HR Vision Podcast #46 - A Microsoft update on the Dynamics 365 HR to Finance & Operations merge ft. Tulsi Jhaveri

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: And welcome to the HR Vision Podcast. I'm your host Ivo and every week I'm going to have a conversation that matters about HR and HR technology. Hey there. Welcome to episode 46 of the HR Vision Podcast. I hope everyone listening is doing well. Um, on today's episode we will be talking Microsoft and some recent news that are important to the HR community. So it's only fitting Microsoft person with us, right? So let me welcome Tulsi to the podcast. Hey Tulsi, how's it going? Good.

Speaker A: How are you Ivo?

Speaker B: I'm doing great. Thank you so much for uh, coming on. Um, Tulsi has a solid track record with Microsoft business applications. Applications first as a consultant. She even was a part of the 4 Vision team once. Long, long time ago. Maybe not. And now on the other side as a product manager, uh, as at Microsoft. So she will talk a bit more about that in a moment. But today me and Tulsa will mainly talk about a very specific subject. The ongoing merge announced. Mx 365 hr module back to the finance and operations platform. A lot of content about it. But Microsoft gave us a bit more clarity recently and that's why Tulsi kindly accepted our invitations to be here with us. So let's not waste any more time. Tulsi, let's start, let's start with you. Give us a bit of an intro about yourself and your professional background.

Speaker A: Thanks Ivo. Thank you for having me. It's um, always uh, pleasure coming back, uh, you know and um, uh having the conversations with uh, old colleagues of course. Um, so I um, like you mentioned, I am currently a product manager with Microsoft. I am spearheading uh, um, one of the biggest um, impactful um topic um of infrastructure merge. Um, and I have been with Microsoft for about um, a year now. Uh, and I have been in the dynamics world for almost a decade. So yeah, just uh, working with um, various partners and ISVs, um and um, mainly focusing on the human resources product. But I also have a little bit of background in finance and project operations etc.

Speaker B: Okay, so that's why it makes a lot of sense that you're here today. So let me, let me ask you what, what has been your experience so far in the other side right with Microsoft and what, what have you been up to lately?

Speaker A: Well it's been all about the whole um, infrastructure merge. So we have been bringing the human resources product that was a standalone uh platform, um, onto back into uh finance and operations, uh platform. So that has been my main focus over the last year all Right.

Speaker B: All right, so let's talk, let's talk about that. I guess the people listening and people following us for some time, they kind of know what is this merge about and why is it happening? But let's recap a bit on that since you're here. Let's start there. What is this merge all about and why is it happening? Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, so hr Human Resources, um was a module, part of um the finance ah platform. Um and at some point, uh, about four, five years ago it was taken onto its own standalone application that was um, providing the flexibility for customers. Um, and now we're just bringing it back because um, from the platform perspective it gives a lot of uh, additional capabilities to the customer. So we're just taking that standalone, bringing it back into uh finance and that way the customers that have uh, finance and project operations and other applications um, would be able to utilize it uh, in more cohesive manner.

Speaker B: Okay. Besides that cohesiveness, do you think uh, what are the other, can you talk a bit more about what are the other benefits of bringing you know, that this HR platform into the finance and operations?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, absolutely. So um, it uh, provides a great flexibility in terms of extensibility, um, provides flexibility of the platform that we have on the finance infrastructure that we did not have. So uh, the standalone human resources has been a sealed solution. Um, so there was no um, code level development uh from customers and partners perspective that could be done. It was all um, whatever standard uh, application uh provided. And then you had um, other means uh to extend it from personalizations and save views and things like that. But there was no real code development or code extensibility that was available on the standalone application. Whereas when we have this on the finance infrastructure, um, there is that um, available for partners and for customers. Um, so if there are specific scenarios that are um applicable um, where they need to extend that solution, uh from customization perspective, um, that is uh available, uh, integration is uh also more flexible, um so you can use um, different extensibility platforms to um, integrate with other areas, uh, other applications, third party solutions, et cetera, uh, in uh, more

Speaker B: improved

Speaker A: M manner than what used to be available.

Speaker B: Do you think it will become a very m solid product all around? Right. All right, We've been talking or we've been hearing as well these two terms, migration and merge. Um, so I would like to ask you to try to clarify a little bit. It seems like migration is the first step and merge will be the ultimate step in this uh whole process. But can you clarify a little bit about that.

Speaker A: Absolutely. So, um, that's. That's actually a really great question because I know there has been a little bit of confusion, uh, in the community around it, so I'm glad you asked. Um, so the infrastructure merge itself is what we did, um, as product group, right. Microsoft did, um, to bring in the solution, uh, from the standalone application onto the finance platform. Um, the customer migration is what we're referring to as lift and shift migration. So this is where, uh, we provide that automated tooling, um, that allows you to use, um, lcs. This is through lcs Lifecycle Services, um, that allows you to migrate your standalone application onto Finance. All your database, all your, uh, workflows and your personalizations and security roles and all of that, um, gets automatically, um, uh, brought into the finance, uh, in an empty environment.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, so that is your customer migration. Um, merge itself, um, is an optional step, the customer merge. Um, it is not required. So if this is more for customers that have, uh, finance or project operations and other applications that they're using, um, if they want to bring all of that with HR into one environment, that is where the merge happens, if that is something that the organization desires. Um, so we are not requiring, um, for customers to merge, um, if they wish to keep the environment separate for human resources, um, and other applications. That is absolutely at their discretion.

Speaker B: Pretty clear to me. All right. Um, Microsoft, and you just mentioned it, uh, there. Microsoft announced recently its automated migration tooling for this operation. Right. Um, which it's been called the lift and shift thing. Uh, so, yeah, what. What can you tell us about that? What is that? What is that tooling and how it can. It will help, um, partners clients to move their environments from HR to fno.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, so like I mentioned earlier, you can use Lifecycle Services to, um, migrate your environment, um, you know, in more automated manner. Um, so what happens is based on this is based on, um, the licensing that the customer has. So if you have, uh, human resources licenses, um, you know, you automatically get access, um, to this, um, you know, project that you can create on Lifecycle Services or lcs. Um, and once you create that project, you have Migrate hr, um, button available that you don't have if you, um, you know, if you don't have the appropriate licensing or, um, you know, if you don't, if you're not a human resources customer. Right. Because this is specific, uh, of our current customers that need to migrate. Um, what happens is you can create a copy of your production environment, uh, into sandbox, uh, and then migrate your Sandbox which is your test, um, environment, default acceptance, testing environment. Um, you can migrate your sandbox, do your validation and again that would migrate everything for you. Um, and you can do your validation, testing. You can um, do as many iterations as you would like to migrate your sandbox, um, just to get comfortable with the process, um, and then once you're comfortable with that, um, have your appropriate um onboarding done, your methodology done because it's similar to current uh, finance uh customer experience as well. Um, you have to just go through all of those onboarding processes, methodology um and um, do your subscription estimator et cetera. Uh, and then once you go through all of those processes and verify that you have migrated your sandbox, et cetera, um, you get access to your production environment, um on finance and you can migrate your production um in the same manner. The whole automated process takes approximately three to four hours um, depending on customers, um, you know, data. So um, that's um, um estimated downtime, uh, but it could be less.

Speaker B: Okay. It doesn't seem a lot to me. Yeah, that's pretty, pretty good work by Microsoft. Um, I have a quick before going to scenarios and what this can mean to customers and what maybe they will do in each scenario, uh, I have a question, kind uh of a curious question because we have a lot of good feedback about the integration of leave and absence bot on teams. Like people being able to uh, you know, book their leaves through teams. And that is very much based on the Dynamics 365HR platform. Right. So being based on it, will it still be available after the migration? After the merge will be something that Microsoft will take care of.

Speaker A: Yes, um, um it is. Currently we're in the process of migrating that teams um um integration solution to power platform based solutions. It's called Power Pages. It's a new uh technology that uh, the Power platform is um, spearheading. We are in the process of migrating that uh, integration solution. Um, and once it is uh, available it will be um, available on the finance infrastructure. So currently it is still only available on the standalone application. But um, you know, once we have um, released that new um, technology based solution, um, it will be available.

Speaker B: All right, that's pretty, that's pretty clear. Um, now let me give you three scenarios of clients or customers, um and you let me know what is going to happen with them in terms of this migration or merge. Um, so if a customer only has dynamics 365hr right now, doesn't have finance and operations, they will need to be migrated to the New tool. What are the steps they need to take, they or their preferred partner to do this merger migration for them?

Speaker A: Absolutely. So like I mentioned before, uh, since they are um, current ah human resources customer, they will get access to a new LCS project. So they'll be able to create that project, ah, and have um, those migrate uh tooling available within um lcs, uh and they will be able to follow the steps to um, just migrate their sandbox initially, go through the methodology, um and onboarding process to ensure you know, appropriate steps have been taken, etc. Uh, and then they'll have access to their production environment and then they would be able to migrate their production environment. All of this is you know, automated process outside of the validation and you know, which is similar to any implementation that they would do.

Speaker B: Okay, uh, one follow up on this, um, on this scenario is what happened. I don't know if you can answer this but in any case I will ask uh, what happens to licensing there? Right? You have a license to use Dynamics 365HR. Will that be transferred into FNO, that license?

Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. So again a great question Ivo. So the licensing currently is different for finance customers, customers and for human resources customers. Right. Like the um, the finance customers there is a requirement of minimum 20 seat, uh, full seat. Right. Whereas on the human resource side we have full five um seat licensing requirements. So that still stays the same. So whatever licenses the customer has currently will be transitioned to um, you know, uh, the finance uh side. Um, so uh, they will have access to the new environment based on their current licensing.

Speaker B: Perfect. Clear like spring water. All right, let's go over another scenario. So if the, if a customer or client only has FNO right now and they want to, they want to include an HR module in there, is this migration necessary at all for them or will just the HR module be ready for them to acquire within the FNO platform? What happens there?

Speaker A: So the functionality, human resources functionality is available but um, their data etc. That is in their HR application. The standalone application needs to be uh, migrated. Right? So they can use uh, you know, similar to the standalone uh customers they can use that migration project to um, migrate their uh, standalone application, uh environments to finance uh environment. Right. Which will be separate uh environment if they decide to merge on their existing environment. A um lot of that is um, manual process. Um you know we are working to provide um, additional resources. Um, but a lot of that will be manual. Um so some of the resources that we are working um to provide is you know, provide uh, additional Templates um and things like that. But a lot of you know that is more of that um data management framework templates uh that um uses export import functionality. Right. That is uh currently um available. Um so um. We uh have identified certain gaps from entities perspective. So we are looking to provide those entities um that are not available. Um but again um. It depends on the data that the customer has. Um so um. Like I mentioned, migration is more of that automated process merge itself if they choose to bring in um to their existing finance environment will be more of a manual process.

Speaker B: Okay. Would you advise to contact their preferred partners to do this? Would, Would. Would you know with partners probably will be better instructed and better equipped also to deal with that without messing up the data and, and keeping it secure.

Speaker A: Absolutely. You know um, we work um with the partner channel for that reason. Right. The partners have the experience with different scenarios and knowledge base um to you know from the technical perspective. Um, you know because they have additional exposure um to uh the framework behind um the solution, et cetera. Um so it is helpful but you know that's uh. Absolutely at the customer's discretion.

Speaker B: Definitely. All right, uh let's look into the future. Can you, can you give us an overview of the timelines, what, what happens next for. For. For Microsoft and and for all the steps about the migration.

Speaker A: Um so the customers um that are um on um the standalone application uh will need to move from their um current uh standalone human resources to the uh finance infrastructure. Um we just released a ah public preview of the migration tooling on October 31st. Um and we are working towards um uh getting feedback from customers and um also um the wrinkles um that we found. Right uh for example some of the dual. Right mapping issues etc. Um we are also in the process of um you know solidifying um um the migration tooling to make um it generally available. Um and the idea is um to um make this uh available from 12 months um of when the tooling is available. So around um this time, um next year. 2023. Yeah. Um is when um the deadline would be to you know for the customers to migrate off of the standalone application.

Speaker B: Okay. Do you think that might or it can depend on the feedback that you get from uh, from customers how difficult this might be. Of course you are not expecting a lot of difficulties with uh the new automated migration uh toolbox. But do you think, do you think it can be extended in case that customers are finding some difficulties with this migration?

Speaker A: Um, there are no plans currently to extend um the timeline. Um but we will be sure to um, work with um, customers. Uh, of course we uh, recommend highly to work with their partners, um, and or fast um track um team as well if they are a fast track customer. Um, and then we of course have um, additional guidance available. We have support uh, teams available, um, you know, to help resolve any issues. But this is one of the reasons that we would recommend uh, moving sooner rather than later of course, um, just so we can identify any blockers. Um, and of course um, work towards giving uh, resolution to those.

Speaker B: It makes, it makes sense. Um, one, one more thing before I let you go about the feedback from, from customers. Um, is there something that you can share with us how customers are, are taking this? Do they see the value, um, you know, what are the general feedback that you, that you guys been, been having?

Speaker A: Well, um, the general feedback has been uh, pretty positive um, from um, what we have heard. You know, because the customers, uh, especially the customers that are using multiple applications, um, they see the value in bringing this um, onto one platform and um, um that additional flexibility that is available um, for the solution. And we are not um, deprecating anything. All of the functionality is actually just uh, being replaced um, with better um, technology. So um, that um, has been generally positive. Um, it does, um, you know, it's a short term pain for a long term gain.

Speaker B: Well, it seems like the perfect sentence to end this episode. So. Very good Tulsi. Well, um, this was very insightful. I think it will help a lot of people out there in the community, um, a lot of the customers and the partners as well. Uh, so thank you for that. Um, it was very insightful for me. I hope you enjoyed it as well.

Speaker A: Absolutely. It's been a uh, pleasure as always. Um, um, if there are any um, questions or comments please. I encourage uh, everybody to reach out. We have yammer groups, um, that um, are also great uh, resources for collaboration with customers and partners in Microsoft Teams. So um, highly recommend um, reaching out as well.

Speaker B: All right, Absolutely. Okay. Tulsi, thank you so much once again. Um, have a good evening. Well, have a good day. In your case. It's evening from my side. Um, so thank you once again and uh, yeah, everyone listening out there. We'll catch you next time.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you.

Speaker B: Sam.