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Home / Insights / Blog / Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation – Top 10 Capabilities for Smart Project Management
April 24, 2017 - by Synoptek
Managing a project without a project management software is like playing football without a game plan! If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you ever expect to win the game? Good project management software ensures timely completion of projects, ultimately providing a faster return on investment. And with Dynamics 365’s Project Service Automation capabilities, you don’t have to invest in a separate project management software, since Dynamics 365 has it covered.
1. Get Started on Projects Quickly:
With predefined project templates, you can get started on projects with a single click. Define prerequisites for your project template, set a project calendar for each project template, and define roles and pricelists for easy scheduling and estimation.
2. Sell Smartly:
With unified access to sales force automation services and social insights, you can ensure every conversation is relevant and productive. Collaborate with team members within the app and always work with a client-centric approach.
3. Set Pricelists for Various Categories:
Set costs for resource roles, expense categories, products, and other elements in your organization. Create a backing cost and sales pricelist before setting financial estimates for the work to be delivered in a project. Get insights into the cost and revenue impact of the work you’re planning, the resource roles associated with the tasks, and view estimates based on various predefined dimensions.
Leverage essential scheduling capabilities through the work breakdown structure. Know in advance what work needs to be performed, which resources will perform the work, and the timeframe in which tasks need to be completed. Get information on work associated with delivering the project on time through interactive charts.
5. Get a Time-phased View of Project Estimates:
Get project estimates in a grid view on the role dimension and see estimated data across the timeline in the chosen timescale. Distribute total effort estimated for the task by allocating a certain number of effort hours per unit time period of the chosen timescale.
6. Break Work into Manageable Tasks:
Creating the perfect project schedule requires you to break down work into manageable tasks, and accurately estimate the time, resources, and cost involved. Create a task hierarchy, associate roles to task, define schedule attributes, set dependencies, and view data in an interactive Gantt chart.
7. Bill Resources Based on Time:
With each resource possessing a set of skills, competencies, and certifications (and performing a specific set of tasks on a project), Project Service Automation allows you to bill resources based on the role they perform and the time they take to do a job (and ensures clients are billed properly). View and filter resources based on competencies and availability, assign the right people to the right projects, and track resource utilization.
View terms of contract and approved expenses through invoices. Generate, approve, and distribute customer invoices and view terms of contract and approved expenses through email and the web. Build project estimates and get a financial view for the work estimated and scheduled and bill customers based on the effort.
Track data in the effort tracking view and see the progress and cost consumption at project root node, summary, and down to the leaf node tasks in the cost tracking view. You can also view a summary of project-level status in the status section on every project entity page.
10. Leverage Mobile Capabilities:
With powerful and easy-to-use apps for iOS, Android, and Windows, you can remotely work on projects, manage schedules, view and edit time and expenses, and collaborate using Office 365 anytime, anywhere and achieve higher productivity.
Get Smart
Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation allows you to quote and contract work, plan and assign resources, build your project schedule, forecast resource requirement, enable team collaboration, and complete and deliver projects on time (and within budget). By deploying your resources efficiently and effectively, you can accurately plan your project activities, and ensure customers are billed correctly. Keep pace with the ever changing dynamics and get smart.
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