Presented in Redmond for Office 365 Saturday, I cover Business Center apps in Office 365 Business Premium SKU. This apps support small business with Invoicing, Booking and Contact Management.

1. Business Center Apps in
Office 365
The hidden gems of the Office 365 Business Premium Suite
Miguel A. Tena
O365 Redmond 2018
October 27, 2018

2. About Me

3. Agenda
• Introduction
• Good news, and bad news
• Overview of tools available
• Value prop for Small Business Owners

4. Goal for small (or any) business
Maximize Profits!
Profits:
“a financial gain, especially the
difference between the amount
earned and the amount spent in
buying, operating, or producing
something”
𝑎𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑
𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑡
= 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑡!

5. A few ways to maximize profit
Increase earnings
• Facilitate prospect-to-
customer flow
• Increase conversion
• Up/X-sell by better
understanding customers
• Get paid
Reduce Spend
• Minimize operational costs
• Minimize integration costs
• Minimize overhead/admin
costs
• Maximize tax savings
opportunities.

6. How does Business Centre apps help
Increase earnings
• Facilitate prospect to
customer flow
• Increase conversion
• Up/X-sell by better
understanding customers
• Get paid
Supporting toolset
• Microsoft Bookings
• Outlook Customer
Manager
• Microsoft Invoicing
• Payment Processing*

7. How does Business Centre apps help
Reduce Spend
• Minimize operational costs
• Minimize integration costs
• Minimize overhead/admin
costs
• Maximize tax savings
opportunities.
Supporting toolset
• Office 365 SMB license
• Platform integration with
familiar tools
• Reduced number of tools
needed to run the business
• Mileage Tracking

8. What is was in it?
Business
Center
Invoicing
Bookings
Listings
Connections
Outlook
Customer
Manager
Mile IQ

9. Wait, what?

10. What’s in it?
Office 365
Small
Business
Invoicing
Bookings
Listings
Connections
Outlook
Customer
Manager
Mile IQ

11. MythBusters
Do I need to downgrade from E3/E5 Office 365 plan to
SMB to access these apps?
NO!!! (or yes, until recently…)
“Purchase” Service for $0.00 from Admin Portal in Office
365.

12. Invoicing

13. Invoicing
Invoicing – New
Experience based on
Dynamics 365 platform
Basic estimate and invoicing
needs and payment options
(Microsoft Pay coming soon)

14. How does Invoicing help SMB?
• Helps you prepare and send great
looking invoices and estimates with
minimal effort.
• Track status of sales and outstanding
invoices
• Get paid via Microsoft Pay
• QuickBooks (Desktop) connector lets
you sync customer and catalogue
data,
• Transfer invoicing information to your
accountant.
• Mobile App
Courtesy of : https://www.flickr.com/photos/neiltron/

15. Show me the money (or the how at least)?
Initial Setup
Activate License
(if not SMB
tenant)
Enable Users Invoicing Settings
Configure pricing
model
Define Units
(hours, blog
posts, etc.)
Set up cost per
unit
Add a picture
(optional)
Prepare Estimates
Prepare (draft)
and send
invoices
Check your
Invoicing activity
at a glance
Outstanding and
overdue amounts
On going Sales
Insights on Top
Customers and
Sales per month.
$$$

16. Managing access to Invoicing
As of Oct 3,10,23 manage
using Business Center link
under Services & Add-ins.
Global Admins have default
access… 

17. Manage Invoicing Settings
Easy to setup company
information and
invoice/estimate configuration
Microsoft Pay

18. Getting there…
… waffle Menu button
coming soon!

19. Configure your Pricing Model
Flexible enough to maintain a price list and easily compose
new estimates/invoices based on it.
• Define your own product or service and unit of work (or product).
• Use to compose estimates or invoices

20. Sample Invoice Sent

21. Bookings

22. What is
Bookings?
• Provide customers with a way
to schedule appointments and
manage confirmations,
reminders, updates and
cancellation notices.
• Receive payments via Stripe or
PayPal.
Online appointment
and scheduling tool

23. Main use cases
•Financial Consultants
•Massage Therapists
•Doctors, Dentists
•IT Consultant/ Service
Professional
•Hair dressers…

24. Book’em Danno!
Initial Setup
Define your
Services
Add your
Staff
Customize
Bookings
page
Publish
Bookings
page
Enable
Payment
Processing
Enable
Service
Enter Tax
information
Connect
merchant
account
Add booking
fee to
services
Managing
bookings
Add new
booking
Set time off
periods
Print booking
schedule
Mobile App
Book
appointment
Create
customer
and book
View or
Manage Staff
Set time off

25. Manage access to Bookings
• Enable Bookings at the tenant
level in Services page
• Add/Remove Licenses to
grant access per-user or via
PowerShell/Dynamic groups
in Azure for Bulk.

26. Enable Payment Processing
• Enable Payments Node in
Services Page
• Set up a Merchant Account
(requires tax info) for direct
deposit
• Alternatively, setup PayPal or
Stripe.
PayPal Stripe

27. Outlook Customer Manager

28. What’s Outlook Customer Manager
• CRM light for your Small Business
• Outlook Add-in (Desktop preferred)
• Captures information about:
• Business Contact/Companies
• Deals
• Activities and tasks
• Upcoming meetings
• Latest interactions with this contact
• MS Flow connector (Actions only)

29. Getting there…

30. Mile IQ

31. What’s Mile IQ
• Automated Mileage tracking,
by creating a record of drives.
• Classify drives as business or
personal
• Create reports using Mobile
app or Web dashboard for
customized reports.

32. Swipe left for business or right for p…

33. Recommendations

34. Using the deprecated apps? What to
do about it?
• Export your data before Nov 30, 2018.
• Seek alternatives to:
• Listings – centralized place to manage social presence
(Google, Facebook and Bing)
• Connections- mailing list/campaign management.

35. Instead of Listings
• Curate social presence (as in, how your Business is presented) on
Bing, Google, Facebook, etc.
• Rationalize social media presence and focus on where your
audience is.
• B2B -> Focus on LinkedIn Presence, engage with like minded folks on
Twitter.
• B2C -> Depends, Facebook/ Instagram for online based biz.
• Local area business -> Ensure Google, Facebook, Yelp Reviews are
reviewed.
• Remember, these days, one bad interaction can go NUCLEAR, be
client centric.

36. Instead of Connections
• Leverage third party best of breed solutions, known players such
as MailChimp, Constant Contact for email marketing
• Explore Digital Marketing automation suites like HubSpot,
WishPond or Pardot.
• Dynamics 365 for Marketing if money is no object!

37. Thoughts on Outlook Customer Manager
• From a feature standpoint, Outlook Customer Manager is not there if I
compare it with other players (for example, Salesforce lightning
essentials), however, at zero extra dollars (included in my Office 365
subscription), it is hard to justify 25 USD per user/month.
• To get a similar solution to Business Centre (with Campaigns, quotes
and orders, billing, etc.) the 75 USD per user/month tier is what's
needed.
• On the other hand, sales are the lifeblood of your company, this
monthly fee may be justified if you are closing deals left, right and
center.

38. Thoughts on Bookings
• Being part of the ecosystem is the main selling point, quick setup
and flexibility.
• Other missing features are 'niche' in my opinion, otherwise, you
won't miss much.
• If you have the aforementioned scenarios, bookings is a great fit.

39. So…does it help with increase profit?
Increase earnings
• Facilitate prospect-to-
customer flow
• Increase conversion
• Up/X-sell by better
understanding customers
• Get paid
Reduce Spend
• Minimize operational costs
• Minimize integration costs
• Minimize overhead/admin
costs
• Maximize tax savings
opportunities.

40. Lessons Learned
• Vaporware is a thing… who knew!
• With cloud, now more than ever is imperative to have a plan b or
“escape plan”.
• Early adoption has its risks, some SMBs may not be fast to adapt
or have enough IT support.
• Dude, where’s my SLA? Retiring apps/functionality should allow
more time for folks to take action.

41. Let’s chat!
@dwcrusaders
www.dwcrusaders.com
@mikeware_tena
www.mikeware.me
https://www.linkedin.com/in/migueltenacalderon/

42. Thank you!