Customer service is the backbone of any organization. Any company that desires to progress or scale-up high should focus on providing the best customer service to their clients. But, with so many things happening at the same time, it is pretty tough to provide it. Hence, it is wise to use  Dynamics 365 customer service, an ERP solution. It will not only help you to become effective but, it will help you and your team to be more efficient. Since it is cloud-based software, you get information from your team in real-time.  The best part about this particular enterprise resource planning software is that it offers a host of different features. For example, ‘Voice of Customer Survey,’ is one of those salient features that you will love using.  Voice of Customer is a feature of Dynamics CRM where you can create and send out surveys to gain valuable feedback from your customers about your products or services. Respondents can take your surveys on a phone, tablet, or computer. Anonymous surveys can be triggered in different ways: Email Social sites like Twitter, Facebook or other web pages SMS In this blog, we will discuss how we can achieve sending surveys using SMS. We had a requirement for the client that whenever work order status is changed to completed, send a survey SMS to the contact to fill out the feedback for the service provided. Pre Requisites: Voice of Customer Solution installed Power SMS solution. Download Power SMS from here- http://www.powerobjects.com/powerpacks/powersms/ Choose a Service Provider CallFire(for US numbers) Twilio Configuring Power SMS. The configurations steps can be found in Power SMS User guide here- http://www.powerobjects.com/guides/powersms/. Steps to be followed to send survey using SMS are listed below: Create survey in Voice of the Customer as per your requirement and publish the survey. Create a workflow on work order status field that creates Survey Activity. On creation of survey activity, survey link will be created. Populate and store the survey link in work order contact some custom field on work. Step: Create survey activity Step: Update contact Create a workflow that creates a SMS message on update of survey link field. After creation of SMS, set the status of the survey as “Pending Sent”. Step: Create SMS When a work order status will be changed to completed, SMS will be send using workflow. You can see the status reason whether the SMS send successfully or not. Thus, surveys can be distributed using SMS and feedback can be stored for analysis and improvement of the organization. For more information on Voice of Customer you can refer our blog “Voice of the Customer for Dynamics CRM 2016”.  

In this blog article, we will explain you on how to connect Microsoft Visual Studio TFS inside of Power BI. Below are the steps to connect over Financial OData: Open the Power BI.com online account Select Get Data option from the bottom menu Click on the Get service option Select Visual Studio TFS from the list and click on “Get it Now”. New Connection window appears which asking for Account Name to connect TFS. You need to write only name of the account (beginning name of visualtstudio.com) and write specific project name or * if you want to get data for all existing projects. After Connecting it will ask for the Authentication so need to login with your id who has access on TFS. So finally, you get out of the box dashboard inside of Power BI. As per below screen shots, it gives so many individual sheets to give information on Open Bug Status, Latest Version Control, Top Updated users, Different Project Build analysis and all. We can also connect TFS from Power BI desktop tools as well, so using that we will design reports and charts based on our requirements. In the Power BI Desktop, we need to choose Visual studio team Services option from Online service. After that it will ask for same account and Project details of the TFS, and we can have list of tables objects for selecting data inside of Graphs or charts.  

Problem Statement: Data in you CRM is critical and storage space for CRM is expensive i.e. $9.99/GB/Month. Often, CRM space is taken up by Attachments and background data (ex: completed system jobs and it is difficult to realize where our space is being consumed. This blog is about some quick tips to free your storage space and optimize CRM data usage to reduce costs. Step1: Request Consumption of your storage in CRM to Microsoft Support We can create a Service Request with Microsoft requesting the storage details of CRM environment. Here’s how you can create a service request under the correct category in Office 365 Service Request to request the storage details of CRM. The type of Service Request should be Dynamics 365. Then, select Feature as Online Service Availability and Administration Center and Symptom as storage. Mention your description something like the below: Click Next and provide your details, email and phone number. Once Microsoft acknowledges this, they will provide you details of the top 10 utilized tables in Dynamics 365 / CRM. You’ll get an email from a Microsoft Support Representation mentioning the details of the storage consumption something like this: In this example I used, I could see that Attachments was the table that consumed about 13GB of data! That is very expensive to store attachments in CRM. So first, we will proceed towards how we can curb the usage of storage in CRM by first putting all attachments in SharePoint Online (which is available in most Office 365 plans). Since, SharePoint space is way cheaper than CRM ($0.20/GB/Month) and SharePoint provides 1TB in my base subscription at no additional cost. Step 2: Use PowerAttachment by PowerObjects to migrate attachments to SharePoint A very useful tool is PowerAttachment by PowerObjects. PowerAttachment moves your attachments from CRM to SharePoint, thus freeing up critical space in CRM which can be utilized for important data Once the PowerAttachment is configured with your CRM / D365, the attachments are moved to SharePoint and the attachment link in the parent items, say, email – is replaced by the link to the SharePoint location to where the file was moved. Thus, moving attachments to SharePoint frees a massive amount of space from CRM which usually attachments take and moves them over to a cheaper storage option. Step 3: Bulk Delete Background Data – Mailbox Alerts and Workflow/System Jobs Examples Now, among several types of background data, what applied in my case, was the alerts created behind the scenes since I configured the Mailboxes of users for Server Side Sync. As you can see in the above, you can see that there were about 3,808,246 records when I requested them. That was consuming way too much of data that was irrelevant to me. So, I chose to eliminate the same using Bulk Delete. Mailbox Alerts Mailbox Alerts are something created by Mailboxes when certain tests/authentication fails. In my scenario, they created gigantic amount of records. Using Bulk Delete, I queries all of those and started the Bulk Delete to Delete them. Here, we will use Bulk Delete. Navigate to Settings > Data Management > Bulk Record Deletion. I defined the Search Criteria to query Traces entity and I didn’t select any criteria since I wanted all the records to be removed. And this is how records will be shown. The above example shows very less records. Let’s assume there are huge records like more than 100,000 records. Depending on how many records are queries, the Bulk Delete operation took several hours but freed a great deal of expensive storage space. Completed System Jobs / Workflow Jobs Another important chunk of huge data is consumed by completed, failed System Jobs and workflow jobs from the System which take up hundreds and thousands of records of data. As shown in the above example, I am using Bulk Deletion job to remove the System Jobs/Workflow jobs. Below is the criteria I select considering that I might need to look at a few records in recent past and delete the rest of them: Also, I kept this Bulk Deletion job to re-occur every 90 so that it takes a fresh batch of records older jobs created in 1 month’s span. Above are only 2 of several types of data that can be cleaned depending on what is needed. Also, more effective ways are also mentioned by Microsoft. Here’s the link to the same: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn683569.aspx  

In Dynamics 365 for Operation, user can now start a depreciation run for assets across all legal entities from a single page. There is also a new option to automatically post the journals after they are created. The creation and posting of the journals can be sent to batch processing, allowing the depreciation to run in the background. Before running the Depreciation proposal, the user needs to do some setups in Fixed Asset Parameters. (Fixed Assets->Setups->Parameters). The user needs to add the journal names in the Fixed Asset Proposal with the respective Posting layer. This exercise needs to be done in all the entities for which depreciations needs to be ran. Once the setup is done, user can run the Depreciation proposal. (Fixed Assets->Journal Entries->Create depreciation proposal). In the Legal Entities dropdown, user will see the list of all entities where the initial setup of Journal names in parameters was done. The user can select all the entities or an entity based on his requirement of calculation and posting of depreciation. After selection of entities if the user requires that the entries should be posted automatically, he can just activate the Post journals button. This will calculate the depreciation and post all the required entries of depreciation. The user can also set the batch which will then run this process in background based on schedule and recurrence in batch. Conclusion These enhancements reduce the inefficiencies of starting individual depreciation runs separately for each company, as well as better centralized management of all the fixed assets.  

Accounting team can correct posted sales invoice if there is mistake in Invoice or want to make some changes. This functionality help to correct posted ledger entries as well as other changes like Invoice discount, currency code, Payment terms etc. User cannot correct sales invoice which has been paid. By using below steps you can correct posted sales invoice: In the top right corner, choose the Search for Page or Report icon, enter Posted Sales Invoices, and then choose the related link. Select Posted Sales Invoice for which you want make correction. On the Home tab, In the Manage group, click on View. In correct group, click on correct button to make changes in Invoice. You will get below pop up when you click on correct, select yes to continue. System will create new sales invoice with new invoice number. Make the changes which are required example: Quantity, price, Invoice discount etc. Click on Post in posting group to Post Sales Invoice. Select yes to Post Invoice. You will get below pop-up once Invoice has been posted. Click yes to Open Posted Sales Invoice. Open original invoice for which you have made corrections and click on Show Cancelled/Corrective Credit Memo to view the posted sales credit memo that voids the initial posted sales invoice. You can see Posted Sales credit memo which has been posted for Sales Invoice. In Posted Sales Invoice, you can see closed and cancelled status for original invoice for which correction has been made. Conclusion By using this functionality you can correct Posted Sales Invoice if you make mistake, or customer request a change.  

Introduction: This article specifies how to add a group called ‘Quality’ in the Item Card Page using VS Code in NAV 2017. The requirement to add this group is to have all the quality related parameters for a particular item. Based on these parameters, when and what test needs to be done is decided. Quality play a very important role in case of a pharmaceutical company and these changes are done keeping in mind the pharmaceutical process. This group contains the four fields. QC Enabled Check box: The checkbox decides whether the quality test should be done or not on a particular item. Retesting Period:  Retesting Period is the time span when the item will be tested again. Spec ID: The Specification ID is a look up to the page called ‘Specification Page’ which contains a list of specification which helps in deciding what test needs to be done in testing. WIP QC Enabled Checkbox:(Work In Progress) This checkbox is used to define the quality test should be done or not for a particular item, when that particular item is in WIP WIP Spec ID: The WIP(Work In Progress) Specification ID is a look up to the page called ‘Specification Page’ which contains a list of specification which helps in deciding what test needs to be done in testing when the particular item is in WIP. Prerequisites: 1. Visual studio Code (VS Code) 2. Microsoft Dynamics NAV Web client Steps: A folder is created named ‘Quality extension’. All files with extension as .al are placed here. Firstly, we create a file named ‘Itemtabext.al’ then typing the shortcut ‘ttableext’ a layout for table extension is created. We add the fields here. Here the Spec ID and WIP Spec ID have a look up to the Specification Header table field Spec ID. We create a page extension typing the shortcut ‘tpageext’ which creates the layout for page extension.The ‘Quality Section’ group is added after the Warehouse group hence we use ‘addafter’ Here QC Enabled,Restesting Period and Spec ID are mandatory fields so we set the ‘ShowMandatory’ field to True. In the No. Series Page in the web client, we specify the default number series for Specifications and look up is assigned to Quality Control Set up Page An Action is created in the Item table for calling the Specification Page and Quality Control Setup. Here the Specification No is a look up to the No. Series Code created in Step 3. Here Spec ID is manually typed and the specification name is specified in the description. We need to create a new table ‘Specification Header’ table which contains a list of specification which helps in deciding what test needs to be done in testing. In the table Specification Header, we declare variables and specify a record ‘Quality Control Setup’ and Codeunit ‘No Series Management’. On the Insert trigger of the ‘Specification Header’ table we set the created date as the work date, created by as the UserID. We declare Quality Control setup record to fetch the default number series specified in the No. Series Page. The Quality control Set up table is created which has a table relation to the ‘No. Series’ table field code and page is created which is called in the Web client through an action We create a Codeunit to Test and Validate the field and send the Item for Sampling. We then create a navx package by building it using Ctrl+Shift+B which creates the app.json and to publish our extension we use the shortcut F5 which creates the launch.json file. Here we specify the Extension name and the publisher. In the Web client in the ‘Extension Management’ Page we can view our extension We browse to the ‘Item’ page to view our output. Error faced in the previous Development preview Spec ID in the Quality group is a look up to the Specification Page which contains a list of specification which helps in deciding what test needs to be done in testing. This look up wasn’t working in the previous development preview of NAV using VS Code, this was a bug on table relation/drill down property https://github.com/Microsoft/AL/issues/39 Error resolved after the January development preview update After the Development preview January update, the bug on the Table Relation Property was resolved. Below is a screenshot attached justifying the same. Below is the screen shot of the Issues in the previous preview update which were solved in the January update.  

In this article, we are going to walk through the pros and cons of Financials feature of ‘Coupling’ which enables integration of records between Financials and Dynamics CRM. This will help customers understand suitability of using out-of-box Integration. Introduction: Out-of-box Integration enables user to integrate and synchronise data in Microsoft Dynamics Financials record types to corresponding Microsoft Dynamics CRM entities. For more detailed information please refer the link: https://www.cloudfronts.com/integrating-microsoft-dynamics-crm-with-microsoft-dynamics-nav/. Pros: 1. Easy Setup: Setting up Financials in CRM requires you to import DynamicsNAVIntegrationSolution and then just to provide the URL for Financials. Setting up CRM in Financials is easy. You just need to fill in few details and you are set for integration! 2. Initial Synchronisation: Initial Run Full Synchronisation starts all default integration jobs for synchronizing Financial record types and Dynamics CRM entities. Run Full Synchronisation integrates: 3. Real- Time Synchronisation: Integrations and Synchronisation are fast and simple. We can even schedule a synchronisation. Scheduled Synchronisation will synchronise modified coupled records. 4. Sales Order Integration: Sales Order is automatically integrated once it is Submitted in CRM. Cons: 1. No Custom Mappings: Currently, out of box integration mapping contains lot less field mapping. We cannot customize field mapping as we cannot access Financials backend. 2. Synchronisation cannot be triggered from CRM: Synchronisation of records can only be triggered form Financials. We can only view the coupled records from CRM; we cannot trigger synchronisation from CRM. 3. Multiple records cannot be synchronised: Once the initial ‘Run full Synchronisation’ is done, records created thereafter must be synchronised one by one. Note: Only Multiple Customers can be created in Financials. 4. Mandatory fields in Financials are not Mapped: There are lot of fields which are not present in CRM but are mandatory in Financials, those field values are not set by Integration. 5. Limited entities can be used for Integration: Not all entities can be used for Integration. Below screenshots displays the Out-of-Box Integration Mapping Table: Conclusion: Out-of-Box Integration in Dynamics 365 Financials is recommended for organisations having simple requirement for Integrations. Additionally, it is cost saving as you don’t need to pay a hundred dollars for a third-party Integration tool for very simple Integrations.

In this blog article, we will explain how to move data from SQL server to Excel file using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). For moving data from SQL Server to Excel you need to create package, to import data from SQL Server to Excel. Step 1: – Create a Project You need to create a project for moving data from SQL Server to Excel. For this go to visual studio-> File-> New-> Project Once you click on project then choose a business intelligence option to create SSIS project. Then select Integration Services. And then Click on Integration Server Project. Specify name to the project and then click on OK. Step 2: – Create a Data Flow Task We need to add a data Flow task to control flow tab of your package. After adding the data Flow task double click on it will open the Data flow tab. Step 3: – Creating the SQL Server Source Our aim is to move data from SQL Server to Excel. So here our source is SQL Server and Destination is Excel So, drag and drop the OLE DB Source component from the Source then right click on that component then click on edit. Below window will open. Then click on new Click on new Then select your Server name, Authentication type. Select your database name means from which database you retrieving the data. Then click on Test connection to verify that our connection is right or not. And then click on OK. Again, click on OK. Then select the table from Specified database. You can also verify data by clicking on preview button then click on OK. Step 4: – Creating the Excel Destination Our destination is to put the data in excel file. So, drag and drop the Excel destination component from the Destination. Then click on OLE DB Source component and then drag blue line and drop on Excel destination. then right click on that component then click on edit. Below window will open. Then click on new then set the path where you want to create an excel file. Click on OK. Then click on another new button to select the excel sheet name. Click on ok -> ok Then click on drop down bar choose excel file then click on mapping. and then OK. Here, your package is ready execute. Before executing the package verify the source and destination. In destination, there created one excel file with name that you specified in earlier in excel destination with no data. For execute a package, go to Solution explorer ->under the project name -> SSIS Packages -> Package.dtsx. Then right click on that .dtsx and the execute package. it will show the number of rows inserted in Destination i.e. in excel file. And then check the destination. All the data is integrated in destination.

Dynamics 365 for finance and operations is an ERP solution that helps you to streamline the processes and helps you to become efficient. ERP stands for enterprise resource planning. It is a cloud-based application that helps the team members to work with each other with ease. This product is developed by Microsoft and is one of the most popular ERP solutions in the world.  Installing and using this application is not that difficult. If you put in some effort, you will quickly learn how to use this system with ease. You will get to enjoy so many awesome features when you use this particular ERP suite. If you are a new user, it might take some time before you understand how to navigate or do certain tasks in it.  In this blog article, we will see how we can integrate attachments to and from Dynamics 365 Operations. We need to create a Data Entity which will be general for integrating all attachments to other systems. Attached data will be passed in the Attachment field and transferred in Byte Array format. Prerequisites: D3fO Environment. Steps: Create new Project. Duplicate the Entity Make the Entity general for attachments. Build and Synchronize the Project. Create a new project Open Visual Studio. Go to File -> New -> Project. Select Operations Project. Provide a Project Name and Solution Name. Click OK. Duplicate the ‘EcoResDocumentAttachmentEntity’ Entity Go to AOT -> Data Model -> Data Entities -> EcoResDocumentAttachmentEntity. Right Click EcoResDocumentAttachmentEntity -> Duplicate in project. Make the Entity general for attachments. Change Entity Property. Delete EcoResProductImage DataSource Go to Data Source -> Docuref DataSource -> EcoResProductImage. Right Click EcoResProductImage -> Delete. Delete fields Change Entity name in methods Go to Methods. Press F7. Replace EcoResDocumentAttachmentEntity with new Entity Name. Build and Synchronize the Project. Build the Project and Synchronize the Database. So, this will create an entity to integrate attachments to and from D3fO. Let me know your reviews. I will soon come up with more articles, as I further explore D365 Operations.  

Introduction: Microsoft Dynamics CRM entities can be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics NAV out-of-the-box using the default integration setup which is available in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The Default integration setup has to be enabled to perform integration. This enables users to integrate and synchronize data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM entities such as accounts, contacts, products, user, transaction currency, Sales Order and unit group with equivalent record types in Microsoft Dynamics NAV such as customers, contacts, items, Salesperson, Currency, Sales Order and Unit of measure, respectively. Pre-requisite: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Microsoft Dynamics NAV Purpose: In this article, steps to perform integration between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics NAV will be provided using the default integration setup. Steps: To perform Integration between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Coupling equivalent records types is the first step which has to be setup initially. Microsoft Dynamics CRM records can be coupled with Microsoft Dynamics NAV records – essentially linking the records together. Once coupled, you can access Microsoft Dynamics CRM records from Microsoft Dynamics NAV and, for some entities, access Microsoft Dynamics NAV records from Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Import the solution in Microsoft Dynamics CRM of Microsoft Dynamics NAV integration which is present in the NAV DVD. Fig 1: Microsoft Dynamics NAV integration solution imported in CRM Enter the Dynamics NAV URL in ‘New Dynamics NAV connection’ present in CRM. Fig 2: New Dynamics NAV connection in CRM Now in Dynamics NAV navigate to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connection Setup. Enter the Dynamics NAV URL and other credentails to enable Dynamics CRM Integration. Enable integration by checking the Enabled checkbox. Fig 3: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connection Setup in NAV. Enter the Dynamics NAV Web Client URL. Enable Sales order Integration Fig 4: Enable Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sales order integration Fig 5: Pre-requisites to enable CRM-NAV integration Now under actions tab, click on ‘Use Default Synchronization setup’ and ‘Synchronize modified records’. Synchronization copies data between Microsoft Dynamics CRM entities and Microsoft Dynamics NAV record types (tables). Hence, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics NAV Integration is now enabled. A coupling provides the basis for integrating records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM with records in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Essentially a coupling associates or links a Microsoft Dynamics CRM record to a Microsoft Dynamics NAV record. Hence, coupling has to be setup for integration. If you want to synchronize data in the account in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the customer in Microsoft Dynamics NAV, set the Synchronize After Couplingfield to one of the following options: Yes – Use the Dynamics NAV Data Copies the data from mapped fields of the customer in Microsoft Dynamics NAV to the account in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Yes – Use the Dynamics CRM Data Copies the data from mapped fields of the account in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to the customer in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Couple CRM users to NAV Salespeople. Navigate to Salespeople in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Fig 6: Couple CRM users to NAV salespeople. NAV Salesperson Bart Duncan is coupled with CRM user Tina Menezes Couple CRM accounts to NAV customers. Note: Before coupling NAV customer and CRM account, the salesperson code of the customer must be coupled to a Dynamics CRM user. Fig 7: NAV customer ‘Selangorian Ltd.’ is coupled with CRM account ‘Adventure Works’. Once coupled, Opportunities, Quotes and Cases of the CRM account appear beside the coupled NAV customer as shown below. Also, in CRM for the corresponding coupled account, NAV account statistics will be visible which shows the NAV customer to which this CRM account is coupled. Couple CRM Units Groups to NAV Unit of Measures. Navigate to NAV Unit of Measures. Setup coupling with CRM unit group. Fig 8: Unit of measure in NAV Fig 9: NAV Unit of measure ‘PCS’ is coupled with CRM Unit Group ‘NAV PCS’ Couple Dynamics NAV currency with Dynamics CRM transaction Currency. Fig 10: Dynamics NAV Currency ‘USD’ is coupled with Dynamics CRM Transaction Currency ‘USD’ Couple CRM products to NAV items. Fig 11: Dynamics NAV Item ‘1001’ is coupled with Dynamics CRM product ’12 inch Security Monitor’ Sales Order Integration When sales order is just created, it does not appear in Navision. As the sales order is submitted it appears in Navision. After a sales order is created in Microsoft Dynamics NAV, you can modify the sales order in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Fig 12: Sales order ‘Test order’ created in CRM – Status changed to submitted After submitting sales order, in the search box of NAV enter Sales Orders, and then choose the related link. In the Sales Orders window, on the Navigate tab, in the Dynamics CRM group, choose Sales Order List. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sales Orders windows opens to display a list of only sales orders in Microsoft Dynamics CRM that have the Submitted status. Fig 13: Submitted sales order from CRM appears in NAV When you post a sales order in Microsoft Dynamics NAV, the status of the coupled sales order in Microsoft Dynamics CRM changes from Submitted to Invoiced. Conclusion: Integration between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics NAV provides the following capabilities: Enables users to work in both Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Users can view data for equivalent records, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV customers and Microsoft Dynamics CRM accounts from either system. Data can be shared and synchronized between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This enables users to keep information up-to-date in both applications.