Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations: Deliver profitable projects with effective project planning and productive operational workflows

Discover the endless capabilities and end-to-end project management functionalities of Dynamics 365 Project Operations to drive your firm's project success and ensure rapid business growth in the competitive digital economic world

Key Features

• Deliver successful projects via improved collaboration, visibility, and teamwork using Microsoft Project Operations solutions
• Gain real-time data insights to modernize business strategies to increase market share
• Build the right project operations models to meet business needs with an optimized budget

Book Description

Dynamics 365 Project Operations is a game-changing solution set for project-driven businesses that allows you to deliver commercially successful projects in a timely and cost-effective manner, keeping the project teams productive and collaborative. With this book, you'll find out how you can bring more value to the business by winning new projects and driving exponential revenue growth.

Starting with the key principles of Project Operations, you'll understand how it improves project planning and execution. You’ll then learn how to successfully deploy Project Operations along with different integration strategies and get to grips with the best approach for sales through project opportunities, project contracts, and pricing workflow implementation. This book will guide you through setting up direct staffing and centralized staffing models and enable you to manage project changes confidently by getting hands-on with project timeline management, pricing management, resource assignments, and modifications. In the final chapters, you'll find out how to use Project Operations effectively for project accounting and finance.

By the end of this book, you’ll have gained the confidence to deliver profitable projects in a well-connected organization through efficient decision-making and successful customer-client relationships.

What you will learn

• Configure key elements of Project Operations to drive improved collaboration with your customers
• Discover how Project Operations is interconnected with Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 Platform
• Understand the Project Opportunity-to-Quote-to-Contract workflow and its implications for selling
• Find out how to set up and utilize direct staffing and centralized staffing models
• Explore Project Timeline Management using Task, Board, and Timeline views
• Find out how information flows to finance and operations in Project Operations

Who this book is for

This book is for project managers, project leads, business consultants, and business leaders who want to gain a competitive edge by delivering successful projects in a shorter time span with the help of effective operations and workflows across different teams within projects. Knowledge of Microsoft 365 and a sound understanding of business acumen and sales through the delivery process is necessary to get the most out of this book.

Table of Contents

1. Introducing Project Operations
2. Using the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Framework for Success
3. The How-Tos of Setting Up Project Operations
4. The Account Manager – Project Selling
5. Project Contracts and Pricing
6. Practice Manager Functions – We Won the Contract! What Now?
7. Resource Manager – Staffing for Success!
8. Managing the Project to Success
9. Team Member Activities
10. Approvals and Exceptions
11. Project Accounting and Operations

Robert Houdeshell has over 24 years of project operations experience, with deep knowledge of the end-to-end processes that professional services firms utilize to deliver their projects.

Since 2004, Robert has worked with Microsoft Project Server and online versions that were integrating projects and ERP systems before there was a CRM-based PSA solution. In 2013, Robert's years of CRM, project, and ERP/accounting experience came together in the first end to-end professional services automation solution of its kind. Built upon the Microsoft Dynamics technologies, this cloud solution was deployed in enterprise and mid-market companies. Therefore, when Project Services was released by Microsoft in 2016, he quickly saw the value of the solution we now call Project Operations.

Robert has worked with the Microsoft Project Operations solution since its beginning and has deployed the solution across multiple enterprise organizations, including a large multi-national Silicon Valley firm and a large Microsoft cloud solution partner. Robert has practical experience in enterprise and mid-size firms, helping them benefit from solution modernization. Excited about Project Operations, Robert passionately writes about his practical experience, offering solution observations and guidance for his readers to enjoy and benefit from.