Navigate in Dynamics 365 Sales
Before you learn about the basics of working in the Dynamics 365 Sales app, such as navigation, features and working with data, you should examine some of the most used elements of the application.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Account | An account represents a business or organization. Occasionally, this account is a customer or a vendor. In some organizations, the account might be a different grouping, such as a family. Typically, an account has related contact records. |
| Activities | An activity is a type of entity that offers tracking and scheduling options. By default, the system has activities already set up, such as email, appointment, and phone call. An administrator can add more custom activities to meet other business needs. |
| Assistant | The assistant monitors your daily actions and communications. Additionally, it helps you stay on top of your day with insight cards that display through the application to help provide actionable insights. |
| Business process flow | A business process flow is a type of automation in Microsoft Power Platform. The business process flow is placed on an entity form and offers users guidance and a predictable action plan for gathering data. Administrators can add more automation based on triggers from the user's interaction with the business process flow. |
| Contact | A contact represents a single individual. Often, a contact has many related records, such as an account and activities. |
| Customer | Customers can be an account or a contact. Typically, in a business-to-business scenario, this entity is an account. In a business-to-consumer scenario, this entity is a contact. |
| Opportunity | Similar to a lead, an opportunity is a potential sales transaction. Typically, an opportunity is a more viable prospect than a lead, and it contains more information and is tracked for a longer period of time. |
| Product catalog | A product catalog is a collection of records that interacts with opportunities, quotes, orders, and invoices to facilitate management of products, price lists, discounts, and product families for sales transactions. |
| Quote | A quote is a formal offer for products or services that's proposed at specific prices and related payment terms to a customer. |
| Order | An order is a confirmed request for the delivery of goods and services based on specified terms or a quote that a customer has accepted. |
| Invoice | An invoice is an order or record of a sales, including details about purchased products or services that have been billed to the customer. |
| Sequence | This feature helps enforce best practices by introducing a set of consecutive activities for sellers to follow during their day. |
| Timeline | With this feature, you can provide a timeline of activities, such as appointments, tasks, and emails, that are related to the current record. |
Depending on which Dynamics 365 Sales product that you're using, certain dedicated apps are available for you to use to work in the application. Based on your licensing, you would use one of two apps:
For Sales Enterprise and Premium, use the Sales Hub app.
For Sales Professional, use the Sales Professional app.
To access the application, select the Microsoft 365 app launcher and then select the icon for Dynamics 365. Which app is displayed to you is based on your subscription.
Navigate the app
The best way to navigate in the Sales app is to use the site map on the left side of the screen. From the site map, you can go to the different areas of the application and access different components, such as Accounts, Contacts, Leads, and Opportunities.
The preceding image highlights some key navigational elements of the Sales application (numbers in the list correspond with numbers in the image).
Select the menu button to open or collapse the site map.
This area provides access to items that you recently worked on and records that you want to have pinned to the site map for easier access.
This section provides access to everything that you need to communicate with customers, manage your pipeline, and other sales-related records.
Use this feature to change area to switch between the different areas that are available in the application. The Sales Hub app has four main areas:
Sales - The main area of the application that provides access to sales records. This area is the primary area that people use.
App Settings - Use this area to set up application functionality, including document management settings, integrations, and the product catalog.
Sales Insights Settings - Use this area to enable and set up the different Sales Insights features that are available, such as Assistant Cards, Sales Accelerator, and more.
Personal Settings - Allows individual users to set up different personal options.
Access the command bar for quick actions.
The worklist provides quick access to records that have upcoming sequence activities that need your attention.
When enabled and set up, this section provides access to enabled functionality, such as Teams Integration and Copilot.
Data in the app
Frequently, sellers work with different customer records and record types as they move customers through the business processes, collect the data that they need to fill in the fields for their records, and ultimately to win the customers' business.
Sellers often use the following entities when working in the Sales app:
Records - Essentially, a record is a row in a table. Records represent a complete unit of information, such as all information about a single contact.
Record types - Represent the type of record that you're working with. Each record that you add to the system belongs to a certain record type, such as an account, contact, lead, or opportunity.
App bar
From searching tools to helping with record creation, the application bar in the upper part of the Sales application provides you with quick access to various tools that can assist you while you're working to close deals.
The primary elements of the application bar include:
Search - Use to search for data across multiple tables at once.
Assistant - Launches the assistant to display assistant cards that are available.
Quick Create - Launches the quick create form for records that have been enabled for quick create.
Advanced Find - Launches the Advanced Find tool that you can use to create custom searches for data.
Settings - Provides access to application settings.
Help - Provides access to help and support tools to assist you with working in the application.
Teams Chat - Opens the Teams chat window to allow Microsoft Teams chat directly in Dynamics 365.
Connect and Share - Provides access to Dynamics 365 communities and feedback.
Business processes in Dynamics 365 Sales
Most organizations have different processes and procedures that they use when working on items. For example, a company might have a sales process that they use for moving customers through a sales life cycle. In Dynamics 365, business processes help everyone follow best practices, even when they're handling situations that don't occur often. You can complete a step by entering data or by marking the step as completed in the process bar in the upper part of the screen. When all steps are done, you can move on to the next stage.
Dynamics 365 includes the following ready-to-use business processes to help you move your leads through a sales process:
Lead to invoice - This business process flow is available for all leads and for opportunities that are created from leads.
Opportunity sales process - This business process flow is available for all directly created opportunities (not originating from lead) forms.
For more information, see the Create a business process flow tutorial.