Ali Raza Zaidi

A practitioner’s musings on Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations

Glossary to Business Analysis

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As business analysts, we deal with people, processes, and technology. We have to listen to user stories and understand their needs. Separate their wants from their needs. What is actually required as compared to their wants? Most importantly, what is actually possible with respect to their budget?

During communication between professionals as well as end users, we use different terms and jurgans. I listed some of them here.

Here is a list of some common terminology that you might come across in a business analysis glossary:

  1. Business Analyst: Consider a specialist who understands the organization’s processes, procedures, existing systems, and goals and provides the solution.
  2. Stakeholders: people or groups of people who have involvement in both ownership and investment and direct efficacy of the success or failure of the system.
  3. Requirements: detailed statements that explain the functions, processes, and pain areas of the end user or group of users.
  4. SWOT Analysis: Decision-making tools that help organizations identify their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities
  5. Use Case: A use case is a sample event or process, or an example of documenting the interaction of a system or process with actors, users, or systems.
  6. Gap Analysis: difference between the actual system functionality provided by the system and the requirements that come from stakeholders
  7. Agile: A project management approach for requirement gathering, development, testing, and delivery to the end user that focuses on flexibility, collaboration, and customer feedback.
  8. Waterfall: A transition to requirement gathering, software development, and implementation Linear and sequential framework.
  9. Business Process Modeling: The graphical representation of business processes for the purposes of understanding, analyzing, and improving them.
  10. ROI (Return on Investment): measure the profit or value gained from an investment.
  11. KPI (Key Performance Indicator): measurement of key factors for success in implementation or success in requirement gathering. or preformance.
  12. RACI Matrix: A technique for clarifying project or process roles and responsibilities (responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed).
  13. Scope creep: uncontrolled changes and additions to the scope of a project. This leads to delays and overbudgeting for the project.
  14. Change Management: The process of planning, implementing, and managing organizational changes
  15. BRD (Business Needs Document): A document that outlines a project’s high-level business needs.
  16. User Story: Understanding and documentation of presepective end uses; this term is widely used in Agile.
  17. Decision Matrix: requirements and their solutions vs. possibilities based on established criteria
  18. Feasibility Study: Documentation for the proposed solution: is it viable or possible, both in terms of cost and time?
  19. Sprint: what will be delivered, requirement gathering, and development within a 2-4 week period for a defined requirement or set of features.

Product Attribute Data Management D365 Finance and Operations

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We are senior, or senior citizen. Most of the time, young champs do things. And we as senior, just control the situation or communicate.

We can not do everything. We need to delegate things. Today I got chance to work with a young champ to import the product attribute in a system.

I used following Data Entities

Product attribute enumeration types v3
Product attribute integer enumeration types
Attribute group
Product attributes – Specification of attribute types and attribute name
Product category attributes – combination of category and attribute on a product
Product attribute values – for attribute values assignment per product
Product entity attribute value entity – for attribute values assignment per product
Category hierarchies & product category hierarchy – for Procurement category
Internal organization product attribute values
Product category category attribute group assignments – attribute assignment on category
Product category product attribute group assignments

Corrective or reactive Maintenance

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Reactive, corrective, or break down maintnenance requires for component that supports the supply chain process in any organization.

In this video, I shared the flow of corrective maintenance and with example you can perform corrective maintenance.

Purchase Order Receiving Dynamics 365 Advanced Warehouse

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I walk through the setup and procedure for the Dynamics 365 Advanced Warehouse Purchase order receiving in today’s session. I demonstrate two procedures: a one-step procedure for receiving an item from a pallet directly to a shelf, and a two-step procedure for receiving an item from a pallet to a receiving point before moving it to a shelf.

Job types 101 Asset Management in D365 Finance and Operations. Asset Management Part 2

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Hello, everyone. This is the second post in the Enterprise Asset Management Series.

In my last post, I shared some insider information and my understanding of locations in Asset Management. You can find that post at the link below.

In this post, we will discuss the following things:

  1. Maintenance job categories.
  2. Maintenance job types variants.
  3. Maintenance job types.
  4. Maintenance checklist template.
  5. Setup default checklist on job type.

Maintenance job Categories:

Categories are used to group Job types. We can identify these job types with category types.

Navigation

Asset Management > Setup > Job > Maintenance job type categories

Maintenance Job Types Variants

This is a non-essential setup requirement. Just to provide the extra information and possible need for more care required for maintenance. For example, Condition Assessment at 1000 Km or 2000 km is possible for technicians to verify or diagnose in more detail as compared to 1000 km if Job type variations exist.

Navigation

Asset Management > Setup > Job > Maintenance job type variants

Maintenance job types.

One of the major central points of Asset management is the common template, where we need to define things that are copied to work orders.

In the Details sections, we just have counters; these counters are the result of the below tabs or sections.

In this section, we can define the job category and also mention that this type of job requires downtime activities.

Then comes the description.

In this field, you can define and note anything you want to store as details.

Then come Job variants,

In this section, we defined the Job variants; these variants will be shown when we select job types on a work order. What we define here will reflect on the work order Type. The Job variant will populate based on the job type.

Job skills and Job certificates are unimportant and less used features. They can be defined, but they will never be used. It is just information.

The next critical step is to complete the maintenance job successfully.

Where we define, next job after completing jobs. these were just information, I did not found any benefit to define succeeding maintenance jobs.

Now comes with Asset Types. In this section we defined qualified asset types on this job type are allowed.

When we define a work order against an asset, on the selection of the asset, the drop-down shows only assigned job types in the above-mentioned job type.

This will be one of the most important points in the whole maintenance job type.

Maintenance Job Defaults:

If you click on the action pane, then Maintenance Job Type, a new form will open.

where we can define different check lists, forecasts, descriptions, and resources for the default job type.

We can also add multiple defaults based on variations in the combination of job type and asset type. The same job type can work for different types of assets. We defined the asset type in the above-mentioned step, in Asset Type.

For current example, which mostly from contoso data and usmf legal entity, You can see Hours are 1.00. If I click on forecast button on fast tab

You will find something similar. You can see that the forecast method has already defined an hour.

There are complete details on Item forecast, and in the same way, we can define expense forecast and fee forecast.

Most of the time, we used to set expenses for technician work, food he took during maintenance work, or travel expenses we had to give to the technician for each. In the fee section, most of the time we record the outsourced service charges. It depends on how you plan.

This forecast is important; when we post the actual journal, the comparison between forecast and actual will come from here.

I will probably discuss this in my next blog post.

Here We have to define a maintenance checklist. We can assign these maintenance check lists to job types. When we define a work order for a specific job type, the check list defined for that job type defaults to it.

These check lists will be used for verification of maintenance or to ensure that technicians will perform all necessary maintenance.

Check lists can now be defined as different check lists. These check lists are used to verify what type of test we have to define for each asset type.

We can define, new check list with help of following options.

Text is used for the just-mentioned answer.

The header is used to create a separator between questions; they appear in the same way they are defined as per line number.

Variables are usually Yes, no, or multiple choice answer; most of the time, it will be used for two values: “True” and “False”.

Then comes measurement, which will be used for numeric values. for example, vehicle use counter, and then there is range, which can also be defined here.

Template: here we define the template. I used to prefer this because, in this way, we can define templates Independently and reuse them later.

We can create a new maintenance check list by click on new button.

Or you can define, check lists in following navigation. These reusable check list can be select in above link.

Navigation >setup >Maintenance checklist > Maintenance checklist templates

In this we define Job type, And all things defined here will be reuse in work order.

Hope you like this post,

Locations in Asset Management in D365 Finance and Operations. Asset Management Part 1

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In this series of blog , I am going to share the functionality of Asset management in D365 Finance and Operations.

In first blog post I described the concept and option of location in D365 Finance and Operations.

So what is functional location.

Functional locations are places where assets can be installed. These locations can be hierarchical. Let’s say we have a head office building that has 10 rooms: 2 conference rooms and 8 halls. Every hall has one printer and four desks, and on each desk, one laptop or computer is placed.

In some cases, locations don’t have assets directly installed on them. For example, the head office did not have assets directly. But every hall inside the head office building can have assets installed. For this reason, we can disable the Create asset on location option in Asset Type.

Followings are points why we need asset maintenance on location.

  • We can define asset maintenance at a specific location.
  • We can get the total cost for a specific location.
  • We can get the total Item consumption for a specific location.
  • Even so, we can get a list of Work orders and maintenance requests for a specific location.
  • List of faults that occur at a specific location.

Location Lifecycle state:

Asset management > Setup > Functional Location > Location Lifecycle state:

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The life cycle state defines the current state of an asset. There are multiple properties defined for the location state.

Functional Location Action toggle button If we enable yes, then this location will be in an active state.

create Asset toggle button: if this button is enabled to yes, it means we can create assets on location.

Allow Rename the location. If this property is true, then we can rename the location. Otherwise, it is not possible to rename the location.

New sublocation toggle button: In the case of property, location will allow new sublocations. When a location is in this state, we can add sublocations to assets.

Install asset at location toggle button: this state ensures that assets can be installed at location. Sometimes we have hierarchical locations and cannot install assets at those locations.

Delete functional location. if the location this state, where this option is true, we can delete the location.

Asset State: Asset state, means when ever asset is installed on this location, it will change to assigned that state.

Based on our need we can make new life cycle state and we can set above mentioned properties to play with these.

Currently I select only three life cycle states for example, New, active and Ended.

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Location life Cycle model:

Life Cycle model helps us to define behavior of states.

Asset management > Setup > Functional Location > Location Lifecycle Model.

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For example, the above screenshot can be explained in the following way:

  • The active state can be converted into an ending state.
  • When Any location is in an end state, that is, a final state, it cannot be converted to another state.
  • A new state can be converted into an active state; we cannot convert it into an ending state.

We can define the life cycle model based on our needs by adding more life cycle states and enabling and disabling different toggle buttons for each state.

Location Type:

Location Type helps us make a template. There is a possibility we have similar types of locations. And these locations can have similar characteristics.

You can find location Type with below navigation path.

Asset management > Setup > Functional Location > Location Type

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Location type:

On location type, we can define the functional location life cycle model. It is automatically copied to the location when we create a location.

The toggle button for allow Multiple assets allows you to install multiple assets.

We can also enable or disable the update asset dimension allowed on assets (this function is not working because of some missing functionality).

Then some fields are just counters for the number of asset types installed on location, the count of permitted location types, etc.

The system will then determine which types of assets are permitted to be located. For example, in the office hall, we can install a printer, laptop, and photocopier. We cannot install a forklift in the office hall.

If we do not define any asset type here, then the location will be open for all types of assets.

Maintenance Plan:

We can also define a maintenance plan based on location. Most of the time, every asset has a different maintenance plan. We usually do not use this feature. But where can we define a maintenance plan? That is applicable to all assets.

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Permitted type Tab.

In the system, we can define hierarchical locations; for example, the head office can have a hall room and a conference room. Head office cannot have another building or factory as a child. Here we can define Allow location types in this tab.

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Asset Attribute requirements

We can also define asset attribute types on functional locations type. For example color of Red. This option did not validate on location as well as asset.

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Conclusion: We can define location types. In some implementations, locations are not important. For these, we can define a default location, and we set this in the Asset Maintenance parameter page. When an asset is created, it automatically picks the default location.

For further Inquiry

email alirazazaidi@live.com

Cell Number+971555128359

How to see if a Vendor Invoice has been settled or not

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In this post, we are going to verify vendor invoice is settle / paid or not.

For this you have to go Accounts payable module on following module.

For this we have to Vendor list page by this path

Account payable ⇒ common ⇒ Vendor ⇒ All Vendor.

Click on it and following forum is opened

Select vendor on which invoice you want to see.

Click on top menu, Vendor > Transactions > Transactions

Following form opens

Now you select any invoiced line and click on top View settlement

Following form will open with detail.

If you see the transaction form, you found two things

Balance and amount

The amount is amount of vendor invoice. If it is positive mean, mean, organization need to pay it. In the case of negative it mean, it is credit memo, Vendor owes the our organizational amount.

Balance is the amount the amount has not paid yet, If it is -negative, means, amount need to pay.

In the case of positive amount it means, it is created towards vendor, it is credit memo.

Advance warehouse Mobile app emulator, Create a user

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Hi friend, in this post I shared you how to enable user and test the mobile app on emulator provided by microsoft

At the recording of this video, I am using 10.0.32 version of Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations

Mobile simulator can be accessed on local vm by following url

https://usnconeboxax1aos.cloud.onebox.dynamics.com/?mi=SysClassRunner&cls=WHSWorkExec

I use