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Dynamics 365 gives you business intelligence by keeping your sales, marketing, service, project and finance data in one place and putting reporting, forecasting and Copilot directly into the apps people already work in. Each Dynamics 365 app stores its data in Dataverse or its own database, and that data can be reported on in Power BI and brought into Microsoft Fabric, so you get a single view of the business rather than a set of spreadsheets that disagree with each other. This article goes through what each Dynamics 365 app adds and how to get useful insight out of them.
What is Dynamics 365?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a set of cloud business applications covering customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). You choose the apps you need, such as Sales, Customer Service or Business Central, rather than buying one large system, and they work with Microsoft 365, Teams and the Power Platform.
The CRM apps, including Sales, Customer Service and Customer Insights, are built on Dataverse, the same data platform that Power Apps uses. That matters for reporting because your customer, sales and service data is held in one structure with one security model, so a report built on it is working from the same records your teams are using.
How does Dynamics 365 provide business intelligence?
There are three layers, and you can use as many of them as you need.
- Built-in views, dashboards and charts in each app, which are quick to set up and good for day-to-day work such as a seller's pipeline or a team's open cases
- Power BI, for reports and dashboards that pull together data from Dynamics 365 and other systems, which can be embedded back into the Dynamics 365 apps so people do not have to go somewhere else to see them
- Microsoft Fabric, which Dataverse can link to directly, for organisations that want to combine Dynamics 365 data with other data sources at a larger scale and build a proper analytics platform
On top of that, Copilot is now built into the Dynamics 365 apps, so people can ask for summaries and insight in plain language inside the record they are working on.
What insight does Dynamics 365 Sales give you?
Dynamics 365 Sales manages leads, opportunities, accounts and contacts from first enquiry through to a closed deal, and works for both B2B and B2C sales. If you are still deciding whether you need one at all, our article on why your business needs a CRM covers the basics.
For insight, the useful features are pipeline views and forecasting, so managers can see what is likely to close and when, and predictive lead and opportunity scoring, which uses your own sales history to suggest which leads and deals are most likely to convert. Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales can summarise an account or opportunity, catch a seller up on recent activity and help prepare for meetings, which saves a lot of time going through notes and emails.
What about marketing data?
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, the product previously called Dynamics 365 Marketing, has two parts. Customer Insights - Data brings customer data from different sources together into unified profiles, and Customer Insights - Journeys uses that data to run email, text message and event campaigns that respond to what customers do. We have covered how to build automated campaigns in Customer Insights - Journeys in a separate article.
From a reporting point of view, you get campaign and email analytics in the app, and marketing interaction data can be brought into Microsoft Fabric for custom reporting, so you can see which campaigns actually produced leads and revenue rather than just opens and clicks.
How does Dynamics 365 Customer Service use data and AI?
Dynamics 365 Customer Service handles cases, service levels and a knowledge base, with dashboards showing case volumes, resolution times and agent workload. Copilot can summarise a case or conversation, draft responses and suggest knowledge articles, which helps agents pick up a case quickly and reply consistently.
For self-service, agents built in Copilot Studio, which replaced Power Virtual Agents, can answer common questions on your website or in Teams and hand over to a person when they cannot help. For organisations running a full contact centre with voice, chat and messaging channels, Microsoft also offers Dynamics 365 Contact Center, which routes each conversation to the right agent and puts customer history in front of them.
What does Dynamics 365 Project Operations add?
Project Operations is designed for project-based and professional services businesses. It covers quoting, project planning, resource scheduling, time and expense tracking, and project accounting, so the same system holds the sale, the delivery and the billing. That gives you reporting on utilisation, margin and project profitability without stitching together data from three different systems.
Is Business Central good for business intelligence?
Dynamics 365 Business Central is the ERP for small and medium-sized businesses, covering finance, sales, purchasing, inventory and projects. It includes financial reporting and role-based dashboards, and Microsoft provides Power BI apps for Business Central covering areas like finance, sales and inventory that you can install and use as a starting point. Larger organisations with more complex finance and operations needs tend to look at Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management instead.
How do you get useful insight from Dynamics 365?
Buying the apps does not give you good reporting on its own, because reports are only as good as the data going into them. The steps that make the difference are:
- agree the handful of measures the business actually needs before building any dashboards
- make sure the data is being entered consistently, with required fields and sensible picklists rather than free text
- use the built-in dashboards for operational views and save Power BI for reporting across apps or with other data
- get the security model right so people see the data they should and nothing more, which matters even more once Copilot is in use
- review the reports after a few months and remove the ones nobody opens
How ThinkShare can help
We implement and support Dynamics 365, including Sales, Customer Service and Customer Insights, and build reporting in Power BI on top of it. If you already have Dynamics 365 and want help keeping it running well, we also provide Dynamics 365 support.
Frequently asked questions
Does Dynamics 365 include Power BI?
Dynamics 365 apps include their own dashboards and charts, and Power BI reports can be embedded in them. Building and sharing your own Power BI reports generally needs Power BI licences for the people creating and viewing them, depending on how your reports are shared.
Can I use Copilot in Dynamics 365?
Yes. Copilot is built into apps including Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service and Customer Insights, where it summarises records, drafts content and answers questions about your data.
Where is Dynamics 365 data stored?
The CRM apps such as Sales, Customer Service and Customer Insights store their data in Dataverse, which can be linked to Microsoft Fabric for wider analytics. Business Central and the Finance and Supply Chain apps use their own databases.
Do I need Microsoft Fabric to report on Dynamics 365?
No. The built-in dashboards and Power BI cover most reporting needs. Fabric is useful when you want to combine Dynamics 365 data with several other sources at scale, and Dataverse can link to it directly without building a separate export process.
If you would like to talk about getting better reporting out of Dynamics 365, get in touch with us.
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