17Jun2021

PowerApps Portals for Dynamics 365

There are a variety of PowerApps available for Microsoft Dynamics 365 environments, which can be delivered across organisations. With PowerApps Portals, Dynamics 365 environments can build and deliver responsive websites which allow external users to interact with the data stored in the Common Data Service (CDS) now renamed the DataVerse.

This low-code solution enables clients to access specified Dynamics 365 data from your database across the web and mobile, without sharing your entire database. With an intuitive backend, Synergy Technology can help you to set up a customised branded portal which allows users to interact with their data.

The Power Apps Portals merged with pre-existing Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement portals in 2019. The greatest change when the solutions merged was the licensing as now these Power Apps Portals are licensed based on usage or capacity and they empower your users and customers by offering them greater freedom to choose how they interact with your organisation.

Keep reading to find out more detail about PowerApps Portals, how you can use these for your customers, partners, and prospects and the different capabilities available to Microsoft Dynamics 365 environments.

Transform your vision into reality

With Portals, you can design and integrate fields from your Dynamics 365 solution to present to your intended audience, whether that be your customers or partners. Alongside this, you can brand and manage your portal with customisable portal templates and responsive themes to appear in-line with your business brand and values.

Through the ‘Portal Management’ in your Dynamics 365 system, the appearance of the portal can be customised to your desired look, as well as creating page templates. With page templates, you can create a standard image template that can be used across all pages on your portal website.

This enriched version of Portals allows for model-driven forms, views, lists, charts, and dashboards to offer more value with each interaction. The intuitive interface makes it effortless for users to search for data, such as a customer viewing their open support requests, their order history or checking the status of their current order.

Engage with your Customers and Partners

Creating a Portal from your Dynamics 365 environment enables an exclusive system to be produced for your customers, partners and even your prospects. By transitioning to PowerApps Portals businesses are now able to deploy multiple portals to run simultaneously.

There are various instances where Portals could be maximised and used from your Dynamics 365.

Customers: Able to view order history, active cases or submit a new support query.
Partners: Able to distribute leads, enabling partners to easily provide updates and access sales resources.
Employees: A separate interface from your Dynamics 365 system, where users can create and share knowledge posts to share across the business – somewhat like a company Intranet. Alternatively, it can be used for members of certain teams to investigate their active opportunities and leads.
Community: This can be a mix of customers, prospects, partners, and industry contacts who can access blog posts and other resources, or even participate in forums. There is also a chance to include polls and post ratings, providing your business with a chance to receive opinions and feedback.
Events: This is most useful for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing, in which you can handle registration processes and include capabilities for managing sessions, speakers, and venues.

With each Portal, you can choose who you invite to access your Portals, as well as what each user is able to see. Hence, users will only see information that is relevant to them, without seeing the updates and information of other accounts in your Microsoft Dynamics 365 environment.

Empower your employees and users

By using PowerApps Portals, your customers and partners can benefit from an exclusive invitation to a portal that can strengthen communication between to your employees. By doing this, you can lower incoming phone calls and emails for updates and ticket submissions, as well as increasing customer, partner, and employee satisfaction. By doing this, you are enhancing business outcomes through improved, faster, and more informed business decision making.

On top of this, when creating a Portal, it will be securely kept and maintained within the Dataverse and integrated with your Dynamics 365 environment. The Power Apps Portals are by default stored in the cloud and are protected by enhanced security measures and features, ensuring that your valuable customer data remains safe. Furthermore, as many production and non-production portals can be used and deployed as required.

A research study from Forrester in March 2020, in partnership with Microsoft, showed that the top 3 benefits of PowerApps are:

74% reduced app development and costs
3% revenue uplift linked to more and faster development efforts
132,000 hours saved from streamlined and automated activities.

Click here to download the full report.

Get Started with Portals with Dynamics 365

By using PowerApps Portals, you are can present real-time data to your intended audience, with automated updates from users transferred into your Dynamics 365 environment. These intuitive Portals enable your business to provide the necessary data to your customers, partners, and prospects, without providing access to your entire Dynamics 365 data.

The Dynamics 365 team at Synergy Technology can assist your business by providing guidance with the setup and updates to your system. Furthermore, we can provide training to all those required on how to create future Portals, update and manage on a day-to-day basis. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, we have the knowledge to provide businesses to get the best out of the Power Apps Portals.

Want to find out more? Get in touch with Synergy Technology today.

Call: 0345 456 0050

Send us a message: https://synergytechnology.co.uk/contact/