 | Time to read: About 5-7 minutes |
 | Intended for: All users at any stage in your Office 365 implementation. Whether you’re just doing some initial research or have already implemented it at your organization. |
 | Key takeaway: Build trusted customer relationships by delivering outstanding project experiences. Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation empowers you to deliver profitable projects on time and within budget while increasing employee productivity. |
Based on the demand from organizations that need their project-based services automated to help the Project Managers, Portfolio Managers and the financial professionals within their companies, Microsoft has released a new product call Project Service Automation (PSA).
This new product will bring together the best-in-breed capabilities of Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Project in an integrated way that will help organizations manage sales, pricing, planning, resource management and project economics in a single integrated solution.
PSA was first released in 2016 as part of the Customer Engagement suite for Dynamics 365 and has seen consistent growth over the past four years. The PSA application provides many end-to-end scenarios for service companies or departments that support the business flow that was provided by Microsoft.
Microsoft is focused on providing solutions for its clients that help them deliver successful and profitable projects, and with the integration of Dynamics 365 and the established tool of choice for Project Managers being Microsoft Project, they have provided clients the opportunity to realize a view of their projects from inception to completion.
As part of this solution, Microsoft took advantage of the cloud, leveraging Azure and Common Data Services (CDS) to release it first release in Q3 of 2019 with the roadmap indicating that it will be Microsoft’s primary project management service in the future.
A deeper look
Taking a deeper look at some of the changes coming in Q1 of 2020, Microsoft will be working to replace PSA’s Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Gantt, and task scheduling capabilities with the new project service experience. This will take a proven tool in Microsoft Project and combine its features with those in PSA, giving users a truly unique and seamless experience. This experience will represent the next chapter of PSA and Microsoft project.
Over the past several years, RBA has been helping clients implement Microsoft Project Server and more recently Project Online, but with this new PSA module for Dynamics, RBA can help our clients drive meaningful change into their Project and Programs methodologies while demonstrating a quick ROI, by controlling resources, costs, and customer interactions all in a single solution.
End-to-End Project Services from PSA
Additional Benefits of PSA
- Earn customer trust by ensuring project deliverables reflect the terms of the contract, approved work, and expenses.
- Visualize accurate cost, effort, and revenue, and achieve predictable project delivery using robust project planning capabilities including native Microsoft Project integration.
- Provide project managers with intuitive dashboards to review, monitor, and approve all costs and time impacting their projects.
- See things from the customer’s perspective. Survey, measure, and act on customer feedback by bringing your customer data together with survey insights from Microsoft Forms Pro—included with Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation.
- Streamline scheduling with intelligent and relevant skills-based assignments and real-time visibility to resources using a unified scheduling engine.
- Accurately measure utilization and make intelligent decisions to get the most out of billable resources by using real‑time dashboards.
- Empower consultants and sub-contractors to update their skills profile and apply directly for relevant projects.
- Prioritize deals based on a unified sales management dashboard that brings together product and project‑based opportunities.
- Engage directly with customers on quotes, project scope, and resource requirements through a secure portal.
- Ensure seamless sales collaboration by creating project contracts, tracking labor rates, and generating statements of work directly within Dynamics 365 Sales.