Project Management in Business Central
Create and manage projects efficiently and digitally.
Create and manage projects efficiently and digitally.
What does Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV/Navision) offer in the area of project management? With Dynamics 365 Business Central, you manage your projects, including time tracking, and realize them within the set time and budget constraints. This allows you to always compare actual costs to the budget or make statements about the project progress (e.g., profitability, project status, resource utilization) based on condensed real-time information. Are you already familiar with Navision/Dynamics NAV project management? In Dynamics 365 Business Central, the familiar features have been further developed and expanded.
In the system, you can manage projects through the so-called project card. Here, you can provide various details, including:
You can assign project tasks to your team members in the system as part of project management.
You can carry out budgeting for each project in the system. The budget can be very simple or complex, covering a large number of items that are divided into different activity levels.
On the one hand, the budget is used to plan the resources that are allocated to a project. On the other hand, you can compare your planned amounts with actual consumption at any time, allowing you to easily monitor an ongoing project. This procedure also contributes to higher quality in later projects, as it reduces the risk of underestimated costs.
Enhance the project module with the help of the Visual Job Scheduler add-on from Netronic to include Gantt charts. This will simplify project and resource planning, as well as the management of ongoing projects, using drag-and-drop functionality.
Gain insight into project-specific key figures (e.g., profitability) at any time based on real-time data. You can do this for individual parts of the project or as a whole.
You can also track the consumption of the parts of a project (e.g., resource quantities). The raw materials purchased or times booked for the project can be viewed at any time.
You can keep track of the time worked on a project in the “Timesheet” table provided for this purpose. To save yourself the hassle of manual entry, it is possible to copy project plan lines into the timesheet.
It is also possible to define different work types if you need to invoice your customers for different services.
Finally, the timesheet is checked and approved by the person responsible for the project.
Realistic Planning
Project management in Dynamics 365 Business Central enables you to realistically plan your capacities and resources for projects.
Simple Adjustments
Parameters such as budgets can be adjusted and controlled at any time using the system, depending on the progress of the project. This allows you to remain flexible.
Real-Time Reporting
You can view the progress and profitability of your projects at any time, compare invoices and planned costs and adjust the progress.
The project management team should be able to oversee projects and make statements about their status at any time. In the dashboard of the project management team, you can see all current activities and relevant statistics at a glance. Additionally, you can track working hours here. From the dashboard, you can also navigate to the project overview via the “Projects” bookmark or search, and access individual projects there.
By reviewing project cards, quick statements can be made regarding:
For more detailed information (e.g., resources, materials) about the tasks, refer to the planning lines for each project:
It is also possible to display an overview of all project tasks:
This data helps project management to realize projects on time and within budget.
Project management staff can also obtain an overview of the project team members involved at any time:
This allows you to ensure that you allocate your resources appropriately. It is also possible to view capacity reports for each resource – by day, month or any other period. This allows you to quickly see which employees are overbooked or still have free slots.
In the end, bottlenecks that result in customer dissatisfaction are prevented.
Once the timesheets have been submitted and approved, project management books the respective projects. To book a project booking sheet, also go to your dashboard and click on the tile labeled project booking sheet, which is located next to the new project tile.
Click on this to prepare for the booking and you will then see the following view:
Now, select the Propose Lines from Timesheet option from the menu to automatically populate the lines with data from the approved timesheets.
Once all the details are correct, finalize the process to complete the booking.
Within projects, project employees should track their time so that it can be billed. Project managers are responsible for approving this time. In the system, project employees can record their time per project (e.g., Project A, 4 hours on Tue., Thu., and Fri.). Afterwards, they submit the timesheet for approval.
As a project manager, you can either approve or reject the submitted timesheets. Accordingly, the status of the timesheet changes.
In your dashboard, you can see Pending Timesheets and get an overview of which timesheets have been submitted, rejected, and approved.
Once the timesheets have been submitted and approved, the project management will book the respective projects. To book a project booking sheet, go through your dashboard and click on the tile labeled Project Booking Sheet, which is located next to the tile New Project.
Click on this to prepare for booking, and you will then see the following view:
Now, select Suggest Lines Based on Timesheet from the menu, so the lines are automatically filled with data from the approved timesheets.
If all the information is correct, complete the process.
You can generate an invoice for the entire project or for individual project tasks. Simply select the project or projects for which you want to create a project sales invoice from the project overview.
Finally, the sales invoice must be posted. You still have the option of editing the invoice beforehand.
If all the details are correct, post and send the invoice.
The advantages for project management are obvious. The system provides all the functions that enable project managers to perform their tasks much better. The ERP solution increases productivity as you spend less time on routine tasks and data entry. In addition, sources of error are minimized and the constant overview of all activities in the dashboard and extensive analysis options ensure that you always make the best decisions.
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