From an Underused CRM to a Daily Sales Tool: An Event Production Company’s Dynamics 365 Story
An event production company had Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, but leadership could not use it to answer basic questions about the pipeline. Which potential projects were moving forward? Who needed a follow-up? When had someone last contacted the prospect?
The company used the application to enter events, complete an event scorecard, and generate some folders and task lists. The sales capabilities were barely used. The system had not been configured around how the team found prospects, developed relationships, and turned event conversations into proposals.
Executive summary
Challenge: Dynamics 365 Sales was barely used for sales management. Leadership lacked pipeline visibility, follow-up was inconsistent, and the application did not guide sellers through the company’s sales process. The assessment also uncovered failing automations and inappropriate ownership dependencies.
Approach: Alliason assessed the existing environment, repaired automation ownership and record relationships, and implemented Business Process Flows and Sales Sequences around the company’s sales approach. The engagement also delivered contact-history tracking, Outlook activity tracking, dashboards, and training.
Outcome: The team moved into daily Dynamics 365 Sales use, with clearer visibility into active deals, overdue follow-up, and stalled opportunities. The company continued using its existing application, with repaired automations and a configuration it could maintain.
A sales process the application did not support
Selling event production services starts well before a proposal. The team needs to identify suitable companies, reach the right people, establish whether there is an event to pursue, and gather enough information to decide whether it is a good fit.
The company had criteria for making those decisions, including industry, location, and event details. It also had an event scorecard for evaluating potential projects. But Dynamics 365 Sales did not guide sellers through that process or provide a consistent follow-up routine.
Without that structure, a record in the system gave leadership little indication of how a relationship was developing. The application held information, but the team could not rely on it to manage the pipeline.
The engagement needed to connect the company’s sales decisions, customer conversations, and next steps inside the application.
The assessment found problems beyond sales configuration
Alliason began with an Assessment of the existing environment.
The review found automations tied to a former vendor’s account, creating a dependency on an account that was no longer appropriate for ongoing ownership. Some automations were also failing because records had been connected incorrectly. Those failures were not apparent to the business.
The environment’s configuration needed attention too. Changes were not consistently organized for testing and deployment, making the application harder to maintain.
The assessment established what needed to change. The resulting implementation addressed those findings: automation ownership was moved to a dedicated account controlled by the company, incorrect record relationships were repaired, and customizations were reorganized. A separate sandbox provided a place to develop and test changes before moving them into the live system.
Building the company’s qualification decisions into Dynamics 365 Sales
Alliason implemented Business Process Flows to guide lead and opportunity progression, alongside Sales Sequences to guide outreach and follow-up.
Leads and opportunities each followed a three-stage process. Together, the two processes guided sellers from evaluating a prospect and developing the relationship to pursuing a confirmed event opportunity, preparing a proposal, and recording the outcome. Each stage showed the information required and the decision needed before moving forward.
The qualification steps reflected the company’s actual criteria. Sellers checked whether a prospect was in the service area and matched the target company profile. As the relationship developed, they recorded the first appointment and whether post-meeting follow-up had been completed. Conversion depended on confirming an opportunity with the contact.
These steps were configured using Business Process Flows, which provide stage guidance and can require information before a record advances.
For an opportunity, the required information included the company, contact, and event name. The existing event scorecard was incorporated into the opportunity process, carrying the company’s project evaluation criteria into the sales process.
The process also identified when responsibility should pass to the person preparing the proposal. Sellers had a defined handoff and an explicit step to record the final outcome.
Turning the outreach playbook into Sales Sequences
The company’s outreach approach was translated into Sales Sequences and follow-up tasks inside Dynamics 365 Sales. Alliason defined and implemented the steps for LinkedIn outreach, email, and post-event contact, with due dates for the activities.
Sellers could see which action came next and when it was due. The outreach routine became a scheduled set of activities associated with the prospect, reducing reliance on memory to keep the relationship moving.
The Business Process Flows and Sales Sequences supported different parts of the same sale. The process flows guided the information and decisions needed to advance a lead or opportunity. The sequences guided the customer contact needed between those decisions. Leadership could see both the position of a potential deal and whether follow-up was due or overdue.
The engagement also connected Outlook activity to the sales records. Sellers could track emails and meetings against the relevant lead, opportunity, company, or contact, making those communications available on the record’s timeline.
Training covered how to manage leads and opportunities, update stages, track communications, and create follow-up tasks. A written user guide and training deck gave the team instructions to refer to after the sessions.
Seeing which deals are at risk of being forgotten
Alliason added last-contact date and contact-type tracking across leads, opportunities, companies, and contacts.
That information addressed a specific reporting problem: changing a record does not necessarily mean someone has spoken to the customer.
Stalled-opportunity reporting was changed to use the last-contact date rather than the date the record was last modified. A seller updating a field would no longer make a deal appear active when customer communication had stopped.
Dashboards brought together pipeline stages, stalled leads and opportunities, due and overdue activities, and won and lost deals. Leadership could review where attention was needed, while sellers could see the follow-up tasks associated with their records.
A simpler process gave the team confidence
During a walkthrough of the process, a client team member commented:
“I appreciate you keeping it simple for us.”
During a review of the delivered sales process and dashboards, the sales consultant advising the company compared the experience with previous CRM engagements:
“When I've worked with other folks setting up a CRM, ... a lot of times I feel like I'm pulling out my hair ... Thank you. Really good job. I love it.”
Later in the same meeting, the consultant said:
“I'm feeling confident. I really like what [Alliason has] done.”
From occasional use to daily sales management
The company’s team moved from limited use of Dynamics 365 Sales to using it every day.
Sellers had a process that reflected how they qualified prospects and pursued events. Follow-up steps were visible, customer communications were attached to the relevant records, and leadership had better visibility into active deals and opportunities that needed attention.
The company continued with its existing Dynamics 365 Sales application. The engagement repaired technical problems and connected the sales process to the system, giving the team a practical way to manage the relationships and potential projects it was pursuing.
If your Dynamics 365 implementation is stalled, over budget, or losing credibility with leadership, we can help you determine what is worth preserving, what needs to change, and what a credible recovery path looks like.
