Microsoft Power Automate provide users the ability to quickly create and integrate applications within the enterprise. With this ability comes concerns with governance to ensure users are allowed the appropriate permissions as well as identifying and highlighting specific connections created across the organization. Flows offer a wide array of connectors and the ability to identify which of these are used is essential.
This article is designed to examine common operations that administrators would use to govern environment flows and how best to work with both the Power Automate Management and Power Automate Admin Connectors.
The Common Data Service and fundamental concepts, such as packaging and distributing customizations with solutions, are paramount to providing an automated and auditable delivery process. With that in mind, we will also explore how the Management and Admin connectors are impacted by the usage of both My Flows and Solution Aware Flows.
Power Automate Management Connector and Actions
Inside of Power Automate and Canvas Apps resides the Power Automate Management Connector which allow administrators the ability to manage flows.
[Author’s Note: Click on each image for clarity]
With this connector within Power Automate Flow, administrators can schedule or run instantly a report of activities within a specific tenant, environment or even a flow itself. Reported items include listing environments, connections, flows and their owners and users. Actionable items include creating and deleting flows, turning flows on and off and modifying permissions and ownership on a flow.
Permissions
The Power Automate Management connector, dependent on DLP Policy, can be used by makers who may not have the appropriate permissions. If the maker does not have admin access they will get an error. This is important to address before we move further into common operations and scenarios with both connectors.
“Office 365 Global Administrator or Azure Active Directory Global Administrator permissions if you need to search through another user’s resources. (Note that Environment Admins only have access to those environments and environment resources for which they have permissions, and global admins can see all resources across the tenant.)“
Common Operations and Differences between Solution Aware and My Flows
Some of the actions I find useful regularly within this connector include List My Connections, List Flows as Admins, Get Flow as Admin and List Owners and Run-Only Users of Flows. For this section we will focus on utilizing these actions and how they can be used with both My Flows and Solution Aware Flows.
List Connections
List My Connections will list the connections and provide user context and connection status. If a connection has an error code, it can be found here and reported.
List Flows
List Flows as Admin provides a list of flows within an environment. Each flow returned contains the current state, the flow name and when it was created and last modified. For solution aware flows, we can also find the workflow primary key for use with the Power Automate API.
The Common Data Service API call, utilizing the WorkflowEntityId, shown below can be used to find further information about the flow.
Solution Aware Flows will have the WorkflowEntityId as shown above as well as another value to help distinguish it from My Flows. As shown below, the sharingType property will be “CommonDataService” for Solution Aware Flows.
Get Flow
Get Flow as Admin can help admins determine the different triggers and actions that define a flow. This could be helpful to retain a sort of history of My Flows allowing versioning with source control. Get Flow and Get Flow as Admin seem to both return My Flows or Solution Aware Flows. Remember, solution aware flows are packaged within solutions and can also easily be stored in source control with the Solution Packager tool.
Here is a Solution Aware Flow using the List Flow Owners action.
That said, let’s continue to modifying flow owners to understand how we can leverage additional connectors to help out!
Modifying Flow Owners and Run-Only Users
Modifying My Flow Owners allows Flow makers to add (put) or remove (delete) other makers or users to become owners. This works the same with Run-Only users as well.
For Modifying Owners for a Solution Aware Flow, the Modify Flow Owner action not only doesn’t work as expected it will throw an error.
Sharing error:
Sharing through Flow is not currently supported for solution-aware flows. Permissions management should be conducted through the environment-linked XRM instance.
However, referencing back to our knowledge that Solution Aware Flows are CDS (XRM) records, we can leverage the Power Automate (CDS) Web API to help. It just so happens the reference to the Power Automate Web API provides examples to listing users who flows are shared and how to share and unshare a flow.
First, let’s review the Flow as is from the Flow Portal. The image below shows a single owner of the flow with no run-only users.
Moving into the Common Data Service, we can see that by locating the flow within the Common Data Service, the flow is not shared with anyone.
Using the Common Data Service current environment connector, we can call an unbound action (GrantAccess) to modify the PrincipalAccess of the Flow to use a systemuser or team.
Now, reviewing the Common Data Service record for the workflow we can see the updated principal access. The image below is not an accurate representation to the one above. To find out how permissions and AccessRights work, review this document.
For a complete example of this flow, showcasing how to share access to a solution aware flow, click here.
Looping back on Listing Flow Owners
Now that we have discussed the Common Data Service, let’s circle back to the listing flow owners scenario. Reviewing the Power Automate Web API we can see that to list users we need to use a CDS function called RetrieveSharedPrincipalsAndAccess. Here is the CDS documentation. Unfortunately the Common Data Service (current environment) connector currently doesn’t allow for calling functions. In this case we can leverage an Azure Function custom connector or call the Web API using the HTTP connector.
Using the HTTP connector with the CDS Web API, you’ll have to make a call to get the authorization bearer token which can then be used for subsequent calls to the API. The image below shows this conceptually.
NOTE: This technique is based on the documentation found here in the article “Power Automate Web API“. That said I cannot speak to nor guarantee the supportability of what is shown here.
Turn On and Turn Off
The Turn On and Turn off actions, as described, can be used to enable or disable flows. From my testing I was able to successfully turn on and turn off both My Flows and Solution Aware Flows using the two actions.
If desired, a sample showing how to update the flow workflow CDS record to turn on or off can be found here.
Power Automate for Admins Connector and Actions
Operational differences between My Flow and Solution Aware Flows
Enable and Disable
Enabling and Disabling flows using the Power Automate for Admins Connector look to work very similar to the Power Automate for Management actions. However, the Power Automate for Admins Connector actions will not work for Solution Aware Flows as they will for the Power Automate for Management connector. Below are example error messages when attempting to start or stop a Solution Aware Flow.
Error:
“CannotStopUnpublishedSolutionFlow” – “An unpublished solution flow cannot be stopped.”
“CannotStartUnpublishedSolutionFlow” – “An unpublished solution flow cannot be activated. Please authenticate the flow connections and save the flow to enable activation.”
Edit Flow Owner
This flow action allows an administrator to assign a edit (CanEdit) or view (CanView) role to a user. Unfortunately this action will not work with Solution Aware Flows and like the Management actions, will require the Common Data Service API.
Error:
“EntityFlowSharingNotSupported” – “Sharing through Flow is not currently supported for solution-aware flows. Permissions management should be conducted through the environment-linked XRM instance.”
Actions Tested
Power Automate Management Connector
Power Automate for Admins Connector
Common Data Service (current environment) Connector
HTTP Connector
Action
Description
Send HTTP Request
Used for the CDS Web API for calling functions and other unavailable actions
Button triggered flows are not available in solutions.
Flows triggered from Microsoft 365 applications such as Excel are not available in solutions.
Flows that connect to SharePoint are not available in solutions.
Importing a solution containing a flow will not automatically create or associate required connections. The flow must be edited to fix the connections.
That said, there are benefits to using Solution Aware Flows such as enhanced capabilities like Child Flows or even additional monitoring with Get-FlowRun (more on that in a future article!). If its needed to move a My Flow to a solution and as long as the known limitations do not apply, there are a couple of options an administrator has.
The first option is to manually add a flow from the Flow Portal. This process is fairly straight forward, simply click Add existing, locate the flow in the Outside of Solutions tab and add. This process will create activity records in the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center which can be used for auditing purposes.
The second option which works well with our goals of automation and continuous governance is to use the PowerApps Administration for PowerShell cmdlets. Included in the Microsoft.PowerApps.PowerShell module is a cmdlet called “Set-FlowAsSolutionAware“. This allows us to programmatically add a flow to a solution by providing the environment, flow name and the solution.
This technique can allow us to automate the migration of My Flows using DevOps platforms such as Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions to building custom webhooks with Azure Function or Azure Automation.
Next Steps
In this article we have covered working with the Power Automate Management and Admin Connectors. Each offers unique actions to help administrators report and taken action on environment flow. Based on the type of flow we are working with, each connector action provides us different outcomes.
The actions tested have been listed out for a reference and sample flows have been provided. Finally, we wrapped with the steps needed to migrate My Flows into solutions.
Your feedback is extremely valuable so please leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to help where I can! Also, if you find any inconsistencies, omissions or have suggestions, please go here to submit a new issue.
Inogic is one of the leading ISV partners for Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and has been providing solutions to enhance its productivity. Over the years, many applications like , , etc. have been developed. These apps have been a huge hit with businesses and industries all around the world. And recently, Inogic came up with a webinar series that gives insight into how these Dynamics solutions work, what they are for and, why everyone should have them installed in their Dynamics 365 CRM environment.
One of the highlights of this ongoing webinar series is the popularity of our app. Viewers showed a great deal of interest in this particular application so its time we quickly summarize all the important features of Attach2Dynamics.
Attach2Dynamics is an application that increases productivity and efficiency of Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM by providing integration of cloud storage within Dynamics 365 CRM. It currently supports three different cloud storage – SharePoint, Dropbox, and Azure Blob Storage. This has multiple features that help in managing documents, notes, files, and folders, etc.
Let’s walk through some helpful features of Attach2Dynamics which makes it different and a must-have app for your Dynamics 365 CRM:
Drag and drop single as well as multiple files and folders at a time to the configured cloud storage.
Create anonymous sharable links of files/folders and copy for external use.
It allows renaming of files and folders.
It also allows downloading of documents from configured cloud storage easily.
One can use Deep search filter for entered keywords and also delete files from Cloud storage.
The app allows configuration of multiple connectors and also supports single sign-on.
One can email a file’s link or file as an attachment from within CRM.
Attach2Dynamics supports hierarchy structure to store all the attachments/documents in SharePoint.
User actions can be controlled on Attach2Dynamics by administrator.
Attach2Dynamics supports all types of entities.
With help of these bunch of features, one can organize all documents in cloud storage according to their needs. From features, Attach2Dynamics is sure to increase productivity of your Dynamics CRM users.
Attach2Dynamics is supported in the latest versions of Dynamics CRM 365 including On-premises, Online, and Partner-hosted.
Safeguard and manage your attachments and documents now by downloading Attach2Dynamics from our or from . With the free trial experience the seamless benefits of the application yourself.
To register for our webinar series, . We also have provided video links to our concluded webinars on Attach2Dynamics. .
For a personalized live demo email us for a walk through how Attach2Dynamics makes document management an easy task on crm@inogic.com.
Large corporations with global operations define their global supply chains with the intent to match supply with demand. More importantly, they consider material flows, established manufacturing and co-manufacturing sites, storage locations, cash flows, technological advantages and restrictions, regulations, tax benefits, and market opportunities.
These supply chain operations run in technology systems of record, planning and analytical applications, and global trade management systems that support solutions to resolve a complex set of regulations to maintain compliance with export and import processes.
Many use global intelligent transfer price supply chain (GITSC) business processes to:
Optimize the landed costs for every product to the customer destination
Define the total costs of ownership
Define the relationship with the market and customers in terms of customer acceptance
Understand and manage customer satisfaction and market share
Here is an example of a GITSC that represents the flow of a product manufactured in China, reprocessed in the European Union, and finally sold in the United States of America.
The transfer pricing strategy in this model shows how the product flow gains tax advantages by using operational ports in Singapore and the Netherlands to offload the tax revenue.
In this example, the GITSC model shows that the total global tax accumulated is $ 29.50, for a total accumulated profit of $ 611.50. If the same supply chain did not use the tax advantages of Singapore and the Netherlands, the estimated tax rate would be $ 192.30, with a net profit of $ 448.30. This example GITSC offers an 85% reduction in tax payments and 36.30% net revenue increase.
The following figure shows the GITSC transfer pricing model in blue and the standard supply chain transfer pricing model in yellow.
Companies running GITSC models implement business processes supported by IT systems that allow the execution of transactional operations to comply with tax, foreign trade, and customs regulations.
Areas of opportunity for global intelligent transfer price supply chains
The first area of opportunity is the inclusion of an intelligent business system that supports decision-making to manage changes in the supply chain. This is both a challenge and an area of opportunity. These business-intelligence systems rely on the ability to collect transactional data across the supply chain. The objective of increasing the current analytical capabilities of the supply chain is to maximize global after-tax profits by determining the flow of goods and the transportation cost allocation between each of the supply-chain actors. The inclusion of simulation models is the first attempt to stabilize the decision making, with the changes inflicted on the supply chain elements, and the addition of artificial intelligence heuristic expert systems.
The second area of opportunity is to enhance current GITSCs based on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. The opportunity lies in managing the supply chain ecosystem, not in an isolated and disintegrated industry ecosystem model.
This industrial ecosystem integration is considered the most important priority to enable supply chain ecosystems to efficiently operate in this new reality characterized by fast, dynamic changes.
Join us in our exclusive webinar session on May 19 to get an overview of the SAP Readiness Check tool, which gives a first analysis of your existing SAP ERP application, highlighting key project activities.
In our previous, blog we have seen how with the help of creating territories sales managers can distribute workload amongst the sales team. With the distribution of work load every sales person has a clear picture of what prospects they need to chase and what strategy they need to follow to generate maximum sales. This also gives the managers a clear picture of how each sales person is performing.
However, in some cases the sales manager might distribute Dynamics 365 CRM leads to the sales persons unevenly due to imbalance in size of territories. Therefore, one sales person might have to chase more leads than other in order to meet their target. This obviously leads to a lag in performance. In this scenario, with the help of Maplytics, territories can be easily balanced in order to provide equal workload to all the reps.
For instance there is a Sales Manager Becca, she has two territories assigned to the sales reps Jacob and Serena. Serena plots the territories on map to visualize how both the territories are distributed. Upon plotting the territories Becca realizes one territory covers greater region than the other.
To avoid the imbalance in the distribution of workload, Becca decides to balance the territory using alignment tool. With the help of alignment tool Becca moves one region from second territory to first.
After moving the geography one Territory 2 to territory 1 now Becca has balanced territories with which workload is distributed between both the territories evenly.
Therefore, you have seen how with the help of Territory Alignment managers can quickly distribute the workload among the reps evenly. Both Sales and Service teams can leverage this feature of Maplytics to balance workload and create motivation amongst team members.
Let’s delve into the benefits of territory management:
Even work distribution: With the help of territory management teams can distribute the work evenly amongst the team members and weigh their performance. With even work distribution the top performing employees can be sorted out and training program for other reps can be launched.
Territory Alignment: By aligning territories equal opportunities can be created for all the team members to showcase the best of their performance. They can pursue leads and clients of their territories and make the best of their opportunities.
Territory Distribution: With territory distribution all the areas, leads and clients in the client/lead base is covered and maximum benefit is acquired from the business.
High ROI: Since reps are allotted territories evenly, there is a balanced work allotment therefore improving the chance of acquiring clients. Therefore, the overall ROI is high and maximum business is generated.
Thus, you have seen how with the help of territory management you can take your business to another level. In order to acquire maximum leads and clients with the help of Maplytics drop a mail at crm@inogic.com.
To explore the solution for a free trial of 15 days download the app from our or
Posted by Courtney Kang, Nonprofit Industry Marketing Lead
The Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence, Kan., does what it does very well. Almost too well. One of the most successful outposts of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, it boasts one of the highest per-capita participation rates in the country, with 1,500 K-12 students served every day, and more than 3,000 active members.
Over time, that kind of reach brings challenges.
“It takes a tremendous amount of resources to manage and serve that many members,” said Megan Hill, director of donor engagement. “It also requires a significant management tool in order for us to effectively manage our entire organization, especially finances.”
But the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence lacked such a tool, and as a result, a few years ago it found itself at an inflection point when it came to grant management. In particular, the organization had seen its roster of major grantors (those providing at least $ 500,000 of the annual budget) grow from one to three, each requiring strict reporting on how its funds were being used.
Upgrading its accounting system would have required significant upgrade fees to improve its grant management, but the club still would have been left with a disparate assortment of disconnected applications, and staff would have continued manually working with spreadsheets to merge data.
Inaction Not an Option
Still, it had to do something. At the time, staff had to manually separate data on matched funds and reimbursed funds, and that task was becoming complex enough to raise the possibility of error.
“We can’t risk being wrong,” said James Lawrence, director of finance & human resources. “If you report funds wrong, grantors can come back and ask for their money. We weren’t meeting the reporting expectations that each grantor had.”
What the club really needed was a more comprehensive and integrated system that it could use to run the entire organization. Lawrence had worked with NetSuite at a previous job, and he knew it was up to the task, but he assumed it was out of the club’s price range and was looking at affordable options, none of which met the organization’s needs.
It was then that he was pointed toward Oracle NetSuite’s Social Impact program, which provides discounted software licenses to nonprofits. After a three-month in-house deployment, Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence went live on NetSuite in April 2018.
Organizational Lifeblood
Lawrence and Hill both said the implementation was a great experience, and that NetSuite resources were there to answer questions every step of the way. That said, they did come away with one important lesson: They wished they’d have spent more time with the system before porting all of the club’s historical data over, as they would have done this differently once they knew how the system worked.
“Scrubbing the data as much as possible before conversion would be my advice,” said Hill.
NetSuite has become the technology lifeblood of the organization. The club uses NetSuite for everything from grant and donor management to workflow of purchase orders to enablement of automated payments to staff and vendors.
Later this year, NetSuite will be integrated with a new member tracking system the national organization is rolling out, and the club also is testing the ability to import bank statements into NetSuite for reconciliation.
A Night and Day Difference
The contrast in the organization pre- and post-implementation is like night and day. Financial reporting is cleaner, donation tracking is simplified, and a paper trail has been replaced by an electronic trail. The budgeting process has been streamlined, grants are growing thanks to the improved ability to record and track them, and reports that use to require days to assemble are now ready in minutes. On top of all that, improved access to quality data has led to improved communication with stakeholders and constituents.
And Hill said it’s clear that NetSuite can do so much more.
“We haven’t even scratched the surface of what we do,” she said.
According to Lawrence, the combined impact on the bottom line, on efficiency, and on the ability to continue improving as an organization has made NetSuite invaluable. And perhaps the greatest benefit is yet to come: He said that NetSuite will free up Hill and the rest of the development staff to spend more time on interacting with donors in person rather than sitting at their desks struggling with technical issues.
And if donors are happier, everything else the club does will be more effective. That, Lawrence stressed, is the whole point.
“We’re in the business of changing lives,” he said, “and NetSuite is helping us do that.”
Dynamics 365 records have an intrinsic field i.e. address which can be used by the users to plot their geographical locations on map. By visualizing the geographical locations on map, managers can plan territories out of them and further assign them to the Sales and Service reps for an effective client management.
Maplytics your favorite and integrates Dynamics 365 CRM with maps and provides location aspect of the CRM data. This data can be used to in order to balance the workload. Geographies created out of this data can be used for Territory Management to create or assign territories. Territories are assigned to the records based on their location aspect or geography. This can be done manually or with based on records in geographies.
Here, territory Management is an effective means to manage the number of records spread and assign them to the field reps for improving and balancing the workload on the reps. Maplytics allows creating territory in four ways:
By File
By Region
By Drawing
By Territory
By File
This is one of the most effective ways of creating territories. By plotting the shape/excel files certain geographies are plotted on the map. These geographies can be further selected or deselected using Territory Alignment tool to either create a new territory out of the geography, or to assign it to an existing one. It helps in understanding, creating and aligning territories to balance the workload assigned to the reps.
The data of the geography/region is also visible in view data grid. At any point in time, the required regions remaining on map can be used to create a territory using the Create Territory button. This does not require selecting regions since all the regions on map are included to create territory.
By Region
This is used to create territories based on City, State, County, Country, PostalCode, PostCode Sector, PostCode (Outward Code), PostalCode Area. At any point in time, the data can be plotted on map using these regions and required regions can be selected using Territory Alignment Tool and used to create a territory out of them right from the map.
By Drawing
This is one of the most novice means of creating territories on the map. Suppose, there is a data spread on map that is not defined by any geographical boundary and is hard to create a territory out of. In such a scenario, managers can use drawing toolbar and create desired regions on the map as per their requirement. After creating the region, they can create new territory out of the selected regions on map.
By Territory
When data is plotted by Territory then existing territories are plotted on the map. With this, data can be compared and used to analyze how the plotted territories are performing. This helps to provide an insight into how to align territories in order to balance the workload on the Sales and Service reps. It is, thus, a powerful and amongst the most popular tools to create, align and manage territories.
Therefore, you have seen how with Maplytics – Preferred Solution on Microsoft AppSource – users can create territories. In our next blog, we will explain how within Maplytics we can align territories.
Try Maplytics today for , , or Download the app for a free trial of 15 days from our or
For any specific mapping needs drop an mail at crm@inogic.com
Posted by John Goode, Senior Director, Channel Marketing
Physician offices, clinics and provider staffing companies often fall under the umbrella of “healthcare management” organizations, which serve as holding companies for a myriad of medical service providers. These organizations have very specific technology needs.
Accounting management, payroll administration, invoicing and other financial tasks are especially challenging. Healthcare management accounting processes are generally very different from those used in other industries. For example, healthcare providers must manage patient co-pays and the many different rates they’ve negotiated with various payers. Additionally, these organizations often operate in highly acquisitive environments.
Nolan Business Solutions and Oracle NetSuite offer solutions tailored to help healthcare management companies. Here are five ways a unified cloud ERP system can help them streamline operations while also saving time and increasing revenue:
Supports scale. As a healthcare management company grows, its technology infrastructure becomes more geographically spread out and detached. For example, a medical service provider may have a long-range plan to partner with small doctors’ offices, at which point those doctors become partial owners of the healthcare management company. While this creates economies of scale on the procurement and insurance side of the business, and supports population health models (i.e., a general medical practice that also includes a pediatrician can refer younger patients to the pediatrician within their system) it introduces complexity often in the form of multiple on-premises systems. Using a cloud ERP solution, these growing entities can easily onboard new acquisitions without the need for new technology investments, implementations or internal IT resources.
Easy integration of new entities. While there are many positives associated with merging multiple healthcare providers into a single entity, healthcare management companies face unique challenges in integrating independent clinics to their corporate portfolios. Most acquired companies are small to midsized practices and use platforms like QuickBooks for basic accounting functions. Others rely heavily on Excel spreadsheets.“We’ve seen some healthcare management organizations using 20+ different instances of QuickBooks,” said Diana Dunphy, a NetSuite Consultant with Nolan Business Solutions. “That’s because when a healthcare management organization buys a new entity, that entity still needs a legal ID in order to run its individual financial statements.” By consolidating those activities and files onto a single, cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system like NetSuite, healthcare management organizations can bring all of their reporting, purchasing/procurement, financials and accounting onto one platform.
Consolidates financials and leverages contracted rates. For many of these organizations, “trying to do consolidated financials is a nightmare,” said Dunphy. “That’s where NetSuite steps in.” With it, these companies can grow their practices in the way that they intended. For example, when a patient gets a flu shot, his or her insurance company is billed for a portion of the charge (e.g., a $ 100 flu shot may be paid in part by the patient [$ 20 co-pay] and the rest by the insurance company). This process is managed through a database that records patient revenues, deductibles and allowances. “The more patients the clinic can put into the system,” said Dunphy, “the better its contract rates will be.”
Simple data extraction and sharing. Nolan Business Systems sets up NetSuite in a way that enables data extraction from the clinic’s billing system—via an application programming interface (API)—and into a NetSuite-ready journal entry. “The administrator pushes a button and a file is generated,” said Dunphy, whose team has years of experience working in the healthcare field, helping it consolidate and digitize its operations.
Plug, play, and go. With its plug-and-play chart of accounts and a financial reporting structure that caters to healthcare management companies, Nolan Business Solutions’ implementations typically take 90-120 days to complete and include easy customizations and financial reporting structure. Six years in the making, its chart of accounts is continually honed and updated to ensure that it meets the needs of today’s healthcare management organizations. “We know our customers’ financial structures, and how to slice and dice their accounts,” said Dunphy. “Working closely with our clients, our chart of accounts just keeps getting better and better.”
Over the past decade, healthcare management organizations have significantly increased both their services and geographic coverage. With this growth comes new challenges, many of them related to accounting and financial management. By implementing a unified cloud ERP system and working with a provider like Nolan Business Solutions, healthcare management organizations get a solution that’s tailored to their industry and to their individual businesses. Access this info graphic and data sheet to learn more about how Nolan Business Solutions’ has developed a proven process for supporting healthcare management implementations.
Posted on Wed, March 11, 2020
by NetSuite filed under
From studio consolidation to growing variation of revenue streams, the film entertainment industry is far from the traditional beeline between theatrical releases and revenue. If studios can get a handle on their rights and royalty management practices now, they can take advantage of one of the most transformational opportunities in their recent history.
For an industry used to sure bets reaching blockbuster status, this past decade has turned any movie into a precarious investment. Big-name actors and actresses are no longer a guarantee for box office success – and neither are sequels and remakes of past box-office hits.
But don’t be fooled: The problem is not the scripts, directors, or even the actors. Moviegoers are playing by an entirely different set of rules, where films serve as a revenue-generating platform for merchandise sales, episodic shows, and streaming access long after they leave theaters.
While this new reality is nowhere as straightforward as the early days of cinema, it’s still possible to accurately determine which movie investments will be profitable. The secret? Good data, underpinned by state-of-the-art analytics, such as machine learning and predictive models.
Redefining how movies make money with rights and royalty data
The movie business, for the most part, is built on the idea that today’s “big thing” needs to stay “the big thing” for as long as possible. However, as media channels continue to grow in number, expand in reach, and diversify in access, this line of thinking is no longer relevant. Now, it’s a matter of finding films and timing their release in ways that will maximize their revenue potential outside of the theater-going experience.
This is where rights and royalty management technology come into play. Solutions, such as an intelligent ERP for rights and royalty management, offer a unique approach to managing intellectual property rights, contracts, royalties information, and copyright use – as well as storing transactional data. And all this insight is available within a digital core providing a single source of real-time truth and turning insights into actions.
For example, if captured correctly, rights and royalty management data can help improve the confidence and speed of making decisions on movies during the greenlight and distribution process. Studio executives can gain the predictive insight they need to make the right decisions and optimize a movie’s profitability.
Setting the right foundation for a new era of growth
For most traditional media companies, technology infrastructure has grown up around siloed business areas. In contrast, new entrants are often architected as digital-first businesses with advanced analytics embedded.
Recently, one of our customers asked me, “How do I make this transformation when I have more than 100 years of legacy to manage?” While this is certainly a valid question, it’s clear that a foundation based on a digital core for managing the business is a key step. Direct-to-consumer (D2C) business models require more focus on the customer experience (CX). Businesses must market and test new offerings within very short time frames, and support a financial background that can react in days — not weeks, months, or even years.
For example, studios using an intelligent ERP for rights and royalty management can maximize the return on their intellectual property, regardless of format or business unit. The digital framework, known as the Intelligent Enterprise, provides digitalized best practices for automating, validating, and facilitating the processes that make the difference between profitability and loss.
More importantly, information from every interaction and transaction is processed immediately to accurately analyze royalties and rights performance through digital capabilities such as:
Predictive analytics and machine learning: Immediately identify white spaces in content asset licensing and determine how to monetize content assets as soon as possible.
Enterprise-wide collaborative connectivity: Gain timely and accurate visibility to better manage rights availability and restrictions as well as royalty obligations.
Real-time Big Data processing and analytics: Calculate potential revenue from each sales category, while considering usage fees, residuals, copyright terms, as well as guild rules and contracted agreements.
Transformations are not meant to be tranquil – and that certainly includes the movie industry. But with the right insights from your intelligent enterprise, including rights and royalties management data, you can rest assured that your studio is building a future of revenue and long-term growth.
Marketing Automation Allows You to Engage Potential Investors
Financial advisors can also use marketing automation to generate great leads by gating informative and educational content behind adaptive forms on dedicated landing pages. By creating the kind of useful content that young investors are so hungry for, you can exchange these collateral assets for invaluable contact information that allows you to nurture potential investors until they’re ready to discuss their wealth management options — and beyond.
Here’s how you can use landing pages and forms to fuel your demand generation and lead nurturing efforts.
Create Landing Pages to Spark Enthusiasm and Prompt Conversions
A conversion is the online equivalent of someone walking into a boutique and asking to try on an article of clothing. It starts a dialogue with the consumer. And when people like what they hear (or the way a pair of jeans fit), they’re far more likely to buy — and continue buying. So conversions are the lifeblood of any good marketing strategy.
And the best way to generate conversions is to create compelling landing pages that get your prospects interested and excited about what you have to say and offer.
Any platform worth purchasing will include the functionality to create intuitive and engaging landing pages with simple drag-and-drop functionality.
With Act-On, you can:
Use one of our dozens of stock templates and easily update specific elements to incorporate your brand
Upload a landing page built with HTML and then easily modify images, text, buttons, and custom content using our content block controls.
Try to keep your copy short, sweet, and direct. Let the reader know exactly what they will receive in exchange for sharing their contact information. And to make sure your audience remains engaged once they’re on the page, use the same keywords that you initially used to get them there in the first place (both organically and through paid efforts).
Gate Your Content Using Adaptive Forms
The most critical element of any landing page is the conversion form, which you can use to gate content, new products, or special offers.
Because conversions are so important, you want to make it as easy as possible for potential investors to complete the forms on your landing pages. First, you need to place the entire form above the fold so the user can complete each field and submit their response without scrolling. Next, you want to include a prominent call-to-action (CTA) directly above the field to draw attention to this crucial portion of the page.
Most importantly, you need to limit the amount of fields in your form. This might seem counterintuitive since gathering more information leads to executing more targeted campaigns, but including too many fields could decrease the chances of conversion.
Thankfully, using adaptive forms with progressive profiling presents an effective compromise that simultaneously allows you to collect more information with fewer fields.
An Example of Progressive Profiling
Progressive profiling helps you learn more about your leads gradually over time by presenting supplemental questions incrementally based on previous actions and what you already know about them.
Let’s say a prospective investor visits your site and downloads an FAQ 1-pager on investing for beginners. Your form only asked for their first name and email address. Easy peasy.
Two weeks later, that same prospect visits your website and completes a form to view an on-demand webinar about the basics of mutual funds. Since your marketing automation platform already knows their name and email address, the form that populates to grant access to the webinar asks for their age and profession.
Every form completion stores this information and prompts the next conversion opportunity to ask a dynamically generated set of new questions.
That means fewer questions, better conversions, and more data!
Put the Finishing Touches on Your Landing Page
Finally, once you’ve perfected the look and feel of your landing page, make sure to add quality SEO components so that you can rank well in organic search as well as paid.
(If you’re unfamiliar with the basics of SEO, please click here.)
And to ensure you’re always striving to improve, you can A/B test multiple versions of your landing page by simply splitting your distribution lists at random. Once you have a workable sample size, look for areas to optimize and repeat the process!
Posted by Abby Jenkins, Product Marketing Manager for Inventory & Order Management, Supply Chain & WMS
As e-commerce sales continue to increase, drop shipping becomes the norm and overall expectations around shipping make customer satisfaction more difficult to achieve, competitive advantage for companies that sell or distribute products ultimately comes down to a warehouse’s ability to deliver orders faster and more accurately than ever. Using spreadsheets and paper to track inventory as it moves through the warehouse will no longer suffice.
Deploying a Warehouse Management System (WMS) as part of a larger fulfillment and warehousing strategy helps growing businesses optimize warehouse operations in four key areas:
Inbound Logistics
Inventory Visibility
Outbound Logistics
Mobile Scanning
Inbound Logistics
As inventory arrives at the warehouse, a WMS helps expedite the receiving process. Using a set of automated processes and pre-defined rules, users are guided through the receiving and putaway process, including recommending bin locations and putaway rules, ensuring inventory is quickly and accurately processed so that it can be used to fulfill orders.
Using a mobile device to receive items automatically assigns the items lot number, serial number, bin location and inventory status as they are received. With NetSuite WMS, inventory is automatically allocated to outstanding open orders and can be taken directly to the packing locations, decreasing fulfillment time and handling costs of putting items away and then picking them to fill an order.
2. Inventory Visibility
With a WMS, inventory is tracked as it moves through the warehouse using barcodes, and lot and serial tracking, ensuring accurate visibility of inventory levels (including allocated stock), orders and fulfillment status at all times. It also gives traceability of perishable goods and can automate expiration dates based on receipt date.
You can also schedule regular cycle counting within the WMS as a means of checks and balances. Cycle counting can be scheduled based on category so that high-moving, or high-value inventory is counted with more frequency than lower value items. By assigning cycle counts to staff based on their function or warehouse location, you can ensure regular counts are completed without disrupting daily operations. Automated processes help by automatically sending reminders prompting staff to complete the required counts, including which products to count and how frequently.
With NetSuite WMS, you get a holistic view of inventory across all physical locations. By setting up physical locations hierarchically and using sub-locations, you can view inventory levels per physical location as well as enterprise wide, allowing for more efficient order fulfillment and replenishment.
3. Outbound Logistics
Using pick and pack logic and strategies available with a WMS, users are guided through the order fulfillment process, ensuring inventory is used when and how you want it to be. Defining a wave release strategy, selecting single or multiple picking type, and setting your wave status further customizes and controls the way orders are processed.
If you’re managing inventory across multiple warehouse locations, NetSuite WMS gives you visibility of inventory by location and allows you to define fulfillment and shipping rules. Ensuring whole orders are being shipped from a single location and orders are assigned to the warehouse closest to the destination minimizes shipping costs and simplifies order orchestration, something that would be impossible to do manually.
4. Mobile Scanning
One of the best ways to increase efficiency in warehouse operations is to integrate a mobile app. The combination of a wireless mobile device and barcode scanning helps to automate processes, such as shipping and receiving, putaway, and picking and packing, and it increases overall operator efficiency. Because information is being recorded in real-time with the mobile app, it’s easy to provide a real-time picture of inventory and ensures accuracy throughout the supply chain.
The NetSuite WMS mobile app was designed with the warehouse manager in mind. It has a clean, clear and easy-to-navigate interface that helps reduce the time operators spend completing everyday tasks, such as inbound, inventory and outbound processing tasks. Through the task manager, you have the ability to direct users to perform specific tasks, such as putaways and picking, based on pre-configured strategies defined during the setup of the WMS system, ensuring inventory is allocated according to plan and not haphazardly. With the use of GS1 barcode scanning you can easily enter items for inbound, inventory or outbound processing.
To further customize the user experience in your warehouse, you can create custom processes within the app. Customizing things like defining default values, hiding/displaying fields and adding fields for data capture can be done from the floor, without any technical expertise. You can export and import custom processes to other devices, ensuring the right users have access.
Making the Move from Manual to Automated
By automating processes, improving operational efficiencies and reducing handling time, a WMS optimizes day-to-day warehouse operations, ensuring you can deliver on customer expectations quickly and accurately.
Read more about how NetSuite companies are using WMS to create their optimal warehouse, here. And learn more about the latest additions to the WMS features and functionality in the NetSuite 2020.1 Release
