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FastTrack for Dynamics 365

Article • 03/21/2023 • 3 minutes to read

Welcome to Microsoft FastTrack for Dynamics 365, our customer success service
designed to help your customers implement and go live so they can realize business
value faster. It is an onboarding program run by the product engineering team that
offers best practices, tools, resources, and expert advice. Your customer will gain
valuable insights with solution implementation, onboarding, and continued education.

FastTrack for Dynamics 365 represents our strong commitment to fostering the business
success of our customers. When participating in the FastTrack program, customers will
receive ongoing guidance on best practices and how to plan for successful rollouts.
FastTrack program participants will receive emails with implementation guidance and
communications about their active FastTrack engagement. In addition to proactive
guidance and ongoing workshops, FastTrack customers will also learn ways to enable
new users and expand capabilities—all at their own pace.

What to expect when working with FastTrack

The FastTrack solution architects have a unique role in a customer implementation. Even
though we have no formal role on the project and we don’t design or develop a solution
for the customer, we still are responsible for the success of the program and the timely
onboarding of users. Success by Design is our delivery framework for FastTrack
customers. It provides a structure for the FastTrack solution architects to effectively
engage with customers and partners in a timely and consistent manner to help them
successfully onboard onto our Dynamics 365 platform.

Timely engagement
Success by Design enables the FastTrack solution architects to engage with project
teams through a set of strategic workshops that are aligned to key project stages with
clear goals, actions, and deliverables. The workshops are essentially alignment exercises
that allow the solution architects to assess whether best practices are being followed,
and to identify and highlight issues or potential risks that could derail the program.
Timely engagement with the solution architects through workshops ensures that
Microsoft experts have an opportunity to provide input into your architectural design
decisions, helping you align with product direction and best practices for performance
and scalability.
Information sharing
The project team, including the customer and partners, should provide the information
needed to run the workshops and keep us updated on any design changes that the
FastTrack solution architect needs to review. The quality and depth of the information
will directly impact the recommendations from the FastTrack solution architect. The
more engaged and open the team is to sharing information with the FastTrack solution
architect, the more value we deliver in return.

Time investment
Running the workshops with the FastTrack solution architect will require a time
investment from the project team, based on the complexity and number of apps being
deployed. This can vary from project to project. Fundamentally, time spent with
FastTrack on workshops should not be perceived as an additional overhead but really as
an opportunity to revisit your decisions with a stakeholder from the product team who
can help identify potential risks and issues. FastTrack engagements help save time and
effort in the long term and greatly improve your chances of success and adoption.

Communication, feedback, and survey

When working with FastTrack, you can expect:

Email communications, conference calls, and in-person sessions with the product
group.
Feedback surveys on the product, and your experiences and interest in new
capabilities.
Invitations to exclusive product group events, advisory boards, and table talks with
product managers.
Executive engagement opportunities with senior product and engineering leaders
at Microsoft.
Requests for joining our reference program to share your success story and
experiences with other customers and analysts.

For questions regarding FastTrack, please reach out to your partner or Microsoft account
team.

Implementation portal
In 2023, Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal gets richer functionality to help you
manage implementation projects. Learn more at Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal.
Customer eligibility and partner
qualifications
Article • 02/13/2023 • 2 minutes to read

Customers who meet the eligibility requirements outlined below can take advantage of
FastTrack services, which are based on Success by Design and include Solution Blueprint
reviews and Go-live Readiness reviews, as well as benefit from implementation support
from Microsoft engineering.

Eligibility requirements
Eligible customers will receive the FastTrack benefit detailed above for the following
Dynamics 365 business process applications:

Dynamics 365 Commerce

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
Dynamics 365 Customer Service
Dynamics 365 Field Service
Dynamics 365 Finance
Dynamics 365 Human Resources
Dynamics 365 Marketing
Dynamics 365 Project Operations
Dynamics 365 Sales
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
Microsoft Relationship Sales
Viva Sales

To be eligible, customers must:

1. Meet a minimum annual spend across their Dynamics 365 licenses in new
deployments of eligible Dynamics 365 applications.

2. Be attached to an implementation partner that is qualified:

Gold or silver status in Microsoft Cloud Business Applications competency

OR is a Solutions Partner for Business Applications with at least two eligible
customer deployments .

Customer engagement CBA or customer engagement deployments are

required for projects with customer engagement apps; Finance and
 operations CBA or finance and operations deployments are required for
projects with finance and operations apps.

Success by Design training and knowledge check completed prior to project

initiation.

Customers who do not meet both the eligibility requirements listed above are invited to
take advantage of available self-guided FastTrack resources, which include on-demand
Success by Design training, product TechTalks , and a go-live readiness assessment for
select Dynamics 365 applications.

For additional details, please reach out to your partner or Microsoft account team.
Get started
Article • 01/26/2023 • 2 minutes to read

Effective January 1, 2021, customer nominations are required for FastTrack engagements
across the Dynamics 365 application suite. Eligible customers can work with their
qualified partner or assigned Microsoft account manager, if applicable, to request a
FastTrack for Dynamics 365 engagement.

Link to nominate customers (for Microsoft field)

Link to nominate customers (for partners)

Once a nomination is submitted, the regional FastTrack for Dynamics 365 lead will
evaluate the eligibility and assign the customer to a FastTrack engineering resource. If a
nomination does not meet the required eligibility, an exception must be submitted.

Also effective January 1, 2021:

FastTrack requires that all customers have an implementation partner.

FastTrack requires that all implementation partners have the Cloud Business
Applications silver or gold competency.
FastTrack requires that all implementation partners complete the Success by
Design training prior to project initiation.

Exception process
FastTrack exceptions must be granted by the regional leadership team. To request an
exception, please reach out to your Microsoft contact for review.
Onboard a Dynamics 365 project
without FastTrack nomination
Article • 01/26/2023 • 2 minutes to read

Effective January 1, 2021, Dynamics 365 customers with an annual revenue of more than
$100,000 must be nominated for FastTrack. See Get started for more information. For
customers not nominated to FastTrack, light-touch implementation guidance will be
provided.

Implementation project
You can onboard your organization as self-service in Lifecycle Services if you're not
nominated for FastTrack. Learn more at LCS workspace for the current versions of the
finance and operations apps in the Lifecycle Services content.

After the Implementation project workspace is provisioned in Lifecycle Services, the

Microsoft FastTrack team will monitor your onboarding progress. If project onboarding
is not completed within a few weeks after creating a Lifecycle Services implementation
project, a reminder will be sent to the project team. It's important that the project
onboarding in Lifecycle Services is completed with the most accurate date, and that the
email addresses listed in the setup are monitored. For more information, see Project
onboarding in the Lifecycle Services content.
Proactive guidance for self-service
engagements
Article • 01/26/2023 • 3 minutes to read

One of the core goals of Microsoft FastTrack for Dynamics 365 finance and operations
apps teams is to enable project teams to run implementations successfully and have a
smooth launch. With this goal in mind, we provide proactive implementation guidance
to the implementation team via emails. These emails contain core recommended
guidance on the activities that take place typically in the current phase of your project.
Proactive guidance emails will be sent to self-service project team members.

Who will receive these emails?

Dynamics 365 Lifecycle Services project users in active implementations. (Please make
sure your Lifecycle Services project users are up to date.)

Who will send these emails?

You’ll see emails from the account [email protected]. (Please make sure the
address is on a safe senders list to receive our communications.)

How can you provide feedback?

Use the feedback link that is present in each email.

What emails will you receive?

Our proactive guidance covers the phases described here.

Initiate
This phase comprises the period that starts with Lifecycle Services project creation until
Lifecycle Services project onboarding is finalized.

FastTrack project onboarding follow-ups: Onboarding follow-ups relate to two

emails that are only triggered in case:
Lifecycle Services onboarding is not completed in the first 7 days after Lifecycle
Services project creation.
Lifecycle Services onboarding is still not completed 14 days after Lifecycle
Services project creation (final reminder).

Implement
This phase comprises the period that starts right after project onboarding is finalized
(initiate phase) and lasts until the project goes live (operate phase). In implement phase
emails, we provide most FastTrack recommendations for the success of your
implementation.

Analysis: This phase is generally the starting point of the project, when the team is
understanding or defining business processes and evaluating the features or
processes available in the product out of the box. The analysis phase email is sent
7 days after your project onboarding is completed. It covers these topics:
Where to learn about the product
Business Process Modeler (BPM) and Azure DevOps
How to collaborate with FastTrack
Support
Custom guidance based on project scope as defined in Lifecycle Services project
onboarding

Design & develop: In this phase, the team gets deeper into the design and
development areas of the implementation. Design & develop email is sent 14 days
before the analysis milestone end date, so you have time to prepare for the next
phase of your implementation. It covers these topics:
Application lifecycle management (ALM)
Data management
Continuous updates
Integrations
Security
BI and analytics
Release plans and Ideas portal
 Test: After design, the test phase is where the solution is tested and where we
provide recommendations around testing and training as well as policies to follow
regarding updates. Test email will be sent 14 days before the design & develop
milestone end date in Lifecycle Services. It covers these topics:
Testing and solution acceptance
Training (end user training) including Regression suite automation tool (RSAT)
Performance testing
System monitoring
Subscription estimator
App checker
One version
Support

Plan the go-live: The implementation team has come this far in the
implementation and is now planning to go live. This is the final email before we
provide the production environment based on the go-live readiness assessment.
Plan the go-live recommendations email will be sent:
60 days before the go-live milestone date in your Lifecycle Services project.
As a reminder, 30 days before if the go-live checklist document is not sent to
FastTrack.

Topics covered:
Prepare for the go-live
Go-live review with FastTrack team
Prerequisites for go-live checklist
Cutover and data migration
Production servicing and support
Report production outage

Go-live date confirmation: Go-live date confirmation email is specific to projects

where the Lifecycle Services go-live milestone date is in the past and go-live did
not happen yet. We understand that plans might change, which is why it’s
important to keep Lifecycle Services up to date so that the FastTrack team can
provide the right guidance at the right time.

Prepare
Go-live review process: All communications done as part of the pre–go-live review
process are made in this phase. They include the checklist document and necessary
risks mitigation. More information can be found at Prepare for go-live.
Operate
Graduation: In this communication, since the project will be in a post–go-live
status, we will provide post–go-live guidance as we graduate the project from the
FastTrack program.
Dynamics CRM (on-premises) to
Dynamics 365 migration
Article • 01/26/2023 • 4 minutes to read

Microsoft provides guidance on migrating your Dynamics CRM (on-premises) database

to Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Dataverse. We provide guidance in the form of tools and
documentation and by performing configuration tasks where applicable and feasible.
This is available for all eligible customers with Dynamics 365 services who are invited
into the program.

The FastTrack Center benefit includes providing guidance with source environment
migration to Dynamics 365 and Dataverse.

７ Note

Data migrated through the FastTrack services may be transferred to, stored,
and processed anywhere that Microsoft maintains facilities (except as
otherwise provided for your particular FastTrack engagement). The FastTrack
services aren't designed or intended for data subject to special legal or
regulatory requirements.
In order to perform the migration, your source environment must be a version
of Dynamics CRM 2011, Dynamics CRM 2013, Dynamics CRM 2015, or
Dynamics CRM 2016, and SQL Server must be a version of SQL Server 2008,
SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2014, or SQL Server 2016, whereas Dynamics
CRM and SQL Server versions must be aligned with the documented
supportability statements.
Unforeseen issues (including but not limited to unreadable or corrupt items in
the source environment) may prevent some items from being migrated.
It is the customer's responsibility to perform the mitigation or fixing of
unsupported customizations or SQL Server-level changes that might block the
database migration via this method.

The following table describes what's expected for migration in your existing source
environment.

Activity Source environment expectation

 Activity Source environment expectation

Dynamics 365 Dynamics CRM (on-premises) versions supported—Dynamics CRM 2011,

(online) Dynamics CRM 2013, Dynamics CRM 2015, Dynamics CRM 2016.
migration

SQL Server versions supported—SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2012, SQL
Server 2014, SQL Server 2016.

Dynamics CRM and SQL Server versions must be aligned with documented
version supportability statements.

SQL Server data to be in only one .mdf and one .ldf file.

Users belong to a single domain.

Other SQL Server prerequisites will apply once the migration project starts;
these can be handled as migration progresses.

Migration to Microsoft Dataverse

Enable to migrate
If you use Microsoft to migrate your data, we might provide guidance to enable both
Microsoft Dataverse and the source environment for migration. Depending on the
source, we might perform various enable steps. We provide guidance for you by using a
combination of tools and documentation and by performing configuration tasks where
applicable and feasible.

You need to provide appropriate access and permissions to Microsoft to perform some
activities.

Migration policy and steps

The technical migration orchestration is carried out through tooling hosted in the
Dynamics 365 Lifecycle Services portal. Microsoft will make the Dynamics 365
Lifecycle Services portal available to you in accordance with an agreement to use
the migration tooling to manage the migration process.
All migrations require appropriate access and permissions to the source
environment.

End state
The expected end state after a migration batch includes:

Dynamics CRM environment from appropriately scheduled and eligible sources in

the source environment is migrated to Microsoft Dataverse.
A post-migration report for the migration environment is provided by Microsoft.

The expected end state after all migrations are complete includes:

Data from the eligible source is migrated to Microsoft Dataverse as defined in the
following table.
The type of data to be migrated depends on the source environment as described
in the following table.

Source environment Type of migration What will What won’t migrate

migrate

Dynamics CRM (on- Upgrade and All data Disabled users will not be
premises) migration migrated.

Ownership Integration code is not

migrated.

Sharing Integrations are not migrated.

Audit history Outlook sync.

Metadata Exchange sync.

Microsoft performs the following during migrations:

Conduct a migration walkthrough workshop covering the process and approach

for the selected migration scenario.
Provide prerequisites for assessment and migration tools as applicable for the
scenario.
Provide prerequisites for migration team access to the source and target
environment for the purpose of assessment and migration.
Make the Dynamics 365 Lifecycle Services portal and the Dynamics CRM On-
premises to Dynamics 365 Online Migration Tool available to customers in
accordance with the terms and conditions for such usage.
Assist in running assessment and migration tools (if applicable).
Configure migration infrastructure in preparation for content migration (when
applicable).
Conduct a limited test migration to validate the migration infrastructure and
required prerequisites.
Conduct one pilot migration prior to production CRM migration.
 Provide guidance on migration scheduling for the selected scenario.
Participate in migration issues triage and provide guidance on potential
remediation options.
Provide a final migration report for each migration.
Provide post-migration assistance during user acceptance testing up to five days
past migration completion.

You perform the following during migrations:

Provide project resources recommended for assessment and migration activities.

These include:
Project management.
User acceptance testing (UAT).
Admins responsible for source and target content platforms.
Provide infrastructure prerequisites for assessment and migration activities (if
required).
Provide access and permissions to the staging and target environments to
Microsoft personnel to perform migration activities (if required).
Complete assessment data gathering activities (if applicable).
Complete remediation activities outlined in the FastTrack-provided remediation
report (if applicable).
Provide a migration schedule using FastTrack templates and guidance.
Conduct migration quality assurance and user acceptance testing.
Conduct post-migration remediation (if applicable).
Plan and implement change management and user communications (if applicable).
Administrate and configure any changes to the source system and devices
required for successful completion of assessment and migration activities.

７ Note

Migrations only use accounts that adhere to security requirements defined during
onboarding. If you don't use such accounts, you might experience migration delays.
Success by Design for Dynamics 365
Article • 04/03/2023 • 2 minutes to read

Success by Design for Dynamics 365 systematically guides an implementation through a

series of assessments at critical stages to ensure optimal architecture, security,
performance, and user experience for a Dynamics 365 solution. The framework is
designed around three core principles:

Early discovery
Proactive guidance
Predictable success

The Success by Design framework spans four critical stages of the implementation
journey:

1. Initiate

Understand the breadth of the solution. Assess implementation partner

readiness.
Determine the inputs and outputs expected of Microsoft. Guide directionally.

2. Implement

Dive deep into the design and provide specific guidance.

Apply and extract patterns and practices.

3. Prepare

Assess system and operational readiness for go-live.

Guide and monitor to ensure success.

4. Operate

Review customer outcome. Review lessons learned.

Compile customer evidence.
More resources
Introduction to Succes by Design
Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation guide
Dynamics 365 implementation portal
Solution Blueprint Review workshops
Article • 01/26/2023 • 2 minutes to read

A Solution Blueprint Review workshop serves as the starting point of Success by Design.
It is a mandatory workshop that sets the stage for the FastTrack engagement and
provides a baseline to plan other Success by Design activities and workshops. The
primary purpose of this workshop is to ensure that the fundamentals for project success
are in place and the overall solution design approach is sound and aligned to the
product best practices and direction.

The Solution Blueprint Review workshop covers the following topics:

Program strategy
Application strategy
Data strategy
Integration strategy
Test strategy
Business process strategy
Security strategy
Application lifecycle management strategy
Environment and capacity strategy
Intelligence strategy

Solution architects, functional leads, and technical leads are required to attend these
workshops. Key stakeholders from the customer and partner teams are recommended
to attend.
Implementation workshops
Article • 01/26/2023 • 5 minutes to read

Implementation workshops provide timely guidance across the functional, technical, and
implementation aspects of the solution.

Data migration strategy

Best practices to avoid data migration performance issues, understanding of business
goals, and awareness on realistic throughput.

Agenda topics:

Migration strategy and general information

Data volume
Tooling
Network latency
Performance
Multithreading
Testing

Mandatory attendees are solution architects and technical leads. Recommended

attendees include key stakeholders from the customer and partner teams.
Security model design
Understand the unique needs of organization security requirements and review
granularity of access control, administrative ease, and impact on scalability.

Agenda topics:

Basics and security model overview

Business units and teams
Implemented security mechanism
User interface
Scalability, performance, maintainability
Security testing
Security monitoring
Regulations and compliance
Security beyond Dynamics 365

Mandatory attendees are solution architects and technical leads. Recommended

attendees include stakeholders from the customer and partner teams.

Solution performance
Assess different areas of the solution that could impact the overall performance.
Evaluate the strategy for performance testing to identify and address issues.

Agenda topics:

Project plan
Volumes
Geolocation strategy
Key business scenarios
Performance testing

Mandatory attendees are solution architects, functional leads, project manager, technical
leads, and test leads. Recommended attendees include stakeholders from the customer
and partner teams.

Integration design
Review and discuss various integration scenarios and considerations with Dynamics 365
and other systems.
Agenda topics:

Integration strategy
General information
Office 365
Microsoft Power Platform
Azure
External systems
Reporting

Mandatory attendees are solution architects, functional leads, and technical leads.
Recommended attendees include stakeholders from the customer and partner teams.

Data model design

To review the envisioned data model for the customer project. The data model reflects
the functional scope and potential complexity of the project.

Agenda topics:

Entity relationship diagram

Out-of-the-box versus custom entities
Entity configuration
Option sets, custom entities, and localization
Security, relationships, and performance
Fields: alternate keys, calculated, and rollup
Auditing
External data display or integration
User experience

Mandatory attendees are solution architects, functional leads, and technical leads.
Recommended attendees include stakeholders from the customer and partner teams.

Test strategy
Ensure the customer has planned for the various testing activities throughout the
project lifecycle to ensure quality of their solution.

Agenda topics:

Testing strategy and schedule

Unit and functional test strategy
 System integration test strategy
Data migration validation test strategy
User acceptance test strategy
Performance test strategy
Security test strategy
Regression test strategy
Mock cutover test strategy
Tools

Mandatory attendees are solution architects, functional leads, and technical leads.
Recommended attendees include stakeholders from the customer and partner teams.

User experience design

Identify key goals and design elements the customer is leveraging to deliver an optimal
user experience.

Agenda topics:

Ease of use – legacy system mapping

Ease of use – simplicity/efficiency
Aesthetics – ISV alignment
Aesthetics – corporate branding
Performance – speed
Consistency of experience

Mandatory attendees are solution architects, functional leads, and technical leads.
Recommended attendees include stakeholders from the customer and partner teams.

Application lifecycle management strategy

Understand how the partner plans to go about the process of building, testing,
validating, and deploying the solutions.

Agenda topics:

General strategy
Build plan
Test strategy
Release/deploy
Run model (post-implement enhance/maintain)
Storage management
Mandatory attendees are solution architects, functional leads, and technical leads.
Recommended attendees include stakeholders from the customer and partner teams.

Gap solution design

This workshop is meant for implementations that have critical requirements not
supported by the standard system out of the box. The purpose is to spend time
reviewing the top gap solutions for high-impact, high-risk extensions to provide
guidance on maximizing the use of standard features, alignment to product roadmap,
and general design guidance. This workshop isn't intended as a fit/gap review. The
expectation is that initial consideration of solutions for every scenario will be completed
prior to the workshop.

Agenda topics:

Identify and review the main gap requirements

Discuss proposed solution for each selected gap
Identify and discuss any potential risks
Brainstorm alternative solution, ISV or workaround
Review all gaps and potential dependencies

Mandatory attendees are solution architects, functional leads, and technical leads.
Recommended attendees include stakeholders from the customer and partner teams.

Cutover strategy
Ensure that the cutover strategy provides a good approach and plan to deliver a well-
defined, well-tested, reliable, and safe transition from current systems to the new
production systems.

Agenda topics:

Cutover vision and strategy

Cutover project plan
Go-live cutover plan
Post go-live plan

Mandatory attendees are cutover lead, solution architect, data migration lead, and
project manager roles. Recommended attendees include stakeholders from the
customer and partner teams.
Post go-live
Review the key accomplishments, lessons learned, and constructive feedback from the
implementation following the go-live to identify adjustments to the project delivery and
operations support for the next phases of the digital transformation journey with
Dynamics 365.

This graduates the implementation and marks the closure of the FastTrack engagement.

Walk through the opportunities offered with the Customer Advocacy Program to join
the Dynamics 365 community and share the implementation team deployment success
story.

Agenda topics:

Key accomplishments: review of goals and objectives

Discussion of lessons learned
Post go-live assessment
Looking forward
Your Microsoft account team
Microsoft Dynamics 365 support options
Microsoft Customer Advocacy Program

Mandatory attendees are project managers and architects. Recommended attendees

include the project sponsors from the customer and partner teams.

Business intelligence and analytics design

Ensure that the customer's design for providing business intelligence and analytics
capabilities in the solution makes use of the best available technologies and patterns
and is in line with the product roadmap.

Agenda topics:

Operational reporting design

BI process requirements
BI team structure
Data sources and aggregation
Data storage
Data model
Portals and dashboards
Volumes
Mandatory attendees are solution architects, functional leads, and technical leads.
Recommended attendees include stakeholders from the customer and partner teams.

７ Note

The series of implementation workshops to be executed for any program will be

determined by the solution architect running the Success by Design program
following the Solution Blueprint Review. The typical format is a one-to-three-hour
meeting on Microsoft Teams, but duration may vary based on the level of
complexity. The preceding list is not meant to be exhaustive, but a high-level
description to demonstrate the principles of implementation workshops.
Go-live Readiness workshop
Article • 01/30/2023 • 2 minutes to read

The Go-live Readiness workshop is designed to help guarantee a successful go-live for
Dynamics 365 projects. This workshop covers validations necessary to ensure the
solution meets the customer’s needs and expectations, both functional and
nonfunctional. The focus is to ensure a smooth transition to Dynamics 365 in the
available cutover window and avoid any surprises during and after go-live.

Here are some of the topics the workshop is likely to cover:

Confirmation of the go-live date and scope

Solution acceptance and user training
Performance
Integrations
Code management
Configuration management
Review of blocking issues
Cutover plan and final data migration
Risk and mitigation review
Customer go/no-go criteria
Support process and hyper-care plan

The typical format is a 90-minute meeting on Microsoft Teams. Mandatory attendees are
hyper-care team leads. Recommended attendees include key business users and subject
matter experts.
Dynamics 365 implementation guidance
Article • 04/03/2023

Microsoft launched Success by Design and the Dynamics 365 implemementation guide
a few year ago. We're now consolidating this guidance with other guidance on the
Microsoft Learn site.

Online guidance
Here on Microsoft Learn, we're gradually publishing more and more guidance to help
drive successful implementation projects with Dynamics 365 apps and services. Check
the guidance hub for new content, use the navigation panel to the left to find what
you're looking for.

Learn about the guidance hub at Dynamics 365 guidance overview.

Review the Environment strategy
Review the Implementation strategy

Training
Find free online training for different roles here.

The book
The Dynamics 365 Success by Design Implementation Guide is targeted to program
leaders, solution architects, and anyone interested in implementation success as they
embark on their journey to implement solutions based on Dynamics 365.

Based on the experience of thousands of Dynamics 365 implementations, each chapter

of the implementation guide represents the collective knowledge and experience of the
FastTrack for Dynamics 365 team. At its essence, the implementation guide leads readers
on the Dynamics 365 implementation journey, delivering expert guidance, revealing
case studies, and providing the thinking, questions, and resources needed for a
successful project.

Send an email to [email protected] and let us know what you think.

Next steps
Learn about Success by Design at Introduction to Success by Design
Access the book at Implementation guide
Introduction to Success by Design
Article • 04/03/2023

One of the primary goals of the implementation guide is to democratize the practice
of Success by Design by making it available to the entire community of Dynamics 365
implementers.

Success by Design is a framework and practice created by Microsoft to help project

teams implement Dynamics 365.

Based on thousands of real-world customer projects, Success by Design is the sum of

our Dynamics 365 implementation experience. It offers topic-specific reviews and
prescriptive guidance (approaches and recommended practices), which provide a
reliable path to project success. Success by Design is intended to be used by Dynamics
365 system integrators, independent software vendors (ISVs), and customers as a means
to better architect, build, test, and deploy Dynamics 365 solutions.

Microsoft recognizes that Success by Design doesn't guarantee implementation

outcomes for our customers. But we're confident that it will help you achieve your
project's goals while enabling the desired digital transformation for your organization.

For our partners, Microsoft is confident that Success by Design, coupled with your
implementation methodology and skilled resources, will increase your team's
effectiveness in delivering successful Dynamics 365 projects to your customers.

This article focuses on the fundamentals and practice of Success by Design and its
desired result: Dynamics 365 projects whose technical and project risks are proactively
addressed, solutions that are roadmap aligned, and project teams that are successful in
maximizing their organization's investment in Dynamics 365 cloud services.

Success by Design history

As demand for Dynamics 365 cloud services increased across the enterprise, Microsoft
identified the clear need to change the way we thought about evolving our services and
our responsibility to customers and partners. We recognized that it wasn't enough to
design a platform containing a set of features. We needed to also understand what it
takes to deliver a fully functioning, end-to-end solution that runs the mission-critical
processes of our customers' businesses. From this need, Success by Design was born.

Microsoft believes that customer success is the precursor to every Dynamics 365
product development decision. As a result, questions fundamental to product
development now challenge our engineers at every step of the process:

In what way must each product feature be delivered to ensure customer success?

How do we make Dynamics 365 apps valuable, durable, reliable, and performant?

What aspects of the product should be jettisoned because they don't meet
fundamental customer success criteria?

Such questions have led to the successful transition of 100 percent of Microsoft
Dynamics 365 online customers to run on one version for the first time in decades. And
there are more benefits, such as the following items:

A dependable and safe deployment process

A steady and coherent feature release cadence (including many overdue feature
deprecations)
A reliable and performant platform that delivers customer value

But product is only one half of the customer success equation. Over the past few years,
Microsoft has put equal emphasis on two needs that we must provide:

Prescriptive guidance and recommended practices to ensure a smooth

implementation project
A properly designed and built Dynamics 365 solution that successfully transforms
business operations

This push has also resulted in the transformation of Microsoft's FastTrack for Dynamics
365 service. The goal is that our community of Dynamics 365 implementers, customers,
and partners, has access to Success by Design.

Make Success by Design your own

Enabling Dynamics 365 project teams to practice Success by Design means an ongoing
commitment by Microsoft to provide the community of implementers, customers, and
partners, best-in-class business applications, along with the latest in Success by Design
project resources.

It also means project team willingness to incorporate the practice of Success by Design
into their overall project approach, regardless of implementation methodology or the
Dynamics 365 product being implemented. At its best, Success by Design fortifies a
project team's chosen implementation methodology with a model for product-aligned
project governance.
No matter where you find yourself in your Dynamics 365 implementation, it's critical
that the project teams remain focused. The common pressures of time, budget, and
resources can prevent the teams from pausing to understand and address technical and
project risks before it's too late in the project lifecycle.

To this end, the sections in this article define the following items:

What Success by Design is

Which benefits it can bring to implementations
How project teams can use it to accelerate customer success throughout the
implementation of Dynamics 365

７ Note

FastTrack for Dynamics 365 is a customer success program run by Microsoft's

Dynamics 365 product engineering team that helps customers implement
Dynamics 365 apps and realize business value faster. The practice of Success by
Design is fundamental to FastTrack's approach, but the Success by Design
framework is available for use on any Dynamics 365 implementation project.

Success by Design objectives

Success by Design is prescriptive guidance (approaches and recommended practices)
for successfully architecting, building, testing, and deploying Dynamics 365 solutions.
Success by Design derives from the experience of Microsoft's FastTrack program, which
has helped our customers and partners deliver thousands of Microsoft's most complex
Dynamics 365 cloud deployments.

In Success by Design, reviews are exercises in reflection, discovery (observation), and

alignment (matching to known patterns). Project teams can use reviews to assess
whether their implementation project is following recommended patterns and practices.
Reviews also help project teams to identify (and address) issues and risks that may derail
the project.

Success by Design should be used as an adjunct to the project team's chosen

implementation methodology for the following benefits:

Reduced risk due to early detection of problems

Alignment to recommended practices

The result is a roadmap aligned solution architecture that is performant, scalable, and
future-proof. (Acknowledging the possibility that feature deprecations or other changes
to product roadmap in compliance with Microsoft policy may occur.)

For interested customers, Microsoft recommends that project leaders team up with their
implementation partner to enable Success by Design within their project. In addition to
the guidance that we provide here on Microsoft Learn, it's highly recommended that
project teams ready themselves by enrolling in the Success by Design training.

 Tip

Across Dynamics 365 guidance content, we use the term finance and operations
apps to cover Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management,
Dynamics 365 Commerce, Dynamics 365 Human Resources, and Dynamics 365
Project Operations.

Success by Design phases

Success by Design maps the Dynamic 365 implementation lifecycle into four
methodology-agnostic phases: Initiate, Implement, Prepare, and Operate. In this section
and the following sections, we outline the Success by Design phases, their relationship
to Success by Design reviews, and the desired outputs and outcomes.

In the Initiate phase, the project team is in discovery mode, gathering and validating
business requirements, finalizing the high-level solution approach, making inroads to
define all in-scope workstreams, and updating the project plan to reflect these updates.
When the project team has produced the high-level solution design and the related
project workstreams are more or less defined, Success by Design begins with the
Solution Blueprint Review. Learn more in the section Success by Design reviews.

In the Implement phase, the project team is focused on building the solution per the
agreed upon solution design and scope. This phases introduces Implementation Reviews
that come from the findings and recommendations of the Solution Blueprint Review. As
we learn in the section Success by Design reviews section, Implementation Reviews help
you more deeply address questions related to the specific aspects of the solution design
(data model, security, and integration) and implementation practices (ALM, testing
strategy). Implementation Reviews are meant to fully address the risks identified during
or after the Solution Blueprint Review but before the solution build is too far along.

By the Prepare phase, the solution has been built and tested and the project team is
preparing for the final round of user acceptance testing (UAT) and training. Additionally,
all necessary customer approvals have been granted, information security reviews
completed, the cutover plan defined (including go/no-go criteria), mock go-lives
scheduled, the support model ready, and the deployment runbook completed with
tasks, owners, durations, and dependencies defined. At this point, the project team uses
the Success by Design Go live Readiness Review to identify any remaining gaps or
issues.

In the Operate phase, the customer solution is live. The goal of this phase is stabilization
and a shift in focus towards functionality and enhancements that are earmarked for the
next phase of the project.

Success by Design reviews

With a high-level understanding of Success by Design phases, we now turn to Success
by Design reviews, which are also sometimes referred to as Success by Design
workshops.

Each review raises questions that serve as points of reflection that project teams can use
to generate important discussion, assess risk, and confirm that best practices are being
followed.

The Solution Blueprint Review serves as the starting point of Success by Design. We
suggest the Solution Blueprint Review to be a mandatory review for the project because
findings that come from it lead to Implementation Reviews, which offer project teams
the opportunity to drill down into topic-specific areas where deeper dives are deemed
necessary for further understanding project and solution risk. Finally, the Go live
Readiness Review, which we also suggest as a mandatory review, is the last stop for
assessing any remaining risks before go live.

The figure below illustrates that Success by Design reviews aren't to be conducted as
abstract exercises separated from the project. Rather, the scheduling and
implementation of each review relies on the availability of key project artifacts and the
readiness of the project team to discuss them.
 ７ Note

Other implementation articles address elements of Success by Design, but for the
most comprehensive coverage of Success by Design framework, please refer to the
Success by Design training on Microsoft Learn. Taken together, the guidance in the
Methodology guide, used alongside the Success by Design framework, should
equip project teams for better, more successful project outcomes.

Success by Design outputs

With a basic understanding of Success by Design's objectives, phases, and review flow,
it's important to pause to understand the makeup of review outputs and their purpose,
findings, and recommendations.

As described in the section Success by Design reviews, reviews include project artifacts
that the project team produce, and other information such as formal or informal project
touchpoints. The availability of such information points to the readiness of the team to
schedule and conduct Success by Design reviews. Additionally, project teams may rely
on Microsoft for telemetry and other tools to inform review discussions and generate
review outputs.

The primary review outputs fall into two related categories: findings and
recommendations.

Findings come in three types:

 Assertions - Findings that capture noteworthy aspects of the solution or approach.
Assertions highlight what the project team is doing right, typically in line with best
practices.

Risks - Findings that could potentially influence the implementation negatively if

not mitigated.

Issues - Findings that are currently impacting implementation negatively or will do

so if not resolved.

Findings should include as much detail as possible and be matched to known patterns.
Findings matched to known patterns often yield insights that lead to recommendations
or actions necessary to resolve the issues identified.

To better illustrate this point, consider this customer example:

A global corporate travel company is implementing Dynamics 365 Customer Service to

drive its call center transformation. As the project team digs into the business's
requirements, they learn that the Dynamics 365 solution must account for integration
with multiple legacy systems (many with high transaction volumes). Additionally, the
requirements point to a business-mandated customization that the project team agreed
couldn't be achieved using out-of-the-box functionality.

In preparation for the Solution Blueprint Review, the project team parses these and
other details. They must also confirm that solution performance testing was purposely
left out of the project scope on the assumption that Microsoft's Dynamics 365 cloud
service should be performant on its own.

 Tip

It's true that Microsoft is responsible for delivering a reliable and performant cloud
service to its customers. But it's our experience that solution design and the
resulting configurations, customizations, and ISVs to achieve that design may play a
role in impacting overall Dynamics 365 solution performance.
In this example, the Dynamics 365 solution is projected to support 4,000 users at scale,
including the multiple integrations and a key customization mandated by the business.
So the project team's findings are clear: keeping solution performance testing out of
scope is a risk that negatively impacts the project. Among other findings and
recommendations not covered in this example, the project team's architect (who led the
Solution Blueprint Review) recommends that the project Steering Committee approves
adding solution performance testing into the test cycle.

The architect's findings are summarized as follows:

The solution requires custom development to meet its business requirements.

Performance testing isn't included in the test cycle.

Following best practices, solution performance testing should be added to the test
cycle

If necessary, the solution performance workshop should be scheduled to further

explore the risk and report any other findings back to the project Steering
Committee.

The architect's findings and recommendations are based on careful review that calls out
the lack of solution performance testing as a risk, which the project team must address
to avoid downstream impact on the project.

In Success by Design, findings link observations to known patterns that invite actions
necessary to address project risks and issues.
Track success measures
One more step remains in the Success by Design process: tracking success measures.
After completing Success by Design training, you may decide to create your own
success measure tracking template or make use of FastTrack's template. Otherwise,
project teams can use Success by Design tooling (as served by FastTrack or your
implementation partner) to track success measures for their project.

What are success measures?

By its very nature, Success by Design is a project specific endeavor. For anyone
practicing Success by Design across one or many Dynamics 365 projects, the question
arose: How do we measure the health of just one of those many projects? Success
measures allow us to do just that.

Success by Design empowers project teams to track the health of projects across seven
categories and over 30 success measures. The figure below highlights these categories
and related success measures.

Tracking success measures is simple: After a Success by Design review or other

compelling project event, your FastTrack Solution Architect or partner architect will
access Microsoft's Success by Design tooling and update the relevant success measures
for the project. Success measure updates are either red, yellow, or green, and include
project-related details relevant to the success measure.

Why are success measures important?

Success measures are important because they provide access to micro and macro
project health trends. Tracking success measures for a single project allows stakeholders
to assess the overall health of the project at a glance. Similarly, the benefit of tracking
success measures over 10, 20, or 100 projects is that Microsoft, the partner, or the
customer project team can see patterns that may be impacting them. For example,
macro-level tracking may yield an application lifecycle management (ALM) problem.
Access to this data allows Microsoft or the partner to understand whether it's a project
or product problem, and gain insights on how to fix it.

Conclusion
Success by Design equips project teams with a model for technical and project
governance that invites questions and reflection, which leads to critical understanding of
risks that might otherwise go unnoticed until too late in the project.

Considering the pace of cloud solutions and the investment that organizations make in
Dynamics 365 software and implementation costs, even the most experienced
customers and partners with the best methodologies will benefit by incorporating
Success by Design into their projects.

Microsoft believes that every business is in the business of creating great customer
experiences. To achieve that, business applications must do more than just separately
run your back office, marketing, supply chain, or even field operations. They must give
you the agility to remove every barrier in your way. When this happens, business
applications become more than just operational solutions. They become resilient
solutions that enable the digital feedback loop and adapt to customer demands,
delivering stronger, more engaging experiences around the products you make and
services you provide.

７ Note

If you're using Success by Design in your Dynamics 365 implementation project, we

want to hear from you! To share your Success by Design feedback and experiences,
reach out to us at [email protected].
Success by Design evelution
From the moment that FastTrack for Dynamics 365 was born, Microsoft began to ask
itself: How can we change the FastTrack approach so that our solution architects can
address technical and project risks of a project before they manifest as problems
impacting our customer’s investment in Dynamics 365? Our internal process evolve,
team members learn and share their knowledge, and Success by Design evolves over
time. Get an inside look into how we developed the Success by Design framework here.

Next steps
Implementing cloud solutions
Drive app value
Implementation strategy
Solution architecture design pillars
Process-focused solution
Project governance
Testing strategy
Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal
Article • 04/03/2023

Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal helps you implement solutions with Dynamics
365 successfully based on the Success By Design framework. The implementation portal
provides tools to help you manage project data, project users, create reviews, and
update project profiles. You also have access to implementation guidance that is tailored
specifically to your project.

７ Note

New capabilities are added throughout 2023 release wave 1. Learn more in the
release plans.

The Implementation Portal navigation panel includes the following links:

Engagements
Home
Projects
Create/Join project
Migrations
Nomination

Help & Support

Knowledge Articles
Help
Contact Us
Privacy & Cookies

The following sections describe key components of the Implementation Portal.

Projects
The Projects area in the Implementation Portal shows all projects that you have access
to, either as a project user or as a project admin.

Use the My Active Projects menu to switch between viewing your active and
inactive projects.

Select Card View to switch from a card view to a grid view of your active or
inactive projects.
 Select a project name to open a page with more information about the project.

Learn more at Manage projects.

Nomination
Here Microsoft partners can nominate projects for participation in the FastTrack
program. Learn more at Customer eligibility and partner qualifications.

Knowledge Articles
Knowledge articles are scenario-based recommendations based on thousands of
Dynamics 365 implementation projects that the FastTrack team has engaged with. Use
the filters to select categories and articles to get recommendations for. Articles may
have more than one scenario and corresponding recommendations.

Help
Find help articles for the Implementation Portal and search frequently asked questions.

Contact us
Learn how to contact the team responsible for the Implementation Portal.

If you're experiencing a technical issue with the Implementation Portal, send an email to
[email protected].

Share your feedback and help us improve.

User profile
Select the name of a user to open the user profile page, where you can provide or
update information about the user.

Next steps
Sign up for Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal
Onboard projects to the Implementation Portal
Manage projects
Manage project profiles
 Manage project users
Implementation guidance
Conduct project reviews

More resources
Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal
FastTrack for Dynamics 365
Success By Design
Success By Design training Dynamics 365 Implementation Guide
Dynamics 365 documentation
Sign in to Dynamics 365
Implementation Portal
Article • 04/03/2023

If you're a partner or customer, you can sign in to Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal
with a work account (Azure Active Directory) or a personal Microsoft account.

If you experience technical issues with the Implementation Portal, let us know.

Sign up and sign in

Go to the Implementation Portal, https://aka.ms/D365ImplementationPortal , and
select the option that applies to your situation.

If you're a tenant admin and sign in with your work account, the system recognizes your
Azure Active Directory tenant and connects you to your projects.

Profile
Select your name > Profile in the upper-right corner of the window to update your user
profile and upload a picture.

Next steps
Join or onboard a project. This capability is currently in preview.
Join and onboard projects in Dynamics
365 Implementation Portal
Article • 04/03/2023

Join an existing project or onboard a new one in Dynamics 365 Implementation

Portal .

） Important

The project onboarding capability, which helps you onboard new projects to the
Implementation Portal, is currently in pre-release format. If you want to onboard a
new project to Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal, fill in this form:
https://aka.ms/D365ImplementationPortalOnboarding .

Join a project
The project you want to join and information in your user profile determine how you
join a project.

Join a finance and operations apps project

The FastTrack team creates a project in the Implementation Portal for each finance and
operations apps implementation. Submit a project in the
https://aka.ms/D365ImplementationPortalOnboarding form to add a project to the
portal. If you're a user in a project that's managed in Dynamics 365 Lifecycle Services,
you can join the project in the Implementation Portal.

Join a project linked to your tenant if you're a tenant

administrator
If you're a tenant administrator, you can join any project in the Implementation Portal
that's associated with your tenant.

1. Sign in to the Implementation Portal with your work account.

2. Open the onboarding wizard from the link that you received from Microsoft. This
capability is currently in preview.
 3. In the list of projects that are linked to your tenant, find your project and select
Join.

Create a project

） Important

Only admins can create projects in the Implementation Portal. Users with one of the
following roles on the tenant are admins: Global Administrator, Dynamics 365
Administrator, or Power Platform Administrator.

For projects with finance and operations apps in scope, the FastTrack team creates a
project in the portal for the initial go-live. You can join the project, but you can't create
one for the initial go-live. You can create projects for later rollouts of finance and
operations apps in an implementation. To add a project to the portal, submit the project
in the https://aka.ms/D365ImplementationPortalOnboarding form.

When you create a project in the Implementation Portal, keep the following best
practices in mind:

If you're implementing multiple apps in parallel, all with a similar timeline and go-
live date, and one team is working on the implementation, create one project with
multiple products.

If you're implementing multiple apps in parallel but they have different go-live
timelines, create separate projects and specify the estimated go-live date for each.

Create separate projects for later rollouts with different workloads and timelines
after the initial rollout.

Create a project in the Implementation Portal

Currently, you must submit a request for a new implementation project in the
https://aka.ms/D365ImplementationPortalOnboarding form.

You'll get an email from Microsoft with a link to the project in the Implementation
Portal. The link launches an onboarding wizard that takes you through a few steps to get
access to the project.

You'll need the following information about the project:

Project name (required)

 Email address of another project user (required)
Email address of another project admin (as the project's creator, you automatically
become an admin)
Products in scope
Implementation partner details
Estimated go-live date
Implementation team country/region
Project phase

Users added as other project users receive an email notification that contains a link to
the project in the Implementation Portal.

Next steps
Manage the project.
Manage projects in Dynamics 365
Implementation Portal
Article • 04/03/2023

） Important

Onboarding new projects to the Implementation Portal is currently in pre-release

format. If you want to onboard a new project to Dynamics 365 Implementation
Portal, fill in this form: https://aka.ms/D365ImplementationPortalOnboarding .

If you already have a project in the Implementation Portal, you'll see the new capabilities
in the portal starting in April 2023. The new capabilities include the following list:

Manage project details

Manage project users
Profile projects by selecting products, features, and other characteristics
View implementation guidance tailored for your project profile

1. Sign in to the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal using your work account or
personal Microsoft account.

2. In the left side panel, select Projects.

3. Select the project you want to manage.

Project details
The Summary tab on the project page is where you can:

View and update key details like the project name, implementation partner, project
phase, products in scope, and the country/region where the implementation team
is located.

Create project reviews or open an active project review. This feature isn't available
to all projects yet.

View implementation guidance that's tailored for your project based on the project
profile.
Project users
The Project user tab on the project page lists the project users, people who are part of
the project, and project admins, people who have administrative access to the project.

Project admins can perform the following actions:

Select Add new user to join a project user to the project.

Select Add new admin user join a project admin to the project.

Select Delete (the trashcan icon on the user card) to remove a user or admin from
the project.

Select Set as admin to make a project user an admin.

Project profile
Use the project profile to specify the products and features in the implementation
project, their capabilities, and other characteristics. Implementation guidance is tailored
to your project based on information in the profile.

Update the project profile on the project's Summary tab or the Project Profile tab. The
Summary tab collects details about the features you're implementing or planning to
implement, along with other characteristics. The Project Profile tab gives you an
overview of all the details of the project. You can switch between read-only and editable
views of the Project Profile tab.

 Tip

When you select a product, the page shows the product's capabilities.

Select Done to save your changes. A notification at the top of the page tells you that
implementation guidance will be based on the changes you made. When the message
Guidance is generated successfully appears, select the Implementation guidance tab to
view refreshed recommendations.

Implementation guidance
Implementation guidance aims to bring the right information at the right time for each
implementation project. Every time you update the project details or profile, the
implementation guidance is refreshed.
Implementation guidance is shown in two places on the project page:

The Summary tab shows the most important recommendations.

The Implementation guidance tab shows all implementation guidance for your
project.

You can interact with the guidance in the following ways:

Select a card to open the link or article.

Pin a card to save the link to the Implementation guidance tab.

Select Pinned to view the guidance you pinned.

Dismiss a card.

Select Dismissed to view the articles you dismissed.

The Implementation guidance tab includes the following capabilities:

A product filter helps you find relevant articles if you have multiple products in
scope.

If features are selected in the project profile, you can also filter guidance by
feature.

The Search field searches across all generated guidance using keywords you enter.

Select guidance by type, including TechTalks, training materials, case studies, and
platform-level guidance.

Next steps
If you update the project in the Implementation Portal as you move through the
implementation process, review the new suggested content on the Implementation
guidance tab.

Project reviews can help you get ready for the final go-live readiness review.
Conduct project reviews
Article • 04/03/2023

After your project is set up, you can conduct project reviews. The final project review is
the FastTrack team's go-live readiness review.

All finance and operations apps implementation projects must complete a go-live
readiness review with Microsoft before the production environment can be deployed.
After it reviews the project based on information in the Implementation Portal, the
FastTrack team provides a report that describes potential risks, best practices, and
recommendations for a successful go-live. The review might require up to three
business days for the initial report, plus time for any risk mitigation that's required.

Review status
Reviews can have the following statuses:

Planned: A review is ready for the project team to start providing answers to the
FastTrack team's questions.

Discover: The project team is providing answers to the questions.

In-review: The FastTrack team is reviewing the project team's answers to the
questions, analyzing the findings, and determining recommendations.

Mitigation: The FastTrack team has shared the outcome of the review with the
project team and is waiting for confirmation that the project team has addressed
critical risks and issues.

Complete: The go-live readiness review is complete. Microsoft switches on the

production environment slot in Dynamics 365 Lifecycle Services, and the project
team can deploy the production environment.

Messages
During the go-live readiness review, the FastTrack team may contact admins of projects
that aren't managed by FastTrack. The FastTrack team submits a message for each issue
or risk, and admins can provide answers, on the Messages tab.

The Messages tab is located in two places:

 On the project's Summary tab, the Messages tab lists all messages related to the
project.

A review record's Messages tab lists messages that are related to the review or to
risks and issues that have been identified as part of the review.

７ Note

Messages become available in the portal only after the FastTrack team sends an
initial message. Not all projects will have this feature enabled in the early phases of
the implementation journey.

More resources
Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal
FastTrack for Dynamics 365
Introduction to Success by Design Success By Design training Dynamics 365
Implementation Guide
Dynamics 365 documentation
Learning resources
Article • 04/03/2023 • 3 minutes to read

Microsoft provides self-service learning opportunities for Dynamics 365. This article
points out some of the material.

The Microsoft FastTrack service is intended to ease your project implementation by

offering guidance on best practices and answering your how-to questions from
Microsoft engineering resources, who are committed to making your experience with
Dynamics 365 a great success.

Dynamics 365 Implementation Guide

Based on the experience gained from thousands of real-world customer projects, the
Dynamics 365 Implementation Guide represents the collective effort of the FastTrack
Solution Architect team to document the time-tested Success by Design framework. The
guide includes topic-specific reviews and prescriptive guidance (approaches and
recommended practices) that will enable customers and partners to successfully
architect, build, test, and deploy Dynamics 365 solutions.

The guide covers the entire Dynamics 365 implementation lifecycle while addressing the
mindset, questions, resources, and tools necessary for driving successful Dynamics 365
projects. It contains checklists and case studies for practical application throughout the
implementation journey.

Get started with the implementation guide here, optionally download the guide , and
get started with your Dynamics 365 implementation.

Training
Microsoft hosts free online training on the Microsoft Learn site. For implementors, the
training supports the following tasks:

Learn the benefits of being a part of FastTrack.

Discover the engagement level from the Microsoft team.
Learn about Dynamics 365 Success by Design.

The following table lists some of the learning paths that can help you drive successful
implementations of Dynamics 365 solutions.

Learning path Description

 Learning path Description

Use Success by Design for Dynamics 365 FastTrack for Dynamics 365 is designed to help
solutions customers and partners achieve a successful
deployment of Dynamics 365 solutions. To
deliver this service, solution architects should
use Success by Design. This learning path
discusses Success by Design concepts.

Architect solutions for Dynamics 365 and A Solution Architect is responsible for the
Microsoft Power Platform successful design, implementation, deployment,
and adoption of an overall solution. A Solution
Architect ensures that the solution meets the
customer’s needs now and in the future.

Dynamics 365 solution architecture best This learning path helps customer/partner
practices solution architects to adopt the best practices
and avoid common pitfalls during the
implementation.

Implement finance and operations apps Learn the most important elements and the
best practices to implement finance and
operations apps successfully. From the first step
where you are planning and designing your
project methodology, the use of FastTrack
services, the development strategy, data
management and more, to the best ways for
maintaining and monitoring your operations
after Go-live.

Find a full list of Dynamics 365 learning paths at Microsoft Learn training for Dynamics
365.

TechTalks
TechTalks focus on empowering customers and partners by providing technical depth
and best practices that are specific to the subject areas covered. These talks often
provide an overview of available tooling and features. TechTalks are delivered in the
form of live webcasts that include a question and answer (Q&A) session at the end. They
can also be accessed on-demand and are publicly available. To view all TechTalks and
sign up for future talks, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 FastTrack Tech Talks .

TechTalks provide a basic understanding that will increase the value and efficiency of the
workshops that are offered. The FastTrack team will guide you to relevant TechTalks that
will help you prepare for specific workshops. For a complete inventory of all recorded
TechTalks that are available to stream or download, see FastTrack TechTalks .
 Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Field Service, Marketing and Sales TechTalks
Dynamics 365 Commerce, Finance, Project Operations, and Supply Chain
Management TechTalks

Community
The FastTrack community provides a platform where customers and partners can post
questions and get answers from FastTrack solution architects about best practices and
guidance. A full list of the Dynamics 365 forums can be found at Microsoft Dynamics
365 Community Forums .

More resources
Microsoft Dynamics 365 training overview
Available certifications for different roles in Dynamics 365
Overview of roles in Dynamics 365
Solution architects in Dynamics 365 implementations
Available certifications for different
roles in Dynamics 365
Article • 03/21/2023

Depending on your role, you can learn new skills to boost your productivity and enable
your organization to accomplish more with Microsoft Certifications. This article provides
easy access to descriptions of certifications, both for people that are new to Dynamics
365, and for role-specific certifications across Dynamics 365 apps. Get an overview of all
Microsoft Certifications here.

Get started with Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (ERP)
Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM)

Functional consultants
Dynamics 365 Business Central
Functional Consultant Associate

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

Customer Data Platform Specialty

Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Functional Consultant Associate
Power Platform Solution Architect Expert
Customer Data Platform Specialty

Dynamics 365 Customer Voice

Customer Service Functional Consultant Associate
Marketing Functional Consultant Associate

Dynamics 365 Field Service

Functional Consultant Associate
Customer Data Platform Specialty

Dynamics 365 Finance

Functional Consultant Associate

Dynamics 365 Sales

 Functional Consultant Associate
Power Platform Solution Architect Expert
Customer Data Platform Specialty

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

Functional Consultant Associate
Functional Consultant Expert
Manufacturing Functional Consultant Associate

Solution architects
Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Apps Solution Architect Expert
Power Platform Solution Architect Expert

Business owners and business users

Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM)
Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (ERP)
Power Platform App Maker Associate

Business analysts
Power Platform App Maker Associate

Developers
Customer engagement apps
Power Platform Solution Architect Expert
Power Apps + Dynamics 365 Developer Associate
Power Automate RPA Developer Associate

Finance and operations apps

Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Apps Developer Associate
Power Automate RPA Developer Associate

See also
Overview of roles in Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365 guidance documentation
Dynamics 365 documentation
Dynamics 365 and Power Platform certifications
Browse Certifications and Exams
Overview of roles in Dynamics 365
Article • 04/03/2023

Across Dynamics 365, you're likely to find content that is intended for people with a
specific type of job but might be accessed by people with other jobs. You'll also find
content that is intended for people across their organization, regardless of their job or
role. This article intends to describe the different roles as Microsoft perceives them.

If you can't find a definition that fits you, don't despair! It just means that we've merged
different jobs into a role for simplicity. For example, an article might target a functional
consultant but includes content that is relevant for an accountant or a purchasing
manager. Or an article might target a developer but can be consumed and understood
by a low-code app maker.

Role Description

Customer This role covers two definitions: In guidance and admin content, it's the organization
that buys a license for a Microsoft product. In Dynamics 365 business functionality
content, it's more often that organization's client or consumer.

Partner This role covers two definitions: In guidance and admin content, it's the organization
that sells licenses for Microsoft products. In developer or maker content, it's more
often an independent software vendor, ISV, or app provider.

Functional This role covers people that are employed by a Microsoft reselling partner and who
consultant helps implement Dynamics 365 for a customer. The role covers many different
names and job titles.

Solution This role is employed by Microsoft or any other company and use their technical
architect expertise to integrate and optimize technologies across an organization, tailoring
solutions to meet business needs. Learn more at Solution architects in Dynamics 365.

Business This role covers the person or people with the final say in which Microsoft services
owner their organization will purchase.

Business This role typically applies to a person who is employed by the customer. The role
analyst covers many different names and job titles.

Developer Typically a software engineer, but other profiles can also consume and understand
the content. Their employer can be either a partner or the customer.

Internal This role covers people that are employed by the organization that uses Dynamics
admin 365 as system administrators or similar jobs. They must approve partner access to
their organization's environments, for example.

Delegated This role covers people that are employed by a Microsoft reselling partner and are
admin assigned granular delegated admin privileges to their customer's tenants.
Stakeholders
In guidance content, you will also find articles, such as business processes, that are
intended for a specific group of stakeholders, meaning people with different titles and
jobs but a professional interest in certain departments or business areas and how
Dynamics 365 is configured in those areas. The following table lists the terms we use for
these people.

Term Examples

Accounts payable Accounts payable manager

stakeholders

Accounts receivable Accounts receivable manager, Credit and collections manager, Revenue
stakeholders recognition manager

Treasury Treasurer, Cash manager, Controller

stakeholders

Finance CFO, Controller, Accounting manager

stakeholders

Sales stakeholders VP of sales, Sales Directors, General Managers

Purchasing Director of Procurement, Purchasing Manager, Buyers

stakeholders

Production Production executive, Production planner, Production manager,

stakeholders Manufacturing manager, Research and development manager

Operations COO, Risk managers, Fraud managers

stakeholders

Retail store Store manager, General manager, District manager

operations
stakeholders

Merchandising Merchandising manager

stakeholders

Marketing CMO, Marketing executive, Marketing manager

stakeholders

Warehouse Warehouse manager, Shift manager

stakeholders

Human resource CPO, HR executive, Director or human resources, Learning manager,

stakeholders Compensation manager, Benefits manager
 Term Examples

Project/Service Project directors, Project managers, Engagement managers, Delivery

stakeholders managers

Customer service Call center manager, Customer service manager, Case managers
stakeholders

Field service Field supervisors, Fleet managers

stakeholders

IT stakeholders CIO, Director IT, ERP Manager, Technology managers

Administrative System admin, Global admin

stakeholders

See also
Available certifications for different roles in Dynamics 365
Solution architects in Dynamics 365
Common terms and definitions
Dynamics 365 guidance documentation
Solution architects in Dynamics 365
implementations
Article • 04/03/2023

A solution architect is responsible for the successful design, implementation,

deployment, and adoption of an overall solution. A solution architect makes sure that
the solution meets the organization’s needs now and in the future.

Solutions architects use their technical expertise to integrate and optimize technologies
across an organization, tailoring solutions to meet developer and business needs.
Specifically for Dynamics 365, solution architects tend to specialize in scenarios within
the following areas:

Customer engagement
Finance and operations
Core platform

They help organizations find the right configuration of services from Microsoft and
third-party providers to suit that organization's needs.

For example, a solution architect is an expert on warehouse processes, while another is

an expert on continuous implementation/continuous deployment (CI/CD) processes
with Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions.

In this example, both solution architects might work for Microsoft. Alternatively, one
works for a customer of Microsoft's, and they collaborate to get the solution right for
that Microsoft customer.

If you're already a solution architect and familiar with Dynamics 365, then stop reading
here, and go on with your work. But if you're considering becoming a solution architect,
then do continue.

Get started
Maybe you're an IT professional who wants to grow skills in cloud technologies. Maybe
you've worked with Dynamics AX for years, and your organization wants to migrate to
Dynamics 365. Maybe you're exploring options to make the new solution right for your
organization. Or you're interested in helping organizations find a solution that's right for
them now and in the years to come.
Get the skills to build your career as a successful solutions architect with Microsoft
Learn: Browse all Microsoft Learn training paths for solution architects

Specifically for Dynamics 365 implementations, the FastTrack program includes solution
architects. They use the Success by Design framework to effectively engage with their
customers and partners in a timely and consistent manner to help them successfully
onboard onto the Dynamics 365 platform.

Find training
Microsoft provides the following online learning paths for Dynamics 365 solution
architects:

Architect solutions for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform

Dynamics 365 solution architecture best practices
Use Lifecycle Services to design and plan an implementation of finance and
operations apps
Migrate data and go live with finance and operations apps
Implement finance and operations apps
Use Success by Design for Dynamics 365 solutions
Configure apps in finance and operations

Browse all available learning paths that are suited for solution architects across
Microsoft's apps, services, and platforms here.

Watch TechTalks
FastTrack includes TechTalks that focus on empowering customers and partners by
providing technical depth and best practices that are specific to the subject areas
covered. These talks often provide an overview of available tooling and features.
TechTalks provide a basic understanding that will increase the value and efficiency of the
workshops that are offered. The FastTrack team will guide you to relevant TechTalks that
will help you prepare for specific workshops. For a complete inventory of all recorded
TechTalks that are available to stream or download, see FastTrack TechTalks .

Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Field Service, Marketing and Sales TechTalks
Dynamics 365 Commerce, Finance, Project Operations, and Supply Chain
Management TechTalks

See also
Available certifications for different roles in Dynamics 365
Frequently asked questions
Article • 01/26/2023 • 2 minutes to read

This article answers commonly asked questions about Dynamics 365 FastTrack.

What is the cost to participate?

There is no cost from Microsoft for the FastTrack for Dynamics 365 program. However,
you'll have to cover the cost of partner-delivered services.

What are the requirements for participating?

You'll need to meet the eligibility criteria and be nominated by your Microsoft account
team or partner.

How is the program delivered, and what is the

standard engagement length?
The program is delivered jointly by Microsoft engineering and a qualified
implementation partner. Using a framework called Success by Design, the program
provides prescriptive guidance, workshops, and readiness reviews for designing,
building, and deploying a Dynamics 365 solution. The engagement time is generally 9 to
18 months but varies based on your needs.

In which markets and languages is it available?

The program is available in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East,
Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region, and is delivered in English. Select program materials
are available in more than 20 languages.

How is the FastTrack program different from

Microsoft Consulting Services?
Microsoft Consulting Services provides services via paid engagements. FastTrack for
Dynamics 365 is a no-cost advisory service that’s delivered in conjunction with a
qualified implementation partner. The program is focused on helping customers
accelerate Dynamics 365 implementations and go live with confidence.
What can I expect from the program?
You'll get access to self-serve resources, workshops, and checkpoints, such as solution
blueprint and go-live readiness reviews, to accelerate your Dynamics 365
implementations and mitigate risk.
 Dynamics 365 guidance documentation
Find proven guidance and best practices to help you implement and manage business solutions
with Dynamics 365 apps.

GET STARTED W H AT ' S N E W

Get started What's new

DEPLOY GET STARTED

Success by design Adoption

Get started Implement Administer

Introduction to guidance Implementation guidance Overview
Roles in Dynamics 365 Introduction to Success by BI, reporting, and analytics
Design
Find training Reporting and analytics
Implement cloud solutions strategy
Introduction to Success by
Design Business process guides Data management
Application life
management
Implementation Portal

Business process guides

This section provides an overview of business processes that Dynamics 365 supports.
Get started Acquire to dispose Case to resolution
Ｙ Overview ｅ Introduction ｅ Introduction
ｐ About the business process ｐ End-to-end business ｐ End-to-end business
guides process process
ｐ Business processes, steps, ｅ Business process areas ｅ Business process areas
and how to find things

Forecast to plan Hire to retire Inventory to deliver

ｅ Introduction ｅ Introduction ｅ Introduction
ｐ End-to-end business ｐ End-to-end business ｐ End-to-end business
process process process
ｅ Business process areas ｅ Business process areas ｅ Business process areas
ｆ Forecast demand business
process

Order to cash Plan to produce Product and service

lifecycle management
ｅ Introduction ｅ Introduction
ｐ End-to-end business ｐ End-to-end business ｅ Introduction
process process ｐ End-to-end business
ｅ Business process areas ｅ Business process areas process

ｅ Monitor customer credit ｅ Business process areas

and collections
ｐ Patterns

Procure to pay Project to profit Prospect to quote

ｅ Introduction ｅ Introduction ｅ Introduction
ｅ Business process areas ｅ Business process areas ｐ End-to-end business
process
ｅ Business process areas

Record to report Service to cash

ｅ Introduction ｐ Introduction
ｐ End-to-end business ｐ End-to-end business
process process
ｅ Business process areas ｅ Business process areas
Administration guide
This section provides an overview of processes that helps admins manage Dynamics 365 solutions.

Get started Manage Plan for security

ｅ Implementation portal ｐ Administrator experience ｅ Security strategy
and the Power Platform
ｐ Organizational strategy ｐ Security controls
admin center
ｐ Day one priorities
ｐ Tenant-level analytics
(Power Platform) ｐ Checklist
ｐ Mobile apps (Sales)
ｐ Data management and
data entities (finance and
operations apps)

Implementation guide
We're adding more and more content that can help admins prepare to apply Dynamics 365 to their
organization.

Strategize Initiate Implement

ｅ Dynamics 365 ｐ Solution architecture ｐ Business intelligence,
implementation guidance design pillars reporting, and analytics
ｐ Introduction to Success by ｐ Process-focused solutions ｐ Testing strategy
Design ｐ Project governance
ｐ Implementing cloud
solutions
ｐ Drive app value
ｐ Implementation strategy

Prepare Operate
ｐ Prepare for go-live ｐ Service the solution
ｐ Training strategy ｐ Transition to support
Documentation and training
Navigate to documentation for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform apps and components.

Dynamics 365 Power Platform Power Platform guidance

documentation documentation Provides information to help
Hub page with links to Analyze data, build solutions, you create and implement the
documentation and training automate processes, and business and technology
for each app create virtual agents strategies necessary for your…

Dynamics 365 training Troubleshooting guide for Privacy and personal data
Find free e-learning content Dynamics 365 for Microsoft Dynamics
from Microsoft here Landing page with links to 365
content for troubleshooting Landing page for compliance
and answers to frequently and Dynamics 365
asked questions across…