As I prepare for my Dynamics 365 certification in sales (MB2-717), I am creating blog posts based on my revision. I hope that collectively these posts may prove useful to anyone also preparing for the MB2-717 exam. This time I will cover the concepts around the quotes.

Quotes are one of a set of transactional entities we have when progressing sales. The full set includes quotes, orders and invoices.

Quotes are often required as a record of prices offered to a customer. (aka an estimate or proposal.) They can be created in their own right but often a quotation will be generated in relationship to an opportunity.

The Quote Lifecycle

1. Draft

• When quotes are first created they start off in a draft status.
• Draft quotes can be maintained.
• Draft quotes need to be activated before progressing.

1. Active

• Active quotes have (theoretically) been presented to the customer.
• Active quotes can be printed.
• Active quotes are read-only.
• Orders can be created from an active quote.
• Active quotes can be marked as won or lost.
• Active quotes can be revised, returning them to a draft status.

1. Won

• Status changes to won when a quote is accepted.
• Won quotes are read-only.

1. Closed

• Quotes can be closed because they have been lost, cancelled or revised.
• Closed quotes are read only.
• Closed quotes can be revised, which creates a new version of the quote in a draft status.
• You cannot revise a closed quotation if an active or draft version of that quote already exists. (Meaning there is only ever one “live” version of a quotation.)

The “status” of a quotation is derived by looking at two status fields on the quote. Status (stateCode) and Status Reason (statuscode). Each status field can have one or more status reasons. The realtionship between these fields is shown below.

In the following notes I will cover the steps involved in creating quotes, revising quotes, winning quotes and closing quotations.

Creating Quotes

Below you can see I have opened an opportunity, I have already added a number of products to the opportunity. Giving me an estimated revenue of £21,303.50. I am now ready to create a quotation to present to the customer. To do this I scroll down to the quotes sub-grid on the opportunity and select “+”.

Doing so generates a draft quotation containing all of the line items I added in the opportunity.

Tip:  If you create a quotation outside of the opportunity you can use the “GET PRODUCTS” ribbon button to pull in the products from an existing opportunity. Or use the Get Products option as you add new existing or write-in products to the sub-grid of products on the opportunity.

The “LOOK UP ADDRESS” option is for adding ship to or bill to addresses to the quote. The look up option allows the selection of pre-created address details against the customer. Or alternatively you can simply manually enter any required addresses onto the quotation.

Tip: A quote must have a price list. The price list will come from the opportunity. But if you create a quote outside of the opportunity you will need to remember to set the price list.

Having created the quotation based on the products from your opportunity you can revise prices, discounts, freight on the quotation as required. It may be important to know that any increases / decreases in the quotation value do not alter the estimated revenue value on the opportunity. If the opportunity value needs to change then the products on the opportunity must be adjusted. (or the estimated revenue manually edited if it has been user provided on the opportunity.)

The total tax amount is calculated based on the tax recorded on the line items on the quote. To edit it you need to edit the individual tax amount on each product on the quote. It might be worth knowing that each line item could also have differing delivery information. (Including delivery date and ship to address.)

I can now edit the quote and before selecting the ACTIVATE QUOTE option. The active quote becomes read-only and I would then print the details and present to the customer.

Revising a Quote

Often as customer may query something on the quotation. You then would revise the active quote. Doing so will close the active quote and create a new version in draft mode. Notice that the Revision ID automatically increments with each revision.

Tip: You cannot revise a quote that was previously revised! You would need to revise the latest version each time.

As quotes are revised activities are created to keep track of the alterations. Below you can see that by looking in the social pane on my opportunity I can see that a quotation was closed as it was due to be revised. (The status reason on the closed quote will be “revised”.)

Once I have made the required changed the quotation would need to be activated again when ready to present / re-present to the customer.

In the opportunity quotes sub-grid I can see all of the quotations. Below you can see that I have revised my quotation a couple of times, eventually ending with an active quote with a revised lower price.

Create an order from a quote

Let’s assume the customer accepts my quotation and wants to place an order. (Aka I mark the quote as won.) Now the quotation can be opened and the CREATE ORDER button selected.

Selecting CREATE ORDER will present the following dialog. The quotation is going to be updated to be won. Also I get an option to also close the opportunity. If I do so I can select to use the price from the quote being won or enter an actual revenue amount manually.

It is also possible to not update the opportunity. In a simple example (like this) winning the quotation would typically mean the end of the opportunity, so you’d close it as “won”. But in some circumstances the opportunity may stay open as the quote in question may only represent part of a larger deal.

Once OK has been clicked the newly created order record is loaded. (I’ll discuss orders in a later post!)

Back on my opportunity I can see that activities have been added. One states that the opportunity was won and another signifies that the opportunity has been closed.

Additionally other fields on the opportunity will have been updated. Including setting the actual close date, actual revenue won and setting the probability to 100%.

Note: The actual revenue will typically have been set to the value of the won quotation. You may have noticed that there is also an option when creating the order to manually enter the actual revenue on the opportunity if required.

My quotation will have had its status changed to won and a similar activity logged against the quote to track the event.

Closing A Quote

Maybe you don’t win the order or maybe the customer simply decides they’re no longer interested. Or maybe even your sales manager decides to pull out of the deal as it isn’t right for your company. In all of these circumstances you’d want to close the quotation.

Open, an active quote and select the CLOSE QUOTE option.

Similar to winning a quotation a dialog appears having selected the CLOSE QUOTE option. First you’d set the status reason. To “Lost”, “Revised” or “Canceled”.

You then need to decide what to do next, you may wish to leave the opportunity open and create another draft quotation. Maybe your offer could be re-thought and re-presented to the customer. In this circumstance select the “Create a revised quote” option.

Alternatively the quote and maybe the entire opportunity is dead. In this circumstance you’d select “Do not revise this quote”. And optionally select to close the opportunity. As it may also be dead!

If you select to close the associated opportunity a further dialog will be displayed giving the user a chance to record the reason the opportunity was lost the revenue and competitor.

As with winning an opportunity relevant activities will be created against the quote and opportunity to record this change in events.

It is possible to revise a closed quotation. Maybe a customer rejects a quotation so you mark it as lost. Only to have the customer return in a few weeks with a renewed interest.

I hope this post will have helped you revised for the MB2-717 exam. 