The Dynamics 365 Document Challenge Series: Part Two

In part one of our Dynamics 365 document challenges series, we explored three common document management hurdles: navigating complicated formatting, handling large data volumes and bringing together scattered data from various business-critical systems.

In this, the second installment, we tackle more of the document challenges you’re facing: grouping products and data, creating document self-service tools and managing multiple delivery mechanisms.

Dynamics 365 offers many benefits for organizations across all sectors, but it’s not inherently a specialized document management system. Organizations requiring advanced document management features turn to expert partners to help them fill the gap to get more out of their ERP.

In part one of the series, we outlined the best-practice framework for creating, managing and delivering documents. We can break this framework down into five core steps:

• Understanding the business need: Why does your organization need a new documentation program?
• Identifying current document challenges: Where specifically do your document challenges come from?
• Designing for all stakeholders: Which solution creates value for customers and your team members?
• Establishing a delivery plan: How will documents be distributed?
• Repeating and adjusting as needed: Because processes designed today need to be flexible enough to work tomorrow.

Find out more: Best practices for creating an efficient documentation program

We get it - it’s very tempting to jump straight into a technical solution in an attempt to get results quickly. But adding a new solution isn’t enough to simplify document management for your entire organization. Following the framework we outlined means your document management strategy will have a tangible impact, making your investment in D365 even more valuable.

That’s the high-level approach. But how does it apply to the specific, day-to-day issues you and your team face? We’ll explore three major document hurdles: grouping products, offering self-service document portals for customers and dealing with multiple document delivery mechanisms. 

Challenge four: Product and data grouping

D365 is excellent at keeping your product data up to date. However, arranging that data into customer-facing documents, such as logically grouped catalogs, is something else entirely. The information stored within the platform just isn’t presentation ready. This is because the data required for a catalog, such as product details, pricing tables and technical specifications, is often scattered across different corners of the platform. 

Natively, D365 lacks the creative tools to design appealing layouts and the business logic to organize products into compelling collections or sequences, forcing users to resort to complex manual workarounds. Gathering all this vital information into customer-facing documents, like catalogs, isn’t easy – until Lasernet came along.

How Lasernet makes organizing and sequencing products simple

Lasernet connects your scattered product data and the polished documents your customers expect. The software pulls and merges data from multiple sources, consolidating them into a single, unified output, such as a visually appealing catalog that showcases your products to customers.

This is where you move beyond the rigid, predefined templates that often require advanced knowledge of the platform, or more often than not, a programmer, to change. Lasernet’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface gives you full creative control to organize products in the way that makes the most sense to your customers. Transform your flat product list into a powerful sales tool – without all the hassle and extra costs that eat into your budget.

This gives you complete control of how your products are displayed without having to spend part of your budget on a programmer to develop custom code. Whether you’re creating catalogs, pricing lists or product specification sheets, you can design documents that are easy for your customers to access, read and act on with Lasernet.

Lasernet in action: Pura Vida

Many brands thrive on presentation. From catalogs to invoices, every customer-facing document must reinforce the brand’s quality and precision. When Vera Bradley purchased Pura Vida Bracelets, they needed to be brought into the fold of its recent e-commerce transformation.

The Pura Vida team was impressed with Vera Bradley’s visually appealing and informative catalogs. How did they do it? With Lasernet. The acquirer uses Lasernet with the help of Eleqtus, a Formpipe partner specializing in enterprise content management solutions.

Pura Vida’s original catalogs were created through time-consuming manual processes that involved piecing information together from spreadsheets. The company turned to Eleqtus to create a new wholesale catalog. However, they only had a few weeks to do so. Faced with numerous data source changes and complex wireframe creation rules, Lasernet enabled the catalog to be created without the kind of complexity that invites errors.

The Pura Vida team liked the outcome so much that they were keen to create a consumer version. Using Lasernet, the team can create catalogs with ease thanks to automation and complete transparency.

Pura Vida’s story shows just how much difference the right tools make. By bridging the gap between D365’s data and the need for an accurate and polished catalog, Lasernet gives companies what they need to create beautiful customer-facing documents without the hassle.

Find out more: Pura Vida modernizes its product catalog with Lasernet

Challenge five: Offering customers self-service options

A lack of self-service tools creates a frustrating cycle. Your support team fields phone calls and emails from customers trying to find business-critical documentation. Meanwhile, your customers don’t want to speak to a team member – they expect to find what they need in seconds. Since 87% of customers will abandon a company after just one negative customer service experience, getting this right the first time is vital.

The demand for self-service tools is high. Surveys show that almost 70% of people prefer to solve issues themselves rather than speak to a company representative. Plus, over 90% said they would use an online knowledge base if a company provided one that met their needs.

The good news is you can offer the self-service tools your customers demand with D365. You just need the right external tools to deliver the information they need to the right location automatically.

How Lasernet enables self-service capabilities

Your self-service portal is only as good as the documents it contains. Lasernet supports self-service by simplifying the document journey from creation to placement in a customer portal.

Using our flexible archiving solution, Autoform DM, Lasernet creates a single source of truth for all your customer-facing documents, allowing customers to view and retrieve the documents they need, such as invoices, order confirmations, contracts and more. There’s no need for customers to contact the company and wait for someone to send the documents they need manually, saving the company and customers precious time.

Lasernet in action: Steel Warehouse

Steel Warehouse, a US-based industrial steel processing company, implemented Lasernet alongside D365 after waving goodbye to its disparate, outdated ERP systems. Managing documents in different repositories made it hard for customers to review their documents, such as invoices, packing slips and mill certificates. The company needed a central location where customers could easily access documents.

To get there, the first move was to tackle the mountain of historical documents head-on. The company traded its legacy archives for Autoform DM, uploading over one terabyte of documents. With all the company’s legacy documents safely stored in Autoform DM, Steel Warehouse was able to pull the right information from the archiving solution into D365. 

This digital archive upgrade opened the door to creating a user-friendly customer portal using Microsoft Power Apps. Customers no longer have to contact a team member to manage documentation matters – they can now review their accounts and product documentation in just a few clicks.

As Steel Warehouse’s story shows, the key to great self-service isn’t just the portal itself, but also the flow of information that feeds it. By making sure the right documents are in the right place, you can deliver fast, reliable document self-service experiences that keep your customers happy.

Find out more: How Steel Warehouse took control of its data and documentation

Challenge six: Managing multiple delivery mechanisms

When it comes to distributing documents, companies often find themselves juggling multiple delivery channels, and things can get messy quickly. Workflows become a series of disconnected steps. The process generally looks something like this: A user creates a document, attaches it to an email, prints a copy for the warehouse and saves a third copy to an archive.

You’re probably thinking the same thing we are: there are several glaring problems with this process. Not only is it time-consuming, but it also creates many opportunities for human error. Even in the best-case scenarios, manual data entry processes are generally believed to have an average error rate of 1-5%. This is simply too high, especially when business-critical documents are involved.

Understandably, the people enduring these time-consuming, error-prone manual processes always find themselves coming back to one question: How do we get the correct document to the right place in the proper format without spending hours on manual work?

How Lasernet saves you hours with smart document delivery

Lasernet allows you to trade the disconnected process described above for a single, automated action. Instead of manually emailing, printing and archiving, you simply pre-define the rules for each document based on your needs or your customer’s delivery preferences.

You have complete control over the destinations and the format, from PDF and Word documents to XML. It’s an intelligent workflow that eliminates time-consuming manual steps, saving you hours and significantly reducing the risk of manual error.

Lasernet in action: Steel Warehouse

To show you just how much of a difference Lasernet makes to document delivery, we’re revisiting how our customer, Steel Warehouse, traded document chaos for centralized control.

To send its customers all the relevant documentation in one email, staff members had to print and scan the documents together - a time-consuming, environmentally unfriendly process. What the company needed was an automated rule-based emailing workflow to send the right documentation to the right contacts, combining business-critical documents, such as packing slips and bills of lading, into a single email.

Steel Warehouse used the Lasernet Connector in Dynamics 365 to create rule-based destinations that use stored contact information and the purposes associated with vendors and customers. This allowed staff members to combine shipping and product-specific documentation into one email, meaning customers don’t have to spend time trawling through several emails to gather the documents they need.

Ultimately, it’s about trading document chaos for centralized control. As Steel Warehouse’s story shows, Lasernet replaces a series of disconnected, error-prone steps with one automated workflow, giving them back control over their documents and time – and it can do the same for you.

Find out more: How Steel Warehouse took control of its data and documentation

Let’s keep solving D365 document challenges together

Grouping products and data without hassle, offering self-service document portals to customers and managing multiple delivery mechanisms are common document challenges for businesses across all industries. From manufacturing and retail to utilities and finance, companies using D365 are keen to simplify document management and get more from their ERP.

Still scratching your head over document challenges we haven’t covered? The good news is there’s even more to come. In part three of the Dynamics 365 document challenges series, we tackle the next set of common document challenges: ensuring regulatory compliance, manual and inefficient document processes and the lack of flexibility to adapt to change. We look forward to seeing you in part three!

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