Managing miscellaneous tasks and completing them on time is hard. By the time you realize it, your schedule will be all messed up with incomplete tasks. All tasks would have something to add, piling up your to-do list.
To manage your day successfully, you must find a tool that connects well with your CRM, where you manage all the projects.
Calendar can be used for project management. For that, you need a plugin that integrates with the Dynamics 365 CRM and adds all the calendar functionality within the CRM.
If you integrate the right tool with your CRM, you will be able to:
- ● Manage projects from calendar
- ● Use different views to visualize better
- ● Track employee activity
- ● Share calendar with colleagues
- ● Color code different activities
All of these can be done with two types of calendars: entity calendar and resource calendar.
First, let us learn more about entity calendars.
Entity Calendar
Entity calendar allows users to visualize any Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM entity on the calendar. You can view all the CRM projects and all the activities created so far under that project. When you hover over any activity, it will show other important information like the start date, end date, resource assigned to it, and much more.
Mostly, calendars come with different views like TopDown, Gantt, Agenda, and Timeline view, for users to select the one that works best for them. For example, the Gantt view is perfect when managing projects. It shows all the activities clearly and is easy to visualize.
Moreover, you can color code activities as well. For example, if you color code leaves as green, tasks as orange, birthdays as blue, and phone calls as yellow, it becomes easy to find all the greens or yellows from the calendar and just check whether there are any absent resources or if you have any scheduled phone calls. You get all this information without any clicks by just having a look at your calendar. Although it can filter different activities, colors help to differentiate while visualizing multiple activities.
Talking about filters, there are other filter options to find ongoing, completed, or canceled tasks. Thus, if you want to see only the completed tasks of the project, you can filter it and have only completed tasks on the calendar.
Here, we visualized the calendar keeping in mind the CRM entities. But if you want to track resource productivity, you will need a resource calendar.
Resource Calendar
Resource calendars help you visualize the resources associated with different projects or activities. All you have to do is filter the user name, team, or business unit.
The calendar views only those activities that are assigned to the selected resource. Again, you will have different types of views, choose the one that you like.
Priority of tasks, color coding, task status, and types of activities are some of the filters available in the calendar that is designed to incorporate project management.
Are these two different calendars?
Not exactly. Yes, these calendars focus on different views but are a part of one calendar plugin.
When you integrate Calendar 365 with your Dynamics 365 CRM, you get access to three different types of calendars. Resource, Entity and Customer calendar. As the name suggests, resource calendar keeps resources in the center and is designed to help you track resource activities, while the entity calendar allows you to choose any entity. Whether you use it for project management, or conference room booking in the office, or to view booked rooms in your hotel, the entity calendar fits all kinds of businesses. All fields are customizable. The customer calendar focuses on customers and helps you visualize all the activities done for that particular customer.
Why Dynamics 365 calendar plugin is better than other standalone calendar apps
When a CRM user uses a standalone calendar app for schedule management, they have to update the calendar and CRM after a task is completed. This is a tedious task, and if forgotten can create confusion for everyone viewing it.
However, there are some calendar apps that allow users to integrate CRM with it. In this case, you have to choose a premium plan to avail this functionality. The app uses other third-party extensions like Zapier to integrate CRM.
This adds up costs. Also, it limits customization options for users.
But when you use a Dynamics 365 calendar plugin, it directly integrates with your Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM.
So it eliminates the need to pay extra and takes a long route to integrate the CRM. Here are some more features, like appointment scheduling to make your day more productive. These features are a must for all-in-one CRM for best utilizing the app.
1. Meeting Links and Lead Qualification Forms
Traditionally, the sales team manually organized appointments and distributed them among team members.
However, treating all appointments equally can result in the loss of potential customers. It is crucial to quickly identify high-value leads by gathering basic information about them, such as their industry, company size, and location.
To effectively qualify leads and assign them to the appropriate team members, you need to implement forms that capture this essential information. These forms should be simple, concise and only request basic details.
Your calendar should include a feature that asks relevant questions and gathers basic information before providing the booking link. Behind the scenes, the system can automatically redirect the leads to the appropriate person based on industry type and company size.
To ensure efficiency, avoid lengthy forms. Focus on asking only relevant questions, allowing prospects to complete the form within a minute. Once the meeting link, time, and date are shared, you can display a "Thank you" message to acknowledge their submission.
2. Finalizing Team Meeting Times through Polls
To arrange a team meeting that accommodates participants in different time zones can be challenging. Manually finding a suitable time that works for everyone can be difficult.
Organizations should avoid having managers or meeting schedulers spend valuable time searching for an ideal meeting time. Instead, calendars should incorporate a polling system.
By asking invitees for their preferred meeting times, rather than assuming and subsequently rescheduling, the meeting organizer can share a meeting poll containing multiple time slots. The finalized meeting time will be based on the slot agreed upon by all participants.
In case participants are in different time zones, the calendar should automatically adjust the meeting time to their respective time zones. Meeting polls are particularly useful when scheduling one-time meetings and trying to identify a common time that works for all invitees.
This polling feature can be integrated into meeting scheduling. When someone initiates a meeting, they can choose whether to conduct a poll or not. If they opt for a poll, the meeting can be scheduled once all invitees have selected their preferred time slots and the results are available.
3. Integration with Video Calling Apps
Scheduling of meetings manually leaves room for potential errors, such as forgetting to include essential details. When it comes to virtual meetings, organizations commonly utilize video calling apps like Zoom.
To address the issue of forgetting to add a video meeting link after scheduling, the calendar must integrate with video calling applications. It should automatically generate a video conference link for the scheduled event. Any changes or updates to the meeting, including cancellations or rescheduling, should be instantly reflected.
When scheduling a meeting, the user should be able to select the video calling platform they intend to use. Consequently, the calendar will automatically include the meeting link in the event description, ensuring all invitees receive the necessary details along with the invitation.
4. Restricting Access to General Tasks/Events
Managers strive to ensure that standardized best practices are followed by everyone in the team. To facilitate this, they often document procedures and associated tasks.
To prevent tampering with crucial details or misinformation among team members, these guidelines can be shared with all team members. Individuals can update their progress on the tasks while keeping the managers informed.
However, it is common to find instances where team members deviate from established processes.
To address this, organizations can implement event locking, allowing them to share event details with all employees while preventing unauthorized modifications. Only the event owner has the authority to make changes.
Meeting descriptions, notification details, and invitee questions can all be locked, particularly for the sales team that regularly interacts with clients.
5. Distribution of Meetings
As mentioned earlier, automating appointment distribution without proper insight can result in some team members receiving more meetings while others receive fewer. Such an uneven distribution of work is unfair.
To ensure a fair workload distribution, calendars should track the number of meetings assigned to each team member. If someone has already been assigned a higher number of meetings, they should not receive any more until other team members catch up to their workload.
By balancing the workload among team members, everyone can be treated equally, avoiding situations where individuals are overburdened with tasks. This tracking process can be automated, eliminating the need for manual assignment or calculation. Administrators can also adjust the tasks assigned to the sales team based on priorities.
Conclusion
Implementing features like this can help your team boost productivity. Consider these features while looking for a calendar to schedule better. For Dynamics 365 CRM users, a plugin sounds like the best idea.
