One of the things you might purposefully ignore or postpone when putting Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central into practice is role centers.Many businesses consider role centers to be a "nice-to-have" and put off setting them up until later. But role centers are not only for show.
What are Role Centers?
When users check in to Business Central, they are greeted by their home sites, known as Role Centers. They are made to fit the duties and requirements of particular positions, such as inventory specialists, sales managers, and accounts payable clerks. The primary tasks, reports, and information pertinent to each function are shown in each function Center.
Why Do Businesses Wait Until Phase Two to Implement Role Centers?
In most Business Central implementations, time is of the essence. Your team is concentrating on important tasks including migrating data from outdated systems, ensuring transactions flow properly, and setting up fundamental financial operations. Role Centers seem insignificant in comparison to the large goods. Therefore, businesses frequently say, "We’ll deal with that later." However, "later" frequently means never.
The urgency of day-to-day operations takes over after you go live. Role centers are still general and frequently set to the "Business Manager" role center by default for all users. Although this general strategy could be effective in the short term, it leads to inefficiencies right away.
Workers frequently use the Tell Me search function dozens of times a day, wasting significant time looking for the pages, reports, and functions they require. As a result of this friction, productivity is decreased and irritation rises.
The Reasons Why Phase Two Is Ideal for Role Centers
The good news is that a Phase Two project is a perfect fit for Role Centers. Your team will have a clearer understanding of what they require from the system by the time the initial installation dust settles.
Additionally, Role Centers provide a "fast win." Role Centers can be set up fast, in contrast to more significant system modifications that call for extensive development or process reengineering. And when done correctly, they almost instantly result in a discernible increase in usability. It is a powerful, low-risk strategy to maintain your momentum after going live.
The Benefits of Customized Role Centers
An properly designed Role Center offers an individual experience for every team member.They are presented with the tasks, information, and actions that are most important to them as soon as they log in.
Those important items can be saved as favorites at the top of the screen, saving you from having to hunt for the same pages thirty times a day. Important task queues, Reports, and waiting for authorization are displayed directly on the Role Center page, minimizing guessing and clicks.
It has a significant influence. Workers are more comfortable utilizing the system. They complete tasks more quickly. Additionally, because everything they want is easily accessible, they utilize Microsoft Business Central's capabilities more effectively.
The Price of Disregarding Role Centres
Customers receive a minor production cost each time they look for a page in their Role Center rather than click on a link. When you double that by each user, daily, the expense becomes substantial.
This is particularly true if you use short-term workarounds to get around the system, such as cheat sheets or emailed lists of website links. These short-term solutions merely cover up the fundamental inefficiencies.
Task centers are designed for removing such waste by giving everybody an original, specific to the job starting point.
How a Role Center Project Can Be Prepared for
Knowing what your consumers truly need is the first step in addressing role centers in phase two. This means meeting with each department to inquire about,
What are your everyday responsibilities in Business Central?
Which data or reports do you frequently review?
Which pages are the most often searched for?
Which activities would you like to see more easily?
The above approach will help you decide the number of Role Centers that are required and what they should include.
At the same time, many businesses face their first significant obstacle at this point. Employee roles and workflows are typically well-defined in large organizations; they are aware of who is responsible for what and where responsibility for certain activities lies.
Employees in smaller businesses, however, frequently take on many roles. Someone may be in charge of purchasing or customer service duties in addition to doing some sales work. It is more difficult to connect people directly to Business Central's regular Role Centers because of this overlap.
The better course of action is to sit down and establish a clear list of all the roles your system needs to support, rather than putting everyone into preset roles that do not fit. In reality, how many different Role Centers are required to handle those roles? To reflect the reality of how your people work, you may need to create hybrid role centers, which combine responsibilities from various functional areas onto a single page.
The Greatest Methods for Establishing Role Centers
It is time to set up the Role Centers when you have determined what your users require. Among the best practices are:
Select the appropriate base Role Center
For positions like purchasing agent, order processor, and accountant, Business Central offers a number of unconventional choices. Take the closest match first.
Make it unique for every user group
Depending on certain duties, add or remove things. The user's everyday tasks should be reflected in their favorites and activity cues.
Cut down on clutter
Avoid flooding Role Centers with extraneous information and connections. Keep them tidy and concentrated.
Users should be trained on their new Role Center
If people do not know how to use it, even the best role center is worthless. Users can learn more about the options and how to further customize with a brief training session.