Dynamics Corner

Episode 326: In the Dynamics Corner Chair: 30 Business Central Implementation Tips in 30 Minutes

• Tess Mackay • Season 3 • Episode 326

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In this conversation, Brad, Kris, and Tess MacKay share 30 practical tips for a successful Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation. They cover many topics, including team involvement, the crucial role of communication, and the value of continuous improvement. They also discuss the importance of leveraging partners and consultants and the necessity of periodic reviews to ensure a smooth and successful implementation.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics Corner, the podcast where we dive deep into all things Microsoft Dynamics. Whether you're a seasoned expert or just starting your journey into the world of Dynamics 365, this is your place to gain insights, learn new tricks and tips and hear from industry experts. I'm your co-host, Chris.

Speaker 2:

And this is Brad. This episode is recorded on June 28th 2024. Chris, chris, chris, here we are. Another day, another episode, another information-filled episode. Today, we had the opportunity to learn 30 business central tips in approximately 30 minutes approximately 30 minutes. Maybe we went a little bit more, but we also had a little bit more than 30 tips, but we were able to talk about a number of things to consider and analyze whether you're pre or post Business Central implementation With us. Today we had the opportunity to speak with Tess McKay. Hello, she is hello good afternoon, good morning good evening.

Speaker 2:

I don't know what it is, but can you hear me, can you hear me now?

Speaker 1:

yes, yes, I can hear you, including the siren I was just going to say that I Wait really, oh gosh, it's okay.

Speaker 2:

We're used to the New York City sirens. It's okay, it adds to the ambiance. The mystique. Yes, the mystique, I guess you could say. We all know where you are now. I love it. No other than the wonderful New York City.

Speaker 3:

I'm setting the scene for you guys about what my background is like.

Speaker 2:

Well, at least we know. Hopefully they're not coming for you.

Speaker 3:

I don't know After our team night out last night. We never know.

Speaker 2:

So you had a team night out. How was the team night out?

Speaker 3:

It was good we did Beer Olympics, so it was quite something.

Speaker 2:

I will say that Beer Olympics, what does?

Speaker 3:

Beer Olympics.

Speaker 2:

What happens in the Beer Olympics.

Speaker 3:

So it depends on what your style is, but for us we did. We just restarted. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2:

I'm welcome back. Hopefully you don't disappoint us. I was going to say welcome back for the second time on the recording, but now welcome back to the same recording. And, as you know, we covered men's grooming tips and Rubik's cube solving on the intermission. And it is Friday. This is why we don't record on Friday, because something always happens.

Speaker 3:

I wanted to. I wanted to have a dramatic exit, then come back in and be like all right, I'm ready to go. Unfortunately, my laptop is.

Speaker 2:

That wasn't dramatic, that was just gone, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I was also like mid my spiel about myself too, so I was like getting into it. And then my Dell, which is why we shouldn't have Dell laptops. Sorry, Dell Completely shut down and just restarted on me, so I apologize everybody.

Speaker 2:

We're happy that you made it back Me too, but if you would, could you please tell us a little bit about?

Speaker 3:

yourself and then we will jump into today's topic. I would love to. Before my Dell died on me, I was getting into a bit about me, so thank you again for having me. This is my second podcast. Very excited to be here. My name is Tess.

Speaker 3:

I am a vice president at Frank Recruitment Group, where I specialize in business application Microsoft business application, so I should say recruitment. I have been doing it for seven years. This was my first job. Out of college I went to College of the Holy Cross Cross where I played lacrosse there Definitely a washed-up athlete. Now I could not pick up a stick if I even tried. I've been in New York for those seven years. Fell in love with this job. Fell in love with the IT world. So I've been here ever since. A little bit of fun facts about me, as you probably got from my beer pong and beer olympic spiel um, I'm insanely competitive. So board games, drinking games, card games, anything you name it, I am crazy competitive. Um, katan is my number one board game. So if you ever want to challenge me, feel free, but you will lose. Um, I'm also a big reader. I love anything fantasy. So lord of the rings, harry potter it's right up my alley. I have two harry potter tattoos, so definitely a little bit of a nerd alert there excellent what excellent

Speaker 1:

yeah, I learned something new yeah, I didn't know, you played lacrosse. I played lacrosse as well for the.

Speaker 2:

You have to be extremely competitive to play lacrosse. I enjoy lacrosse, I like watching lacrosse. I used to go to the games for lacrosse and that's something new that I learned from you. And you went to the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts?

Speaker 3:

Yes, in Worcester. I did not know.

Speaker 2:

I've learned or relearned so much about you? Yes, because I spend a lot of time in Worcester these days.

Speaker 3:

Oh, really, whereabouts.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we'll connect afterwards.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

I don't want everyone to know where.

Speaker 2:

I am to find me. I am a big reader as well, so you have to get on Goodreads so we can share books. I am not into the fantasy type books. I'm in more into the stoicism what people may call the self-help like time management and focus type books. The other challenge I have for you is the next time we meet at a conference we will have rubik's cubes and we're going to have a contest.

Speaker 3:

See who can do it faster okay, I won't win that one, but I will be competitive while I'm doing it, so I'll at least try really hard.

Speaker 2:

I am very slow. Chris and I were talking about this while we were waiting for you to return, so this is my new obsession, again for a couple weeks. It took me about a week to learn how to do it. Now I just do it every day, trying to get faster and faster.

Speaker 3:

Okay, I have until San Antonio in a few months to learn how to do the Rubik's Cube.

Speaker 1:

Correct. So we will bring lacrosse sticks and see if you still have it.

Speaker 2:

So this is a challenge between you and I.

Speaker 3:

I actually did. You'll find this amazing too. On the sports topic, I actually joined a men's beer hockey league a couple weeks ago, so I've been doing that as well. So if you want to play some hockey too while we're down there, we can do that that is.

Speaker 2:

I did not know you were that athletic, not to say that I just didn't know. I think it is great that you are.

Speaker 3:

It's a lot of fun. It's it's. It's a good time. Yeah, you gotta.

Speaker 2:

You gotta blow off some steam from work, you know no, you definitely do, in new york city working with those dells and the sirens, but with today's episode? Does anybody want to know what today's episode is about?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, guess the drumroll.

Speaker 2:

Right, I'll do the drumroll, because that will be with 30 under 30?. Well, the under 30 will be good. But we had the United States presidential debate last night, which I did watch for a period of time. I won't make any comments on that, but, like the debate had, I am the moderator, brad, and in this episode we will have 30 Business Central implementation tips in 30 minutes. So I want to see if you and Chris can get us through these 30 tips in 30 minutes.

Speaker 1:

Oh man, you both ready.

Speaker 2:

In 30 minutes.

Speaker 3:

There is no pressure. Like okay, okay, I just got to. I'm a talker, so I got to be concise.

Speaker 1:

You got to do. Hey, you got a minute for each.

Speaker 3:

A minute for each. Okay, it'll be like we'll be in like almost like a rap battle.

Speaker 2:

Like I'll be like all right, you now and then back to me. So we'll do it in that sense. I don't have a timer, so we'll have to, and with that we have tip number one.

Speaker 3:

All right, tip number one for business central implementations. One of the very first things I always tell my clients to look or to do is the gap analysis piece. So look at your internal business model, look at your system, what goals you're trying to achieve and what those gaps currently are within your system. So how can you evaluate that and come up with what you actually need to fill those gaps and to improve on those gaps? So then you can put together your project plan, your scope of work, your project team from there On to you, chris.

Speaker 2:

All right, Chris, with tip number two.

Speaker 1:

Tip number two you want to assess the data, your data quality. So what does that mean? The first thing you do is analyze your data, identify any data issues and, of course, you want to clean up your data. So that could also mean if there's anything that is maybe misspelled or some of the descriptions are incorrect or maybe some things like that, you want to start identifying those. Also, identify the things that you don't want to bring over as well. So make sure you give a little bit more exercise within your organization so that when you are migrating your data, you're not having to clean it up in the new system. It's like bringing trash from your old car to your new car. You don't want to do that.

Speaker 2:

Those are two good tips. I'm excited to see what the remaining 28 tips are. Brings us over to Tess, tip number three.

Speaker 3:

All right. Tip number three this one sounds very basic, but it's super, super crucial, whether or not you're a brand new Business Central customer or you're migrating from NAP to BC, gp to BC, a different ERP to BC but do your research. So make sure not only are you looking at what are the different resources out there so make sure that you're finding a partner that matches what you're looking for from a partner, from a business model but also make sure that you're doing your research when it comes to what you want out of Business Central model, but also make sure that you're doing your research when it comes to what you want out of business central. So look into the different modules, look into the different functionalities and features and third parties to figure out what your ideal system looks like for you. That way, you're not jumping into a project without actually doing your due diligence of what all of your options are, from support all the way through to, again, the functionalities and everything that business central can do research is important, you're.

Speaker 2:

It does sound basic. A lot of these may sound basic, but that does not take away from the importance or what's involved in it. But research is extremely important when making the decision of which system to implement which. I'm not going to give away any of the tips, so I'm not going to say my next thing You're jumping ahead, come on, I'm trying, I'm trying. I'm excited to get through this list.

Speaker 1:

Chris, tip number four, tip number four so when you're done with your data cleanup, then you choose a migration approach. How do you want to migrate your data? In many cases, just like everything else, when you're buying a brand new car, you may not want to bring everything over. You have a new car. Start with that and just bring the things that are necessary so you can either leave your existing legacy system for you to reference and run report against. You can also create a data warehouse to move over things that are important to you that you need to report against, or maybe bring in some of your information to maybe a custom table in your new ERP system, in this case, business Central. So there are different ways to approach that, but my recommendation, in my opinion start fresh.

Speaker 2:

It's a brand new car Excellent in my opinion. Uh, start fresh. It's a brand new car excellent. You don't want to bring bad stuff in to your new car.

Speaker 1:

Don't bring old bucket seats to your new ferrari or something like that okay, good, good, good, see that's.

Speaker 2:

I can't do these on fridays anyway. I keep saying that I just get lost come on, you're doing great.

Speaker 3:

You're doing great, you're doing great, best best moderator right here.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, well, I'm just counting. Hopefully I can make it to 30. Tip number five All right.

Speaker 3:

Tip number five everyone's favorite topic when it comes to projects is the budget, the money. So, after you've done your research, after you've looked at all the support areas that you're going to be looking at, so your partner, any consultants, the licensing, all of the different modules and third parties that you want, make sure that you are allotting that into the budget you have for your project. Nothing is worse than getting midway through your project and realizing your budget has run out and you still have 75% of the project to get through. So make sure you are looking at all the different scenarios what the licensing looks like, what the pricing looks like, what the scope of work looks like and how that's going to fall into your budget. And also take into account that, as much as we all love for things to fall exactly within the range of hours that we estimate, sometimes it does fall without that because of challenges or issues in the system or things that you end up wanting to add that you additionally didn't want to add, so that may fall outside your initial budget.

Speaker 2:

So plan for anything, plan for everything and make sure it is in the budget that's extremely important to have a good understanding of how much this is going to cost you, just like a car. I always tell people it's important to know if I'm going to go to the Toyota lot or if I'm going to go to the BMW lot.

Speaker 1:

Tip number six Tip number six, a very important one, a little tedious, but it is very important. It's going to save you a lot of time in the future Identify customizations, add-ons and integrations you have now. Sometimes a lot of those things may not be necessary on the first phase of a project. You may have a second phase but you need to identify those now, hoping that some of those customizations or add-ons are documented. In many cases people don't understand this. When you have a new employee or an employee that's worked for you for within a year they may not know if a certain field in your current erp system was customization or was it out of the box. They wouldn't know that. So sometimes those folks may not be the perfect subject matter experts. Hopefully you have things documented to identify those at the very beginning documentation is is one of those things that I can think.

Speaker 2:

In all the years that I've been doing this, I've either had too much documentation to where it was meaningless, or zero modification excuse me, documentation, and I'd say primarily it was zero documentation. It's always oh, tess knows that. Then you go talk with Tess and Tess is like I don't know, I just do this, yep, and that ends up being a problem. So it is important to identify your customizations that you have in your existing system, if you have one, also, any additional add-ons or integrations that you have or potentially may need as you go through the process.

Speaker 3:

Tip number seven Tip number seven is pretty basic one, but ask the team. So, when you are implementing Business Central, it's going to be ultimately the system that is running your day to day. So not only are you using it, but your entire team is most likely using it to some capacity. I love this car analogy that we've got going, so I'm going to kind of equate it to that.

Speaker 3:

So if you have a family of five different people, you need to think about all the different activities or all the different things that the people in the family are going to be using the car for. So are they going to be traveling? Are they going to be putting a lot in the trunk? Are they going to be driving long distances? Are they looking for a cool car or a flashy car? So it's kind of the same thing with your system, right? You need to make sure that every single user is taken into account when looking at what you need to add, what different customizations like Chris just said, different modules, how big you need to have a system, what users need to have from their again, day-to-day, and how often they need to be using things. So, instead of just looking at it, a blanket approach for what needs to be in the system, you have to take into account what the users need and what the users would like to see in their next implementation or upgrade of a system.

Speaker 2:

That is another extremely important tip. You need to make sure that your team is aware and involved, because I've gone through many implementations where someone assumed that one person knew everything. They went and put a system together and they had the individuals that use the application as part of their day-to-day business and they said, well, we don't do this. We don't do it this way. We don't need to do that. So it's important to make sure that you have a vehicle that can take your lacrosse gear to the lacrosse game, if you have a lacrosse player in the family Tip number eight, tip number eight you want to do an initial assessment and strategy.

Speaker 1:

You've got to develop that. There's two key points from there. This in itself can have a longer conversation, but two key points is you want to establish objectives as you are building your strategy. You want to define the goals and outcomes you expect from this whole project, that you want to put together this whole change in the organization. So that's one key point. The second key point when you're building and you're assessing the strategy is identify your stakeholders, so list all parties who will be affected by this whole project.

Speaker 2:

That's important Assessing and identifying your strategy. Tess, tip number nine Nine tips already.

Speaker 3:

Tip number nine. So this kind of is another formula. I guess it's streamlined of the tips I've already given so far. But when thinking about the project team that you're going to have, or maybe even just additional support alongside your partner and your internal team, you need to add in additional support, gap analysis and everything you want out of the system. Doing your research, all that good stuff.

Speaker 3:

Create a wish list If it is a consultant that is going to come in and help you, and what that wish list looks like for them to come in and support. Or create a job description if it's going to be a full-time employee coming in to help out on this project. Reason being it helps get the right candidate versus just throwing something out there and hoping you get applications, hoping you get the right person to come in. You really need to identify what you're looking for before you can actually find that right fit. So again, get together with the project team, get together with the internal team, create those lists, create that job description and then from there you can really attract the right talent pool to come in to fit all of those different things that you're looking for.

Speaker 2:

That's a good point to create that wish list. I have a lot of wishes, Chris. Number 10.

Speaker 1:

Number 10. This is actually a very important one when you are investing money towards this huge project, when you're implementing an ERP system in Business Central, leadership and sponsorship. I think this is important. You want to have an executive sponsor, so you want to secure that endorsement and active participation from senior leadership. There's been too many projects that I'm into where an executive shows up towards the very end and then not knowing what's happening. So you want to make sure that somebody is involved and aware of the current situation in your project. And, of course, you want to have a you know change management in place as well. I know we'll talk about that a little bit further, but you want to build that team. You know you want to assemble that team internally, so they'll be your sponsor as you are moving along with this project.

Speaker 2:

It is important to have leadership, sponsorship and ownership. It's very important to identify who owns. Who's responsible. When I use ownership, I use responsible for the implementation. Tip number 11.

Speaker 3:

Tip 11. Alrighty, so that wishlist or that job description that I just mentioned? One key thing to think about is the must-haves and the nice-to-haves within those different lists. So as much as every single client I'm sure would love to have all of these different things accomplished at once, or all of these different skill sets, all of these different certifications and requirements, really look at what you actually need to have as an absolute and what would be sort of the cherry on top.

Speaker 3:

So another analogy I'm going to throw out here is thinking about your Amazon cart. I know probably everyone's been here done that, but there have been so many times where I've added 30 different things to my Amazon cart and I'm like, all right, I actually don't need all of these 30 things. I really only absolutely need these five things because it's going to improve my day-to-day or it's dire for my health or whatever the case is. So really think about that. Versus adding everything to your cart at once, it will again limit the candidate pool and also most likely miss out on candidates that really do check all the boxes that you do need.

Speaker 2:

So most likely miss out on candidates that really do check all the boxes that you do need no-transcript. What would you say is the average time it takes to source a position from in the consultant point of view or the full-time point of view for a project or for somebody looking for somebody coming in to manage their system, and then, on the flip side, how long would you say it takes to source the opportunity for a candidate that may be looking for a position on these wish lists?

Speaker 3:

position on these wish lists. So I would say, depending on what that wish list looks like, I would say for consultants, anywhere from two hours to 24 hours is our typical turnaround time and I would say for full-time again depending on what that job description looks like and what the logistics are anywhere from 48 to a week long to turn around like five really good quality candidates. So that would be the typical delivery time I would say for consultants versus full-time, and then to get a consultant or a candidate, is that what you're asking? To get a candidate or a role?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'm looking to see what would somebody expect if they had an implementation they were going through and they determined their wish list of the candidate that they want. How long would they expect to take to be able to source that position to put in their scheduling? And then also, because we're talking about this way, on the flip side, if I were a candidate looking for an opportunity, what would be the turnaround time that I would expect to be one? Again, everything depends upon how there's an alignment of the skills versus the needs. What is the average time it takes to fill those positions on both directions?

Speaker 3:

I would say so again, the delivery time anywhere from a couple hours to a week for a contract and for a permanent role, and then for the candidate side. That all depends really on the customer and what their interview process is, what their urgency is. So one big thing that as recruiters we always do the best we can is be fully transparent with the candidate what the customer is looking at from an urgency standpoint, from a timeline standpoint and from an interview perspective. So if it's a five-round interview process, obviously it's probably going to take, you know, a couple of weeks. But if it's a consultant role and it's a one-and-done interview, that can be turned around within a day. So it really does depend on what the customer is looking for.

Speaker 3:

Again, that's something that we always try to work with both the candidate and the client on. If there is high urgency, trying to limit that interview process to shorter rounds or maybe like group panel interviews so that you can make the most of that time and still match what you're looking for in terms of that fast timeline. But if it is more of a long, drawn out process no real urgency, which is totally fine, we just make sure to educate our consultants on that and our clients to let them know like hey, that candidate may not be available, if you do take a month long to decide. But we try to have all the cards on the table and match the candidate and client energy there.

Speaker 1:

I do want to add something on top of that. Once they decide who they're going with, you've got to take into consideration the onboarding component of that, because it may take them some time to onboard them to the culture or understanding their business, and so that could take a little bit of time. So when you're putting a project together, you take that into consideration as well.

Speaker 2:

I just want to let you both know that so many staffing questions popped into my mind in that little dialogue that we've had, so I'm going to maybe interject a few more in the middle of these 30 tips in 30 minutes. So that brings us to tip number 12.

Speaker 1:

Tip number 12. This is important. Talking about getting somebody in is the communication plan. What does that mean? When you are putting together the team, when you're putting together all the tips that we talked about is, how are you going to communicate that? That is very important. And how do you communicate the entire length of the project and even post-project as well? So when you're building the communication plan, you need to create a narrative. What does that mean? You want to clearly articulate why the change is happening, what will be its impact and how it aligns with your organization's goals. Will it be its impact and how it aligns with your organization's goals? The second key point in that is creating a multi-channel communication. What does that mean? Setting a schedule of meeting, create a cadence and, of course, how Either emails, meetings, maybe some SharePoint. Those are forms of communication so people can expect where they should be hearing from when you're creating a communication plan.

Speaker 2:

Excellent tip which brings us into tip number 13.

Speaker 3:

Tip number 13. So some people may love this one, some people may not like this one, but again, kind of going back to that wish list, kind of identifying the gaps, the must-haves versus the nice-to-haves, getting comfortable with remote is tip number 13. And the reason why I say that is because if you have this must-have list or you have a really high-level role that you're looking to fill, finding someone that's willing to be fully on site at that level is going to be difficult. It's not impossible. But again, something that I always like to say to my clients is I want to get you the right person, not just someone that can be on site five days a week. So again, if being on site outweighs everything else, that's a different story. But you really have to look at what's more important and why you need someone to be on site.

Speaker 3:

Chris and Brad, I'm sure you guys can attest to the fact that you know so many consultants just like yourselves that do remote work and do fantastic remote work, which is a testament to the fact that remote work does in fact yield results. However, I'm sure everyone's had a horror story of someone that was remote and didn't do a great job, and it's really stressful to have that person kind of being behind the scenes and not really knowing what they're doing. So completely get that. But again, just looking at what you're requiring from a skill set, figuring out is remote, more important than the actual skill set because that will affect what kind of candidates you are getting. And maybe finding that balance of maybe once or twice on site a week or maybe even traveling throughout the project versus being on site 100% Again even opens up that candidate pool for you.

Speaker 1:

That's why that communication plan is important for people who have remote.

Speaker 2:

These all go together well.

Speaker 2:

And the remote is a key point you had mentioned. Yes, I think with anything, you can have some bad experiences with remote employees, but you can also have bad experience with on-site employees, as we call them. I think it's a matter of communication and management and working with the team that you have. I think the remote also again, if you're talking about the wish list and the skill set that remote versus on-premise requirement may limit the talent pool that you have to choose from, because you may have some really qualified candidates for a position as part of the implementation, that may be in a different state or a different country or a different region that you might not be able to get within the region you are for whatever you know reason or whatever location you are in. So that is an extremely important tip and, chris is like you had mentioned, the communication is key because that does ensure that you have a proper working relationship with whomever you have to staff your position, which brings us into tip number 14, which may be related to this. Yes, this is actually very important.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people don't understand the importance of this is you want to establish a support system. There's been countless times where you know somebody in the organizations don't know who to go to. I have an issue, I have a problem on my. You know in the organizations don't know who to go to. I have an issue, I have a problem in the system. I can't do this. And what happens? They just Google it.

Speaker 1:

So if you establish a support system, they know who to go to within your organization. So the first thing there's key points to this. The first thing is you want to make it easy to access the support that a person needs. So you want to establish that support system and consider organizing a team of experts assigning roles and responsibilities in developing an issue resolution workflow. How does that look like in your organization? You want to provide ongoing training for your support staff to keep them updated on the latest features and functionality. A well-trained support team ensures that your system runs smoothly, minimizing downtime and keeping stakeholders satisfied.

Speaker 1:

So the first one again make it easy. Number two utilize your contributors or subject matter experts as they go to for support. That can also mean utilizing your partners, your specialists, your consultant, your contractor maybe, and, of course, your subject matter experts. The last key point to that is encouragement. When you are building a support system, you don't want to shame people for asking support. This is a brand new system that you're implementing. Some people are going to have questions. You want to encourage them to share the challenges that they may encounter so that when you're encouraging, you're minimizing that rogue processes, which creates bad data. So you want to make sure that you're encouraging that it's okay to ask, even though if it's an elementary questions.

Speaker 2:

Oh, great tip. Okay, here we are. We're halfway there. I can't sing the song because I don't want anyone to come saying that I was. You know copywriting anything but Tess number 15.

Speaker 3:

Tip number 15.

Speaker 2:

Did you know the song, by the way.

Speaker 3:

What.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we're halfway there.

Speaker 3:

Halfway there, you don't want to see me.

Speaker 2:

My voice is terrible.

Speaker 3:

You, don't want me to go there, I just wanted to make sure everybody got it.

Speaker 1:

It's not karaoke night.

Speaker 2:

Maybe I know if that came out before you went to the Holy Cross.

Speaker 3:

Yes, or not. Yeah, you don't want to see me at karaoke night. It's not good, so don't ask me to do that.

Speaker 2:

We will do Rubik's and karaoke in San Antonio. Anybody else that would like to participate, find us, yep.

Speaker 3:

Please don't, but maybe All right. Tip number 15. So this one's extremely important. I think this is crucial from the very first stage. So, from scopes right From getting an actual quote of your project, Tip number 15 is get a comparison.

Speaker 3:

So, even when you're getting that initial quote, if you're again a brand new customer, or maybe you're going from NAB to Business Central making sure that you're getting a comparing quote. So don't just rely on one quote. Definitely do your due diligence to look at what the other quotes could potentially be, so that you have something to compare to Again. You can crunch the numbers, look at what the best option is for you. Same thing with bringing in any full-time employees for a project team. Make sure that you're interviewing more than just one person, because you want to get different perspectives, different price points, different personalities, different experience levels.

Speaker 3:

So it's really important to see again what is the best fit for you. And it may not be that first person, which is completely fine, or maybe it is that first person, but still do your due diligence to interview a couple more people after that, as a recruiter, we'll always be sure to give you options. On the full-time side, we always like to give at least four to five really qualified candidates to give you options to choose from. Same thing goes for a consultant. Again, you want to look at the different price points, but different business models, different previous projects that they've been, on, different personalities again, or different overall vibe, depending on what you're looking for. Just speaking to one person often limits the opportunities that you could have to see who can be that long-term fit for you. So again, as a recruiter, I'm always going to encourage my customers please speak to at least two to three people on the consultant side and again, at least four to five people on the permanent side, so you have ample options to choose from.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. It's a great tip, Chris. Number 16.

Speaker 1:

16, I would consider optimization and customization. One of the most significant advantages of Business Central is its ability to adapt to your business, so don't be afraid to customize and optimize your system to meet your workflows and processes. Now consider engaging a specialist or partner to review and optimize your system regularly, so not just you go live and you leave it alone. The purpose is for you to continue to optimize your system. There are two different things though optimization and customization, so I want to make sure that you're aware of that. Just because you want to optimize a process, it doesn't always mean to customize, so there's a few things that you can consider, some options for you. One is Power Platform, specifically the Power Automate.

Speaker 1:

Take a look at the job queue in Business Central. Schedule those tedious reports or processes, review some add-ons in the app source, identify what challenges are you trying to solve, but just make sure you work with your partner With that. Not all apps are created equal and it may not fit for your business, so work with your partner. The other one is personalization. It's profiled within Business Central so that can help you improve your workflow by removing unnecessary fields that you don't need to see. And, of course, customization and extension as well. And then, the last but not least, when you're already live in Business Central, there are options to look at telemetry as well. There's lots of contents out there Brad talks about this all the time that can help identify your usage of Business Central and how can you optimize, get the most out of your Business Central, which is common that we get those a lot when we're working with clients.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I'm not using Business Central to the max, so telemetry can help you identify where you're not using it, it's important to get the application to fit your needs and, as you'd mentioned, to make sure you get the most out of the application. Sometimes, when you're doing the requirements gathering, it's also important to take a moment to think of what could we be doing differently. Sometimes people focus on what I'm doing today versus what I need to be doing or some other efficiencies I could gain from an application that's robust and feature rich, which takes us into tip number 17.

Speaker 3:

All righty. Tip number 17 is defining an interview process. So I look at this in three different categories. So the first is urgency, the second would be availability and then the third would be who's involved. So these are three really important questions when you are defining what your interview process will look like internally, whether that is for a consultant, whether that is for a full-time employee. So when it comes to urgency, how quickly do you need to have this role filled? What's going to happen if you don't get this role filled? When do you need this role to be filled by?

Speaker 3:

So asking yourself these questions are going to be super important, because that will determine how quickly you need these candidates to be turned around and how quickly you need to be available to interview these candidates. That brings me to availability. If you do have a really high turnaround, and when you need this person to start, really make sure that internally you're getting everyone's availability ahead of time so that we can make those calendar invites a lot easier and get those interviews booked a lot faster for you to match the timeline that you're looking for. And then the last one would be who's involved. So when thinking about what you're going to be bringing in from a consultant perspective or a full-time employee perspective, who needs to be involved in that process, who actually is signing off on the process? That's really important to identify so you can understand who needs to be on these interviews.

Speaker 3:

Do they need to be multiple rounds? Do they need to be a panel-style interview? Does it need to be a one-and-done interview? So all those things are super important. Again, it'll help us, as recruiters, give you the right resources that can match that timeline or urgency you need. But also, from an internal perspective, you do want to have any key players on those interviews so that they can ask questions, they can hear other questions that maybe someone else is asking and also the consultant or that full-time employee can paint a full picture about what value they can add to you and everyone involved can hear that from them. So they can really feel that when they do decide on a resource, everyone is comfortable, everyone is on board and everyone is excited to have that person join the team.

Speaker 2:

I have a question on the interview process which comes up and we're talking about looking to staff in this case a business central implementation and to talk with candidates to fill a need or fill a role that you have that you define. What about the cases where I may not know what I need or can validate or verify that the candidate fits the position, meaning I may not be technically capable enough if it's a technical position, or business savvy enough to use the word loosely to be able to determine? This is for anybody, chris, you as well. I may not be able to determine myself a proper assessment for the candidate to see if they'll fit that role. What options would I have?

Speaker 3:

That's a really great question and that's actually something we get quite a lot of customers coming to us being like, hey, we don't really know what we need, we just know we need something, totally fine.

Speaker 3:

So I always suggest in that, obviously, talking through a conversation with us first or your partner first, just to kind of uncover some of the questions or some of the challenges you feel like you have, from there can come up with sort of a again that wishlist or that ideal description to start.

Speaker 3:

So that could be just leveraging your partner or a recruitment consultant like myself.

Speaker 3:

But even just speaking with candidates, you can just talk about the situation that you're going through internally, you can talk about your project, you can talk about the gaps or the challenges that you're facing, and these consultants will be subject matter experts. They can talk through those scenarios with you and oftentimes connect a lot of dots for you by just giving you different scenarios or giving you previous projects where one of their customers went through something very similar. You can actually paint that picture for you and give you, oh okay, this is actually what the system can do. So that's something that, again, an interview can really just clear up a lot of that for a customer. But then again, anytime a consultant comes in, typically the very first step they're going to do is do a deep dive into the system and kind of put together a project plan. That also is going to help clear up a lot of gaps. For any customers that's not really sure what that should look like, the candidate will do that for them, if that is what's required.

Speaker 1:

I will kind of, if I could put a little bit of an analogy here. So, in many cases, a great question, brad. I think this whole part of this could be a longer conversation in the future. But if you look at it from a, let's say, for example, I'm not a painter, right, but I have a vision. I know what kind of what I want to look, right, I'm going to hire somebody that knows how to paint.

Speaker 1:

I don't know what kind of brushes they would use, I don't know what kind of paint they're going to use, but I know what I want to see. At the very end, right, if I can share and try to describe exactly what I want at the very end, I'm going to rely on that expert to know okay, this is the paint you want to use, this is the brush we're going to use, this is the canvas, this is the material they can deal with. That. I just want to make sure that what I want is painted accordingly. No different of designing a kitchen, right, I know what I want, but I don't know the kind of materials that the process is going to take to deliver that Same process. So that's when you start having that conversation, the whole dialogue.

Speaker 2:

Great, thank you. Thank you, and that takes us to tip number 18 of our Business Central implementation tips 18,.

Speaker 1:

So you want to create Guys. Can you speed it up a little bit? Yeah, I do. We do need to create a. You need to create a structure for end-user training and adoption. So this is when you're already in business central. You want your end users to feel confident in using your new system, so you want to provide with training tailored for their specific roles and responsibilities. It's going to take a little bit of time to build this. Of course, you want training ensures that they remain competent and productive in the areas, while also ensuring system-wide consistency.

Speaker 1:

So there are four key points that I wanna mention here. Establish consistent scheduling or schedule for training, whether this is a monthly, quarterly or even in line with the wave releases of what's new in Business Central. Second key point is easy access for your end users to stay informed of the new updates and changes Again, sharepoint, sop or simple email. Third key point is communication is key, right? We mentioned this earlier. You want to establish effective communication. Don't just talk and just say the words. You have to create actionable items after that. And then number four again make it easy, tailor it to the way your staff can easily learn, provide an opportunity to share ideas as well for improvement. Don't just you know, don't just train them for something? Listen for some of that feedback.

Speaker 2:

Oh, perfect Tip number 19.

Speaker 3:

All right, I'm going to combine tip 19 and 21 to speed things up a little bit here.

Speaker 3:

So tip number 19 is speak to multiple options, which I already kind of touched upon, and tip number 21 is give and discuss feedback to tailor searches.

Speaker 3:

So what I mean by that is again back to kind of the painting analogy If you don't know what you want right off the bat, you may want a Van Gogh, you may want a Leonardo da Vinci, you may want a Pablo Picasso, who knows? So speak to each of those. You can really start to narrow down what you do want for a consultant or a full-time employee. And then, based on that, if you do speak to the painters of the world right and you get feedback internally with your team, make sure you're communicating that, whether it's to the candidates, to the recruiter, to the partner, so that from there the search can be tailored even further to figure out okay, maybe we didn't like this, all right, great, let's tweak it from there. Or maybe we love this, but this just person isn't the right fit Awesome, but this just person isn't the right fit Awesome, we'll go with that route of at least that consultant or that background to give you more candidates that kind of are more in line with what you're looking for Great, excellent.

Speaker 2:

So now we have tip number 20. You have to jump to 22 as well, because we did 19 and 21.

Speaker 1:

20 and 22 go hand in hand. So when you're in business central already, you know you want to optimize that. We talked about it. It's data management and reporting. And then, of course, the 22 is continuous improvement. This goes hand in hand. You want to make sure that you validate data periodically, use proper reporting tools there's plenty of them out there Power BI I'll say that from you know, just easy and and, of course, built-in analysis view as well. And of course, you wanna make sure you review your report relevance, just because someone's been running it. There's been countless times where someone runs a report and is like, oh, we've always run this, but no one ever takes action against it. It's just a report that someone runs and then tip number 22 is continuous improvement, just like everything else maintaining that reporting.

Speaker 1:

You want to set the continuous improvement. So there's four key points here. You want to streamline workflows, identify things that are tedious how can you streamline those? And then the second bullet point is training and skill development. You want to give your users opportunity to learn new skills around your business, around your business, not just training the application, but understanding your business and what you're trying to do. Number three create a feedback loop. Feedback loop might refer to the process of taking action based on your user feedback, then revisiting the user to understand how well the action work and then refining the action based on this new feedback. So you want to create that feedback loop. The fourth one is create an ideas platform. It's a place for users to submit some ideas of improvement and make it easy for them to be heard as well, because again, they're in the trenches, they're the ones using the application. They're going to know what's the best way or things to improve.

Speaker 2:

I'm picking up on a lot of communications key in life. Tip number 23, Tess.

Speaker 3:

Tip number 23 is match the urgency. So there's two separate parts to this, the first part being if you're thinking about a project deployment and when you actually want to kick things off, let's say the kickoff date is August 1. Putting together your project team on July 30 is probably not going to be the move. So making sure that you're planning ahead for that kickoff and making sure that everyone internally is on the same page there is part number one and then part number two is based on that urgency that you and the internal team have put together. Ensure that you have the internal infrastructure to support that.

Speaker 3:

So, again, thinking about booking interviews how quickly do you need to do that? Who needs to be on it? When does this candidate need to be onboarded? Do they have the right people internally to be there? Are people on vacation? Do you understand that the onboarding may take two weeks? What does the ramp-up time look like? So, if it is a longer, longer ramp up time, but you really need this person to be at full capacity September 1, making sure that they're getting started earlier so that they can match that urgency, or needing for them to be ramped up. So again, timeline is so important and understanding what everyone internally needs to do to match that timeline and urgency is going to be super important.

Speaker 2:

Great, chris, take us into tip number 24.

Speaker 1:

24,. What we'd all be talking about this whole time is communication is key. I will leave a quote for you, a quote that I did not do a chat GPT. I've been using this for years. So knowledge empowers, but communication elevates. Through training and open dialogue within your organization, you can unlock the full potential of the tool not only the tools that you're utilizing, but also your entire team, uh, within your organization communication is important in every part of life, which takes us to tip number 25.

Speaker 2:

We are almost there.

Speaker 3:

Tip number 25 is again kind of streamlining with communication. The perfect, I would say, structure for a project team, which is tip number 25, identifying your project team. I'd say a perfect picture of what that would look like would be a triangle. So the triangle would be at the top is, of course, your internal team. Obviously, the foundation of who's going to be utilizing the system On one of the sides. It's going to be, of course, your Microsoft partner, who you're going to be leveraging heavily throughout the entire project, and then over here in this little other triangle point, is going to be an independent consultant. I think finding the perfect internal team, leveraging your partner and also leveraging an outside consultant, is the perfect match for a project and, of course, all three of those points need to be communicating throughout the entirety of the project to lead to a successful implementation.

Speaker 2:

And just like a triangle, you need three strong sides 100% To keep this triangle strong. I tried to do some fancy quote there and I didn't do a good job. That was good.

Speaker 3:

That was really I'm.

Speaker 2:

Inspired do a good job. That was good, that was really. It's Friday, I'm inspired.

Speaker 3:

I'm inspired 26.

Speaker 2:

Chris.

Speaker 1:

All right, 26. I'll put two and two together. One is change management. Yes, change management and leveraging a partner. I think one of the things that's very important when you are implementing something this big within your organization, you have to make sure that the rest of the organization is aware of this change while you're doing it. So, again, a quote that kind of combines the 26 and 28 is having a clear vision and aligning the organization is key. So choosing the right vendor partner, whatever and having an internal implementation team increases the chance of success. So that goes together there with that quote 26,.

Speaker 2:

change management, 28,. Leverage your partner, which gives us to tip 27. I guess we should say that's really 26 and 27, and we could have renumbered these, but anyway we'll go to 27.

Speaker 3:

27. So 27,. Honestly, I was going to have a two-parter here too. Mine was going to be leverage your partner and then leverage your independent consultant. So Chris already touched upon leveraging a partner completely key and then, on the other side, leveraging an independent consultant. This is something that I think is so important when thinking about a project, because your internal staff is so busy with so many different things, tossing on a full-blown implementation on that as well can be really time-consuming. So think about what potential gaps you may have internally and maybe where someone like an independent consultant or an SME can come in and really help take some of that weight off of your internal team to work again alongside them and your partner for a smooth implementation to ensure that you have sort of that even weight and that triangle of success that I mentioned.

Speaker 2:

Excellent, excellent, which gives us to tip 29. That's for you.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's me, oh gosh.

Speaker 3:

Sorry guys.

Speaker 2:

Chris did 28 and you both did leverage. It's great, it's been the beer. The Beer Olympics are settling in there on you. I know, I know.

Speaker 3:

All right, tip 29. So this is obviously very specific to recruitment. But if you do get a consultant or a full time employee from a recruiter like myself, you always really encourage something we call post-placement follow-up. So if we place a consultant with you or if we place a full-time employee with you again back to that communication piece it's super, super key to continue that communication throughout the project, if it's a consultant, or throughout the initial few months of that employee.

Speaker 3:

We always are looking for feedback. We're always looking to make sure that that candidate has joined the team flawlessly, they've been able to get up and running, they've been able to get involved with the team on a good note and, on the consultant side, making sure that they are bringing the skill set that you're looking for, they are moving the project along, they're giving you the support that you're needing. Any feedback is good feedback. So consistent communication with us as recruiters is so important and we'll continue to do that as well with our customers to make sure that everyone is happy, the candidates happy, the customers happy, and then I'll be happy. You know, pretty simple.

Speaker 2:

We just need to have a happy world. Communication will make us a happy world, which takes us to our final tip.

Speaker 1:

Final tip is periodic review, basically going back to some of the tips that we've provided here on this recording, and it also goes hand in hand with continuous improvement. So periodic review, create a schedule behind that in reviewing your entire organization in terms of business process, the applications using and even team members. There's a quote around that it says progress is not about grand leaps but the consistent steps forward In the space of continuous improvement. For example, every day is an opportunity to be better than yesterday, to be better than yesterday.

Speaker 2:

That periodic review is extremely important because once you transition into a new system or transition to anything, you may get settled in, you start to become comfortable with it. You just don't set it and forget it. You can continuously review what you can do to improve that implementation, whether it's additional staffing needs, whether it's additional operational efficiencies or many other aspects to make your business more streamlined, more cost effective, more efficient. In turn will make you more profitable, because I think that's what everybody's looking for when they're trying to do this. So that periodic review is one thing that is often overlooked in implementations, because everybody goes through this whole process and they think that they're done, which to me you're never done. It doesn't mean you need to do a lot of work, it just needs. It's just like a child you know you raise it, you know you have it. It grows. You need to continually nurture it, have it grow. Bad analogy I know it's Friday.

Speaker 3:

You started. You started off with a good one there.

Speaker 2:

I know, and I just lost it this Friday, chris. We cannot do Friday recordings, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:

I know.

Speaker 3:

Chris was saying some great quotes there. I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but I'm the one that fumbles on Friday. To me, every Friday is a fumble Friday. So with that, tess, thank you very much for taking the time to do this 30 in 30. I'm looking forward to San Antonio where we can have the Rubik's Challenge and possibly watch you do some karaoke. I will not participate in the karaoke, I will watch, but the Rubik's I will do, and hopefully by then I'll be able to do it quite a bit faster than I can do it today. If anybody would like to reach out to you to talk with you about some of the tips that you had mentioned, or maybe find some talented individuals to assist them with their implementation project, or even post implementation project, how can they get in contact with you?

Speaker 3:

Yes, anyone is welcome to reach out. You can reach me on LinkedIn or you can reach me at tzmckay at natural frankcom. I will definitely be posting this podcast on the LinkedIn when it comes out, so feel free to also drop me a little comment, uh, on there and we can connect up.

Speaker 2:

All right, great. Thank you very much. Uh, have a good weekend. Hope you enjoy and you get to rest and recover from the beer Olympics and I look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Take care.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, chris, for your time for another episode of in the dynamics corner chair, and thank you to our guests for participating.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, brad, for your time. It is a wonderful episode of dynamics. Corner chair, I would also like to thank our guests for joining us. Thank you for all of our listeners tuning in as well. You can find Brad at developerlifecom, that is, d-v-l-p-r-l-i-f-e dot com, and you can interact with them via Twitter D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E. You can also find me at matalinoio, m-a-t-a-l-i-n-oio, and my Twitter handle is matalino16. And you can see those links down below in their show notes. Again, thank you everyone. Thank you and take care.

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