Working Smarter Together: Transforming Processes Through Collaboration
“The Dynamics User Group was created to bring colleagues together around a shared goal: making the best possible use of Dynamics 365 to improve the way we work,” says Joe Speed, our Data Services Manager.
“By providing a space to share ideas, identify common challenges and shape future developments, the group helps ensure that our systems evolve in a way that delivers meaningful benefits across the organisation, rather than within individual teams alone.
“Kiran Mahmood, Systems and Process Analyst, examines the role of the group, its development, and highlights some processes that have already been developed since the group was formed.”
“The Dynamics User Group is a forum where people from across the organisation, including heads of department, come together to discuss Dynamics 365 and suggest ideas for development,” says Kiran.
“The group formed about a year ago and it has been quite successful, and we have had a lot of development projects in that time. We have noticed a lot of processes that are linked – where instead of having multiple projects, we can have one big project. The group is generating a lot of work, but we can link processes and projects together.
“The ideas could be system changes, new developments, an app or form, or a new process. The ideas are submitted to the group and then we discuss them. This means everyone is the loop with what we are developing.
“One tool we have developed is a tracking system for reconciliation of undeclared Management Information Online (MIO) – the spend that flows across our frameworks. The reconciliation process has been transformed from a static Power BI reporting exercise into an interactive investigation and audit solution. The new tool allows us to track potential off-framework spend, capture investigation outcomes and track progress. Dynamics 365 provides a central location to record, manage, and report on reconciliation activities, ensuring a clear audit trail and enabling insight into the reasons behind spend discrepancies and opportunities to increase framework utilisation.
“We also completed a project for our CPC Drive team, who provide vehicle lease hire and salary sacrifice schemes to NHS organisations and the wider public sector. The team needed an automated way to identify contracts that were due to expire. The process would also create a task on Dynamics and send an email to the customer to let them know their contract was ending, with a copy to the CPC Drive team to let them know, too. The team used to do this manually, but now, with built-in flows and new fields in the customer records, we have managed to automate the process.
“Having a forum to discuss potential projects means the work is no longer isolated. Previously, people would come to us with ideas, but we may have already been working on a similar project. Now, everyone can see the pipeline and can track the progress of our workstream. We have people from multiple departments contributing, and this means we can bounce ideas off each other. Having this group also means we can measure our progress more effectively. We discuss the projects throughout their development until they are finished.
“Feedback has been positive and we have delivered our projects on time. We have had a lot of opportunities to develop better processes, or better ways of managing things. New systems are being developed, and more colleagues are aware of these systems. People are using and adopting each other’s ideas for their teams and their systems.
“I see the Dynamics User Group developing further. We now have a form where people can submit ideas for development, and they become a discussion point for the next meeting. We are always developing and finding better ways to make it more efficient.”