Dynasys Workflow for Business Central — Documentation

Overview

Dynasys Workflow tracks customer requests and their production orders through your departments, from the first contact to shipment, inside Business Central.

• Sales projects — a customer request, tracked from the first contact. Sales orders are linked to it when they exist; a project can have several.
• Production orders — tracked on their own board and linked to their sales order, project and parent production order automatically.
• Stages — a chain of steps, each owned by a department, set up in templates.
• Tasks — the work inside a stage, with a responsible person, co-workers, durations and dependencies.
• Events — releasing, finishing and posting in Business Central complete stages by themselves.
• Gates — optional rules that warn about or block releasing, finishing or posting.
• Everything is stored in Business Central; the app is available in English, Turkish and German and follows each user's Business Central language.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central version 23 (2023 release wave 2) or later, online or on-premises.
• Business Central users with a full user licence (Essentials or Premium). Team Member licences cannot create projects or work on tasks.
• To install: the Business Central administrator role (or the Extension Management permission).
• For e-mail notifications: an e-mail account set up in Business Central and a running job queue.
• On-premises, for links in e-mails: the server's public web client address configured.

Installation

Initial setup

1. 1
   Permissions. Assign Dynasys Workflow - Admin to the people who set the app up and Dynasys Workflow - User to everyone who works with it. Dynasys Workflow - View gives read-only access.
2. 2
   Open the app. Search for Dynasys Workflow in Tell Me. For a user with the Admin permission set, Settings opens by itself on Get started until the setup is finished. After that, Settings is at the bottom of the app's sidebar.
3. 3
   Get started. A checklist that checks your setup by itself. Each step turns green once it is done:

   • License: activate a licence key and choose who may use the app (Open License Setup).
   • Starting configuration: Create the starting configuration creates departments, a sales project workflow, a production order workflow and two general workflows (airport pickup and employee onboarding), each with stages and default tasks. It also creates a number series for projects and a set of reason codes. Names are created in your language, and anything that already exists is left as it is. To try the app straight away, tick Add me as lead of every department, to try the app out. If you would rather build everything yourself, choose Set up my own instead.
   • Departments and their people: every department needs its members, each with the role Member or Lead, and at least one lead.
   • Workflows: under Templates, review the stages, the department that owns each stage, what completes the stage, its target in working days, and the default tasks with what each one waits for. A new template starts switched off; switch it on once its stages are in place.
   • Numbers and defaults: under General, choose the number series for new projects and the default project workflow.
4. 4
   Optional steps on the same checklist:

   • E-mail notifications: see Notifications and e-mail below.
   • Production orders: choose the production order workflow, the statuses from which a production order is followed, and how it finds its project: the production order's source, a reservation, component demand and, if planning does not reserve, order tracking. At go-live, choose Track existing production orders once to pick up the production orders that already exist.
   • Try it with demo data: available in a sandbox or an evaluation company only. Create demo data fills the company with sample projects in every stage; Delete demo data removes them again without touching your own projects.
5. 5
   Found in the setup. Get started also lists anything that needs attention, such as a department without a lead or a stage without a department. Warnings do not stop the app; errors should be fixed in Departments or Templates.

Settings has these pages: Get started, General, Departments, Templates, E-mail, Production orders, Gates, Reason codes and Deleted projects.

The Business Central page Dynasys Workflow Setup still exists for partners and configuration packages. For everyday setup, use Settings in the app.

Licensing and trial

• The trial starts automatically the first time the app is used in a company: 30 days, up to 3 users. The first users who open the app take the trial seats.
• A licence key is issued per company. In the app, open Settings → Get started and choose Open License Setup (or search for Dynasys License Setup). Copy the Company License ID and send it with Request a License, or to licenses@dynasys.tech.
• Paste or import the key you receive and choose Activate. Then choose which users may use the app under Licensed Users.
• Users who only post or release documents do not need a seat.
• When a licence or trial has ended, users can no longer open the app. Automatic stage updates and gates stop as well, so an expired licence never stops anyone from releasing or posting. Your data stays in Business Central.

Working on the board

• The Board shows sales projects or production orders in columns by stage. Each card shows the customer, tasks done, overdue tasks, linked sales orders, the requested date and days in the stage against the target.
• Filters: Rush, On hold, Overdue, Skipped stages, Behind target and the department filter. My work lists your own tasks; All lists everything; Unlinked lists production orders not yet connected to a project.
• New project creates a sales project for a customer or a prospect. Link sales orders to it in the project panel or in the field Sales Project No. on the sales order.
• Open a card to see its stages, tasks, sales orders, production orders, files, gates and history. A department member completes a manual stage; a lead can send work back, put it on hold, close a stage short or close a project as lost — each with a reason.
• Reschedule plans the work that has not started from a new date, for example when the customer postpones the order.

Tasks

• A task has one responsible person and any number of co-workers from the task's department. All of them can start and complete it.
• Predecessors are the tasks a task waits for, also in other stages. A task starts the working day after its last predecessor ends.
• Each task keeps its original plan, so lateness stays measurable after re-planning.
• Comments support @mentions. A task can require an attachment before it can be completed.

Production orders

• A production order gets a tracker when it reaches a status chosen in Settings → Production orders (firm planned and released by default).
• Releasing completes the release stage and finishing completes the last stage. When every production order of a project is finished, the project's production stage completes by itself.
• Posting shipments (and invoices) for a project's sales orders completes the shipping stage once nothing is left to ship.
• If an event completes a stage the project had not reached yet, the stages in between are shown as skipped.

Gates

Gates are set in Settings → Gates. Each rule has a gate point (release or post a project's sales order, release or finish a production order), a template, a condition and a mode:

• Off — does nothing. The default configuration adds six suggested rules, all off.
• Warn — asks the user whether to continue and records the answer.
• Block — stops the action with the unmet conditions, unless a lead chose Allow once with a reason beforehand.

Each rule also sets who may allow a blocked action once: nobody, a lead of the stage's department, or any department lead. Start with Warn and switch to Block once departments complete their stages reliably. Preview posting is never stopped.

Notifications and e-mail

• The bell in the app lists your notifications: a task assigned to you, a task that can start, a mention, an overdue task, work arriving at or sent back to your department.
• E-mail is set up in Settings → E-mail. In Business Central, set up an e-mail account (Email Accounts). If it is not the default account, assign it to the scenario Workflow Notifications. Then switch on Send e-mail notifications, choose under E-mail when which events are e-mailed, and choose Schedule sending. Each person receives one message every few minutes with everything new, in their own language.
• While testing, enter an address in Send all e-mails to (test). Latest e-mails shows what was sent; failed e-mails can be sent again.
• Send Update on a project sends a note to everyone with open work on it.

Dashboard, timeline and lateness

• The Dashboard shows open and on-hold projects, on-time delivery, where work is waiting (with the bottleneck stage) and the workload per department and person.
• Timeline in a project opens a Gantt chart of its tasks: colours show why a task is late, arrows show the dependencies and a thin bar shows the original plan.
• Lateness shows the tasks finished in the last 30 to 365 days, how many were on time and the delay split into late predecessors, waiting to start and taking longer than planned — by department, task, stage, project or person. The same figures are on the Business Central page Workflow Task Lateness, which can be opened in Excel.

Attachments

• Drag files onto a task or choose Add files; Add link stores a web link or a file-server path instead.
• Files are stored in the Business Central database. Set a maximum size and the allowed file types in Settings → General, under Attachments; programs and scripts are never accepted.

FAQ

Support

E-mail info@dynasys.tech. We aim to reply within one business day.