When your business depends on you to make informed strategic, tactical, and operational decisions, being able to gain actionable insights from your fraud protection system is crucial. Data should drive everything from reconfiguring rules to targeting new fraud vectors, manually reviewing transactions, presenting at monthly business meetings, or even monitoring and troubleshooting technical issues.

Built on an extensive data platform, Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection enables you to develop a toolkit with custom reports and applications that help you establish a robust fraud management strategy while providing ongoing insights into your business.

Detecting and understanding fraud

Minimizing fraud begins with understanding fraud by identifying trends and patterns. Reporting helps you do just that by providing a historical view of fraud volume for your business. A customized fraud tracker is one example of a report that you can add to your fraud protection toolkit. These types of reports enable analysts to filter historical data and view score distributions by dimensions (for example, country or region, payment instrument type, or product category) to highlight high-risk segments. These reports can then be used to configure new or existing rules to target those events.

Tracking and raising awareness of high-level fraud trends also provides valuable insight for business planning. Reports used for monthly business reviews can be used to drive conversations around monthly targets, how your fraud protection system is performing, areas for improvement, and plans for upcoming product or process changes that could impact fraud rates.

Defining the analytics that matter for your business is imperative. Measuring success and understanding the impact, scale, fraud pressure, and efficacy of your systems will play a large role in influencing your business strategies.

Managing services and operations

Fraud operations often require multiple touchpoints for members within the organization to either review, monitor, or act on events occurring across various systems. Often businesses choose to develop custom applications to cover these overarching use cases. They will weigh the cost of maintaining these custom applications with the potential improvement in operational efficiency.

For example, if you have an IT organization that manages the service health of multiple business applications, it may be valuable to create a single application to monitor and alert on the health of them all. Sending API request times and errors for your fraud protection solution within the context of all of the other service notifications on a single application would streamline the process altogether. Adding these custom applications to your fraud protection toolkit will not only improve the health of your risk management solutions but also your business all-up.

How Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection can help

Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection provides in-app reporting through scorecards, monitoring dashboards, and a virtual fraud analyst. In addition, understanding the power of joining data across multiple business systems and each business’ unique reporting needs, we have also provided a platform to easily extract and manipulate the data available within Fraud Protection.

Event tracing provides both a real-time and bulk data egress mechanism to send data to your own Azure Event Hubs or Azure Blob Storage locations. By subscribing to events to track transactions, portal actions, or API performance through our Event Tracing page, you can easily analyze your service, extract insights, and develop custom reports by using Azure Stream Analytics or Logic Apps and Dataverse. Here you can join to other datasets available within your tenant to create a rich set of real-time reports such as audit logs, fraud trackers, or monthly business reports.

You can also utilize the data available in Event Tracing to create custom mobile or desktop applications to target unique use cases, which support your business with the help of Power Apps. Utilize Microsoft’s low-code app development platform to create fraud investigation tools for your support agents, latency monitoring applications, and more.

Next steps

Developing a well-rounded fraud protection toolkit that is customized for your business needs will improve your fraud management strategy. The use of custom reports and applications to address unique needs for your business is a great way to extend existing business processes while incorporating insights from your fraud protection solution. Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection and the event tracing capability can provide the data platform to easily enable your business to configure these new experiences.

Get started today with Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection

Configure event tracing

Get started with sample reports

Get started with sample apps

The post Do you monitor the pulse of your fraud protection operations? appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The pandemic has profoundly impacted educators across the world. Video calling technology has enabled millions of classes to continue at a distance but, it has shortcomings when it comes to teaching hands-on skills. This fall, the School of Nursing at the University of Michigan turned to mixed reality and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides for an alternative solution to these new challenges.

Dynamics 365 Guides is a mixed reality application for Microsoft HoloLens that allows users to create step-by-step instructions in 3D. Guide authors use text, images, videos, and holographic content to help workers learn complex physical procedures.

“Once we were introduced to the Microsoft HoloLens () we learned about Dynamics 365 Guides, and it was pretty exciting because we did realize that we could use the guides to create training tools to teach the nursing students how to do these necessary, rudimentary, required skills, and procedures that they have to do in order to move to the next level and go out and practice.”Melissa Bathish, clinical assistant professor and center co-director and undergraduate faculty lead

Over the past few months, the Dynamics 365 Guides product development team collaborated with the School of Nursing to define a pilot to test how this new medium can help deliver a competency-based nursing curriculum. The aim is to create a program that standardizes the education students receive for each procedure, gives flexibility to both faculty and students by enabling the latter to be more independent in their learning, and by removing the location restrictions of in-person training.

Traditionally, students practice procedures on mannequins that resemble the human body and provide the haptic feedback of performing certain actions. Often, they struggle because the procedures can be very complex, with lots of steps and things to take care of simultaneously.

With Dynamics 365 Guides, students can go through a procedure one step at a time or as many times as they need. HoloLens shows them a holographic instruction card with directions overlaid in their space. Because the interface is hands free, they can perform the procedures on the mannequin at the same time and then move on to the next step when they are ready. Each step tells them what to do with a few lines of text, how to do the next step with videos or pictures, and where to do it with 3D objects placed in their space.

“We like the flexibility; we like that they can go as slow or as fast as they want through a guide depending on how well they know the procedure.”Deborah Lee, clinical assistant professor, and co-director and graduate faculty lead

Another benefit of the technology is that a student can perform a procedure from anywhere in the world and a faculty member can call in and see them do it through their HoloLens’ camera. This increases flexibility and enables evaluations to be done without location restrictions.

Over the next year, the School of Nursing will continue to develop more guides for more advanced procedures, train more people to author them, and collaborate with the Medical School on procedures that both medical residents and advanced nursing practitioners need to master.

Learn more

Dynamics 365 Guides enables organizations to enhance learning and standardize processes, reduce errors, and accelerate time to value with holographic step-by-step instructions and process insights. Questions? Contact your Microsoft sales representative to learn more about Dynamics 365 Guides.

The post How Dynamics 365 Guides is transforming remote nursing education appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Preview) app for Windows is optimized to help your team stay productive whether they’re connected or working offline.

The app provides your salespeople, agents, and supervisors with tools they need to track their tasks, arrive prepared for appointments, take notes, and access customer records.

It is seamless to deploy because employees can install the app themselves from the Microsoft Store, and then with one sign-in access all the Dynamics 365 apps enabled for your organization, with no additional configuration.

If you want to customize the app, you can tailor it to meet your business requirements using the Microsoft Power Apps app designer and extensibility points, and configure it to work offline. The seamless setup experience enables you configure the app once, and then deploy it everywhere on iOS, Android, or Windows devices.

Key capabilities

The Dynamics 365 (Preview) app for Windows delivers these key capabilities:

• A personalized action hub to help users get to common tasks, suggestions, and records quickly
• Offline access with synchronization, so users can be productive on the go
• Access records from an easy-to-use home page
• Track progress for key performance indicators visually with charts
• Access personalized views of lists and grids so that users see the data most important to them

We’ll continue to improve the app, adding features that are currently available in the iOS and Android mobile versions including:

• Ability to capture video, photo, and audio in the timeline when adding notes
• GPS geolocation
• Integrated barcode scanner

Next steps and continued learning

To learn more about the Dynamics 365 (Preview) app for Windows, check out the documentation for more details on the capabilities, setup process, and to get the link to install the app.

We’d like to hear from you. Please send us your feedback.

The post Dynamics 365 (Preview) app for Windows comes with offline access appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

While the move to e-commerce in the retail industry has been underway for years, the onset of the pandemic last year accelerated the transition as retailers needed to quickly pivot to optimize for online sales in order to adapt. With the help of Microsoft partners, many retail customers around the world were able to make the shift to digital sales using Microsoft Dynamics 365.

While their decision to evolve their online presence pre-dates the pandemic, iconic British footwear brand Dr. Martens is a good example of a retail customer that has benefitted from transitioning to Dynamics 365 with help from Microsoft partner Hitachi Solutions.

Formed in 1947, Dr. Martens now has more than 100 stores globally, with ambitious plans for retail and e-commerce growth. Recognizing the need to adapt to suit the needs of the twenty-first century consumer, the brand embarked on “Project Reboot: Join the Revolution” to replace its legacy applications with Microsoft Dynamics 365.

“It was recognized that we needed a major transformation project to replace all our legacy applications to give us the tools to be able to grow the business. With ambitious growth plans, we needed a solution that could support our business now, and into the future.”Jackie Reid, Program Lead for Project Reboot

Finding the right partner

According to Reid, Dr. Martens selected Dynamics 365 because it gave the company an end-to-end solution across all areas of the business. Once they had decided to use Dynamics 365, their next step was to choose a Microsoft partner to help them implement the solution. They reached out to United Kingdom based branch of the global consultancy, Hitachi Solutions. One of the key project stakeholders at Dr. Martens had worked with them at a previous retailer and recommended their expertise.

A Microsoft Gold Partner, Hitachi Solutions has helped customers implement Dynamics 365 solutions since 2012. The company has won five global Microsoft Partner of the Year awards and has been a member of the elite Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle for 17 years.

“Dr. Martens recognized that this was not just an IT project, but a business transformation project,” Reid said. “It was really important for us to select the right caliber of partner with the same sort of ambitious vision to help us drive this project to successful deployment. Hitachi came with that capability. They also had good practice and methodology to deliver this project on schedule and within budget.“

George Efthimiou, Account Director at Hitachi Solutions, said that Dr. Martens had several goals they were looking to accomplish through Project Reboot.“Dr. Martens wanted to create an integrated and engaging digital strategy to support their growth, provide a true multi-channel business model, invest faster in existing stores, become more efficient, and increase their store presence globally,“ said Efthimiou.

Expertise inspires confidence

To help them achieve these goals, the Hitachi team worked with Dr. Martens to define, design, and build a core solution using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. Then, Hitachi developed an architecture to support mission-critical integrations to e-commerce, third-party logistics, and warehouse management. So far, Hitachi Solutions has helped Dr. Martens roll out the solution to over 900 users throughout the organization.

Andrew Donnell, Project Reboot Solution Architect at Dr. Martens, said Hitachi’s global expertise in retail, wholesale, and distribution, combined with extensive experience across Dynamics 365, were an important combination.

“We had a really great set of functional consultants from Hitachi, and a really great set of developers. What they brought to the table is expertise in Dynamics 365, and also expertise in the retail and wholesale industry, which is a really key thing, because we’d be confident that if we gave them a set of requirements, they would understand our needs and come up with the best options for Dr. Martens. We attribute a lot of the success of this project to them.”Andrew Donnell, Project Reboot Solution Architect, Dr. Martens

Retail benefits contribute to growth

The Dr. Martens team is particularly excited about some of the retail-specific aspects of Dynamics 365. “The retail benefits of Dynamics 365 are huge,” Reid said. “We’ve implemented virtual warehouses, giving us visibility of stock as a whole but also stock per channel. This, combined with our new automated overnight store replenishment capability, means we’re able to get the right products to the right stores in a very short lead time. This is directly contributing to our growth and helping all teams to meet business targets.”

Reid said another significant benefit of the move to Dynamics 365 is the access to and visibility of business data. “We couldn’t do that on our legacy applicationsour analysts would spend all their time creating reports and not enough time analyzing them. Now, we’re able to leverage Microsoft Power BI, Power Pivot, and self-service to create accurate reporting in an instant. As a result, we’re able to ensure the accuracy of our information to make much more informed business decisions.”

Now that Dr. Martens is equipped with the tools they need for growth, Reid is optimistic about the future. “Dynamics 365 gives us a globally capable solution to be able to grow the business,” she said. “And with a turnover of 500 million, we now have the tools, the platform, and the capacity to grow our business threefold over the next five to 10 years. And we’re very excited about that.”

Learn more

Dr. Martens’ story is just one example of how Microsoft partners are helping retail customers use Dynamics 365 to grow their businesses. Read additional details about how Dr. Martens embarked on “Project Reboot: Join the Revolution” to replace all its legacy applications with Dynamics 365.

You can also learn how to optimize your financial operations with Dynamics 365 Finance, accelerate time to market with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, and deliver unified, personalized shopping experiences with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce.

Also, browse more winning formulas in our gallery of customer stories, and reach out to learn how Dynamics 365 can help solve your toughest business problems.

The post Hitachi Solutions helps Dr. Martens reboot their business appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

It’s no secret that fully embracing digital sales experiences is increasingly necessary to stay in the sales game. By 2025, this shift will be business as usual. What does this mean for sales organizations? Gartner analysts breaks it down in a recent trend insight report, “The Future of Sales in 2025: Why B2B Sales Needs a Digital-First Approach.”

• 80 percent of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels. Sales teams will need to merge their sales processes, apps, data, and analytics into a single operational practice that will scale and won’t require weeks of training.
• 60 percent of B2B sales organizations will transition from conventional wisdom and intuition-based selling to data-driven selling, according to the “Future of Sales 2025: Data-Driven B2B Selling to Drive Digital Commerce.”
• As buyers become savvier and want less frequent but more informed interaction with sales reps, sellers must figure out how to show up at the right time to help buyers make sense of the research they’ve done.

The right time to reach out

As buyers try to go at it alone, they are often overwhelmed by the volume of trustworthy information available, and over half of buyers have found supplier information can contradict trustworthy sources. Buyers dealing with this kind of complexity often become uncertain in their decision, making them less likely to make a purchasing decision at all. Now is the time for sellers to add guidance and help customers make sense of the research and what’s best for their company. However, most organizations lack the automation, AI augmentation, and digital scalability to deliver the experience buyers seek. By successfully undergoing a digital transformation, organizations should empower human sellers to deliver the right information, at the right time.

Introducing sales accelerator for tailored experiences

For many sales teams, implementing the technology and human skills to keep up with the evolving demands of digitally savvy customers may seem like a stretch, even for 2025. That’s why we’re introducing sales accelerator, a digital selling capability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales. Sales accelerator helps sellers work faster and smarter with a prioritized work list of the next best lead or opportunity, allowing them to engage through their customers’ preferred channel with integrated email, phone dialer, and a Microsoft Teams channel (coming soon). Sellers are equipped with timely, AI-driven insights and recommendations based on customer events and needs, so sales teams know when to offer customer guidance.

“Sales accelerator has provided our agents with a single location to prioritize and conduct their important work every day. Along with sequences we’ve been able to keep the agents more organized and focused on communicating with people interested in staying at our hotels.”

“We receive a tremendous amount of leads daily and the sales accelerator provides a platform for our agents to prioritize and focus on selling without scrolling through a long list of leads to find out what’s next. This along with the addition of sequences has allowed us to create a simple sales cadence that our agents can follow to increase conversion. Once a lead is assigned all of the work is published to the sales accelerator for the agent to follow. They simply log in and start selling,”Brian Miller, Director of Sales for Brittain Resorts and Hotels.

Prioritizing your day and scaling up

As fewer sellers are dealing with a greater number of customers, it can be difficult to determine whom to engage with, or the next best task. With sales accelerator, all actions and activities that need to happen that day are prioritized and organized in a work queue. The seller has flexibility to sort and filter based on key attributes such as scoring, urgency and source. Each record presents the next best action based on organizational sales sequences set up by the seller or their sales manager.

As sellers run through an extensive list of leads, they often struggle to gain a holistic view, including communications history, customer needs, and specific circumstances. This view is necessary for crafting the most relevant pitch to the customer, achieving a positive outcome.

A powerful feature of sales accelerator is the data-driven context it gives sellers for each potential customer’s journey. Without navigating away from their screen, sellers benefit from a comprehensive view that captures and surfaces customer data, past and present activities, and insights into one place to help craft the right message at the right time. Trigger events like a customer doing research on a seller’s site, requesting a white paper, or responding positively to a call or email can prompt suggested actions the seller might take to best nurture the sale.

“The new sales accelerator capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales has been a game changer. Using My Work List and Up Next widget in conjunction with Sequences in the new sales accelerator help our reps stay focused and prioritized so they always know the next most important task to complete.”Lowell Vande Kamp, CIO and Chief of Staff at Synergis Education

Sales accelerator can make digital scalability a reality. Learn more about sales accelerator and Microsoft Dynamics Sales.

Watch a demo or take a guided tour to see how Dynamics 365 Sales can empower your sellers with actionable insights.

For more technical details, check out our blog, “Enable digital selling with the sales accelerator in Dynamics 365 Sales.”

The post Sales accelerator brings digital scalability within reach appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.