Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Opportunity Management Training Course

Course overview

Sales teams often lose forecast accuracy and deal momentum when opportunities are created inconsistently, stages are treated as administrative labels, and close dates or estimated revenue are updated only when management asks. In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, this creates unreliable pipelines, weak handovers between sales roles, duplicated activity, and limited evidence for coaching or investment decisions. This course addresses the operational discipline behind opportunity management: turning each record into a current, evidence-based view of a qualified deal, its stakeholders, next actions, risks, and expected value.

Participants work through the Dynamics 365 Sales opportunity lifecycle from lead qualification and opportunity creation to closure, loss analysis, and pipeline reporting. They learn to configure and use sales process stages, qualify opportunities with required data, manage products and price lists, build stakeholder maps, record competitors, schedule and track activities, apply probability and revenue fields, and use views, dashboards, charts, and forecasting features to review pipeline health. The course also examines relationship assistant insights, sales accelerator work items, Power Automate notifications, and data-governance practices that keep opportunity information dependable.

Training is delivered through instructor demonstrations, guided configuration labs, realistic B2B sales scenarios, and manager-led pipeline review exercises. Each participant builds an opportunity-management operating model in a Dynamics 365 Sales training environment, including a defined qualification checklist, stage exit criteria, key fields, activity cadence, risk indicators, and reporting requirements. They leave with a documented opportunity playbook and a practical backlog of improvements to apply in their own sales process.

The course is designed for experienced sales users, sales operations professionals, CRM administrators, and sales leaders who need to improve pipeline control rather than simply learn basic navigation.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Configure opportunity forms, business process flows, and stage-gated fields in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
• Apply a qualification framework to capture business need, decision process, stakeholders, competition, and next steps
• Manage opportunity products, price lists, discounting fields, estimated revenue, and revenue calculation methods
• Build stakeholder and competitor records that support account strategy and deal-risk assessment
• Create activity sequences, follow-up tasks, appointments, and email tracking practices for active opportunities
• Analyse pipeline quality using opportunity views, charts, dashboards, aging measures, and close-date discipline
• Design forecast categories, probability rules, and manager review routines for more reliable sales forecasts
• Produce an opportunity-management playbook with stage criteria, data standards, escalation triggers, and reporting requirements

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Sales Operations Managers — who need consistent opportunity data and a controllable pipeline process
• Sales Managers — who coach sellers, inspect deal quality, and own forecast reliability
• Account Executives — who manage complex B2B opportunities across multiple stakeholders and sales stages
• CRM Administrators — who configure Dynamics 365 Sales forms, processes, fields, and reporting experiences
• Business Development Managers — who need a repeatable method for qualifying and progressing new revenue opportunities
• Revenue Operations Analysts — who turn Dynamics 365 opportunity data into pipeline, conversion, and forecast analysis

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should already be comfortable using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales to navigate tables, open and update records, use basic views, and record sales activities. Experience managing leads, accounts, contacts, and opportunities in a live sales environment is strongly recommended, along with familiarity with sales concepts such as qualification, pipeline stages, probability, expected revenue, and forecasting. Participants should have access to a laptop and, where possible, a Dynamics 365 Sales sandbox or trial environment. No coding, Dataverse development, Power BI authoring, or Power Automate development experience is required; guided exercises introduce the relevant configuration and automation concepts.

Training methodology

The five-day programme combines focused instructor-led explanations with guided work in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales. Participants configure opportunity records, business process flows, products, activities, views, charts, dashboards, and forecast-related fields against a continuing B2B account case. Small-group pipeline reviews test the quality of evidence behind deal stages, values, probabilities, and close dates. Instructor feedback links each system feature to a sales-management decision. On the final day, participants convert their learning into a prioritised implementation plan and opportunity-management playbook for their own organisation.

Course outline

Day 1: Opportunity process design and record architecture

• Dynamics 365 Sales opportunity lifecycle and table relationships
• Lead qualification into account, contact, and opportunity records
• Opportunity form anatomy, tabs, fields, and business-required data
• Business process flow stages and stage-gate design
• Topic, customer, owner, estimated close date, and estimated revenue fields
• Pipeline definitions, qualification criteria, and exit criteria
• Opportunity data-quality rules and ownership governance

Workshop: Participants map a B2B sales process into stage criteria and configure a draft opportunity data-capture specification for a supplied account scenario.

Day 2: Qualification, account strategy, and deal progression

• Structured qualification using business pain, value, authority, process, and timing evidence
• Stakeholder records, contact roles, and decision-making influence maps
• Competitor tracking and competitive-position assessment
• Parent account context, related contacts, and account-team collaboration
• Relationship assistant cards and opportunity insight signals
• Next-step discipline through tasks, appointments, phone calls, and emails
• Sales accelerator work items and prioritised seller activity

Workshop: Participants build a stakeholder map, competitor assessment, qualification scorecard, and seven-day activity plan for a complex opportunity.

Day 3: Commercial management and opportunity control

• Opportunity products, product catalogues, unit groups, and price lists
• Line-item quantities, pricing, discounts, and manual pricing controls
• User-provided revenue versus system-calculated revenue methods
• Probability, estimated value, actual revenue, and forecast category alignment
• Opportunity close as won and close as lost processes
• Loss reasons, competitor outcomes, and closed-opportunity learning
• Sales document handoffs from opportunity to quote and order processes

Workshop: Participants price a multi-product opportunity, apply discount controls, select a revenue calculation method, and document a justified forecast position.

Day 4: Pipeline inspection, forecasting, and reporting

• System views for active, overdue, high-risk, and closing opportunities
• Advanced filtering, sorting, grouping, and saved personal views
• Opportunity charts for stage distribution, owner performance, and aging
• Dashboards for pipeline coverage, conversion, and close-date movement
• Pipeline aging analysis and stale-opportunity identification
• Forecast categories, probability calibration, and forecast rollups
• Power BI opportunity dataset concepts and sales performance measures

Workshop: Participants create a manager pipeline-inspection dashboard and conduct a structured review of a deliberately unreliable opportunity portfolio.

Day 5: Automation, governance, and workplace application

• Power Automate reminders for overdue activities and approaching close dates
• Automated notifications for stage changes, high-value deals, and missing data
• Dataverse security roles, ownership, teams, and opportunity visibility
• Field-level governance, mandatory information, and controlled values
• Manager deal-review cadence and opportunity audit routines
• Sales-process adoption measures and CRM data-quality scorecards
• Opportunity-management playbook and implementation backlog design

Workshop: Participants present an opportunity-management playbook and 90-day implementation plan containing process changes, automation candidates, metrics, owners, and priorities.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Microsoft Dataverse, Microsoft Power Automate, Microsoft Power BI

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions