When we perform mail merge, we want the letters to start nicely with "Dear Harry" or dear "Mrs. Brown". This can be done using salutation codes.

We can create as many codes as we like but a contact can only use one. This is the list in the CRONUS demo database.

There is one salutation code for companies but most are for persons. When we look at the formulas for Female Married or Unmarried, we see this screen:

We can enter a formal and informal code. The salutation can have up to five variables pointing to Job Title, First Name, Middle Name, Surname, Initials, and Company Name.

When we look at the result for Karen Friske, it will be "Dear Ms. Karen Friske" or "Hi Karen".

At the end of this chapter, we will look at how to create extra salutation types.

Like we said earlier in this chapter, it is best practice to use the address fields in the contact table for the postal address since this will be printed on all documents.

In the Contact Alt. Address Card table, we can add as many other addresses to a contact as we want.

An alternative address can also have a valid to and valid end date to control which alternative address is currently active.

In Chapter 2, A Sample Application, you saw that the contact table is the umbrella data of the customer, vendor, and bank account master data tables.

Each contact of the type Company can be promoted as one of these tables. The benefit is that all address information fields have a single place of maintenance and are inherited. It also allows us to analyze sales data into relationship management as we will see later in this chapter when discussing segments.

When we create master data, a different Number Series is used. At the end of this chapter, we will look at how to change that in the code.

A contact of Type: Person cannot be created as the Customer, Vendor, or Bank Account.

When entering new contacts, the system can search for duplicate contacts. In the Duplicate Search String Setup table, we can enable the filtering on eight fields: Name, Name2, Address, Address2, Post Code, City, Phone No., and VAT Registration No.

For each field, we can set up which part should be used when searching for a duplicate. We can use the option First and Last and a length, which is useful for the Name, Address, and City fields. Using First with the full length of the field will search for an exact match, which is useful for Post Code, Phone No., and VAT Registration No.

In the Marketing Setup table, we can specify the percentage of matching criteria that should result in a warning, as shown in the following screenshot:

For each contact, the system will save these values in Cont. Duplicate Search String table (5086).

When we enter a new contact, the system will also generate the same strings and compare these to the ones in the database. When there is a match, the system will show a warning with the duplicate contacts.

Profiles can also be automatically answered based on formulas. This is done using the Auto Contact Classification option and setting up the Question Details.

The Profile Question Details are fixed and hardcoded. They depend on the relationship between a contact and a customer or vendor as discussed earlier in this chapter.

We will not describe all the possibilities as this is very well covered in the online help.

When the questions are set up, the answers should have a From Value and To Value to allow the system to pick the right one.

To generate the answers, a batch job is used called Update Contact Classification where we can filter on a profile.

Some interactions can also be automatically generated, for example, each time we print an invoice or shipment.

Which interaction code is used for each transaction is defined in the Interaction Template Setup. For every print, we want an interaction log entry to be generated and we need to set up a code.

Other automatically created interaction log entries are created by segments, which we will look at later in the chapter.

When completed, the interactions are connected to a contact and can be used for analysis purposes. It is also possible to start a To-do from an interaction. We'll look at that in the next paragraph.

Each opportunity we create will follow a sales cycle in the system. This will guide us step by step though the process.

Let's have a look at the sales cycles in the CRONUS database.

There are four sales cycles defined. The most important field is the Probability Calculation formula. This will determine how the system calculates the current value of all opportunities with this code. We can see the Calculated Current Value by opening the Statistics window of a sales cycle, as shown in the following screenshot:

There are four options to choose from: Multiply, Add, Chances of Success %, and Completed %. The function UpdateEstimates in the Opportunity Entry (5093) table calculates this:

UpdateEstimates()
IF SalesCycleStage.GET("Sales Cycle Code","Sales Cycle Stage") 
THEN BEGIN
  SalesCycle.GET("Sales Cycle Code");
  CASE SalesCycle."Probability Calculation" OF
    SalesCycle."Probability Calculation"::Multiply:
      BEGIN
        "Probability %" := "Chances of Success %" * 
                      SalesCycleStage."Completed %" / 100;
      END;
    SalesCycle."Probability Calculation"::Add:
      BEGIN
        "Probability %" := ("Chances of Success %" + 
                      SalesCycleStage."Completed %") / 2;
      END;
    SalesCycle."Probability Calculation"::"Chances of Success %":
      BEGIN
        "Probability %" := "Chances of Success %";
      END;
    SalesCycle."Probability Calculation"::"Completed %":
      BEGIN
        "Probability %" := SalesCycleStage."Completed %";
      END;
  END;
  "Completed %" := SalesCycleStage."Completed %";
  "Calcd. Current Value (LCY)" := "Estimated Value (LCY)" * 
                           "Probability %" / 100;
END;

The Probability Calculation first calculates a Probability % field, which will then lead to the required Calculated Current Value.

Each sales cycle has different stages that will guide us through the sales process.

The current sales stage of an opportunity defines the Completed % field. We can decide with Allow Skip option whether a sales stage is mandatory. The quote required will force us to assign a sales quote to this opportunity as we will see later when we create an opportunity.

Activity codes

Each sales stage has an activity code. This will define which To-do's are created to support us in the sales process.

This is a very powerful tool, enabling sales people to create a workflow for each sales process.

Let's create an opportunity and see what happens in the system.

An opportunity starts by selecting an existing contact or creating a new one. From the Contact Card, we can navigate to Related Information | Contact | Opportunities | List.

This leads us to a filtered lists of opportunities linked to this contact.

Sales quote

To assign a sales quote to an opportunity, we navigate to Actions | Functions | Assign Sales Quote from the Opportunity Card. This will open a new sales quote with all fields populated from the opportunity.

Note

To assign a quote to a contact without a Sell-to Customer No., we need to use the Sell-to Customer Template Code. This can be used when the Show more fields option is activated on the General fast tab.

We will select two furniture items and populate the Quantity and Line Discount % fields.

When we now update the opportunity, we can use the quote amount of 796,80 which will lead to a Calculated Current Value of 478,08 in step three and 557,76 in step four.

Note

To update the opportunity to step 4, the sales person should have a valid e-mail address, which can be set up in the sales persons.

Closing the deal

Step five is the final step in the sales cycle stages we used in our example. Now we need to tell the system whether the deal is won or lost. To do this, we navigate to Actions | Functions | Close from the Opportunity Card. We will select Won and click on Next.

After selecting a valid reason and the sales amount, we can close the deal.

The system now creates a customer for this contact and updates the quote with this number. We need to promote the quote to an order manually.

With our segment defined, we can now start filtering the system for contact information by navigating to Actions | Functions | Contacts | Add Contacts.

This opens a selection window, allowing us to filter on different parts of the application:

After adding all contacts from The Netherlands, we might want to refine or reduce this, which can be done with the same filtering as adding contacts. Refining will check whether the contacts in the segments match the specific filter criteria and reducing will remove all contacts in the segment that match the criteria.

We will reduce the segment with City Waalwijk.

We can now ask the system what criteria we used by navigating to Related Information | Segments | Criteria.

This allows us to see what we did, but also to undo the last actions or save the criteria.

Another option to reuse a segment is to apply a mailing group to all contacts in a segment. To start this, we click on Apply Mailing Group in the ACTIONS tab from the Segment Card.

This will create a record in the Contact Mailing Group table for each contact in the segment.

When the segment is finished, it should be logged. Logging the segment will start the mail merge process in our segment and create the.

If required, the system can directly generate a follow up segment if we wanted to use this segment with a campaign.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV allows special item pricing for campaigns. If a sales order is generated from a campaign, the system will use the special price automatically.

By navigating to Related Information | Campaign | Sales Prices, we can enter the pricing information for this campaign.

This price table is filtered exactly the same way as discussed in our example application in Chapter 2, A Sample Application.

To select customers or prospects for a campaign, we need to create one or more segments. These segments should be connected to the campaign using the Campaign No. field. Everyone related to these segments will get the specific prices and discounts.

The segments are also used to create the interaction log entries and To-do's for this campaign. We need to make our target group aware that this campaign exists by sending them a letter, fax, e-mail, or even a phone call.

By activating the campaign, the system will add all contacts to the campaign group and create interaction log entries.

The interaction log entries will be used to calculate the cost of a campaign. Each interaction has a specific cost and all costs add up to the total amount on the campaign.

When an opportunity comes in, we can point this to a specific campaign. The value of this opportunity is also used in estimating the success of the campaign.

The campaign is also copied into the sales documents using the dimensions attached to the campaign. This allows us to further analyze the results.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV also has a capability to read exchange shared folders such as info@ mailboxes. For each e-mail, the system can generate Interaction Log Entries and To-do's.