Using MS Flow and D365 App For Outlook To Track Proposals and Win Opportunities Without Leaving Outlook

For every sales person, getting a signed contract from the client is a euphoric moment. You finally closed the deal, and everything seems right. But the process after winning the deal is cumbersome for many of us.

This article documents how we made this process a lot less painful through MS Flow and the D365 App for Outlook. Hopefully you find it very useful as well.

I will first walk you through my old process –

1. Once I got the signed contract as a Word or PDF attachment in my email, I would download it and save it to my OneDrive under the respective client folder.
2. I would then open D365, go to the opportunity, then browse to the Documents folder and create a new SharePoint document folder.
3. Then I would click the upload button and browse to the document location the OneDrive folder on my computer and attach the proposal.
4. I would then finally mark the opportunity as Won, which would send out internal emails to our Delivery Team (for Project creation), Accounts Team (for billing details) and our HR team (so they can keep an eye on recruitment needs).

Here is what we achieved through the implementation of the new process using MS Flow and D365 App for Outlook –

1. Once I got the signed contract in my email, I would track this email using the D365 App in Outlook. I would also set the regarding field as the Opportunity that this proposal is for.
2. The above action would trigger an MS Flow that would do the following in near real time –
   • It would check if the Opportunity already had a folder created and if not, it would first create the SharePoint document folder on the Opportunity.
   • It would then upload the proposal to the above folder.
   • It would remove the attachment from the tracked email (saving valuable space!)
3. I would then open the Opportunity right from my D365 App for Outlook and mark it as Won.

The step by step directions for setting up the MS Flow are documented in this blog article from Krishna Bhanushali from our D365 team – https://www.cloudfronts.com/move-attachments-from-tracked-email-to-sharepoint-using-microsoft-flow/.

In conclusion, the above implementation has benefited us through –

1. Significantly reduced number of steps post winning a deal.
2. Time saved by not having to leave Outlook which is where most of us are spending our time.
3. A better process that makes pipeline management easier for sales people, thus driving adoption.

If you want to discuss your sales processes further or provide any feedback for improvement, I can be reached at ashah@cloudfronts.com.