Access and work with information online with Microsoft Dynamics SL
Take advantage of Business Portal for Microsoft Dynamics SL to enable the potential of your employees
Enhance productivity and business potential by giving people access to information and processes in Microsoft Dynamics SL through Internet Explorer. Business Portal integrates with Microsoft Dynamics SL to deliver applications, information, and processes to employees, customers, and partners across your organization. People can also view the data organized in ways that are appropriate to their role.
Using Microsoft Office system applications and the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services interface, your team can enter and review information online, including time and expense reports, purchase requests and approvals, and order changes. Data is updated to Microsoft Dynamics SL when you enter it, so everyone is working with the same information. Business Portal for Microsoft Dynamics SL helps you realize a greater return on your business management solution investment by increasing collaboration, efficiency, and innovation across your team.
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Work at your desk or away from the office
When you're traveling or working from home, or if your organization has multiple subsidiaries across diverse locations, you want the information you need to be up-to-date and available all the time. With Business Portal it can be. You can also create a Windows SharePoint Services-based Web site for your projects using the Business Portal Web interface.
Windows SharePoint Services enable you to store and modify documents, share schedules and calendars, and enable discussions through a Web-based, user-controlled portal. It provides an easy and scalable way to share information.
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Illustration: Work on projects over the Web using an easy and reliable system.
Managers and employees can access the information they need to do their work, with details on individual tasks, projects, and jobs.
Gain better intelligence on the status of the business with analysis and reporting tools. They can provide a single, up-to-date, companywide view of all aspects of each job, including accounting, overall profitability, and customer and client relationships.
Streamline the requisitioning processes
Within each project, you can create tracking sheets and systems to view project management and project management accounting (PMA), including these key elements:
| • | Time entry and approval |
| • | Expense entry and approval |
| • | Item request submission and approval |
Your information is updated immediately and available to everyone who needs it, regardless of their location.
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Illustration: Create item requests that include specific information, such as where the item originated, why it was created, how much it costs, and key ordering details, using any Web-enabled computer with Internet Explorer.
Manage projects effectively to meet customer expectations
Project managers can view everyone's project data through an interface that provides a summary view of each project. Managers can see each project's status, who is working on it, the start and end dates, project customer, purchase order number, whether a review is required, and percentage of completion.
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Illustration: Create, maintain, and analyze project and task information with a view of the status of all projects, clients, and customers, and other information.
Maintain tighter control of your budgets
In project management work, it's crucial for your people to be able to see which projects are staying within or exceeding their budgets, and to have a list of budget requests and expense reports to calculate what has been approved, rejected, and completed. Microsoft Dynamics SL provides this information, plus the capability to create new projects and entries as needed. Your people can also integrate this information with existing projects.
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Illustration: Look up, review, and report expenses, and submit them for approval by managers.
Access the information you need to manage your business
Whether you're at headquarters or traveling to meetings with clients, the Executive Project Analyst view provides you with up-to-the-minute schedule and budget status information for each of your customer's projects. From the same page, you can also access specific customer information—such as account summaries, retention percentage, billing information, projected net profit from the transaction, and even the currency the customer uses. And the Windows SharePoint Services interface enables you to organize the information to match the way you do your job. For example, you can sort information by business, project, status, deadline, or other categories.
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Illustration: Use the Executive Project Analyst view to get the profitability, billing, and operational status on all projects.
Intra-company communication
For your organization to be as effective as possible and meet client requirements, your people need up-to-date, clear communication about accounts and projects. They also need easy access to information about company policy, time-off policies, and benefits. Business Portal for Microsoft Dynamics SL enables you to create an unlimited number of Web sites to store and share information regarding employee policies, your business strategies, human resources (HR) operations and policies, and even company events. These are internal Web sites with strong security features that can be accessed and updated quickly and easily.
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Illustration: Provide Web access to important company event information, such as dates, attendees, event location, and maps.
Use Business Portal for Microsoft Dynamics SL to share project, task, and other internal information with your people so they can be effective in meeting the needs of your customers. In addition, Business Portal can help you communicate with important vendors and customers so that they can collaborate during project development.
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