Cobalt has been building solutions for our customers on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM/365 platform for more than 15 years. Over that time, we’ve developed a significant amount of experience training people how to use the base Microsoft product as well as the Cobalt modules that we’ve built to extend the capabilities of this robust platform. It seemed selfish for us to keep all of this knowledge to ourselves, so we’ve decided to offer training services to the Dynamics community. Cobalt has two Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs) on staff and we’re continuously adding to our library of courses. Below is a list of our current course offerings.

Cobalt offers both in person training at our headquarters in Arlington, VA as well as online and onsite training to meet your needs. Our standard rate for in-person training (at Cobalt’s HQ in Arlington, VA) is $450 per half day. Online training is $270 per half day. For these tailored sessions, we limit attendance to 8 trainees. We can typically complete 2 courses per half day and we can mix and match to meet your needs. We plan to offer individual courses on a per person basis in the near futures. Please email training@cobalt.net if you’d like to learn more about these courses and we will work with you to create a training plan optimized for your organization’s needs.

Dynamics 365 Training

Below is a series of courses that we currently offer to help users get the most out of Dynamics 365.

General Navigation & Personal Options in Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 provides users with a flexible and dynamic interface for viewing and manipulating data. Frequently used items can be prioritized, and access can be granted or withheld to parts of the system based on security roles. There are multiple navigation tools to allow easy access to your data. Personal options also allow each user control over how data is consumed.  

Course Objective: To become familiar with the Dynamics 365 navigation and how to customize your individual user experience by using personal options.

Course Lessons & Tasks – General Navigation and Personal Options in Dynamics 365

Advanced Find

Dynamics 365 provides Advanced Find to allow customers to query data in a friendly user interface. The searches can be saved and shared as dynamic personal views of system data. The results can be exported to Excel for further analysis or reporting. Advanced Find results can also be exported to Excel templates which allow customers to preset formatting and formulas.  

Course Objective: To create Advanced Finds and organize columns for the desired results.  

Course Lessons & Tasks – Advanced find

Security Roles & Field Security Profiles

Dynamics 365 allows you to customize access to entities, forms and even fields to different users based on two entities linked to the User record. Security Roles determine access to entities while Field Security Profiles allow you to specify the fields on those entities users have access to. If your organization requires data security controls, or you have a large staff and want to restrict certain actions to administrative users, understanding these entities can help you reach your goals.

Course Objective: To understand and learn how set up security roles and field security profiles.

Course Lessons & Tasks – Security Roles and Field Security Profiles

Data Management

Dynamics 365 gives you tools to manage your data in the system. In this course we will look at duplicate detection rules, importing to create, and importing to update records. By utilizing these tools effectively you can save time and increase the accuracy of your data.

Course Objective: Utilize data management tools to reduce duplicate data, import new data, and update existing records.

Course Lessons & Tasks – Data Management

Quick Campaigns

Quick Campaigns in Dynamics 365 are frequently used to connect with customers through both routine and targeted marketing activities. In this course we will focus on creating a targeted email campaign for two different groups. While mostly focused on the marketing functionality this course will touch on other topics such as email templates and the activity view on contact and account records.

Course Objective: Be able to manage marketing lists and utilize them in Quick Campaigns.

Course Lessons & Tasks – Quick Campaigns

Email Template & Workflow Overview

In Dynamics 365, you have the ability to create email templates for messages you send out frequently. These templates can contain data from Dynamics and can even be triggered to send automatically by a workflow. There are a few different ways to set up these templates and workflows. In this course we will look at the different options so that organizations can determine the best method for each situation.

Course Objective: Locate and create email templates for manual and automatic use.

Course Lessons & Tasks – Email Template and Workflows

Word & Excel Templates

Dynamics 365 allows user to leverage the power of Excel and Word. Document Templates allow users to create system and/or personal reports that can pull data from D365. The Word Template makes including Dynamics data into documents much easier than in past versions and you don’t have to waste time recreating your document formatting every time. In Excel, you can set up your formulas, charts and formatting once and then just update with the data from Dynamics.

Course Objective: To prepare Word to create templates and create a simple Word Template. To create a simple Excel Template.

Course Lessons & Tasks – Word and Excel Templates

Form Customization

Dynamics 365 allows you to customize the way you view data and menu options in your CRM system. This can even be done by security role so that your staff gets the information they need in a format specific to them. In this course you will learn how to customize a form, add sections, add grids, and edit the menu navigation. We will touch on assigning these forms to specific user roles.

Course Objective: To create a usable form with relevant data, subgrids, and simplified navigation.

Course Lessons & Tasks – Form Customization

Cobalt Product Training

In addition to training on the Dynamics 365 platform, Cobalt offers training courses for existing customers. If you have new employees that need to learn the basics or if you just need a refresher on how everything works, we’ve got you covered.

Cobalt Meetings

Meetings provide organizations with a vital tool for training, networking, and outreach. Cobalt events gives you the ability to create small single occurrence gatherings or large conferences with multiple sessions and activities. You can set multiple registration fees, registration restrictions, cancellation, and editing guidelines. If a meeting occurs regularly you can clone a previous version and make updates to save configuration time. This course will go through the steps to create a meeting and related records.

Course Objective: Create the system data to support both a small meeting and larger conference with related activities. 

Course Lessons & Tasks – Cobalt Meetings

Cobalt Classes

Classes for continuing education can be an important part of both membership and certification organizations. You can create class record to allow registration for classes hosted by your organization and/or preferred providers. Classes can also be linked to meetings if they are being offered as part of a conference. This course will take users through the steps for creating a class with different registration options and how to manage the class information on the back end. 

Course Objective: Create system data so support class registration for a variety of different class delivery options. 

Course Lessons & Tasks – Cobalt Classes

Cobalt Accounting

Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows the creation of quotes, orders and invoices. With Cobalt you can also integrate with your payment processor to create payments and refunds. GL accounts, GL account entries, and batches are automatically created to provide timely accounting data. The batches can be exported into a file that can create the entries in accounting software like GP and QuickBooks.  

Course Objective: Learn the system data requirements to fully utilize the accounting functionality and practice the daily processes staff will use to handle payments and refunds. 

Course Lessons & Tasks – Cobalt Accounting

Cobalt Forms

Cobalt Forms allow you to customize processes where you ask for customer data without code development. Forms can be linked to application, registration, and profile update processes so that you can collect additional data without code changes. The mapping functionality allows you to add data from these responses directly your records in Dynamics 365, or you can access the information through the form response records, or a report. 

Course Objective: Create unique forms to collect additional data from users when completing standard system processes. 

Course Lessons & Tasks – Cobalt Forms