From MS Dynamics to Bitrix24

Goal

This time, our client is Vigia, group of companies which includes five independent business units: from a gas distributor to an entertainment park. Automating internal processes of such a corporation is quite an ambitious task.

Prior to meeting Bitrix24, Vigia used MS Dynamics both as CRM and the main means of workflows automation. In search of a better solution, the company’s representatives tested the basic functions of Bitrix24 in the cloud version and eventually decided to switch to the self-hosted version of the product. As a result, the goal to transfer all current workflows from MS Dynamics to Bitrix24 was born.

Soon it became clear that to make the next step the company needs some help from an experienced integrator. The main selection criterion was not whether the contractor was able to cope with the workflows migration, but whether they were able to train company employees to use all necessary tools so that they could design and implement workflows without exterior help.

Solution

We have interviewed the customer and offered a training course where we:

• teach customers how to automate processes in Activity Stream, CRM, and Tasks;

• train them to design workflows in Bitrix24 Designer;

• show how to perform calculations and implement processes with complex logic of execution.

We have a rule — we teach complex courses only in person, wherever the client's headquarters is located. So we went to Mexico.

By our arrival, the client has formed an initiative group of internal integrators that were ready to get started right away. It was great news as this approach guarantees students’ engagement, motivates mentors and greatly facilitates the start of the project.  

The training was structured as follows: each day mentors came to the customer's office and in actual practice sorted out the specifics of each workflow, analyzed and selected data, helped employees with creating workflows in Designer, and supervised the migration from MS Dynamics to Bitrix24. While working together, the two groups became one team.  

While moving forward, it became clear that the standard functionality of Bitrix24 satisfies the needs of the company by 75-80%, and several questions cannot be solved by regular means. For the most part, it involved working with CRM. For instance, the client needed to differentiate employee access to CRM data depending on their access rights. The same applied to editing some fields in Lead and Deal cards, as well as some items in the Workflow Designer. For a corporation with several independent divisions, such distinctions are vital to maintain the consistency of information and protect the company from misinterpreting the reports.

Deals management also required customization: for example, the client needed to have the opportunity to assign deals with unique numbers. To simplify the process of recording new customer info in the Deal card, we have implemented autosuggest: when entering a zip code, Bitrix24 automatically determines the territorial belonging of the client and fills in some fields in the address section (municipality, city, country) in online mode.

In the main menu on the left, there are two new sections: favorite Tasks and favorite posts in the Activity Stream. All tasks and posts marked with a star automatically fall into the corresponding sections. It makes it easier for the company employees to access the necessary information and serves as another filtering toll. All posts in the Activity stream now have the "Read" button: by clicking it, the users let each other know that they have read the post, and their names appear in the counter right next to it.

Also, we have integrated the portal with the external analysis system Qlikview. We gave the client a model using which the employees learned to connect to the database and upload necessary data to Bitrix24.