Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation: How can an organization leverage PSA?

Applies to: Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation

It has now been two years since Project Service Automation was released for Dynamics CRM. In these two years the PSA application has taken fair development steps forward with its perhaps biggest release - version 3 - coming out around the end of the summer (V3 is currently in Private Preview). Microsoft's stack of project management tools is quite impressive and one of the biggest questions for organizations is "What is the right tool for us?". With options from NAV, Finance and Operations, Project Online, Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation to Microsoft Planner, finding the right tool isn't always that simple and straightforward.

All the tools listed above have their advantages with PSA's being - in one sentence - "The ability to manage a prospect to cash process including delivery and project management of professional services to customers". This blog post will describe five high level examples of how PSA can be leveraged in an organization and especially what parts of the application can be used for different purposes. What's especially nice about PSA is the possibility to use and leverage only the bits and pieces of PSA that your business really needs as opposed to using every single functionality the application has has to offer.

1. The whole prospect to cash process

The whole prospect to cash process leverages the full functionality of PSA in an organization. In a full scope implementation an organization leverages the Lead -> Opportunity -> Quote -> Project Contract -> Project -> Resourcing -> Invoicing processes as a whole. Some statements that may arise in a full scope implementation are:

- We want to analyze our customer lifecycle and customer value.
- We want to identify and qualify leads and prospects.
- We want to manage sales opportunities and analyze how our sales opportunities turn to delivery projects.
- We want to quote our customers for the products and services we are offering and appreciate a way to easily build a delivery estimate.
- We want to manage project contracts / agreements and to track the financial aspect of our projects.
- We want our people to submit time entries for the work they have done on projects.
- We want to manage our projects and their tasks and work breakdown structures.
- We want to resource people for the projects we are delivering and see our utilization and delivery capacity.
- We need the system to create the necessary financial data so that invoicing from the system or from our ERP is possible.

2. Contract to cash

The contract to cash process focuses on agreements/contracts made with customers, project delivery and invoicing. Resourcing is handled either with PSA's Universal Resource Scheduling or in a separate system. Resourcing is an aspect that may be easier to implement in a later phase in PSA if an organization already has a stable and functional means of resourcing people for projects. Some statements that may arise in an implementation consisting of a contract to cash process:

- Our lead to opportunity management is a separate context from our project deliveries. We want to manage the contract to cash process.
- Resourcing is done in an external system / resourcing people for projects is a desired functionality.
- Invoicing is handled in the project management system or in our ERP.

3. Internal company projects

Internal company projects are one approach to utilizing PSA in an organization. Internal development and delivery projects or internal tasks such as self study, internal meetings, vacation, absence etc can be handled fairly simply with PSA. Internal projects may leverage a Contract to Project process simply consisting of setting up the necessary elements of Project Contracts and Projects to log time against internal projects. Some statements that may arise in an implementation comprising of a process for internal projects:

- We need a solution that allows us to log time and expense against internal and administrative activities.
- We want to know how much our internal development projects cost.
- We want to know how much people spend time on administrative and internal tasks.

4. Granular to high level project planning for customer engagements

Sometimes all an organization needs is a means to draft and make project plans for customer engagements. Stakeholder relations management for events or a high level plan of a communications project could be examples of granular to high level planning that can be handled with PSA. Utilizing Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement's features in Account, Contact and Resource management together with PSA's Projects, planning for various different customer engagements can be done in a fairly simple manner. Some statements that may arise in an implementation comprising of mainly Projects:

- We need a solution that allows us to plan projects on a granular to high level without the need to set up various different elements like contracts or opportunities or quotes or resourcing.
- We have an internal and an external event that we want to plan so that we know what tasks we have to complete and who is assigned to what task.
- We are planning a customer engagement and an event and want a simple WBS with tasks and a means to manage a project team.

5. Resourcing anything from people to equipment

Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation and Field Service both include Universal Resource Scheduling. It basically allows us to resource any entity in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement making it an extremely powerful tool for resourcing anything from people to opportunities to equipment. It can be leveraged without using PSA or Field Service per se. This means that an organization can, for example, track and allocate assets like excavators or even hospital beds using the URS or to schedule external resources for custom activities. Some statements that may arise in an implementation comprising of resourcing using the URS:

- We want to track our fleet of vans on a high level to know which technician is using which van.
- We want to assign cases and applications to external parties and have a high level view of resourcing.
- We want to schedule lectures and classrooms to keep track of who is teaching which class and where.

Synopsis

Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation can be implemented in various different ways and in various scopes from simple high level project planning to a granular prospect to cash process. A good approach to PSA implementations is to consider which aspects genuinely bring value and what are the genuine business required and business critical needs that can be solved with PSA. Try to split the big picture and the full functionality of PSA into smaller chunks and consider which parts you need right away and which functionalities can be implemented at a later stage.

There are various different use cases for PSA and this blog post only scratches the surface of its possibilities. Especially if your organization is already licensed to use PSA, take a couple of internal workshops and partner workshops to plan how your organization can gain from both PSA and the Universal Resource Scheduling. With a bit of brainstorming you might discover new use cases and upsides to PSA and URS.

Disclaimer: 
All my blog posts reflect my personal opinions and findings unless otherwise stated.