Geofabrics – High Performance Geosynthetics
Geofabrics Limited was formed in 1990, they manufacture geotextiles and geocomposites for construction and civil applications. The company ethos is to exceed the expectations of customers with products and service. The sectors they specialize in are General Civils, Construction, Landfill, Coastal and River Defence, Root Barriers and Railways.
The Challenge
In February 2019, Geofabrics were looking for a flexible, configurable and more up to date CRM system, accessible cross-browser and cross-platform allowing the workforce the ability to access their CRM application from anywhere (Laptops, PCs, Tablets and Mobile Phones). With remote working more prominent than ever, this is critical to the business working collaboratively and the visibility of appointments, emails, phone calls and tasks tracked against projects, companies and contact records, would allow for greater collaborative working.
Within the new system they wanted to maintain the managing of everything through the main project table with the relationships to multiple companies (Architects, Clients etc) and contacts. There was a need to link quotes and orders (in multiple currencies) against projects and easily locate any documentation linked to these records. The ease of creating reports and views of projects at certain stages was a key element that needed to be in the new system.
The Solution
KMS were the incumbent provider of the original CRM system in use, so we were chosen by Geofabrics – Andrew Leech (Commercial Director) to migrate and implement Dynamics 365 and allow them to take advantage of all applications within the Office 365 platform.
The implementation process started with us creating the Dynamics 365 trial and importing the KMS Project-CRM Solution. Next the consultancy and administration training were carried out on consecutive days, allowing detailed requirements gathering on the first day with Andrew Leech and Alessandro Sartori, followed by making actual customisation and configuration changes to meet these requirements directly on the system during the administrator training. During the training Alessandro become quite a whiz at creating the customised CRM word templates that initially generated the quote, order and purchase templates with the corporate Geofabrics branding. This has been hugely beneficial for the team as they can manage any required alterations in house.
We found the majority of the Geofabrics system requirements were elements already in the KMS Project-CRM Solution, so in most cases it was a relatively simple matter of enabling and tweaking the existing functionality. Slightly more complex functionality was required to allow Geofabrics to quote in different currencies and different formats depending on the type of client. There was also the ability to adjust the currency rate on the fly for the quoting, that would subsequently adjust the pricing per product item, these quotes and orders also needed to generate a pdf document with the correct calculations. This feature could not be completed using standard reporting, so it involved KMS creating SSRS reports using Visual Studio.
As part of the implementation, we integrated their Exchange Online and SharePoint Online services with Dynamics 365. This both allowed seamless integration between Dynamics and Exchange through the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook and accessible document management capabilities from within the system via SharePoint locations created as tabs inside the project and company records.
The Outcome
The implementation of Dynamics 365 was completed within 6 weeks, within budget and we could not be happier with the outcome. Since Dynamics was implemented over two years ago, it has evolved a little (which was always going to happen as Dynamics is so customizable), with more users coming onboard and using the system. It is a fundamental part of the Geofabrics business and we couldn’t manage without it. It allows for collaboratively working across all parts of the business and it is easy to find what you are looking for and report on how we are performing as a company.
Due to the success of the initial implementation, it became apparent that part of the Geofabrics business in the US could benefit from using a similar system, but it needed to be implemented and kept separate from the main UK instance. So KMS were instructed by Geofabrics to create a new organisation instance and customise it in a similar, but slightly different manner. Two Power Apps were created to access one was for the UK management team who had visibility of everything (with formats in UK and British Pound sterling) and a US app that was slightly restricted and setup with everything in US formats and US Dollars. This part of the project was completed in September 2020.
If an issue arises with our system, we have always been extremely happy with the speed of resolution from KMS. “Idan (KMS Support Consultant) has been amazing in providing help and support, and has always been quick to deliver”
Alessandro Sartori – Technical Manager – June 2021
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