This chapter doesn't have any technical requirements; we are merely helping you get started with Dynamics 365 CE. We will be covering the introduction of earlier versions of Dynamics Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to give you an added advantage in this area.

If you are new to the Microsoft Dynamics product family and haven't worked with Dynamics before, you can consider it a collection of business applications. Now, you might be wondering, what a business application is? This is a piece of software that is specially built for automating business activities. In this case, business activities mean the processes used in the various departments of a business. These processes are dependent on the type of business you are doing.

For example, if you are running a service-based company, your process automation will be related to the services that you provide to your customer. An automobile service company can use business applications to manage their daily service requests, handle roadside assistance inquiries, deal with maintenance requests, and workorder generations. Similarly, if you are running a company...

Instead of individual applications in the earlier version of Microsoft Dynamics, Dynamics 365 broke down the functionality of its applications into smaller apps and brought them under a single roof. The following diagram explains the different apps under Dynamics 365:

The aforementioned apps include different functionalities and can be used for different purposes. We'll take a closer look at these different apps in the following subsections.

The Sales app can be used to implement an end-to-end sales process. This app provides generic guided sales processes that help users close their sales quickly and manage their customers, leads, opportunities, orders, invoices, and other sales...

After Dynamics CRM 2016 update 8.1 (in earlier versions, it was known as Dynamics CRM), we got the service update 8.2 release and Microsoft rebranded Dynamics CRM to Dynamics 365 CE. Just like other versions, Dynamics 365 did not come with a major release but with a service update for their online customers that was applied to on-premise customers as well. Dynamics 365 CE is a combination of sales, marketing, customer service, field service, project service apps, and other services. It is a new generation intelligence CRM application. All first-party apps, such as Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Field Service, and Product Service Automation, are highly customizable and extendable, and all these apps provide out-of-the-box integration support for different Microsoft projects, such as SharePoint, OneNote, Microsoft Flow, Power BI, Azure, and Microsoft...

Dynamics 365 CE is for everyone, whether you want to utilize a cloud infrastructure, or you want to reuse your existing infrastructure for Dynamics 365 CE. In a broad way, we can deploy Dynamics 365 CE using the following options.

This is the easiest and simplest option if you wish to utilize Dynamics 365 CE capabilities by taking out a Dynamics 365 subscription from Microsoft. Dynamics 365 CE online is hosted on Microsoft Azure datacenters, which are located across the globe. Microsoft has datacenter regions in the United States, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, and Oceania.

When you buy a subscription...

Dynamics 365 CE clients allow users to access the Dynamics 365 CE organization. Users can access the Dynamics 365 CE using the following clients.

The web client allows users to access the Dynamics 365 CE organization using a browser and a specific organization URL. Dynamics 365 CE supports all popular browsers, including Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. It is the most popular client for accessing Dynamics 365 CE because we don't need to install any programs. You can access different apps that have been installed for your Dynamics 365 CE organization from here. Sitemap navigation allows you to access various areas of Dynamics 365 CE in the web client easily...

Microsoft also simplified the licensing model for Dynamics 365 CE. Dynamics 365 Subscription can be purchased based on the user subscriptions shown in the following diagram:

Light User are normal users, known as team members. They have read-only access to all the apps, with read and write access to limited entities. This type of license is best suited for users who perform light tasks, such as accessing data for read-only purposes, running reports, and using the dashboard. Full User are basically Dynamics 365 CE power users, and they have full access to all the features.

Device subscription is suited for call centers where multiple users share the same devices but use their own logins. With different user subscriptions, organizations can select the Dynamics 365 subscription plan that provides the best and the most flexible options. Based on...

To experience Dynamics 365 CE capabilities and test its features, we can set up a quick 30-day trial. To set up the trial, follow these steps:

1. Open your browser and go to the following link: https://signup.microsoft.com/Signup?OfferId=bd569279-37f5-4f5c-99d0-425873bb9a4b&dl=DYN365_ENTERPRISE_PLAN1&Culture=en-us&Country=us&ali=1.
2. On the page that opens, select your country. Based on this information, your Dynamics 365 CE organization will be hosted on the nearest Azure datacenter. For this example, I have selected India. Fill out the rest of the details that are required, as shown in the following screenshot, and click Next:

3. On the next screen, enter your admin user and organization details. Your Dynamics 365 CE organization will use this user as the admin. You can add other users that. After that, click on the Create my...

In this chapter, we learned about Dynamics 365 and Dynamics 365 CE. We discussed the various apps that are available under the Dynamics 365 Hub. We also learned about the different ways we can deploy Dynamics 365 CE applications, along with the available client options that can be used to access Dynamics 365 CE. Finally, we discussed the different subscription options that are available in Dynamics 365 for customers and learned how to set up a 30-day trial.

In the next chapter, we are going to discuss project management and different methodologies that can be used for better project management. Then, we will discuss the methodologies that are used the most when implementing Dynamics 365 CE.