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 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.

Introduction: Relevance Search brings the Global Search Experience powered by Azure Search. It uses scoring concepts where score is the indicator of the item’s relevance i.e. higher the score, more relevant the item. Users will get the comprehensive search results quickly in a single list that is sorted by relevance. How it Work’s Basically when a user looks for something like “Nancy ran in the retail store in New York”, the search is executed against the Azure Search Index and the results are returned with a match to any word present inside that particular sentence. This search will also look for the inflectional words like in our case words like running, run, runner and then will display the results accordingly. No wild cards are required to search anywhere in the text. Enhancements in Dynamics 365 Earlier Relevance Search was enabled only in web Browser but now it is enabled for Mobile Client i.e. on Mobile and Tablets. Explore results using Filters and Facets Global Facets Users will be able to see the refined search by Record Type based on following categories like Entity, Owner, Modified On and Created On. These categories cannot be changed as they are predefined by the system as shown in the leftmost image shown below. Entity Specific Facets When user clicks on particular record type such as Account, then user can see the additional facets specified for that particular entity as shown in the rightmost image attached below in our case Primary Contact and Industry. These Entity Level Facets are customizable based on the personal choice i.e. they can facet fields that they would like to see for every searchable entity in their Personal Options. Search within the Documents in Dynamics 365 Relevance Search will now search within the documents that are attached in Notes on a particular record. Relevance Search will also search in the attachments that are added in the Email in CRM. Search in the records that are being shared with you Search in the text of Option set and Lookup fields on any entity. Set Up and Configuration Enable Relevance Search Only System Administrators can enable Relevance Search. Configure Fields in Quick Find View The fields that are added in Quick Find View becomes the part of External Search Index. There is no limit on how many searchable fields can be added for a particular entity. However, there is a limit on total number of indexed fields i.e. maximum of 1000 fields can be added in an organization. Set Managed Properties System Customizer needs to check the managed properties on the entity. As the “Can Enable sync to External Search Index” option must be true. Configure Entities for Relevance Search The System Customizer can add entities that should be enabled for external searching in the Default Solution. So when a user selects the entity, the number in the parentheses indicates the number of fields of entity that will be synced to external search index shown in image below. Below the progress bar of Total Fields shows the percentage of indexed fields to maximum number of fields allowed of searchable fields. Configure Facets and Filters Facets and Filters refines the search in the organization. They are available on the left hand side of the pane immediately after user searches for some term. As mentioned above they can be customized based on the personal requirements. They can be configured from the Personal Settings as shown in the images given below. Drop down list contains the entities that are enabled for Relevance Search. And for a particular entity up to four facets fields can be selected accordingly. Users can modify the preference of the fields based on their choice. Key Take Away Relevance Search is only available for Dynamics 365 Online and now on Mobile Clients too. By Default, Relevance Search is disabled and can be enabled only by System Administrator. Enabling Relevance Search has no impact on the storage consumption and cost for Dynamics 365 database. Facets and Filters can be configured according the User Preference and can redefine the search as per the user’s personal choice. Thus, above are some highlights for Relevance Search in Dynamics 365.  

In this article, we are going to compare features of TIBCO Cloud Integration and Microsoft Flow. This will help partners and customers, select the right platform based on their integration needs. Comparing TIBCO Cloud Integration and Microsoft Flow: 1. Real- Time Process: TIBCO Cloud Integration: For real-time integration, a Request/Reply Map needs to be created. This map produces a URL which can be called from any system. For example: To trigger any request-reply map on creation of an Account in Microsoft Dynamics 365, you need to write a plugin which will call the Map Endpoint URL. Image 1: Endpoint URL of Request/Reply Map Microsoft Flow: Flow gets automatically triggered based on create/update/delete record defined in the workflow. For example: Flow for Create Account in Microsoft Dynamics 365 is triggered as soon as the Account is saved.  No plugin is required. Image 2: Auto trigger based on record create, delete or update 2. Scheduled Process: TIBCO Cloud Integration: Maps can be scheduled by month, week, day, hour, minute, seconds based on Recent processed date time. We can even run a Solution On Demand. Image 3: On Demand or Scheduled Process Image 4: Scheduling Details Microsoft Flow: Flow can be scheduled by day, hour, minute, seconds. Recurrence action is used for the same. Image 5:Scheduling Details 3. Lookup Records: TIBCO Cloud Integration: Records can be looked up using any condition. If the condition is not satisfied, number of records retrieved will be NULL. Image 6:Lookup criteria based on name of Unit Group Microsoft Flow: Records can be looked up using GUID / Unique Identifier of the record. If Flow couldn’t find the record, then it will throw an error and the proceeding steps will be skipped. Image 7:Lookup criteria based on GUID of required Unit Group 4. Handling mandatory auto-initialized fields: TIBCO Cloud Integration: If mandatory fields are not filled, then TIBCO Cloud Integration shows a warning but lets you save and execute the Map. For example: We are integrating Customers(Accounts) from Microsoft Dynamics 365 to Dynamics 365 Operations. In Operations, CustomerAccount is auto-initialized on create (Number sequence is setup) and it is a mandatory field. When we integrate customers through Scribe, CustomerAccount is not mapped and this field gets initialised. We bring back this CustomerAccount to Microsoft Dynamics 365. Image 8:Mandatory field ‘CustomerAccount’ warning Microsoft Flow: If mandatory fields are not filled, Flow doesn’t allow you to save the workflow. This is a limitation as it ignores the significance of auto-initialisation. For example: We are integrating Customers(Accounts) from Microsoft Dynamics 365 to Dynamics 365 Operations. Since it is mandatory field, we must pass this number from Microsoft Dynamics 365. Image 9: Mandatory field ‘CustomerAccount’ Error 5. Data Formatting/Calculating Functions: TIBCO Cloud Integration: Often, we need to format source data before sending it to target data or do some calculations. TIBCO Cloud Integration provides a Formula Editor for this purpose. There many functions defined in the Formula Editor like DateTime Functions, Logical Functions, Math Functions, Text Functions etc. Image 10: Formula Editor Microsoft Flow: There is no provision for editing the source data yet. It is simply one to one mapping. 6. Error Handling: TIBCO Cloud Integration: Errors can be captured in Scribe and sent across to source system; so, we don’t need to login into Scribe to monitor the errors. Errors can be captured /monitored using Results fields. Image 11: Result fields Microsoft Flow: Errors cannot be captured in Flow. All the steps proceeding the failed step is skipped. Errors can be monitored in Activity section in Flow. Image 12: Activity log on Failure 7. Debugging feature: TIBCO Cloud Integration: We can debug a Map and do a step-by-step analysis/execution. Debugging is very useful from a developer’s perspective. You can analyse Inputs, Results, Errors and even add Breakpoints. Image 13: Debug Mode Microsoft Flow: No Debug Feature is available yet. Though, after execution you can get output of each step. Image 14: Output Conclusion: Using TIBCO Cloud Integration: Scribe is suitable for any kind of integration ranging from simple to very complex Integrations involving direct mapping as well as formatting/editing/calculating source data and sending it across the target. For example: Bi-directional Integration of Customers, Shipping Addresses, Products, Sales Order from Dynamics 365 CRM to Dynamics 365 Operations. Using Microsoft Flow: Microsoft Flow is currently suitable for simple integrations where one to one mapping / direct mappings are the only thing required. For example: Integrating Accounts from Dynamics 365 Financials to Microsoft Dynamics 365.

In this blog article, we will explain about the new updates of Power BI related to Dropdown slicer, Matrix Conditional Formatting and Hierarchical axis. Dropdown slicer: In Slicer, earlier there were only one option to show the data i.e. list. But now we have one more option as dropdown. Means now we have two option on Slicer as List and dropdown. This slicer is very useful when we have lots of category items in our slicer. When we create a normal list slicer, we can change it into drop down by using dropdown option. After selecting the dropdown option, the slicer will look like below: And after click on Drop down arrow Matrix Conditional Formatting: Matrix Conditional Formatting is a new feature. Using this feature we can change the various setting like we can change the colour of cell based on the value. We can set different colour to lowest and highest value in particular category. Refer the below figures for better understating. After click on Conditional formatting you will get the below window than choose whatever colour you want for minimum and maximum value and then click on ok. Once you click ok, you’ll see the formatting applied as below. Hierarchical axis: Hierarchical axis allows us to clearly see the hierarchy within the visual. We can use hierarchical labels by turning off the label concatenation in the formatting pane. Below figure show result when the concatenation label is on. To turn off the concatenation label select visualization and then click on format then expand the X-axis. After turning off the concatenation label you will see the formatting applied as below.  

Scenario: We have a requirement to access Dynamics 365 environment from a custom application hosted outside D365 environment but we do not want to consume the D365 license.  We want the user to have all privilege required to perform all task which administrator can do. Solution: Please follow below steps to create user Login to Dynamics 365 portal (Global administrator User) Login to Dynamics 365 portal (https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home) and create new user with minimum user level access. Assign Dynamics 365 license to the user Assign security role to the user Assign System Administrator role to the user. Change Access Mode to Non-Interactive Remove Dynamics 365 user license Now remove D365 license assigned to integration user If you observed, you can see integration user as “Enabled User” in the Dynamics 365 Environment after removing D365 license.  

In this blog article, we will explain you on how to connect dynamics 365 financials service connector 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 dynamics 365 financial from the list and click on “Get it Now” New Connection window appears which asking for OData URL to connect financial account. So for getting OData url we need to connect our D365 financial account in browser window and then search for web service. Select Power BI report selection Url from list of objects. Copy this url up to “Cronus” company name into powerbi connection window. Your password is the web service access key of the Admin user and you can get it from users tab. So, after connecting to the financial ODATA services we will get readymade dashboard created for financials. And now we can embedded this dashboard inside of Dynamics financial account. So list of reports appear and we can select required one from that. Note: As of now, Microsoft allow us to show only one graph/tiles inside of Financial embedded page, we hope more updates on this features.