The adoption of a modern day tier 1 ERPEnterprise Resource Planning software is used by businesses to manage day-to-day activities. system such as Dynamics 365 F&O has numerous advantages when it comes to the streamlining and standardisation of the technology stack. However, when users move from many single purpose systems to one which can manage the entire end to end business operations, it can be overwhelming. Role based access controls (RBAC), more commonly referred to as ‘user security roles’, can be tailored to manage this to an extent, but the breadth of features that remain leave the opportunity for greater navigational efficiency.
There is already a great navigational walkthrough series in the process of being published by Mike (Navigating the D365 F&O interface (Part 1)) that I would highly recommend you read, but in this post I’ll look at some of the user/team specific personalisation’s that can be created to increase operational efficiency.
Favourites
Much like your web browser favourites you able to mark your commonly navigated menu paths to enable that single click navigation. Unsurprisingly, the method of marking a favourite in D365 F&O mirrors that of the Microsoft Edge browser experience and presents you with a ‘star’ designation. Simply selecting this on your common menu paths will add it to your favourites section on the navigation pane:
Saved Views
Unless records are specifically configured to be hidden, e.g. with the customisation of system security roles, it is highly likely that you will be presented with forms of data which may not be entirely relevant to your primary area of responsibility. Examples of this could be an Accounts Payable clerk with ownership of particular suppliers or a supply chain administrator with responsibility to maintain a particular product sub-set.
I covered off the basic filtering and sorting of data sets in a previous post (Filtering in D365 F&O), but once you’ve mastered that you need to be able to save your queries for future use. Wherever you have the option to filter and sort data you will be presented with the system’s ‘default view’. Once you have applied your filters or any other personalisation, you’ll notice that you the default view becomes appending with an Asterix. An example of this on the ‘Released Products’ form can be seen below when filtering for only service type items:
To save this as a query for the future so that you don’t have to repeatedly specify your personal preferences again, simply select the view and choose the ‘save as’ option:
I’d recommend a meaningful description as you may apply multiple queries to a single data set, as can be seen in the screenshot above. However, other options presented to you are ‘pin as default view’, which allows you to specify the view as your primary view when landing on the form, and ‘Legal entity access’, which allows you to specify which legal entities this view should be available to you in. The default is ‘All’:
Personalising the grids
So we’ve covered off how you can easily access your frequently used data sets and system records but, in many cases, this presents users will a large data set with which to interact. It may be that the columns of data provided are not relevant or that you would benefit from additional attributes being surfaced. In either case these can be easily tailored by selecting ‘Options> Personalise this page’:
Note – it is also possible to personalise the page by first right clicking on a column heading, selecting personalise xxxx, and then choosing ‘Personalise this page’.
In the personalisation view you are able to:
Select – this action allows you to select a table element (column) and apply specific actions such as hiding, required, skip, or lock.
Hide – this action allows you to select the columns you wish to hide from the view. Multiple columns can be selected with this method which can make it more efficient that managing it with the ‘Select’ action
Require – Allows you to specify particular data fields as compulsory for data entry. Note – This doesn’t allow a user to deselect those which are already required by default.
Add a field – allows you to select another data column from a data set with a direct table join to the data being queried. It also allows you to add a custom field, which we’ll cover in a future post.
Move – Allows you to select a column and drag it to re-order the columns. Note – this action can be also done directly from the UI without entering the personalisation pane.
Skip – When interacting with forms of data, users can ‘tab’ to navigate horizontally across the data set. This option allows you to specify columns which should be skipped when performing that action.
Show in header – When opening a record users are presented with numerous fast tabs including ‘header’. The header section can be personalised to display the pertinent record information. This option allows users to perform that action from the record list.
Lock – This action allows users to select configurable and editable fields to be locked so that no changes can be made.
Interacting with personalisations
The most common form of interacting with your personalisations is within the specific forms. However, there are other ways in which users can further benefit from personalisations.
One of the primary ways is by embedding personalised data queries within common workspaces. To do this select ‘Options>Add to workspace’:
Note – the personalisation must be a saved view, before this option is available.
When adding to a workspace you are able to add it as a tile (a), a list (b) or a link(b):
Another neat feature, with tiles that have record counts, allows you to further summarise your personalised view onto the main D365 F&O home page providing you with quick access key data sets across a broad range of business processes. To do this right click on the tile you wish to surface, select to personalise and then ‘pin to dashboard’:
Stating the obvious; personalisations are unique to an individual so how these the tools above are leveraged will vary from user to user. It is often the case that users may have an opening position of what they would like to personalise. However, as ERPEnterprise Resource Planning software is used by businesses to manage day-to-day activities. system is no different to the rooms of a house when considering large scale renovation, it is often best to live with the standard for awhile so that you understand what features and areas it is that you interact with most commonly on a day to day basis, before tailoring it to your preferences.
To coin a phrase from Voltaire “with great power come great responsibility”. Personalisations can be a powerful tool when it comes to unlocking efficiency in your day to day business operations, but used incorrectly, they can create inefficiencies such as; challenges with cross training, blockers with support etc. Correct training and administration (which I’ll cover soon) of user personalisations should be a baseline consideration for all D365 F&O implementations.