I have done countless pre-sales Dynamics AX presentations, both on-line and in-person in front of a potential customer. I wanted to share some of my thoughts, techniques and topics that works for me. I’m not saying they will work in all settings, but I normally get good feedback.

My first step is to think through the presentation beforehand. I first want to find the story that I want to bring to the audience. I have a passion for power point, but I don’t use a lot of text on them. I try to have pictures, screenshots and bullet points.

It is important for me to tell the story, not just read it. So when I do my presentation I’m trying to bring them into my story. I’m trying to explain the WHY and not the HOW. WHY do we have a role center? WHY does the sales order screen look like it does?

And I also do some real demo’s in Dynamics AX, and my favorite list of short 1-2 minutes demo’s are:

Role based navigation and organization hierarchy

Tip : Use the CFO role center. Fantastic graphics and a fun overview.

Create new customer/Create a sales order

Tip : Cleanup the screen upfront, so that only the needed fields show. Use the “hide” function extensively. Sales orders is a very common core function, and we must show how easy it actually is.

Export to Excel

Tip: Show it…. And smile BACK to the audience. They will love this.

Add some of your own flavor.

Most of us have our own small add-ons implemented at our customers. I have the DCS/PDA and label printout.

Advanced – Show supply schedule

Tip: Put some data in. Makes it more fun to look at.

Advanced – Show the BOM designer

Tip: Drag and drop, or just double click to add items to your BOM.

Advanced – Show the action messages graph

Tip : Explain the “apply”, and show it. Tell that it can really save inventory carry cost.

Tip: Run master planning first, to show how action messages affects each order

Advanced – Show the new retail eCommerce sites

Tip: The clean design gives good inspiration. But build down the expectation. A lot of work is needed to bring such a site online for a customer.

Advanced – Show sales/purchase category

Tips: Tree structures are easy to understand.

Advanced – Show resource capacity and reservations

Tips: Add data !

Advanced – Show gantt plan

Funny

Show the two games we have: Tetris and horse race

Have fun and happy DAX’ing.