For organizations seeking a comprehensive, robust and extendable customer relationship management platform, it is worth considering the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform. In this post, we will cover a quick case for considering Microsoft Dynamics 365 for your customer relationship management and provide a guide on how set up a free Dynamics 365 Online 30 day Trial Version.
A Quick Case for Microsoft Dynamics 365
Why should you choose Microsoft Dynamics 365 over other customer relationship management platforms? Here are 6 reasons to choose Microsoft Dynamics 365 over its competitors:
- Familiar, intuitive and easy to adopt user interface: If an organization is familiar with the Microsoft Office suite, it is easy to adopt the Microsoft Dynamics 365 user interface, as they are designed by the same organization. You can spend less on change management.
- Integration with the Microsoft ecosystem: You can easily integrate Microsoft Dynamics 365 with the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem like Outlook, Office 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc), Windows Server, Exchange Server, Skype for Business, SharePoint, Power BI, and PowerApps.
- Powerful analytics, social sales and embedded intelligence features like LinkedIn Sales Navigator Application Platform and Relationship Assistant, to enhance productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.
- Flexible and extendable architecture, deployment options, and pricing, making it easy for an organization to customize Dynamics 365 to its specific requirements and only pay for its unique needs.
- Detailed, flexible and seamless security model: Dynamics allows you to control who can access general sections and specific areas like fields. Users only see areas they have been granted access to.
- Microsoft’s commitment to the product quality and innovation as well as partner support: Microsoft is committed to quality and regularly releases updates, continuously innovating and improving the product. Also, Microsoft has a global network of partners to support clients across the world.
Setting up a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Free Online Trial Version
Are you convinced about Microsoft Dynamics 365? If you are, and ready to take it to the next level, here are the steps you need to set up a Microsoft Dynamics 365 online trial version:
Step 1: Go to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 product home page. 
Step 2: Click on “Schedule a demo”.
Step 3: Click on “Sign up for a free trial”.
Step 4: Click on “Sign up here”.
Step 5: On the pop-up, if you are not a Microsoft employee or partner organization, click on “No, continue signing up”.
Step 6: Enter the required information and click “Next”.
Step 7: Enter the required information about the Microsoft Dynamics 365 trial organization you are about to create and click on “Create my account”. Also, if you would like to hear from Microsoft or its partner in your geographical location to provide support on your Dynamics 365 journey, select the options provided below.
Step 8: Enter your phone number for Microsoft to verify that you are not a robot. You will receive an automated text or phone call, depending on the option you select.
Step 9: Hooray!!! You have created your Office 365 and Dynamics 365 organizations, you will get the page below. Take note of the “Sign-in page’ and “Your user ID”, you will need this information to sign into your new organization.
Step 10: Go to the Microsoft Office 365 home page. If you are requested to sign in, click on “Sign in” and login using the user ID from step 9 and the password you created earlier, in step 7.
Step 11: After logging in, click on the “Admin” app, to access your Office 365 organization’s administration options and configurations.
Step 12: Adding other users to your new Office organization and Dynamics 365 organization: In the Admin app, navigate to Users >>> Active Users. You will get a page similar to the one below. Click on ‘Add a user’ to start the process of adding a new user to the Office 365 organization. 
Step 13: Enter the user’s basic information and click Next:
Step 14: You can add a user to your Office 365 organization without giving them access to the Dynamics 365 organization. However, if you if you want the user to be both a member of the Office 365 organization and Dynamics 365 organization, you have to grant the user a Dynamics 365 license (see the image below). You can also assign the user other product licenses from this section. Click Next.
The creator of the organization has a Global Administrator role, in Office 365, as well as System Administrator and System Customizer security roles, in Dynamics 365, giving them the rights to add users to both Office 365 and Dynamics 365.
Step 15: You can also assign administration roles to the user if you wish. These settings are optional. Click Next.
Step 16: Review the user details. If you have happy with the setup details, click on ‘Finish adding’ to add the user to the organization.
Step 17: After successfully adding the user, you will get a page similar to image below. You can add more users from this window. After you finish add users, click ‘Close’.
Step 18: Back in the Admin page, in the left navigation, navigate to ‘All admin centers ‘. If you cannot see ‘All admin centers ‘ in your left navigation panel, click on ‘Show all’. In the main window, click on ‘Dynamics 365’ to access the Dynamics 365 administration center, in order to complete the set up of your Dynamics 365 organization. 
Step 19: To complete your Dynamics 365 setup, select the apps you are interested in. If you are not interested in the provided apps, you can select “None of these. Don’t customize my organization” for a vanilla Dynamics of 365 organization. Click on ‘Complete Setup’.
Step 20: Depending on the app(s) you selected in the previous step, you will get a launch pad similar to this:
Step 21: Select the Dynamics 365 app you would like to launch by clicking on it and you will get the app’s home page. Here is an example of the Dynamics 365 Customer Service app home. 
Your brand new Dynamics 365 instance has been set up and is ready for your adventures. Feel to explore and play around with the environment. You just have entered the fascinating world of Dynamics 365. Welcome!!!