Many government and commercial organizations are responsible for conducting audits of financial and other performance in order to ensure compliance with regulations.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers a rich platform for automating auditing activities. Here are some of the key functions that Dynamics 365 and Office 365 can perform for auditors:
- Schedule visits. The Field Service app for Dynamics 365 includes a dispatcher console, and a module to assign auditors and schedule their visits or inspections. It can also track other resources such as equipment which is used for field audits.
- Manage documents. Dynamics 365 is integrated with SharePoint and also Azure Blob Storage. This means that files may be associated with audit records, and searched using Microsoft search technologies which index full text and metadata.
- Generate notifications. Alerts via email or other communication channels (such as text messages) may be generated with Dynamics 365 automated workflows. The messages are based on templates which merge Dynamics data fields with the standard text in the template.
- Provide customer service. The Customer Service module tracks cases, knowledge base and other vital information for customer service. The Dynamics Portal provides data entry for organizations being audited and may allow them to create customer service cases online.
- Collaborate online. Office 365 and Microsoft Teams provide online collaboration tools for audit teams. Security is simpler because all these Microsoft products use the same login and security rules can be enforced on all the products.
Auditing is another example of a business function that you might not consider as Customer Relationship Management, but for which CRM tools are appropriate.
My company InfoStrat specializes in building solutions like this for government and commercial customers, including grant management, sales force automation for government contractors, case management and others.