Plastic Card Creator for Dynamics 365: Autofill & Print in 2 Clicks

Do you use branded individual plastic cards that contain information from your CRM? Then you should know: it is possible to create an auto-generated layout for plastic cards right in Dynamics 365.

From the UDS experience, adding such a functionality to your system takes up to 2 weeks. This time covers all the discussions, improvements, and testing. The most effort-consuming part of this task is to properly set all the nuances of the automatic layout to avoid slipped fields and other imperfections. Such settings will require several stages of testing.

We use Power Automate to generate high-quality PDF files suitable for printing on plastic. I want to clarify right away that trying to achieve the correct layout through the Word Template is not a good idea.

So what results can you expect after adjusting Power Automate and some custom plugins to your system? You receive the new entity in your Dynamics 365 (let it be a "Cards" entity). It is a single place to collect all the necessary information and quickly print a plastic card of the required size (I recommend choosing a standard business card size to simplify card storage). The type of card can be different: automotive service cards, medical insurance policies, discount programs, whatever you want.

You have to enter one indicator: name, company, number of the car, etc. The rest fields will be pulled up automatically from other Dynamics 365 entities.

If there is not enough data in the system, you will see a hint about that. The possibility of creating a card will be blocked until you have successfully entered all the data.

When you have entered all the data and clicked on the "Create Card" button, you will see a preview of the card and print it.

When adding a new card, the system identifies if it has been created before for this contact. If the data matches, you can choose the next step: save the new card as a duplicate or deactivate the old card.

Another smart thing about Plastic Card Creator for Dynamics 365 is the possibility of card activity tracking with the help of reports. You can:

• view a general summary;
• sort existing cards by status or other needed criteria,
• create custom card groups;
• check how many cards have already been delivered to customers;
• check how many cars have been deactivated;
• suggest your features and the UDS team will implement them.

That is a brilliant remark. By implementing such a UDS Card Creator to your Dynamics 365, you can save time twice:

• through quick creation of a card without the need to enter data;
• through unloading your employees, who will have fewer clarifying calls because clients now have a plastic memo at hand.

Has your client lost his card? No problem. If you want to reissue the card, it is enough to open the already-created card and print it anew. Have some points changed (partners, suppliers, contacts, etc.)? In the “Cards” entity, there is a “Refresh” button, which allows generating an up-to-date card.

In addition, UDS's custom functionality for creating printed cards through Dynamics 365 allows you to track the history of changes and print any old version of the card. It can help with solving various conflict situations.