Exploring common terms in ERP implementations

There are some common terms that are used in all the phases of ERP implementation. These terms describe a specific task or activity during the implementation life cycle, and they are as follows:

• Provisioning: This process requests the creation of a new machine/environment of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.
• Configuration: This process identifies which options will be activated (checked) according to customer requirements and this will be followed in the day-to-day business (module parameters).
• Setup: This process sets up the data within the application, identifying how to group it according to customer requirements, vendors, items, and the chart of accounts.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations gives flexibility to be adopted into business needs by personalizing the application, modifying it, or customizing it. This is described as follows:

• Personalization: Personalizations or enhancements are small changes that occur in the application to fit customer requirements, such as rearrangement of form fields, wide company enhancements, or user-based. Enhancements deliver more usability to operational data entry users.
• Modification: Modifications are medium to large changes that occur in the application to fit customer requirements, such as changing a field's property to make it mandatory, setting a default value for a checkbox in a transaction form instead of making the user select it every time, and developing document validations. It can also be wide company modifications. The purpose of these modifications is to have more control over application options and behavior rather than module parameters.
• Customization: Customizations are the largest changes occurring in the application to fit customer requirements, such as changes in an application's business logic and calculations, changes in a module's integration concepts and posting profile, and developing new modules that are not covered in the standard application modules. Although customization is not recommended in ERP implementation, the purpose of customization is to cover a critical business need to be handled by the application. Always try to minimize the size of customizations.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations has a new concept of customization which is extensions.