As I prepare for my MB2-716 exam I am producing a series of blog posts that collectively should help others revising for the MB2-716 Certification. (Microsoft Dynamics 365 customization and Configuration.) This time I will look at how to configure settings. Specifically the settings under the heading of Business Management.
Business Management
Within settings you’ll find the business management option, here you can configure a number of options that relate to business wide settings. Some of these will be expanded upon in future posts in this series! All these options relate to how a particular organization will function. Including many options used by the service scheduling module of Dynamics 365. (Such as facilities / equipment, resource groups and services.)
- Fiscal Years Settings – Define fiscal years and periods.
- Goal Metrics – Manage goals.
- Business Closures – Create list of holidays and other business closures.
- Facilities / Equipment – Add facilities and equipment for service scheduling.
- Queues – Create and manage queues.
- Resource Groups – Resource groups are used in service scheduling.
- Sales Territories – Create territories and associate with territory managers
- Services – Add new services for scheduling.
- Sites – Each organisation can have multiple sites. (Note: Do not confuse sites with business units, that will be covered later when we review the security model.)
- Subjects – Subjects are a hierarchy for products, sales literature and articles.
- Currencies – Multiple currencies with associated exchange rates are defined in business managements.
- Connection Roles – Define roles that can be used when connection records with Dynamics 365 connections feature.
- Relationship Roles – Standard relationships between accounts, contacts and opportunities. (Largely redundant! It is recommended you consider using Connections in preference.)
- Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules – Record creation and update rules allow you to configure when records are automatically created within CRM. For example, you may wish to automatically create a case when a new email is received onto as particular queue.
You probably won’t receive detailed questions on every option listed under business management. But being aware of these capabilities could be important. I doubt, for example, that you would get detailed questions on service scheduling in the MB2-716 exam.
Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules
Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules are not specifically mentioned in the skills measured for MB2-716, however I would still suggest that at least being aware of these might be wise. You can use workflows to automatically create records as required but equally we also have Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules. The concept is that record creation rules can be used to automatically create system or custom entities as a result of receiving an activity. For example, you might have automatically create a case when an email is received.
Dynamics 365 supports creating records from the following activities;
- Social activity
- Task
- Phone call
- Appointment
- Service activity
- Custom activity
The rules can be linked to a specific queue. For example, we may have two queues each with a mailbox. One called info@mycompany.com and one called support@mycompany.com, when an email is received on the first queue we may wish to create a lead but when an email is received on the “support@” queue we would require a case.
I have shown a simple example of a record creation rule below. One thing to note is that the rule must be activated before it begins to execute. And once activated you will need to deactivate the rule if any changes are required.
It may also be worth noting that record creation and update rules can be added into your solutions. (I will cover solutions in more detail in a later post!)
The best approach to revised record creation rules will be to create one or two as part of your prep. You may also wish to explore additional details for some of the business management options. You will find posts on many of them scattered around my blog! For example, here is one on currencies.
NEIL PARKHURST 
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