What does “receiving is in scope” actually mean?

The purchase order says 100 cases. The driver’s paperwork says 100 cases. Your receiver counts 98. Two of those have yogurt running down the side.

Procurement, warehouse operations, and accounts payable all agreed that receiving was in scope for the Dynamics 365 rollout. Which number did each of them just agree to?

This is where I like the combination of Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal and business process catalog. I can walk into discovery with a common description of receiving, pull up the process with the people who do the work, and spend our time on those last four cases. That’s a much better use of an hour than asking a room full of people what to put in the first box on a blank Visio diagram.

What I’d put in the portal

The Implementation Portal is where you profile a Dynamics 365 project for Microsoft’s Success by Design guidance and reviews. The profile covers which products and features you’re implementing, characteristics such as integrations and extensions, and the business processes the solution will support. Those answers influence the guidance your team gets back.

In discovery, I’d have the customer’s solution owner and the partner architect work through that profile together. Say the distributor is rolling out advanced warehousing at one distribution center. The second DC still receives everything on paper and goes live next year. Both buildings receive inventory. Only one owes me a working mobile receiving process in April. I want that distinction written down while everyone who made the decision is still in the room.

What the catalog adds

Microsoft organizes the catalog around the work a business does. Inventory to deliver, for example, follows goods through receipt, inventory handling, and fulfillment. The hierarchy moves from an end-to-end process to a process area, then to a business process and a scenario. The first two levels help frame the portal profile. The next two give the delivery team somewhere to put the detail it learns in workshops.

One detail I particularly like from the July 2026 update belongs on the projector in that workshop. In the portal’s business process profile, select a process and use its information icon to open the corresponding Mavim process flow. The team can see Microsoft’s flow without leaving the profile.

Now the receiving lead can point to the handoff and say, “Hold on. On nights, there’s nobody from Quality here to make that call.” There’s your next design question.

Follow the yogurt

Not a thing I thought I'd type in 2026, but here we are. I’d give the receiver, buyer, and AP clerk the same paperwork and ask each of them to walk me through that delivery. Keep the quantities on the board. They make it delightfully difficult to hide behind the phrase “the system handles that.”

At the dock, 98 cases physically arrived. Does the receiver refuse the two damaged cases while the driver is there, or accept them and move them to a hold location? If the business accepts them, who keeps those two cases out of the next pick wave? The receiver with a handheld at 2 a.m. needs an answer they can actually execute.

In purchasing, the buyer needs to know what the supplier still owes. Two short and two refused might both need replacing. Two short and two accepted for a credit is a different conversation. Who records what the driver took back, and where does the buyer see that evidence the next morning?

In accounts payable, the invoice arrives for 100. Ask the AP clerk to show which quantity posted on the product receipt and what they do with the difference under the agreed matching policy. A successful handheld scan alone tells me very little about whether AP can settle that invoice.

I know, that’s a lot to unpack. Technically, 98 cases.

Give the decision somewhere to live

Suppose the distributor decides to refuse damaged cases at the dock. My first acceptance test practically writes itself. Order 100. Deliver 98. Refuse two. Have the receiver register the 96 accepted cases, then have the person responsible for product receipt post it. Verify that only 96 are available to pick, the buyer can account for the four outstanding, and AP can identify the four-case discrepancy when the vendor bills for 100. Run it with the roles people will have on go-live weekend. An admin account has a remarkable ability to make a staffing problem disappear during a demo.

For a team using Azure DevOps, Microsoft provides a catalog template you can import into your backlog. I’d link that test and the customer’s decision to the relevant process work item, give the receiving lead ownership of the dock steps, and put the buyer and AP clerk on the same demo invite. Keep the portal profile current when the scope changes. Keep the detailed scenario where the team builds and tests it.

My favorite question for that demo comes after the scanner goes back on the charger. The buyer walks in at eight, coffee in hand. The truck is long gone. Can they tell the supplier exactly what happened to those four cases without calling the night shift?

That’s what I’d want “receiving is in scope” to buy me.

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