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Enhancing Supply Chain Efficiency in Prospect-to-Cash with Dual-Write

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Enhancing Supply Chain Efficiency in Prospect-to-Cash with Dual-Write


We have recently released improved capabilities for our customers who are using Dual-Write to integrate Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management (SCM) with Dynamics 365 Sales (Sales). This new set of functionalities provides a more seamless quotation process, higher efficiency and improved transparency.  As these enhancements have been made generally available, we recommend all existing customers start using these new feature set as it provides many opportunities to improve their prospect to cash process. This blog aims to provide the important considerations and a viable approach to making this transition.


Legacy SCM solution New SCM Solution (Added Efficiencies)
Prospect IntegrationQualification of the lead was processed within Dataverse in isolationResulting Customer records are synced with Finance & Operations
Process uniformityFinance & Operations and D365 Sales could follow different quote to cash processes as the system doesn’t enforce process uniformity.Record ownership concept is introduced that helps organisations define which application owns the process. This restricts certain life-cycle operations like qualification or deletion only in the owner application ensuring processes do not diverge from each other.
PricingPricing can only be triggered from D365 sales through the UI on an on-demand basis. Which may lead to different pricing structures applied for the same scenarios.Pricing can be triggered on-demand or automatically using SCM pricing engine. Organisations have the option to completely disable D365 Sales price calculation ensuring pricing uniformity.
PerformanceFrontline sales users have to wait until all sync Finance Operations events to be completed when Dual-Write sync is triggered.Certain Finance & Operations activities can be enabled for async processing which improves Dual-Write sync performance.

This new set of features provide 3 main benefits;
Process integration: Allow organizations to integrate the prospect to cash process end-to-end while preventing quote and order creation in isolation. The integration introduces a new concept called “Ownership” which defines which application controls the lifecycle of a quote/order.
Pricing structure: Makes sales quotation and sales order pricing more transparent and solid. It provides the ability for SCM to calculate and push prices into Sales and our customers also have the ability to make SCM the master of all price related calculations.
Performance: Decouples Supply Chain Management specific operations from Dual-Write sync and achieves more performant integrations. This allows customers to pick and choose which activities they want to run asynchronously.
For details of this feature set please click here.
Note: Asynchronous processing in the context of Supply Chain Management Extra Efficiencies solution should not be confused with Dual-Write Async feature. As part of this solution the async processing is for Finance & Operations only and it replaces synchronous processing for specific FnO events with async processing which leverages D365 Finance and Operations  message processor framework.
More information can be found on: Create and process message queues and message types - Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

Pre-requisites

Before starting the transition, please keep in mind there are 2 pre-requisites as below;
  • You must be running Supply Chain Management version 10.0.34 or later.
    • Please refer this article for more information around managing updates for your Finance & Operations environments
  • You must be running Dual-write Supply Chain solution version 2.3.4.203.
    • Please refer this article for more information around managing updates for your Dataverse solutions
  • Optional: For best user experience we recommend using this solution together with the Global Address Book (GAB) Solution.

Planning

 We recommend, planning this transition ahead and identifying potential risks before starting the migration.
This new set of features allow you to design your sales process based on the specific needs of your organisation and provides certain configuration settings to fine-tune your set-up. Few important considerations at this stage are listed below;
  • Existing data - Before you enable the functionality, we strongly recommend that you complete (that is, win or cancel) any existing sales quotations that are in progress. Then, after you enable the functionality, re-create the quotations as required. This approach allows for a clean switch to the new integrated functionality.

  • Ownership selection -  Customer should either choose a specific application to own all quotes/orders or they have the option to define it as “Based on origin”. We recommend the project team to understand which option works best for the specific use cases of the organisation.

  • Pricing method – Prices can be calculated and pushed from SCM to D365 Sales automically or it can be triggered from SCM on-demand for individual transactions or bulk and you have the option to make SCM the price master which disables all pricing calculations in Sales. Project team should define how quotes/orders will be priced.

  • Order creation process – You can choose to keep data consistent between sales orders and related sales quotations in Supply Chain Management when you make sales orders from sales quotations in Sales and sync them through dual-write. This way, sales orders in Supply Chain Management have the information from the sales quotation in Supply Chain Management.

  • Integration Pattern - This feature allows events related to Sales integration to be handled in an async manner through the message processor framework. This feature can enhance performance in some situations, such as a sales quotation's status is changed and a quotation journal or quotation confirmation journal needs to be generated.

Deployment

If you already adhere to recommended application lifecycle management practices this process wouldn’t be any different than a standard release cycle. As an admin you will need to apply the changes in a dev environment and deploy into a test environment with associated activities and once validated the same process can be repeated in your production environment.
Transition into this new solution requires certain activities which are described in detail here. Please follow these instructions and ensure you have met the pre-requisites before starting the transition.
In summary, the flow of the transitioning process should follow as below;


Change Management

Effective change management is crucial to ensure a smooth transition and successful adoption. Here are some best practices for handling change management during dual-write deployment:
Stakeholder Engagement: Identify key stakeholders across different teams and involve them early in the process to gather requirements, address concerns, and build consensus.
Communication Plan: Develop a communication plan and clearly articulate the purpose of the new Supply Chain Management solution, benefits, and expected impact.
Training and Education: Provide training sessions for end-users, administrators, and support teams. Cover dual-write functionality, data synchronization, and any changes to existing processes. Create user guides and documentation for reference.
Feedback Loop:  Continuously seek feedback from users and use feedback to improve processes, address pain points, and enhance user experience.

Related Documentation

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/fin-ops/data-entities/dual-write-prospect-to-cash
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/fin-ops/data-entities/add-efficiency-in-quote-to-cash-concept
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/fin-ops/data-entities/add-efficiency-in-quote-to-cash-enable
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/fin-ops/data-entities/add-efficiency-in-quote-to-cash-use
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/fin-ops/data-entities/pricing-engine
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/fin-ops/data-entities/commerce-pricing
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/dev-itpro/data-entities/dual-write/sales-status-map





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