The ultimate integration of Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office

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The ultimate integration of Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office

By Howard Baldwin

Use Microsoft Dynamics and the 2007 Microsoft Office system together for best results

Microsoft Dynamics Snap

Better together: Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Office make a powerful pair

Seamless integration between Microsoft Dynamics business applications and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity tools is now within reach.

In summary:

•Tight integration between Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office gives users a familiar interface

•Other Dynamics features, such as SmartList and Snap, bring deeper functionality

•Standard programming technology makes custom integration even easier

Every IT staffer with any amount of experience knows the ramifications of deploying applications from multiple vendors that must exchange critical business data. It means more time spent integrating or customizing the applications within IT, more training for workers, and more technical support calls. Such issues are especially prevalent when one of the applications involved serves the entire company, such as an ERP or other core business application. Because these applications tightly integrate multiple modules relating to various departments such as finance and human resources, individual workers might not have the perspective to understand why the process for accessing information seems complicated or non-intuitive.

Having seamless integration is a huge advantage. Other systems may say they integrate with Outlook, but they may only synchronize the data once a day.

Jim Veraldi
MicroStrategies

One way of solving the challenge is to give workers a familiar interface in which to work. That's why Microsoft endeavors to integrate its Microsoft Dynamics business management applications (which include Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and its ERP line consisting of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and Microsoft Dynamics SL, and) so closely with its Microsoft Office applications (including Microsoft Office Outlook, Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server). Such integration keeps workers productive and minimizes calls to IT. For instance, employees can export Dynamics data into Microsoft Office Excel to for easier analysis and sharing.

There are three key ways Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office applications work together. Besides their basic integration in terms of interface and workflow, Microsoft Dynamics also offers SmartLists and Snap applications, which simplify the task of exchanging information between the applications.

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Built-in integration between Dynamics and Office

The Microsoft Dynamics application most closely integrated with Office is probably Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which handles customer relationship management including sales, marketing, and customer service. "This is a very advanced back-end integration, where employees or administrators simply need to define the data that need to be exchanged or integrated," says Dr. Michael Pachlatko, CEO of smartpoint IT consulting GmbH, a Microsoft Certified Partner in Linz, Austria. "All this happens without any programming, because it's just configuration of standard features."

In fact, to many employees, the interface to Microsoft Dynamics CRM is exclusively Microsoft Office Outlook. They can look up customer information through the Contacts feature, contact customers by e-mail, schedule meetings through the Calendar feature, and capture customer discussions through the Notes feature. In addition, by adding a Microsoft Dynamics CRM toolbar within Office Outlook, workers can access other folders within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system.

"No one wants to maintain separate contacts and calendars," says Jim Veraldi, executive vice president at MicroStrategies, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Denville, N.J., that focuses on Microsoft Dynamics and infrastructure. He cites transparent, real-time synchronization as an enormous advantage. "Other systems may say they integrate with Outlook, but they may only synchronize the data once a day."

Another part of the Office family where Microsoft is improving integration: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, which handles collaboration and workflow. Employees working in Microsoft Dynamics CRM can create custom reports to automatically post on an appropriate SharePoint site for immediate access by everyone in the organization.

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Tools and applications to get to the next level

SmartList for Microsoft Dynamics GP

Beyond the basic integration, another option is the SmartList feature within Microsoft Dynamics GP. SmartLists encompass several dozen reports that employees can click on from the toolbar, such as that day's purchases, back-ordered items, or inactive customers. They can then export the reports into either Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or Microsoft Word documents. "The finance people love this," says Mike Gifford, professional services director at Stanley Stuart Yoffee & Hendrix, Inc., a Maitland, Fla.-based Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics deployments. "They can dump data into Excel and then play with it."

As for exporting data into Word, employees can craft templates for thank-you notes, updates, or even collection letters. Using contact information from the SmartList report and a pre-defined template, they can create personalized letters for e-mail distribution soon after an order is received or an account deemed past due.

Microsoft Dynamics Snap

For the Microsoft Dynamics AX and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM applications, Microsoft Dynamics Snap applications allow for better integration with Office applications (Snap applications are packaged as part of the Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office). These applications allow workers to interact with Microsoft Dynamics business information from within Office. Currently, six "snap-ins," as they're called, are available:

•Business Data Search Snap-in (search data across SharePoint, Dynamics AX, and Dynamics CRM)

•Business Data Lookup Snap-in (insert business data into Word, Excel, or e-mail)

•Custom Report Generator Snap-in (create custom reports in Excel)

•Timesheet Management Snap-in (use Calendar appointments to create timesheets)

•Vacation Management Snap-in (use Outlook to submit vacation requests)

•Expense Management Snap-in (submit and approve expense reports in SharePoint)

•Customer Journal Snap-in (capture open orders and credit history in one document)

Employees can use these applications without IT assistance, however, the IT department will need to install and manage the applications. Even so, they go a long way toward improving productivity for IT by eliminating time spent doing specialized programming, according to Pachlatko.

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Custom integration

Naturally, there are times when the IT department still needs to develop custom integration between applications. These can relate to specialized needs based on customer or partner requests, compliance or regulatory issues. Manufacturers, for instance, may need to report what they imported through certain international ports over specific time periods. Gifford notes that Integration Tools for Dynamics GP or the Developer Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 allows you to build Microsoft .NET-based solutions, customizations, and extensions. These tools give the IT department familiar programming interfaces to ease the process.

Each of the [Dynamics] products has integration capabilities, according to Gifford. "You can take other applications, such as a medical billing application, and pull that data into the accounting module of Dynamics," says Gifford. "You can pull data from many sources, but still use the same code to request the data." This lets you automate processes more quickly and easily.

The result for IT staffers is the ability to do more in less time. Because Dynamics applications use industry-standard development tools such as Component Object Model standards, ActiveX, and C++, it creates a wealth of possibilities for integration and functionality," according to Gifford: "There's almost no limit to what you can do in terms of either creating new modules or setting up new interfaces."

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Silicon Valley-based freelancer Howard Baldwin writes regularly for the Microsoft Midsize Business Center. His work has also appeared on AllBusiness.com and in CIO.

The ultimate integration of Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office