In this article, we are going to compare features of Microsoft Flow and Zapier. Real Time Integration: Microsoft Flow: Flow gets automatically triggered based on create/update/delete record defined in the workflow. Note: Triggers for Create, Delete and Update are available Zapier: Zap gets automatically triggered based on create record defined in the workflow. Note: Trigger for Create is available Scheduled Integration: Microsoft Flow: Flow can be scheduled by day, hour, minute, seconds. Recurrence action is used for the same. Zapier: Zap cannot be scheduled. It can only be triggered on Creation of new record. Triggers: Microsoft Flow: Triggers can be specified for any entity. Zapier: Triggers can be specified for limited entities. For example: For Dynamics CRM, the trigger can defined only for Contact, Opportunity, Lead and Account. Lookup Action: Microsoft Flow: Records can be looked up using GUID / Unique Identifier of the record. We can look up to any entity. Zapier: Lookup record i.e. Search in Zap is different for different Connections. Only few Entities is provisioned for Search Criteria for Search can be based on all fields or one field based on Connectors (Explained below with example) Search value can dynamic i.e. values can be retrieved through previous steps. For Example: Search for Salesforce can be based on any field For Dynamics CRM, condition for Search for Contact is based only on email address. Conditional Workflow: Microsoft Flow: Various flow control can be setup in Flow like if-else, switch-case, do-until, etc. Zapier: Logical conditions setup is currently not available in Zap. Filters: Microsoft Flow: Source records cannot be filtered. Zapier: Filter feature not available. Data Formatting: Microsoft Flow: Data fetched from Source cannot be formatted before sending to target. Flow supports simple one-to-one mappings. Zapier: Data fetched from Source cannot be formatted before sending to target. Zapier supports simple one-to-one mappings. Execution History: Microsoft Flow: Errors can be monitored in Activity section in Flow. Errors cannot be handled inside a Flow. Zapier: Errors can be monitored in Task History section in Zapier. Errors cannot be handled inside a Zap Debug: Microsoft Flow: Debug feature is not available for a Flow. Though, after execution you can get output of each step Zapier: Debug feature is not available for a Zap. Though, after execution you can get input and output of each step. Conclusion: Summary for the Integration Tools: Microsoft Flow vs Zapier. Features Microsoft Flow Zapier Real-Time Integration Yes Yes Scheduled Integration Yes No Execution History Yes Yes Error Handling No No Debug No Get output of each step after execution No Get output of each step after execution Triggers Create/Update/Delete Only for Create Lookup Action Immature Mature than Microsoft Flow Filters No No Conditional Workflow Yes No Data Formatting No No  

In this blog, we shall see how can a user can write a JavaScript Code and where exactly should the user place the code in order to customize the D365 CRM Portal for version 8.0+. Pre-Requisites: D365 CRM Portals D365 CRM Environment Scenario: The user is often confused as to where exactly should he write the Java Script Code to make the following customizations to the CRM Portals Web Page. We will write a simple JavaScript function to disable the fields in this case the user will disable the email and phone number input fields on the on the Contact Us Web Page of D365 CRM Portals as shown below. Fig 1: Image showing disabled email and phone number fields using custom JavaScript Process: Step 1: The user will have to go the CRM Main Menu to Portals> Web Pages and select the respective web page to which the user wants to implement the required changes as shown below. Fig2: Selecting the Web Page Step 2: On opening the Web Page the user will get a section called the Localized content. The user should select the option as shown below. Fig 3: Select the Localized Content Step 3: On selecting the option in the localized Content as shown in the previous step, the user will have to scroll down and expand the Advance tab where the user get two input sections which are ‘Custom JavaScript’ and ‘Custom CSS’ as shown below. The user has to put the custom JavaScript into the ‘Custom JavaScript’ input section. Fig 4: Writing the JavaScript into the ‘Custom JavaScript’ input section of the localized content Step 4: The user can also add the custom JavaScript Code to the front side editor of the Portal using the administrative tool as shown below. Fig 5: Writing the JavaScript Code on the Front End using administrative tool. Conclusion: Thus in this way we can implement a simple custom JavaScript Code to customize the D365 CRM Portal.

In today’s world of more informed and aware customers, the most effective way of meeting the ever-increasing demands of the customers is to go for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sales Process. The process not only gives you a crystal clear understanding of the customer needs but also gives you insights to engage more effectively with them to meet up their expectations.  CloudFront has recently built up a Sales Methodology App for Dynamics 365 Sales for our Partner, Technical Sales Development (TSD). The App bolsters a perceived Sales Methodology which can assist you with expanding income and win-rate by appropriately qualifying and overseeing bargains, creating serious and partner techniques, making a monetarily stable offer, and arranging activities to settle the negotiation.  Introduction: In this blog, we will have a look on how a web service can be call from Plugin in Dynamics CRM. Steps to be followed: 1)     Create an entity “Product Configuration” which consists of 2 fields Key – Name of the Web Service Value – Web Service URL The basic purpose of this entity is to store the Web Service URL so that we don’t hard code the values in the code. Web Service URL- Where WorkOrder -> Controller Name and CreateWorkOrder -> Function Name 2)     Call the below function to call the Web Service. Retrieve Product Configuration function basically retrieves the record from CRM. private void CallWebService(IPluginExecutionContext context, ITracingService tracer, IOrganizationService service) { string licenseResposeJSON = string.Empty; ////// Retrieve Product Configuration details: URL tracer.Trace(“Retrieve Product Configuration details: URL”); string value = string.Empty; value = this.RetrieveProductConfiguration(service); tracer.Trace(“Downloading the target URI from Product Configuration: ” + value); if (value != string.Empty) { try { using (WebClientEx client = new WebClientEx()) { tracer.Trace(“Call Web Service”); client.Timeout = 60000; client.Headers.Add(HttpRequestHeader.ContentType, “application/json”); licenseResposeJSON = client.UploadString(value.ToString(), “1”); } tracer.Trace(licenseResposeJSON); context.OutputParameters[“WebServieCall”] = licenseResposeJSON; tracer.Trace(“Output Parameter is set: ” + licenseResposeJSON); } catch (WebException exception) { string str = string.Empty; if (exception.Response != null) { using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(exception.Response.GetResponseStream())) { str = reader.ReadToEnd(); } exception.Response.Close(); } if (exception.Status == WebExceptionStatus.Timeout) { throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException( “The timeout elapsed while attempting to issue the request.”, exception); } throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException(string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, “A Web exception occurred while attempting to issue the request. {0}: {1}”, exception.Message, str), exception); } } } public class WebClientEx : WebClient { public int Timeout { get; set; } protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri address) { var request = base.GetWebRequest(address); request.Timeout = Timeout; return request; } } 3)  Web Service which calls Create WorkOrder function is given below: [HttpPost] public async Task CreateWorkOrder([FromBody]string value) { CRM_DataOperations operations = new CRM_DataOperations(); OperationResult result = await Task.Run(() => operations.CreateWorkOrder_Daily()); return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.Created, “Message: ” + Enum.GetName(result.GetType(), result)); } Hope you find this helpful! Thank you.

In this blog article, I will explain about the new updates of Power BI related to Relative Date Slicer. In this introduce a new feature in date as Relative Date Slicer. In this update they previewing a relative date slicer, which lets you filter based on the last 1 or more years, months, weeks, or days. This makes date slicers much more powerful, as you can always filter your report to the latest data. We can choose the Relative option from the list of available date slicer types. Once you select relative from the list, you will be able to specify the date to filter by. We have following seven options to display data: Days Weeks Weeks (Calendar) Months Months (Calendar) Years Years (Calendar) If you pick an option marked with (Calendar), the filter will be based on calendar periods. For example, if you filter to 2 years, data from the last 2 years from today’s date will show. If you filter 2 years (Calendar), data from the last 2 completed calendar years will show. We show the dates used for filtering under the slicer, so you always know what data you are looking at. You can also switch to filter to this period or the next period. By default, the date range includes current date i.e. today’s date, but we can override this in the formatting pane for the visual: This is useful if your data hasn’t refreshed today and you don’t want to include data from incomplete days. Turn on this feature through File > Options and settings > Options > Preview Features > Relative date slicer.

Microsoft Dynamics Nav integration is a default integration setup for Dynamics Nav that gives an option to integrate and use Microsoft Dynamics CRM entities with itself. The only thing that needs to be done for the integration is to enable the default integration setup after which you are good to go. After the successful integration, the user is able to integrate accounts, contacts, products, user, transaction currency, Sales Order which are synchronise data of Microsoft Dynamics CRM with the customers, contacts, items, Salesperson, Currency, Sales Order and Unit of measure which are the entities of Microsoft Dynamics Nav. This integration or linking of the records eases the process on many levels giving the customer a hassle free transaction and complex free system Introduction: Single sign-on (SSO) in Dynamics NAV is a process which authenticates a user to access NAV Web client and NAV windows client using Office 365 email login credentials. When a new Office 365 subscription is provisioned, the Azure AD tenant for this subscription has to be created. Pre-Requisites Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistant You can download the setup of Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistant from here Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 Purpose In this article, I will be explaining the procedure to configure Single Sign-on in Dynamics NAV with the Office 365 login credentials of a user using Windows PowerShell. Procedure: Go to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 Administration and in the NAV instance enter the Certificate Thumbprint (the certificate can be either an SSL certificate or a self-signed certificate) Save the changes and restart your NAV instance. Go to mmc.exe and navigate to the certificate that is being used for Single sign-on. In mmc.exe, in Personal certificates section, in ‘Manage private keys’, add ‘NETWORK SERVICE’ as a user name and grant full control permissions to ‘NETWORK SERVICE’ user. In mmc.exe, along with Personal certificates section make sure the certificate is present in trusted root certification, Enterprise trust, Trusted publishers and Trusted people. Navigate to the user for which Single sign-on is being set up in NAV and under Office 365 Authentication enter the Office 365 email of the user.  Now run Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell as administrator. Navigate to the Service folder to find NavAdminTool.ps1  module and run the following command in PowerShell to import the module Import-Module “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100\Service\NavAdminTool.ps1” Navigate to the RoleTailoredClient folder to find ps1 module and run the following command in PowerShell to import the module. Import-Module “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\100\RoleTailored Client\NavModelTools.ps1” To import NAVOffice365Administration Module, navigate to the Microsoft Dynamics NAV DVD and then to NAVOffice365Administration. Run the following command in PowerShell to import NAVOffice365Administration.psm1. Import-Module “C:\Users\iotapadmin\Documents\CU 5 NAV 2017 W1\NAV.10.0.16177.W1.DVD\WindowsPowerShellScripts\NAVOffice365Administration\NAVOffice365Administration.psm1” To configure your Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server for single sign-on, you have to run the cmdlet  Set-NavSingleSignOnWithOffice365 in PowerShell with the following parameter set: Set-NavSingleSignOnWithOffice365 -AuthenticationEmail “YourAuthenticationEmail” -NavServerInstance “YourNAVServerInstance” -NavUser “YourNavUser” -NavWebAddress “YourNavWebClientAddress” -NavServerCertificateThumbprint “YourNAVServerCertificateThumbprint” -NavWebServerInstanceName “YourNavWebServerInstanceName” After entering this command a pop up box shown as below appears with the Office 365 email ID given in the above command and you have to enter the password of the given Office 365 email ID: After entering the password, the below output will appear in PowerShell: Copy and save the URL that appears at the end in PowerShell as it will be required later. Navigate to the ClientUserSettings file of the user and change the following parameters:Change ClientServicesCredentialType parameter value from ‘Windows’ to ‘AccessControlService’. Change the ACSUri parameter value to the value of URL link generated after the PowerShell command runs which I have mentioned in step 8. The parameters of the web client web.config file have not to be modified manually. It is automatically modified after the PowerShell command script runs. After SSO is configured, when you start Dynamics NAV Windows client and Web client, you have to enter the credentials of the Office 365 email ID which is provided while running PowerShell script in step 8. Fig: Windows Client Fig: Web Client

Introduction: Info code is used to capture additional information and Point of Sales. It Prompt Point of sales User to enter information at time various action on Point of Sales. This various can be like, Sales transaction, Return, payment method, customer. In this blog we demonstrate info code setup on Sales return Product. Scenario: Customer want to return some product, company want to know why customer is returning the Product and want to capture reason in Point of sales. Follow the below steps to configure info code setup return transaction. Step 1: Open then Dynamics 365, go to the retail and commerce Go to Channel Setup and click on info code. Step 2: Click on New Button. In Info code Number mention “Sales_Ret” , In description write “Sales Return Info code”. Prompt text will display on Point of Sales. In Put type Select Option Text. It Mean Point of Sales User will enter the reason in text format. In General Tab Select Yes in Input required Step 3 : Go to POS Profile and select Functionality Profile Select functionality Profile of store which you want to change. Step 4: Click on Edit button and go to Info Code Tab. In Info code tab Click on Return Transaction and Select “Sales_Ret”.Click on Save button. Step 5 : go to Channel Database and run the Job for that store. After that login in MPOS Or CPOS and Post return sales Entry. POS will POP-UP with Return Info code. From above steps with you can assign info code entry to POS Transaction.

Introduction: This blog explains how to define relationship between Entities in Scribe Connector CDK. Problem Statement: We often get requirement from Client to define relationships between entities in custom Scribe Connector Solution: Below is code snippet which explains how to define relationship between Customer and Contact. Step 1: Define child enity (Contact) Object definintion and add to objectDefinitions Step 2: Define parent enity (Customer) Object definintion Step 3: Define relationship between entites, points to remember as below: ThisObjectDefinitionFullName property set parent entity name RelatedObjectDefinitionFullName property set child entity name RelationshipType property set direction as “RelationshipType.Child” ThisProperties & RelatedProperties property should be same in both Parent and child entity. Step 4: Add relationship to parent entity(Customer) and add parent entity(customer) to objectDefinitions. Conclusion: Hope above scenario of defining relationship between entities help in real scenario of development.  

This is an awesome feature, which helps to capture the signature on mobile and tablet devices. Display the signature on the report: We can create report which will display an image captured by Pen control. Before moving towards the solution, mentioned below are the steps to setup the environment/Pen control. We added one multi-line text field on order form and configured it to use a Pen Control on phone and tablet app. Data stored in base64 value: When we draw something using pen control on tablet and mobile device, it is stored in the background, in encoded characters in the same multiline text field, as shown below. “data:image/png;base64,iVBDLSJDFASSKSDLKSLKNSLD/SDFSF…” In order to show the actual image/signature in the report, we just need to perform a nifty trick. Add that multi-line text field in your dataset. Insert image control and setup image properties as shown below. Image Source: Select “Database”. Use this field: add expression as follow, “IIF(NOT IsNothing(Fields!new_customersignature.Value),Fields!new_customersignature.Value.ToString().Split(“,”).GetValue(1),””)” **** Here we are just taking the encoded characters by splitting the field by comma “,”. We are excluding “data:image/png;base64,”. Use this MIME type: Select “image/x-png”. This setting results in pen control image in the report,

In this blog, we shall see how can a user make simple modifications to the CRM Portal Entity Form using ‘Entity Form Metadata’. Pre-Requisites: D365 CRM Portals D365 CRM Environment Why Use Entity Form Metadata? Entity Form Metadata has a modification logic to arguments or has the ability to override the functionality of form fields which isn’t possible using the CRM’s native editing capabilities. Entity Form Metadata allows the user to configure specific pieces on the form like a sub-grid, the notes section or an entire Section or Tab on the form which cannot be modified at the top level configuration. Scenario: In the following scenario the user will see how to make simple customizations like converting a “Lookup” entity field to a “Dropdown” field  on the Create Case Entity Form on CRM Portals using Entity Form Metadata. In the following image below we see that the ‘Product’ field on the  Create Case  Entity Form which is a look up field which we will be converting to a dropdown field using ‘Entity Form Metadata’. Fig 1. Image of the Create Case Form before making changes using Entity Form Metadata Process: In order to make the above changes to the attributes that are present on the Entity Form in CRM Portals the user will have to create a Entity Form Metadata which will convert the lookup attribute to a dropdown list. Step 1: The user will have to go on the CRM Main Menu to Portals> Entity Forms> Customer Service-Create Case Form as shown below. Fig 2. Selecting the Create Case Entity Form Step 2: On the Entity Form the user will have to scroll down to the form till Entity Metadata property doesn’t appear. The user will have to create a new Entity Form Metadata by clicking on the ‘+’ option to the right as shown below. Fig 3. To create a new Entity Form Metadata Step 3: In the New Entity Form Metadata use will have to select ‘Type’ as ‘Attribute’ and select the Entity from the drop down list in ‘Attribute Logical Name’ to which the following change is to be made in this case we will select the ‘Product’ field. Under ‘Control Style’ select the Control Style as ‘Render Lookup as Dropdown’. Fig 4. Entering Specific Details into the Entity Form Metadata Dialogue Box. Step 4: Click on ‘Save and Close’ once the details is entered. Now open the Portal Form Page to which the changes are made. The user will find that the ‘Lookup’ Product field is converted to a ‘Dropdown’ field. Conclusion: Thus, in this way user can make simple customizations to the Entity Form Page in CRM Portals using ‘Entity Form Metadata’ which isn’t possible to be achieved at top level configuration methods.  

Microsoft Dynamics 365 App Development Services is a new generation business application platform from Microsoft that provides an end to end solution to all your growing business needs starting from design, development till the appsource listing and future enhancements. Our App advancement administration group has profound skills in creating sophisticated business applications on the head of Dynamics 365 for our accomplices. We help you through the whole lifecycle, from Development to AppSource posting and improvement support, permitting you to concentrate on your Business Strategy and Marketing. Once the application is prepared and inside tried, we will work with you to present the application to Microsoft, address any issues and get the application recorded on the AppSource. Project Managers often struggle to manage the project plan, keep the Gantt Chart updated.  As there are many activities under the PM’s umbrella to ensure the project delivery goes out smooth and successful. CloudFronts – PM App helps you to keep your project plan updated. Now, you will ask how does that happen? Following is what we do: 1.       We create the Gantt Chart, in which we: List down the Activities Assign duration Assign Billing Code Assign Resources Assign Predecessor’s to the Activities: This is an important activity. What happens when a predecessor is assigned to the task is, that task goes in inactive State. Unless the previous task is marked complete, the dependent task doesn’t turn active. Now, it is Project Manager’s responsibility to ensure that there is 100% time entry done for that task. This will tell you that the task is actually complete. PM-App also provides you this information. Once you double click the task, you see a Progress Field over that. If that is marked as 100%, means the time entry for the task is done by the developer completely. Now the project manager can safely mark the task as complete which is green in colour, so the dependent task becomes Active. Tip: A well-managed Gantt chart provides a lot of benefit to all the stakeholders, so always keep it updated.