Working with a well-defined data governance strategy and outlining business scenarios for which you need to identify solutions will help you understand whether the data governance solutions you shortlisted are the best for your organization. Sometimes it helps to understand the scenarios the software provider has already identified with existing customers.
At To-Increase, we have a Master Data Management suite of solutions for your data governance problems. Our solutions, although built for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management (D365 F&SCM), can also help you enrich data from other systems by importing data using our data integration solution, Connectivity Studio.
We often get asked that since our solutions are embedded and built using the same business logic as D365 F&SCM, can customers still use our solution to improve their customer data from their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system or Third-party logistics (3PL) system and the simple answer is yes.
In this blog post, we will share a few scenarios that explain how our prospects and customers are using our solutions to enrich data in D365 F&SCM. This is just a starting point to give our readers an idea about how they can use our solutions.
An overview of our integration and master data management tools
Our integration and data migration solution for D365 F&SCM, Connectivity Studio, can help you surpass the limitations of Dynamics 365 and integrate with any business system or application on the cloud or on-premises. You can run data imports and exports from D365 using simple configurations and monitor your integrations, MDM messages, and more using our integration monitoring application.
Our Master Data Management suite for D365 F&SCM offers solutions for data quality management – Data Quality Studio, data workflows – Data Entry Workflow, and for data distribution – Master Data Management Studio. Our data quality solution, Data Quality Studio, allows you to improve data quality by configuring data validation rules, connecting to web services to validate data, and/or running data quality checks. Data Entry Workflow allows you to streamline data entry, ensure collaboration between team members, and also helps you validate data internally. Using Master Data Management Studio, you can control the distribution of your master data and also ensure the security of distributed data.
Now that you understand the power of To-Increase’s solutions, let’s look at some actual customer scenarios where our integration and data governance solutions helped them enrich data imported into Dynamics 365 F&SCM.
5 use cases where Connectivity Studio and the Master Data Management suite can be used to enrich data in D365
Scenario 1: Employee record from an HRM system
An employee record is created outside of the ERP in a Human Resource Management system (HRM). The company needs this data to be synchronized in Dynamics 365 instead of creating a new record. They must also check if the employee’s information matches or conflicts with a customer or vendor record. So, after the data is entered into the external system, the data file is imported using Connectivity Studio.
But since the fields are different from the external system, that record is sent to Data Entry Workflow. The workflow has the necessary fields assigned in different steps with a step for approval. Fields like address and relevant information important for the organization about the employee can be added to the workflow. A duplicate check is run using Data Quality Studio to ensure that it is not a duplicate employee record, and some fields are also made mandatory.
This record can then be added to the master data records once approved.
Scenario 2: Customer record from a CRM system
Another common scenario is the customer record that is created in another system, e.g., Microsoft CE or SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, and then using Connectivity Studio or a direct integration (in the case of CE), the record is imported into Dynamics 365. This could be an XML, Excel, or other type of file. So, then the record is completed using Data Entry Workflow, which also has all the rules configured using Data Quality Studio active and integrated. So, there are fields assigned in different steps for a customer template that has been pre-configured. If all the fields are filled in for a step, that step gets auto completed, and the workflow triggers the next step so that the address fields, phone number, email address, and other details can be filled in and verified using web services.
Next, the workflow goes to the financial team, and the financial details are filled in. This is followed by an approval step to ensure the correct financial details are filled in. Master Data Management Studio is used after the record is created purely for distributing the records to selected companies/legal entities once everything is set up.
Scenario 3: Vendor details from a file received through email
You received vendor details via email, and you need to add those details to a new vendor record in Dynamics 365. So, you import that file using Connectivity Studio and then add vendor details in Dynamics through Data Entry Workflow, which has the quality checks and validations for the record added in Data Quality Studio. Similar checks for addresses have been added, and of course, Data Quality Studio can be used to add validations for the record to check if the data is good for address details, with duplicate checks to ensure this is not a duplicate record. An approval step is added to ensure the bank account details are internally verified by the finance team before that record is created and synchronized with the master data company.
After that, if you want to distribute this record to other companies, you can use Master Data Management Studio to share the record. And you can ensure whether fields are open to editing or not.
Scenario 4: Purchase order received via another system
A purchase order record is imported using Connectivity Studio from another business system and sent to Data Entry Workflow to check the quality of the data and enter missing fields assigned to the responsible team members. A step has been created for the financial dimensions to be approved by the manager, and after that, the record can be processed. Some data quality checks and rules for critical fields are active and integrated with Data Entry Workflow. There are errors, but since the company does not want this to block its activities, the rules are configured with warnings in Data Quality Studio.
Scenario 5: Product record from the PLM system
When the product information comes from a PLM system, but the customer is not using PLM integration and that product is released in Dynamics 365 using Connectivity Studio, many fields can be present in Dynamics 365 but not in the PLM system. To ensure the critical missing fields are filled and data quality rules are activated to enrich data quality, the record can be enriched in our Data Entry Workflow solution. With the automated steps, the fields will be assigned to the responsible team members and since the data quality rules will be activated, any errors that need to be addressed can also be done in the data workflow. Post this step, the record can be distributed to select master data companies, and the critical fields can be blocked from being edited using the Dynamic Field Security feature in Master Data Management Studio.
Share your business scenario with us
This is just the tip of the iceberg if we are being honest, as our solutions can be used for multiple data enrichment scenarios such as product item, trade agreement, accounts payable, accounts receivable, purchase or sales order, and so on. If you configure a workflow for these records, whenever you import the file or if you are creating a new record, you can do that using Connectivity Studio for importing or exporting data, and our Data Entry Workflow solution will enable a workflow that has integrated rules from Data Quality Studio that can ensure accurate data entry and data quality checks. After you have enriched data, you can use Master Data Management Studio to share the record with selected legal entities or even external systems.
If you have a different business scenario, share those with our business experts and we can recommend the best approach based on your organization’s requirements. Before reaching out to our experts, we recommend downloading our Connectivity Studio and Master Data Management Suite factsheets.
Sumana Samuk
Dorian Sakowski
