
The main function of Dynamics 365 Sales is building, working, tracking, reporting, and forecasting sales. Ensuring consistent quality with governed sales process and flexible sales playbooks allows management to keep both quality and employee satisfaction high. Predictive alerts and reminders shorten the time it takes to move a sales process through the pipeline.
Pricing
Dynamics 365 Sales starts from $65/user/month USD or $83.20/user/month CAD for a Professional license.
For pricing info on the other common license types, review this table:
License Type
Included
Price / User / Month
Dynamics 365 Sales Professional
- Web client and mobile app
- Forecasting
- Pipeline management
$65 USD
($83.20 CAD)
Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise
The above, plus:
- Microsoft AI Assistant
- Product relationships and hierarchies
- Business card scanner
$95 USD
($121.50 CAD)
Dynamics 365 Sales Premium
The above, plus:
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- AI-guided selling
- Relationship analytics and health tracking
- Predictive forecasting and scoring
$135 USD
($172.80 CAD)
Based on the contract commitment, the per month price may differ from the price listed above. All pricing is subject to change without notice. Contact Encore for the most current product pricing and available contract options.
The main advantages of the Enterprise and Premium over the Professional licenses for D365 Sales are greater leveraging of AI and machine learning, and integrations to better identify and understand your customers.
Limitations
While D365 Sales is a very flexible solution, on its own it is not meant to cover every possible interaction between customers or prospects and your company. For instance:
- It doesn’t offer specific tracking of customer service-related issues, such as trackable tickets and ticket queues.
- For that, you should explore Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
- Furthermore, it doesn’t have bulk communication tools governed by subscription management to satisfy customer preferences and privacy laws.
- For that, you should explore Dynamics 365 Marketing or ClickDimensions.
For a comparison between D365 Sales and these other applications, read D365 Sales vs Customer Service vs Marketing.
Integrations With Other Apps
Dynamics 365 Sales is built to join with any other Dynamics 365 application to form a unified solution. From the user perspective, these systems are essentially one, and the entire experience is centralized and streamlined. Each Dynamics 365 application can be configured to provide only the functionality and data that each type of user requires.
For example, if D365 for Sales is integrated with D365 Business Central, where financial staff are the primary users, the Sales Order can flow from Sales to Business Central through a Connector; and finance data, such as payments, can flow back into D365 for Sales. If your business policy states that only sales staff can see payment information, the security inside D365 for Sales can prevent all other users from viewing that sensitive data while giving sales users the data they need to interact with customers and move on to the next order, confident in the account’s financial status.
Outlook Integration
With the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook, you can hook into the power of Dynamics 365 Sales on your desktop, web or mobile to view records and link your emails to account, contact or opportunity records. Subsequently your users can view communications, appointments, and tasks linked directly from the D365 Sales app itself, allowing your users to see the same data from whichever application they are currently using.
Integrating Microsoft Teams With D365 Sales
With Microsoft Teams integration, your staff can view and collaborate on D365 Sales records such as Accounts or Contacts, directly within the Teams chat or channel. If Microsoft Teams is also your primary voice communication application, you can also make and receive calls directly from the Account or Contact record inside D365 for Sales.
Note that this integration is not supported for on-premise environments.
Integration With LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers a seamless interface that allows your users to build solid relationships with current or potential customers, increasing the number of available opportunities and chances of a successful sale through powerful knowledge-merging functionality.
Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to:
- View the target company’s organizational structure using live org chart (within Unified Interface).
- See surfaced warm introductions through the users’ network, or use icebreakers to identify common matches.
- Transition from Navigator to D365 for Sales via links.
- Keep track of activities including InMails, Notes, Calls and Messages.
- Auto-import matched Accounts and Contact data.
- View headline information, news or job changes from your contact records.
Note that this integration is not supported for on-premise environments.
Implementing D365 Sales
With the flexibility and power of D365 Sales comes complex possibilities, so it’s important to engage with an experienced Dynamics 365 Sales partner, such as Encore Business Solutions, who can help you navigate through them. It takes a skilled and knowledgeable company to discover your underlying requirements, then match up your business needs and processes to the right functionality in the Dynamics 365 suite.
To learn more about the implementation process, read CRM Implementation: 12 Key Questions Answered.
To get specific advice about Microsoft applications for your business, please contact us.
CRM Implementation: 12 Key Questions Answered
What are the steps in a CRM implementation? What are the biggest causes of failure? How long will it take?
Read FAQ
FAQs
What can Dynamics 365 sales do? ›
Dynamics 365 Sales enables salespeople to build strong relationships with their customers, take actions based on insights, and close deals faster. Use Dynamics 365 Sales to keep track of your accounts and contacts, nurture your sales from lead to order, and create sales collateral.
What is Dynamics 365 in simple words? ›Dynamics 365 is a portfolio of intelligent business applications that delivers superior operational efficiency and breakthrough customer experiences enabling businesses to become more agile and reduce complexity without increasing costs.
What is Dynamics 365 interview questions? ›- What are the essential skills that made you suitable for this project? ...
- What are the various types of solutions in Dynamics CRM? ...
- What do you mean by the Managed solution? ...
- Can the Default solution be exported as a managed solution?
Dynamics 365 Sales Insights provides AI capabilities for accelerating sales, building better customer relationships, automating tasks, and guiding organizations to proactively pursue opportunities at the right time and with the right context. Furthermore, coaching and learning can be tailored to each organization.
Is Dynamics 365 difficult to learn? ›A lot of users find it easy to use Microsoft Dynamics 365, especially if they have used any other Microsoft apps before.
Is Dynamics 365 sales a CRM? ›Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales functions as a high-powered Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, specializing in sales pipeline management and full transparency into relationship activities. It also offers powerful flexibility, allowing it to go far beyond traditional CRM functionality.
How does Dynamic 365 work? ›Dynamics 365 brings all sales and customer data together into one system, offering users a single source of truth. This gives users a complete picture of their customers' journey, helping them track customer journeys, generate and assess leads, and seize opportunities.
What are Dynamics 365 applications? ›Dynamics 365 is a set of intelligent business applications that helps you run your entire business and deliver greater results through predictive, AI-driven insights. This page provides resources that are common to all Dynamics 365 apps.
What is the difference between CRM and Dynamics 365? ›Dynamics 365 is a combined CRM and ERP product that includes full Dynamics AX suite for ERP and the Business Edition includes the financial suite built from Dynamics NAV. Unlike its predecessor, Dynamics 365 eliminates the traditional silos that exist between external (CRM) and internal (ERP) information.
Is Dynamics 365 better than Salesforce? ›We recommend Salesforce for younger companies and smaller businesses because of its lower starting price and its extensive integrations with third-party applications. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is better for larger and more established businesses, especially ones that already use the Microsoft Office suite extensively.
What are the best practices in d365? ›
- Use multiple threads. ...
- Allow the system to create GUIDs. ...
- Use early-bound types. ...
- Disable plug-ins. ...
- Write plug-ins that execute faster. ...
- Limit the data you retrieve. ...
- Limit the number of entities that are enabled for offline use. ...
- Limit operations that cascade to related entities.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 outshines SAP Business One as it comes equipped with several features which provide scalability, flexibility, and lower implementation and ownership costs, and significantly benefit both start-ups and the largest of enterprises.
How much do a Dynamics 365 consultants make? ›| Job Title | Salary |
|---|---|
| RSM Dynamics 365 Consultant salaries - 8 salaries reported | $120,825/yr |
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 Consultant salaries - 3 salaries reported | $199,704/yr |
| DXC Technology Dynamics 365 Consultant salaries - 2 salaries reported | $130,487/yr |
Dynamics 365 Marketing consists of two primary modules, along with event management. Both modules include capabilities to create graphical email and design interactive customer journeys to support marketing initiatives.
How do I run a sales report in Dynamics 365? ›You can enable this report by navigating to 'App Settings' in the Sales Hub in Dynamics 365 Sales. You'll notice the 'Sales usage reports' item below General Settings on the sitemap. Once the report has provisioned, you can access the report from the 'Sales' area below 'Sales Analytics'.
What skills are required for Dynamics 365? ›A Microsoft Dynamics 365 developer needs to have a good grip of specific programming languages and, of course, the system itself. It consists of several modules like MS Dynamics CRM, NAV, GP, or Trade and Logistics which share the same programming and architecture principles.
What is the weakness of Microsoft Dynamics 365? ›Microsoft Dynamics 365 Disadvantages
It takes some training to get up to speed on all functions. Most user complaints state that the interface is not very user-friendly out of the gate. The system itself and some customizations can be quite costly. Per-user monthly costs range from $50 to $200 or more.
In addition, Microsoft 365 is a service bundle that includes Office 365 and several additional services, such as Windows 10 Enterprise. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Service is an all-in-one solution for businesses for small and midsize companies that connects people and processes as never before.
What are the 3 types of CRM? ›The three types of CRM systems are operational, analytical and collaborative.
What are the 3 common CRM models? ›Three Common CRM Models
There are a number of CRM models experts have developed as frameworks for how companies manage, read and use customer data. The IDIC model, value chain model and five-step process model are three of the most effective, and therefore popular.
What is the difference between Dynamics 365 Sales Professional and enterprise? ›
One of the questions most frequently asked is the difference between Dynamics 365 Sales Professional and Enterprise. In short, Dynamics 365 Sales Professional includes the core features of the module, while Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise includes all the features of the module.
How is dynamics better than Salesforce? ›Salesforce is generally more user-friendly in the UI department, and more customizable, but Microsoft Dynamics 365 is probably a bit easier to use for reporting. Then again, if you really want or need an on-premise deployment, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 plan is the only way to go—Salesforce is cloud-based, full-stop.
What can you do with Microsoft Dynamics? ›Dynamics CRM is a piece of business software, made by Microsoft. It's a customer relationship management software that helps businesses manage their customer database, generate new leads, engage with their customers, and resolve customer service issues.
What is the difference between Dynamics 365 sales and customer service? ›The biggest difference in pricing between D365 Sales, Customer Service, and Marketing, is that Marketing is priced per tenant, whereas Sales and Customer Service are priced per user. There is also substantially reduced “attach” license pricing for users accessing more than one Dynamics 365 solution.
Is Dynamics 365 SaaS or PAAS? ›SaaS – Software as a Service
Popular examples are things like: Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Office 365 and Dropbox.
Dynamics 365 gives you a unified view of your business
Streamline your everyday financials and operations with Dynamics 365—an ERP software solution that helps you collaborate effectively, optimize business tasks, and drive growth.
Dynamics 365 connectors must be replaced with a Microsoft Dataverse connector. Microsoft Dataverse – This is the newest connector and will, in time, become the only connector available for Dataverse usage. All new features, performance work, and enhancements will be available on this connector.
Who is Salesforce biggest competitor? ›- Microsoft.
- Oracle.
- SAP.
- Zoho.
- SugarCRM.
- HubSpot.
- Sage.
- Zendesk.
Dynamics 365 helps businesses facilitate and expedite communication and improve customer relationships through a comprehensive suite of productivity tools. Dynamics 365 mitigates the need to jump between programs by combining all your essential sales, marketing, and customer service applications in one single platform.
How long does it take to learn dynamics? ›How Much Time Does It Take to Master Microsoft Dynamics 365? It depends on the areas that are interested in working in. For instance, learning the operational side of Dynamics 365 typically takes 4 to 5 weeks, however, becoming a manufacturing engineer for Dynamics 365 may take 4 to 5 months.
Is Dynamics 365 being discontinued? ›
Internet Explorer 11 support for Dynamics 365 is deprecated
Effective December 2020, Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 support for all Dynamics 365 products and Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) is deprecated, and Internet Explorer 11 won't be supported after August 2021.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM has three comprehensive functional modules: Sales, Marketing, and Service (or Customer Care).
What is the importance of d365? ›The Dynamics 365 ecosystem connects with all the Microsoft office applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote, etc… It also gives you the flexibility of integrating with other applications using Microsoft Flow. You can set up automation with over 200 popular apps and services for business.
How many types of Microsoft Dynamics are there? ›It comes in two major versions, Sales Enterprise and the smaller Sales Professional. Dynamics 365 Customer Service – A CRM for customer profiles, service cases, and other relationship management functions.