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Microsoft Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365
Formerly Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Overview

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a CRM providing sales, marketing, and service functionality. It is offered as SaaS and on-premise. Dynamics 365 is part of the larger Dynamics suite of business intelligence and ERP products.

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Recent Reviews

Buyer Beware!!!

1 out of 10
February 18, 2022
We used Microsoft Dynamics 365 as our Applicant Tracking/Employment Management System. We add candidates and clients to the database and …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 31 features
  • Customer data management / contact management (68)
    8.7
    87%
  • Custom fields (65)
    8.3
    83%
  • Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail) (65)
    7.6
    76%
  • Workflow management (66)
    7.2
    72%
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Pricing

View all pricing

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.microsoft.com/en…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $44 per month
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Features

Sales Force Automation

This is the technique of using software to automate certain sales-related tasks.

7.9
Avg 7.7

Customer Service & Support

This component of CRM software automates help desk, call center and field service management.

6.9
Avg 7.5

Marketing Automation

This component of CRM software helps to automate and scale marketing tasks and the subsequent analysis of those efforts.

7.8
Avg 7.5

CRM Project Management

This component of CRM software helps users initiate, plan, collaborate on, execute, track, and close projects.

7.8
Avg 7.6

CRM Reporting & Analytics

Reporting and analytics in CRM software includes sales forecasting, pipeline analysis, and automated dashboards.

8.9
Avg 7.6

Customization

This addresses a company’s ability to configure the software to fit its specific use case and workflow.

7.8
Avg 7.6

Security

This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.

7.9
Avg 8.3

Social CRM

This component of CRM software helps companies leverage social media in engaging with customers.

8
Avg 7.2

Integrations with 3rd-party Software

This involves the CRM software’s ability to integrate with other systems, whether external or homegrown.

7.6
Avg 7.1

Platform

8.4
Avg 7.5
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Product Details

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly called Microsoft Dynamics) CRM is a CRM system providing sales, marketing, and service (help desk) functionality. It is offered in two flavors: Online (competing directly with Salesforce) and on-premise.

The Microsoft Dynamics family of business applications includes other related products for ERP and retail management.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Features

  • Supported: Comprehensive Solution for Sales, Service & Marketing
  • Supported: Productivity Through Seamless Integration with Office 365
  • Supported: Analytics Through Seamless Integration with PowerBI

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Video

Find more opportunities and boost sales with Microsoft Dynamics 365 - Gamification

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Windows Phone
Supported Countriesglobal
Supported LanguagesOver 40 languages

Frequently Asked Questions

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a CRM providing sales, marketing, and service functionality. It is offered as SaaS and on-premise. Dynamics 365 is part of the larger Dynamics suite of business intelligence and ERP products.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 starts at $44.

NetSuite ERP, Sage CRM, and Salesforce Sales Cloud are common alternatives for Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Reviewers rate Forecasting and Pipeline visualization highest, with a score of 9.1.

The most common users of Microsoft Dynamics 365 are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(933)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 63)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Mohd Nazish | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We provide technical support and functional support as well to the users. This product is great to manage and engage the customers with the business. There is a great scope for this product. You can easily automate the process and also schedule the emails and messages. You can also store and manage products within the CRM.
  • Easy to generate leads using emails, phones, and campaigns and you can also automate the process of lead generation.
  • You can send the notifications to the users.
  • You can also have it's great feature called field service.
  • Overall it is working great, nothing to dislike.
  • I would love to see if Microsoft Dynamics 365 has the features to schedule workflows or plugin.
If you owned the business and you have to connect with your customers and also wanted to improve your business then you must have to go for it as it has a great sales process and the customer engagement process you can also use its business process flows to make your business more effective.
FARHAAN SHAIKH | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
All the leads Coming from the Marketing Campaigns Comes into the Microsoft Dynamics CRM and after that, it is allocated to the Salesperson who takes Follow up and Converts that into Sales.
This is Also Used for Service, lead is active until and unless it the Closed by the Service guy. Right from Generating prospects to Closing the leads, it is all managed in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

  • User Interface is quite Intuitive does matter whether you are a new user you will find it easy and interesting.
  • No Training is required all you need is just be aware of B2B leads, Corporate and Customer leads
  • Support team is highly knowledgeable and helpful
  • Fast internet Connection is required otherwise it can lag.
  • If you are creating a new lead, you Will have to put its Source and many more details which is quite irritating and time-Consuming
Its is well suited when you will Use it with some Dialer, it works really well for all the BPO and service Companies. Doesnt matter whether your Organization is small,medium or large you can go Microsoft dynamics CRM
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use this application globally within our company and not only by the sales reps or department but it holds a lot of the essential master data for our products and pricing structure. Our product managers and marketing users use the application to compile information about our sales and send out surveys etc. CRM 2016 enables the company to streamline the process and way of working with a sale from lead to order, and it helps our service technicians to handle RMA's and service cases on a global scale.
  • Guides the sales reps through the sales process.
  • Enables fairly quick quoting, presenting the customer with a quick quotation.
  • We had to rely on some third-party tools like Experlogix and HubSpot, it would be neat if this was unnecessary.
  • It's a Microsoft tools, so the number of clicks is still too high.
It's fairly easy to customize and integrate against, but it does require some developers to maintain. There's no product configurator or great mobile app, but these are areas in which MS knows to invest in future versions of CRM. The support for new on-prem versions seems to have been diminished since everything is going cloud which I think is a bit of a shame.
Mst Rahima Khatun | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Microsoft Dynamics 365 to keep track of our clients, systems, and data across the company. My superiors appreciate how easy it is to maintain tabs on our selling pipelines and set selling goals. It serves us to integrate all the data and processes from our employer’s portal into a unique system. We sell online solutions that update both CRM and the doorway simultaneously. For me, task tracking is my favorite feature because it’s tailored to each client’s specific needs. To this day, I’ll never forget the conversation I had with my client because of the project. Also helps our salespeople keep a step on potential clients and manage their past interactions to re-engage them. Microsoft Dynamics 365 works with customer relationship management programs for our company’s operations and selling employees. Use it to manage track of clients and other important sales metrics with ease.
  • One of the best features of this software is that it's easy to use and intuitive to understand.
  • Customization is easy, and no training is required; all you need to know about B2B leads, corporate leads, and clients are to be aware of those leads.
  • Through shared application data and marketing automation, it helps us align our sales and marketing processes.
  • The support team is knowledgeable and helpful, and they quickly engage the right customers using Microsoft's artificial intelligence-backed features.
  • There is room for improvement in terms of user-friendliness. New users often find it difficult to enter information into a database.
  • Making things a little easier on the interface and its user interface design isn't simple enough for smooth navigation, particularly on the report pages.
  • I'd like to see some improvement in terms of the navigation layout, though. There is always a concern about cost and performance.
We like Microsoft Dynamics 365 because it is easy to customize. It is simple to automate the process as a result of this integration. Through existing clients and products, we can sell our product. To promote and connect with our products, we can target specific customers. Using the Dynamic 365 tool, we can create new features based on the needs of our customers. It's of great quality, but it can't handle large data sets or perform well. That's something to keep in mind for large corporations. There are many advantages to using Microsoft Dynamics 365, but it falls short of other tools in nearly every area.
Harrison Pershing | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am the Salesforce Admin for our organization and we have 16GB of storage available. However, we are currently using around 25 GB of storage for all of our invoicing information. Our higher-up executives don't want to spend the money on the excess storage and we have decided to pull in all of our reporting/data for older information from Microsoft Power BI. We use their dashboards to provide more knowledge to our users.
  • Dashboards are succint
  • Reporting looks great
  • Customer views are great
  • Forecasting could be improved
  • Linking email campaigns
  • Overall customization
We have a very specific use for the Power BI reports, but I just think that Salesforce, which we use primarily, is headed in a way better direction and it's overall capability and customizations are unmatched. I think [Microsoft] Dynamics [365] does provide a strong view on customers, but it lacks in comparison to Salesforce in almost all aspects.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We all use it. We use it on our end to manage our client accounts but we also have our own ISV inside Dynamics that we sell, so us in the Support team also have to help customers with issues that arise in Dynamics CRM along with ClickDimensions. Dynamics helps us manage our database of accounts neatly and, since it is customizable, we have been able to do so much more for our clients.
  • Customizable - you can customize Dynamics to your business needs with the help of a CRM Admin or Partner
  • Can import own or third party solutions to add features that Dynamics may be missing. Example, ClickDimensions
  • Easy to manage Leads!
  • User Friendly -- Dynamics and their terms can be a bit confusing
  • UI -- The new Unified Interface is not that well designed. Older UIs were easier to navigate
  • If you are not a CRM expert, customizing CRM can be complex and you can even ruin your environment.
If you are in the Marketing or Sales department, Dynamics CRM can let you manage your leads pretty easily. More suited for larger companies. Small companies that only want to send emails would probably benefit from other software such as Mailchimp. Their competitor is Salesforce, but they are not that similar.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's used by the whole sales team as the main CRM. It helps keep track of all the information related to customers and sales opportunities.
  • User friendly.
  • Customer support is outstanding.
  • Can integrate with other softwares.
  • Marketing features.
  • Mass mailing.
  • Use of templates.
It is great for keeping track and following on sales opportunities. It provides many options for recording information on these leads.
Shai Hadar | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We have developed an ITSM Module, and as MS Dynamics implementers, we practice what we preach
The platform we developed is being used company-wide to support customers, enable collaboration across teams, and other basic CRM functions.
  • Very easy to customize.
  • Release management is very simple and intuitive.
  • UI is very plain and clear, consistent experience across all entities.
  • Full integration to other MS products out of the box, online Excel editing.
  • Full integration with Outlook for emails and calendar.
  • Bad reporting (you have to have Power BI).
  • Hard to manage users and permissions due to the many customizations available.
  • Performance, always an issue.
Good for companies that do not need complex customizations, otherwise you get encumbered by too much code and complexity. Large enterprises need to consider that MS Dynamics cannot handle super large data sets, reporting is limited, and performance is generally a limitation.
Olabintan Adenike Shoro | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is, at the moment, used as the preferred customer relationship management program in my organization's regional offices where I work. We use it to seamlessly manage customer information and keep track of customers and important sales metrics. It makes it easy for the higher-ups in my organization to measure our sales pipelines and possible sales targets, too.
  • Microsoft dynamics 365 does a fantastic job integrating with important third-party applications we currently use in the office such as a MailChimp and OneNote, thus making it easier to share vital insights across applications.
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 does a fantastic job of aligning our sales and marketing processes by helping to produce seamless experiences for our customers through shared application data and marketing automations.
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 makes it easier for us to focus on the right type of customers by engaging them quickly using insight provided by Microsoft's artificial intelligence backed features.
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 can do with improved intuitiveness for users. For instance, data entry is usually a tedious experience for beginner users.
  • Its user interface design is not simplified enough for smooth navigation, especially on the report pages.
Microsoft Dynamics 365's mobile access is average at best. It is not the most intuitive of mobile applications and has a sorry offline mode state.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dynamics 365 is currently used as a company-wide CRM for the management of our sales metrics, customer contact, and database. It is widely used by upper management to track the "health" of their pipelines and sales goals. Lower-level employees use it daily to keep track of customers and data entry. It has been a great tool for running various queries to view performance. Very easy to use.
  • Query searches.
  • Great user experience and design.
  • Displaying data in various charts.
  • Global search function tends to freeze a lot.
  • Linking emails to certain leads/opps could be improved in both Outlook and Dynamics.
Well suited for companies with products to sell products instead of services. Well suited for users who are familiar with Excel.

Not well suited for companies who need high levels of customization to their CRM and data.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
This was part of a custom CRM application for a vanity cosmetic surgical organization. We were brought in to work with on site developers to create custom training and deploy the product nationally. We fielded questions from users, worked with developers to tweak the system, and promote the benefits to the population to garner buy in for the process change. This was an extreme overhaul of process.
  • Easily customizable
  • Scalable
  • Not a complete con - but it did have a different look than what they used before
It works well when you have a development team on site or dedicated to the project. There are necessary updates/features that you don't anticipate in planning. Having trained developers ready to make changes is key.
Patrick Stephens | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I was asked to address the growing separation of marketing and sales at a local school (so, in this sense, sales will be considered Admissions). I needed to do several things 1) turn focus towards the completion of the job (leaving the small, menial tasks to the machine), 2) coordinate a way for both marketing and admissions to work together, knowing how well the other department is doing without interference, and 3) ensure quality standards were met when employee retention was a major issue. Microsoft Dynamics was used briefly through a sister account to observe how new employees would take to it, as well as see how currently long-time employees would take to it (reverting to old ways or moving towards the product).
  • Data unification - "one stop shop"
  • Adaptable pay structure, with customization options
  • Not new user friendly, nearly impossible to train someone new in it without them losing interest
All told, if it hadn't been for the fact that we were testing it with both employees who knew CRM lingo and those who were new, we wouldn't have found such an issue. The program itself can be very useful for people who already manage CRMs, who know how to use them, who know how to run and manage employees on them, namely because of the "one-stop-shop" concept in data visibility. When it came down to it though, if you have high-turnover, then this product will devolve into only being used for it's base components. Down the middle, we found that the people who'd been in marketing for 4-5 years fell into the product easily because of the way it was written. Everyone before that, with novice experience, thought it was written like a textbook for a graduate class - little to no leeway if you don't happen to know one specific term.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used across our whole organization, and it helps to bridge some communication problems and usually works pretty adequately. It definitely helps us to track leads, but sometimes we have issues with the cloud updating that may not be related to the program and just might be our system.
  • Great for tracking metrics.
  • Helps people stay organized.
  • The interface isn't as friendly when accessed on a Mac, but not bad.
  • It has a lot of functionality and sometimes it is difficult to find the exact one you are looking for.
It has great integration with our software, but do your research on how it integrates with your specific software. Microsoft Dynamics is constantly being updated and the customer service is excellent. It is a nice comprehensive CRM solution all-in-all. It is very efficient compared to other systems I have evaluated, and is what I recommend to customers.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Dynamics is mainly used by the Marketing Department of our organization. Its main purpose is to provide the back end for our mobile app and to manage loyalty programs. Also it provides reports and dashboards based on customer transactions. It helped set up our customer relations base and reach our guests.
  • It has a solid structure to set up customer and loyalty analytics.
  • It provides a good amount of reports that could be customized and extended easily.
  • Export of some large reports can be problematic and you may have to divide reports into smaller chunks.
  • Navigation in the report pages can be difficult.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is well suited to establish a basic standard customer relations and analytics structure. Many of the basic concepts are ready and could be customized with less effort to start analyzing your customer behaviors and prepare your strategy to keep existing base as well as extend your customer access. It has good integration especially with Excel where you can analyze live data from CRM.
Susan Hammiche | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is mainly used by the sales and marketing department to keep track of leads and potential leads as well as current and past client contacts. It helps improve the workflow in regards to financial management and customer service as well as other areas. With its vast variety of applications that are integrated, it helps keep everything organized.
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Simple layout design
  • Pricing - small businesses have smaller budgets
  • Learning curve for users not familiar with it
Dynamics 365 is a great application for all kinds of businesses from the feature standpoint. It can be used in many ways for financial and operational management. By tracking your customers and leads, you can keep everything organized and everyone in your department can see the progress. That way nothing gets lost or forgotten. From the price point, it may be harder from small businesses to use this software as it carries a high monthly or yearly cost.
December 10, 2019

Dynamics 365 at a glance

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Battelle is currently using Microsoft Dynamics 365 as its primary CRM system across the entire organization. We use it to track business opportunities throughout the duration of the sales process, from contact generation to order close. This helps the organization overall keep better track of it's current and potential projects.
  • It allows opportunities to be linked directly to specific accounts and contacts.
  • It allows users to enter specific details of phone conversations they have with clients or potential clients.
  • It could provide a better training program.
  • It could have a slightly better user-interface.
It's well suited to track opportunities throughout the duration of the sales process. It's also well suited to tie opportunities to specific contacts and accounts. Less appropriate scenarios include tagging emails from Outlook in a quick and easy manner, as it's not very good for this. It's less appropriate to use on the phone as its mobile interface is somewhat difficult to use.
December 09, 2019

Happy with Microsoft 365

Srinivas Rao | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is used by our department or customer support team, we call it the Share point. My team members and I use this to share data which contains secured data and we do feel safe as the details are not compromised. The main issue of sharing critical data with the team is what has been addressed.
  • Secured
  • User friendly
  • Customer-centric
  • Lively
  • Graphics could be improved.
We all use Microsoft products and MS Office too. Sharing of Excel files has never been a hassle, across geographic locations.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dynamics 365 is being used in our company to track valuable insights that help our teams monitor their relationships with key customers and ongoing interactions with them. The predictive insights from the tool are used to decide future strategies and support our remote teams in working in a more cohesive, aligned manner.
  • The dashboards are truly fantastic. Highly customizable, easy to understand, and quick to gain key insights upon logging into the tool.
  • Depth of information available in the tool is necessary for various teams to gain the right level of detail they need.
  • Integrations with other applications is helpful for our remote teams. This allows different apps to feed into one another and makes it easier to use overall.
  • There are very many subpages in the tool, and this can make it more challenging to onboard new users to the tool. It takes some adjusting to, to feel that the tool is seamless.
  • As access to info, or access to particular sections of the tool, can be restricted for some users by the main admins, this can be frustrating as not all team members have access to the same information. This means that admins must build more strategy around how the tool will be used.
Dynamics 365 is necessary for larger organizations with teams across regions/locations. Having a centralized tool allows everyone to work better together. In these cases, predictive analytics are also a necessity, as planning actions among a remote team can be a challenge, and this tool helps with that.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Dynamics 365 as our main CRM platform with our company. Dynamics is used by all departments within our organization. We utilize Dynamics for marketing, support tickets, sales, accounting. CRM and HR. Basically our entire business runs off of Dynamics. We have been able to streamline processes across all departments as a result of implementing Dynamics 365.
  • Dynamics 365 being in the cloud is great since it reduced maintenance and is accessible throughout the world
  • Dynamics is very customizable and can be tailored to your companies exact needs
  • Great support for third party software providers that integrate into Dynamics 365
  • Great automation features
  • Would be great if you didn't have to have a staff member dedicated to just administrating Dynamics and
  • Can be a pain to fix if something breaks since Dynamics can get extremely complicated
  • The Reporting could use some improvements
  • Wish it was cheaper
Dynamics is great for mid to enterprise customers. Since it can perform almost every backend business function that is required to run a mid to enterprise size corporation. Dynamics is less well suited and can be overwhelming for smaller business under 100 users and can get expensive fast with consultants and dedicated staff members to just administer the platform.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM) is used by Sales, Customer Service, Marketing, Purchasing, our Creative Labs, our Quality Control Labs, Shipping, and Regulatory. Besides the out-of-the-box functionality we use, typical customer relationship management, we also have built on top of its custom, line-of-business applications. Traditionally, this was called XRM, but now the proper term would be model-driven PowerApps. Without these tools, we could not function.
  • Some useful out-of-the-box features, like mass uploads of Leads from trade shows or when qualifying a Lead, CRM automatically creates the Opportunity, Contact, and Account for you, etc.
  • Really powerful customizations through the user interface to improve user experience. Things like Business Rules, for example, if Field A = 1, then Field B = 2 and Field C = 2, if Field A = 2, then Field B and Field C don't apply, so automatically hide them.
  • Or other functionality that improves user experience, like Business Process Flows. These walk users step by step through our business process, helping them know when certain actions should take place, and at what point other data is now required. We've used this extensively with our Lead to Opportunity to Quote to Order process, helping users understand the business process each step of the way.
  • Customizations built on top of the platform now called model-driven PowerApps. You can have connections to "typical" data, like Accounts, Contacts, or Opportunities, for example, but then connect that data to custom entities, records that only apply to your specific business. This is all done through the user interface and allows you to customize and automate specific line-of-business applications for your specific needs.
  • Behind the scenes, D365 CE is built on SQL. So the data conforms to industry standards and makes it much easier to interact with. Your developers and IT team will thank you.
  • Small learning curve, obviously. You won't figure this out in a day, a week, or even a month. But given time, you can learn to be an expert. Or you can always get a consultant or hire in somebody. But learning the tool isn't out of the questions by any means.
  • Licensing can be confusing at times and isn't cheap, but it is cheaper than Salesforce. Plus no additional fees for data calls to better integrate your D365 CE data with other systems.
  • The Classic user interface left a bit to be desired, but now with the much-improved Unified Interface, the web client and the mobile client look the same, much more modern, and have more flexibility and power behind them for customizers as well.
Typical customer relationship management is great. Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, etc. Those are obvious. But where it really shines is in the customization and integration with other Microsoft tools. Outlook connection for painless contact creation or tracking email communication. SharePoint and Office 365 Group connection to store documents related to a client and allow others to collaborate on overlapping data without additional D365 licenses (or at least get the much more cost-effective Team Member licenses to read data but make only limited edits). Or, full-on model-driven PowerApps, allowing quick development of custom line-of-business applications whose data can be related to other "standard" business records, like the "normal" CRM records. And the connection to Flow allows for hundreds of other systems to be connected to D365 and allows you to automate business process. Or, other third-party tools, such as Tibco Scribe, can be used to pass data back and forth between systems.
Justin Pink | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My organization is using Dynamics 365 Online (currently Version 9.1.0.5826 April 2019 release) in three small to mid-size projects delivering professional services for 3 large company clients. We have Customer Engagement licences that include Sales, Customer Service, Project Service, Field Service, Voice of the Customer Surveying, Retail, and a Portal. Along with delivering our professional services to customers on behalf of our clients, we utilize Dynamics 365 as a standalone XRM database to thoroughly and accurately record and house data.

While a spreadsheet can easily house data, the Dynamics 365 platform is streamlining data entry, ensuring projects and other record types move along a rigid process for consistency and predictability, and providing unrivaled data insights to making decision and ultimately serve our client better. We are currently using the Project Service Automation app to manage thousands of construction projects that are applying for grant and incentive money. We easily imported more than a million of the clients customers records from their database to be able to understand the customer base and better serve them for our client.

We will eventually take advantage of the Voice of the Customer Surveying Portal for external partner access, as well Field Service for scheduling field work.
  • Provisioning and initial deployment are a breeze and completed within a day or less after receiving the licences.
  • Customizations and configuring the database instances is extremely simple as long as changes and enhancements are implemented cautiously and with purpose.
  • Integration with other Microsoft applications is one of the top selling points, such as Outlook for tracking email to Dynamics 35, data connections to Excel for refreshing data exports, PowerBI, Flow, & PowerApps
  • Advanced Find querying is one of the easiest tools to quickly get and save data accessed regularly.
  • The native Microsoft mobile tablet and phone app can be implemented with minimal extra work or configurations.
  • Ability to 100% fully implement (and integrate with other Microsoft platforms) with no code whatsoever (100% no code SaaS!) saving time any money for quick deployments.
  • The Dynamics 365 community is massive for forum support and user group networks.
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 storage & license cost can prohibit some large deployments or even cost-sensitive small projects from using the platform (although I'm certain most deployments would realize a positive ROI if implemented correctly with process automation).
  • The cost and licensing document for Dynamics 365 is 61 pages and will take a rocket scientist to understand it. It's better to just have your Microsoft help estimate the cost if they are willing to help you that.
  • The documentation on how to first fully understand the Out of the Box default solution and settings is lacking or even non-existing. This has the potential to derail Dynamic 365 launches and implementations from the gitgo. Want to use an out of the box entity?.. well it's probably related to 5 other entities that require configuration and full understanding of it to successful implement. And you ask where is the laymen guide or instructions?... User groups and forums. In Summary, Microsoft can up its game in deployment training and supporting documentation.
  • Microsoft needs to incentivize more external platforms to build app connectors for easy integration, such as ZenDesk, Slack, Tableau, etc. Even the current connector apps such as Salesforce, MailChimp, Docusign are useless or don't work at all.
  • Several limitations inhibit successful Dynamics 365 deployments such as: limited number of Rollup field calculations (summarizing fields on child/related records), limited number rows that can exported to Excel via advanced find, Dynamics 365 files, log and database storage size limit is extremely small and will always require purchasing additional storage (for Online deployments).
  • New user buy-in or acceptance or system platform changes can be difficult if a solid change management plan isn't enacted.
  • Don't expect much help from Microsoft on implementation or solutions unless it's a technical flaw with the platform. Microsoft relies on their MVP partner network to consult for implementations at a hefty cost. Hiring a knowledgeable and savvy Dynamics 365 System Administrator can reduce the need for consultant support; of course, this is dependant upon many many variables.
Scenarios that are well suited for Microsoft Dynamics 365 deployments are:
  • ones with rapid deployment requirements, ones favoring low/no code solutions,
  • needing process automation (such as automated emails or workflows),
  • existing Office 365 platform enterprises,
  • those needing to standardize manual data entry for error elimination and enhance consistency,
  • those looking to utilize a third party consultant or Microsoft Partner for implementation.

Those that may shy away are
  • ones with extremely complex integrations with other systems and with little resources/capital,
  • those with datasets that are so large requiring a lot of extra GB storage and thus becoming costly.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online to track customer information, coordinate with our marketing automation systems, use it as a source of inspiration for content creation, and take it on the road with us via its mobile capabilities as marketers and salespeople. It is very effective and functional for our organization and its diverse needs among individuals and teams. Though I've only been using it about 2 years, our organization has thrived with its evolution for over 10.
  • Mobile Functionality Provides Modern Efficiencies that Allow us to Thrive
  • Multi-Departmental Functionality Improves Process Effectiveness
  • It's a natural segment of our business use and product/services models
  • As a marketer myself, I think Microsoft Dynamics 365 could do better at providing a Trailhead-style source for users
  • Community engagement is lacking - Microsoft could become more socially fluid and fun
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 should extend its marketing team to create a more comprehensive and fun library of resources and tools for users
I would recommend Microsoft Dynamics 365 V9.0 Online, especially. Microsoft does a good job with upgrades and evolving to meet marketplace demands. Users should take advantage of the benefits of using it Online. On-Premises doesn't seem nearly as effective or sensical once you've upgraded to the Online version. Whether you're a small or large business, it makes sense to have CRM. It's how the world runs, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a front-runner.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dynamics 365 is being used to manage our direct customer base as well as that of our wholesalers and resellers globally. It is what drives sales, service, support, invoicing, and reporting, as well as wholesale/resale web portals and customer web portals. Dynamics 365 is at the center of our business and drives the delivery, management, and support of our product to our customers.
  • Works out of the box.
  • Supports a wide variety of customization to support any business.
  • Easy to customize and integrate.
  • Reliable performance that does not require a lot of IT resources even with an on-premise deployment.
  • On-premise versus online deployment options.
  • Internet-facing deployment is available.
  • Strong ecosystem of apps and support.
  • Reporting: built-in reports are not user-friendly. We do our reporting from Power BI to give us that flexibility.
  • Email: does not thread email conversations.
  • Email editors/text editors are weak and don't allow for the rich text editing supported by most email clients.
Dynamics 365 is well suited for all customer-centric businesses where an XRM system is needed whether it's small or extra-large. It is capable of handling your sales, customer service, support, field service, etc. Essentially all of your customer management will be in one place with a little or as much customization as you want to invest in. It will is also able to integrate with your other systems.
Alexander Cooper | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is being implemented to clients aided through our consulting services. We have multiple clients using Microsoft Dynamics to focus data in Sales, Finance, and Marketing primarily. We are keen to migrate clients to the cloud, as the benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365 in the cloud are greater than on-premise solutions. However, we consult in both areas.
  • Having options for both cloud and on-premise solutions. Some clients, especially government contracts do not allow cloud-based solutions and must have on-premise. However, for most the cloud is the better option.
  • Multiple versions, such as enterprise and business edition, are not completely dissimilar. As a user of the business edition, it was easy to pick up the enterprise edition. Both are available for clients that may require different scales of solutions.
  • Microsoft's AI suite is among the best in the world and its integration with Microsoft Dynamics is very desirable for clients, and offers exciting advantages for sales.
  • Customization is tricky with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Javascript is primarily used, and due to this most business edition users keep their solution as "out of the box" as possible to save time and cost.
  • The out of the box interface is clunky, and those who do not want to customize the interface will lose time figuring out and navigating through the complex interface.
  • To get the most out of Microsoft Dynamics 365, you need integrations with the rest of Microsoft's suite, which incurs more cost and can make it so you're putting all your "eggs in one basket".
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is well suited when you already have existing Microsoft products ready to be integrated, and skilled Javascript developers to aid in the customization. Microsoft's different levels of Dynamics 365 make it appealing to different sized clients. The ability to manage sales, HR, finance, integrated with artificial intelligence and other Microsoft solutions makes it a great choice. However, its use of MS SQL primarily is annoying, as the clients I dealt with were migrating from Oracle solutions using MySQL, so these clients required a large and long-winded data migration.
Madelin Jaen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Microsoft Dynamics is used across the company for the purpose of recruiting, managing applicants, completing onboarding and retaining up to date information on screening processes and candidate status. It allows for a seamless transition from applicant to new hire, and allows us to collect candidate information online to streamline the onboarding process.
  • Microsoft Dynamics is extremely robust, allowing for customization to a degree that I haven't found in other products.
  • The wide spread access enables employees from across the company to access the same up to date information constantly.
  • I am able to have all my relevant work information in one consolidated system. I can access Microsoft Dynamics at any time, which gives me the freedom to complete work wherever I may be.
  • The largely robust system can make for a tricky learning process. There are many things that can't be learned through training, just by time spent working in the system. This can make for a difficult transition for those who have never worked with the system.
  • Microsoft Dynamics can be slow at times, due to how much data it contains. This is a minor inconvenience at best, but it can be frustrating.
Microsoft Dynamics works best for large organizations that require a system to handle a lot of data input and collection. If you have a large number of employees that need consistent access to the same information, this is a good fit. I find it especially useful in onboarding and screening potential applicants. It would not be as well suited to smaller companies with minimal data management or low hiring standards.
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