Top 8 Challenging Scenarios in D365 Mitigated by STAEDEAN’s Data Governance Solution

We learned from several of our existing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (F&SCM) customers and new prospects about their challenges dealing with data entry, data quality, and application integration activities. While they did find master data forms overwhelming, they also felt the turnaround for data entry tasks was slower. They expressed difficulty in reporting and analyzing data since data quality management was difficult without the right validations in place. Additionally, they had data silos since their application network wasn’t integrated, and managing that was turning out to be a nightmare for our prospects prior to implementing STAEDEAN’s Data Governance Solution.

At STAEDEAN, we are passionate about solving customer problems by building solutions that help our customers streamline different processes and simplify their day-to-day tasks. We have been developing solutions for Microsoft’s ERPs for 19+ years and have worked with over 2200 customers. As providers of Data Management Solutions for Microsoft Dynamics 365 SCM, we offer solutions for master data management –  Data Governance Solution, application integration – Data Integration Solution, security and compliance – Data Security Solution, business intelligence – Data Analytics Solution, and EDI.

To elaborate on some of the challenges shared with us by our prospects and customers, we share the most common use cases shared by companies and how our Data Governance Solution can help address them. We hope this will help you understand how a solution that offers functionality to manage data quality and master data management, workflow creation, data movement, and integration can optimize your data processes within Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM.

Top 8 scenarios in D365 FSCM that our Data Governance Solution can help with

Below we share several examples of challenges faced by companies from different industries with many legal entities within and outside D365 ERP. Currently, Microsoft D365 doesn’t offer the functionality for the use cases, and therefore the companies reached out to STAEDEAN as we offer an enterprise-ready Data Governance Solution.

1. Creation of customer of type: ‘organization’ and ‘person’ as a master record 

Companies with different types of business models have the requirements to create customers that fit into their business. Some companies wanted to create another business entity as their customers, whereas some wanted to create individuals as their customers. The fields and the steps involved differ for an individual as a customer versus a company, and that’s where our solution could resolve this using a configurable workflow.

2. Perform a credit limit validation

To ensure that the credit limit of a customer (individual/organization) is in line with the risk allowance set up by the organization, the finance team sets the credit limit. Once that has been done, the business steward can validate the details before approving it. There was a requirement to validate the credit limit data with an external system and approve the data in the workflow.

This was possible using our Data Governance Solution. Using active data quality rules and a workflow the finance team set a credit limit range, and then let the external web service or data stewards perform the data validation as part of an approval step in the workflow before publishing the data.

3. Making certain fields on the form mandatory and adding rules for better data quality

In order to make certain form fields mandatory with conditions, information in the related tables can also be made mandatory. This can be done using simple configurations with our Data Governance Solution. The solution also allows you to add a warning or an error when the mandatory field is left empty with an error note and a guideline for the field.

To ensure that certain critical fields in a form are mandatory without which completing the form would lead to an undesired outcome, our solution was used. The solution also allows you to add a warning or an error when the mandatory field is left empty with an error note and a guideline for the field.

Additionally, to ensure email ids and country codes for phone numbers were correct, data quality rules can be created to connect to a web service for validation purposes.

4. Validate for duplicate check after retrieving data from a webshop

There were cases for companies that get customers through their online portal that wanted to ensure that Dynamics 365 doesn’t have duplicate records of the same customer, leading to data duplication. Our Data Governance Solution can be used to integrate online data with the ERP platform and to set up rules to execute additional duplicate checks. This can be done simply by configuration without the need to involve developers.

5. Create vendor record with bank account

Companies have shared this scenario quite often where they wanted to create new vendors as part of the master record, and also ensure valid bank details are directly added. This was an ask to ensure that the bank details entered are accurate and can be used for transactions once the vendor details are finalized.

STAEDEAN’s master data management solution helps to create a template containing details from the vendor and bank accounts to ensure they will be created in one release action.

6. Vendor has a new product catalog to be updated in Dynamics 365

Often vendors launch or update their product catalogs and want them to be updated in Dynamics 365 so that these new products can be made available to all other legal entities. This requires easy and correct mapping, initiating a specific workflow to get these records updated in a systematic manner.

With our Data Governance Solution, it’s possible to initiate a workflow or quality assessment to complete the details that are not provided by the users in the source, after that you can distribute data between companies in D365 and externally. Our solution also offers the option to manage master data in a centralized or decentralized way.

7. Audit details when the bank account is created                                     

To limit the risk on committing fraud, bank accounts are created including an approval step before they are available in the application. We can do an audit in the background, to check who created the record, when it was created, and more.

This can be achieved using a workflow and sensitive fields such as bank accounts and credit limit can be locked.

8. Limit methods of payment option

In F&SCM, you can create a list with methods of payment, but these are available for everyone – customers and vendors. There are scenarios where companies would like to have only a few payment methods available for customers, other methods for vendors, and a few available to both customers and vendors.

Our Data Governance Solution provides the option to define the range of payment methods available to specific groups, using data quality conditions for the field. In this way, the requirements of the companies can be met.

How did our MDM solution mitigate these challenges?
Below we share features of our Data Governance Solution that helped solve the challenges mentioned in the section above. 

The flexibility in defining workflow steps

Using our solution, you can define steps in a workflow. It provides the flexibility to share the master record with selected target companies after a certain number of steps, and the remaining steps can be completed later.

Here's an example of creating a customer master record using our solution:

First step: Assigned to a Sales Clerk to provide details such as customer name, customer group, address, contact details, and sales attributes.

Second step: Assigned to the Accounting Manager to provide details such as credit limit, financial dimensions, VAT number, and tax details. He/ She can also review the “customer group” entered by the Sales Clerk in the previous step and accept/ reject the value.

Third step: A Sales Manager can review all the details coming from the last two steps, request for change (if needed), or approve it. Once approved the master record will become available in the application.

Set up approvals

The Data Governance Solution ensures that different workflows can be easily configured. One or more approval steps can be added as part of the workflow, either as the last step or intermediate step. Everything is configuration-based. Approval steps ensure that a record can be published only after proper review and confirmation.

Adding web services

Using our solution, you can set up a data policy to validate data from third-party web services to verify email addresses, phone numbers, and much more. This ensures the accuracy and validation of data from a trusted external source that you can opt for. 

Add validation rules

You can make fields mandatory, set up duplicate checks, and add data patterns and web service validations to ensure data is entered accurately using STAEDEAN's Data Governance Solution. 

Integrate your application ecosystem

Using our MDM solution, you can integrate all your applications and business systems with your ERP simply by configuration. You can create an integration with an external partner or business application with your ERP and ensure information is always updated and changes are reflected using a data-driven or event-driven approach.

Flexibility of data mapping

Our solution can overcome the limitations of the Data Management Framework of Dynamics 365 and allows you to map any field or table by configuration and simplify integration. It has an advanced integration engine as a foundation that allows you to add data selections (tables, views, entities) and integrate with any business system, application, and ERP using any field and table within Dynamics 365

Distribute and manage master data

Our Data Governance Solution can distribute data across local companies and even external applications. Additionally, you can manage master data centrally by assigning control to the data stewards or de-centralize the management of master data by assigning ownership to multiple users.

Is STAEDEAN's Data Governance Solution the right fit for your organization?

While we offer our master data management solution for Dynamics 365 F&SCM only. So, if you use a different version of the ERP, then perhaps our solution will not be the best fit for your company.

The collective strength of all the functionalities in the Data Governance Solution can help you connect your application landscape, improve the quality of your data, manage and control master data, and streamline your data entry and approval processes within your company. If you have a data governance strategy that addresses the challenges your teams are facing and use our MDM software to implement your strategy, you could transform your data processes considerably.

If your company does face the challenges outlined in this blog, then you can download our Data Governance Solution factsheet to explore our solution features in more detail. If your challenges differ, then it might be best to contact us and explain your business case and problem areas so that we can help you with solutions better suited to your situation.