We are delighted to announce that BÜCHI Labortechnik AG, headquartered in Switzerland and widely regarded as a global pioneer in laboratory equipment and technology solutions, has renewed its longstanding partnership with CloudFronts through a BI Developer Managed Services Agreement (MSA).  BÜCHI Labortechnik AG is one of the largest solution providers in the world for R&D, quality control and production of laboratory technology. For more than 80 years, Switzerland-headquartered BÜCHI has been delivering world-class solutions for laboratory, industrial and parallel evaporation, spray drying, melting point, preparative chromatography, extraction, distillation & digestion, dumas, and near-infrared spectroscopy to meet the needs of customers around the globe. It operates its business through a fine network of branches, subsidiaries and affiliates spread across the globe.  Learn more about them at https://www.buchi.com/en   The foundation of BÜCHI’s partnership with CloudFronts was laid with the creation of a harmonious data integration mechanism and insightful data analytics reports, achieved through the utilization of Microsoft Azure Integration Services (AIS) and Power BI.  With this agreement, CloudFronts will focus on providing a dedicated BI Developer and ensuring that the necessary elements and commitments are in place to provide BÜCHI Labortechnik AG with proactive monitoring, rapid issue resolution, ongoing maintenance, and support. This agreement is the extension to the previous MSA which is a testament to the quality, commitment and passion of CloudFronts team.  About CloudFronts  CloudFronts is a Dynamics 365 focused Microsoft Solutions Partner helping Teams & Organizations worldwide solve their Complex Business Challenges with Microsoft Cloud. Our head office and robust delivery centre are based out of Mumbai, India, along with branch offices in Singapore & the U.S.  Since its inception in 2012, CloudFronts has successfully served over 500+ small and medium-sized clients all over the world, such as North America, Europe, Australia, MENA, Maldives & India, with diverse experiences in sectors ranging from Professional Services, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Retail, Logistics/SCM, and Non-profits.   Please feel free to connect with us at transform@cloudfronts.com  

Introduction  Dynamics 365 Project Operations (PO) is a project management application within the Dynamics 365 suite. It is designed to manage project-related tasks, schedules, resources, and budgets. While they may include some financial functionalities, they often lack the comprehensive financial management capabilities that dedicated financial platforms offer.  In this article, we will explore several functions that Project Operations (PO) cannot perform as effectively as financial platforms like QuickBooks (QB) or Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC).  We will also discuss how to bridge this gap and create a seamless integration between Project Operations and these financial platforms.  Let’s first look at what Project Operations falls short of and what financial platforms like QuickBooks or Dynamics 365 Business Central can offer.  Accounting Functionalities  General Ledger Management: Financial platforms provide robust general ledger management, allowing for detailed tracking and reporting of all financial transactions across the entire organization.  Accounts Payable and Receivable: They manage accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) efficiently, including invoicing, bill payments, and collections.  Tax Compliance: Financial platforms are equipped with tools to manage tax calculations, filings, and compliance with local and international tax regulations.  Financial Reporting: Financial platforms offer extensive reporting capabilities, including profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and customizable financial reports.  Audit Trails: Financial platforms maintain detailed audit trails of all financial transactions, which are crucial for internal audits and external regulatory audits. To leverage the Project Management features of Project Operations and the above-discussed features of financial platforms, businesses often choose to integrate both systems.  Integration Approach  Custom integration offers the utmost flexibility when connecting Project Operations with QuickBooks or Business Central. Several key considerations and entities are important to ensure a seamless integration: Data Mapping:  Tables: Identifying the key entities (Tables) such as projects, expenses, invoices, customers, vendors, contacts, and accounts that need to be synchronized between project operations and financial platforms.  Mapping: Map the fields and attributes of these entities between the two systems to ensure accurate data transfer and synchronization.  Tip: The best practice is to create mapping Excel for maintaining the table and column mappings between the systems.   Chart of Accounts (COA):  Chart of Accounts: Proper alignment between the chart of accounts in Project Operations and the financial platforms is necessary to facilitate accurate financial reporting and reconciliation.  Tip: Creating custom tables for your Chart of Accounts (COAs) and designating the financial systems as the source of truth for COAs is recommended. This approach offers flexibility to associate COAs with expenses, materials, roles, etc.  API Integration:  API Access: Check if the financial platforms offer APIs for integration.  Integration Points: Determine the integration points where data will be exchanged between the two systems, such as project creation, expense tracking, invoice generation, and payment reconciliation.  Data Flow:  Data Direction: Define the direction of data flow between Project Operations and financial platforms, ensuring consistency and integrity of data. The source and the target systems should be defined.  Real-Time Sync: Decide whether data synchronization will occur in real-time or through scheduled batch processes to meet business requirements. Currency:  Currency Conversion: Consider currency conversion requirements when dealing with contracts or transactions in multiple currencies.  Error Handling and Logging:  Error Handling: Implement mechanisms to handle data validation errors, inconsistencies, and exceptions during data transfer between systems.  Logging: Maintain logs of integration activities and errors for troubleshooting, audit trails, and compliance purposes.  Security:  Authentication: Implement secure authentication mechanisms to ensure data privacy and integrity during data exchange between systems.  Access Control: Define roles and permissions to restrict access to sensitive data and functionalities based on user roles and responsibilities.  Testing:  Testing: Set up a dedicated testing session to validate the integration setup, data mappings, and synchronization processes before deploying to production.  Integration process flow diagrams:  Create a process flow diagram for all the entities, for example below, is an integration process flow diagram for integrating Accounts, Contacts, Vendors from Project Operations to Quick Books.  In conclusion, while Project Operations is essential for managing the operational aspects of projects, it lacks the depth and breadth of functionalities offered by dedicated financial platforms.   Financial platforms provide accounting, regulatory compliance, advanced financial reporting, cash flow management, and more, which are crucial for the overall financial health and strategic planning of an organization.   Integrating these platforms with Project Operations tools leverages the strengths of both, ensuring efficient project management and robust financial oversight.  Here is our featured Customer Success Story:  Armexa, a leading US-based Industrial Cybersecurity Company, partnered with CloudFronts for Services Automation with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations and Business Central.   We hope you found this article useful, and if you would like to discuss anything, you can reach out to us at transform@cloudfronts.com

Microsoft Azure provides a cloud-based storage service called Azure Blob Storage. It is made up of Blobs, which are files kept as individual units and arranged like folders inside of Containers. Uses of Azure Blob Storage include: Steps to Create Azure Blob Storage STEP 1: Access the Azure Portal. Before proceeding, please confirm that you have a subscription. You will already have a FREE TRIAL membership for one month if you made a free account for the first time. Note: To learn more about how to obtain a free Azure account, click on Azure free account to create Free Trial Account. STEP 2: Setting up the “Storage Account” is the first and most important step in generating Blob Storage. Go into the Azure interface and select “Storage Accounts” to start the creation process. STEP 3: After clicking on Storge Account, the following screen will appear and then click on ‘+ New‘ to proceed further. STEP 4: After selecting New, you’ll be prompted to provide the following information on the following page: After you have entered all the information, click “Create.” Step 5: As seen in the sample below, an Azure Storage Account offers four different kinds of redundancy storage. For the demo, Geo-redundant Storage (GRS) will be used. Step 6: The next screen displays the deployment status when you click the “Create” button. Once deployment is finished, select “Go to resource.” Steps to Create Container STEP 1: Now, we have to create a new Container for that click on ‘+ Container ‘. Step 2: After selecting Add Container, a form requesting the container’s name (which must be unique) and access level will appear. We have chosen Blob Public Level access for the demo. Select “Create” to continue. Step 3: As a result, the blob storage has been effectively constructed, the container named as demo. Steps to Create Blob Step 1: Click on the container demo. Step 2: Under overview blob can be uploaded. The connection string can then be found by selecting the Storage Account and clicking on “Access keys.” These Connection Strings are used to communicate with the Storage Account. Conclusion Azure Blob Storage features integration with other Azure services, built-in security safeguards, and accessibility through a variety of tools and APIs. Azure Blob Storage is a solid and affordable solution for companies looking to store and manage unstructured data in the cloud thanks to these benefits, Azure Blob Storage is a powerful and flexible cloud storage option that offers several benefits. With many storage layers, it provides an enduring and scalable storage solution to satisfy the demands of diverse applications in terms of both cost and performance. We hope you found this article useful, and if you would like to discuss anything, you can reach out to us at transform@cloudfronts.com

Azure Blob Storage Overview   These days Data is viewed as the most curial aspect of doing business because it is used to draw insights, take business decisions & plan future business strategy by understanding targeted audience behavior. In this entire process mostly in organizations data is coming from different sources it could be expensive to store and a challenge to manage as most of the data is unstructured, to tackle this situation organizations can consider opting for a blob storage account as it provides comprehensive support for unstructured data workload on a single modern platform.   By using blob storage, a company can store massive amounts of data inexpensively and make the most of what you have as it is scalable, durable, secure and capable of handling workloads which means it can meet any capacity requirement.   It allows us to protect and manage data with ease so the company can store binary.   data and application data, videos, audio files and anything knowing that business and data is well secured blob storage is built from the ground up to support scale security and availability requirements needed by mobile web and cloud need of application developers and we do so by using most popular developer frameworks.   Types of Blobs – There are three types of blobs supported by Azure Blob Storage which can be chosen based on the requirements:   Types of Blob Storage Access Tiers – Benefits of Blob Storage – Components of Azure Blob Storage – The following are the minimal technical needs to use Azure Blob Storage:  Azure Blob Storage Integration options with other systems – A few instances of how Azure Blob Storage can be connected to other Azure ecosystem services and systems. You can utilize Azure Blob Storage as a scalable and adaptable storage solution and investigate other integration options based on your unique requirements and use cases.  Conclusion – Azure Blob Storage is a powerful and flexible cloud storage option that offers several benefits. With many storage layers, it provides an enduring and scalable storage solution to satisfy the demands of diverse applications in terms of both cost and performance. In addition, Azure Blob Storage features integration with other Azure services, built-in security safeguards, and accessibility through various tools and APIs. Azure Blob Storage is a solid and affordable solution for companies looking to store and manage unstructured data in the cloud.  In the next blog, we will explore Azure Blob Storage in detail, which covers:  How to create Azure Blob Storage Components such as storage account, container, and blob. 

Introduction: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly known as Microsoft Dynamics NAV) is a comprehensive business management solution that helps organizations streamline their financials, supply chain, sales, and customer service processes. It offers robust features for managing various aspects of your business, from inventory control to financial reporting. In this blog post, we’ll focus on the steps to download and install Business Central on-premises within a virtual machine. Whether you’re a developer, IT administrator, or business user, understanding this process is essential for setting up a local environment to explore and work with Business Central. Pre-requisites: Steps: 2. Choose the region for the business central 3. Extract the downloaded file. 4. Go to the extracted file and click on setup. 5. Choose Advanced Installation Options -> Choose an Installation Option -> Custom. 6. Make all the listed components available (Run from My Computer) or (Run all from My Computer). 7. Make the necessary changes. 8. Go to Azure Portal and assign the DNS Name in Azure Portal. 9. After the successfully installation, go to Windows PowerShell ISE -> “Run as Administrator” and execute the below commands line by line. Set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Force Import-Module ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central\230\Service\NavAdminTool.ps1’; Get-NAVServerConfiguration -ServerInstance BC230 Set-NAVServerConfiguration -KeyName EnableDebugging -KeyValue true Set-NAVServerConfiguration -KeyName DeveloperServicesEnabled -KeyValue true Restart-NAVServerInstance -ServerInstance BC230 Get-NAVServerUser BC230 Set-NavServerUser -Company ‘CRONUS International Ltd.’ Note: Upon executing the New-SelfAssingedCertificate command, a Thumbprint will be generated. Please retain the thumbprint ID for your reference. New-SelfSignedCertificate -DnsName “www.shubhazure.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com” -CertStoreLocation “Cert:\LocalMachine\My” 10. After creation/installation of Certificate, Go to Manage Computer Certificates > right-click on the Certificate > All Tasks>Manage Private Keys > Add NETWORK SERVICE and allow access to all the users and copy the certificate to Enterprise Trust, Trusted People, Trusted Publisher and Trust Devices folder. 11. Go to IIS Manager in that BC230 -> click on Browse “:8080 (http)”. 12. Change Credential Type and Add Thumbprint Set-NAVServerConfiguration -KeyName ServicesCertificateThumbprint -KeyValue Set-NAVServerConfiguration -KeyName ClientServicesCredentialType -KeyValue NavUserPassword 13. Change the Credential Type in navsettings.json file: This tells Business Central Clients to change the CredentialTypes for the Client. Goto C:\inetpub\wwwroot\<WEB SERVER INSTANCE>\navsettings.json 14. Go to Users in Business Central, insert the Password: 15. Binding your Web Server Instance with SSL / Self-Signed Certificate in IIS: 16. Restart the Server Instance in Business Central Administration and Webserver instance in IIS.  Result After inserting the credentials, you will get access to Business Central. Conclusion Thus, in this blog we saw how to download Business Central (BC230) on Virtual Machine. We hope you found this article useful and if you would like to discuss anything you can reach out to us at transform@cloudfonts.com. 

Introduction: Creating a tenant in Microsoft Entra-ID or Azure Active Directory (AAD) is a simple process that can be accomplished through the Azure portal. The portal serves as a centralized hub for managing Azure Active Directory and executing various administrative tasks, including the creation of a new tenant. Additionally, this blog will cover how to create a user and grant them permissions. Pre-requisites: Steps: Sign in to Azure Portal. Navigate to Microsoft Entra ID tenants: Select “Create”: Choose the type of tenant: On the Basics tab, select the type of tenant you want to create: Click Next: Configuration to proceed. Provide the necessary information: Organization name: Type your desired organization name (e.g., “Cloudfronts”). Initial domain name: Choose an initial domain name (e.g., “cfblogs”). Country/Region: Select your desired country or leave it as the United States. Review and create: Your new tenant is created: Check your user account: User can change their User Principal Name (which is generated by the system) by clicking on user e.g. “Shubham Prajapati” Now Sign in to Business Central Business Central Sign In | Microsoft Dynamics 365 Now put the User principal name As password was not set during tenant creation. Go to > Forgot Password After setting up the password you can successfully login to your Business Central Now Go to Settings > Admin Center Now Click on Upper Left Corner > Admin Go to Active Users > Click on the user which you want to give permission to access central, then go to Licenses and apps and select Licenses > Save changes Once permission is provided Go to Users page in business central and click on Update users from Microsoft Now the user is being updated, to give environment permission click on the user whom you want to give permission To give environment permission to user click on New Line > Select appropriate permission to user Conclusion Thus, in this blog we saw how to create a tenant for business central and how to add users and give permissions to them. Thank you for reading hope this helps!

Introduction: A virtual machine (VM) is like a computer within a computer. It’s software that emulates a physical computer, allowing you to run multiple operating systems and applications on a single physical machine. VMs are useful for testing software, running different operating systems simultaneously, isolating applications, and consolidating hardware resources. They provide flexibility, scalability, and cost savings by reducing the need for physical hardware and allowing for more efficient resource utilization. Pre-requisites: Configuration: To create a Virtual Machine using Azure Portal Go to Azure Portal and sign in with your credentials. Once you are signed in, you will see the Azure Portal dashboard. This dashboard is customizable and can be tailored to your needs. To create a new resource, click on the Create a resource button on the left-hand side of the dashboard. You will be taken to this page where you can select the type of resource you want to create. Choose the appropriate resource type and follow the prompts to create it. To create a Virtual Machine, select that and enter required credentials. After the deployment is complete click on “Go to resource”. Click on Connect and download the RDP File. Now the Virtual Machine is created. To start the Virtual Machine, Click on Select > Start VM Then go to downloads and click on the downloaded RDP File > Connect. Enter the password which you had entered while the creation of Virtual Machine. Conclusion Thus, in this blog we saw how to create virtual machine and how to setup Business Central on Virtual Machine. Thank you!

Introduction In this blog, we’ll be looking into configuring the Azure Connector in LCS with the Azure Resource Manager so that LCS can deploy your resources to Azure. Pre-requisites An Azure subscription that you are a co-administrator in. References Configuration Go to Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services and log in with your account. In LCS, when we try to create a cloud hosted environment for the first time, it prompts us to create an Azure Connector first. You can also access this by going to your Project Settings and the “Azure Connectors.” Once, we reach this screen, we have to click on Authorize in the organization where we want to authorize. Please do ensure your account has the necessary permissions for these actions. Once, this is done click on Microsoft Azure Portal as there are a few configurations we need to do in the Azure Portal. Click on Subscriptions. From the Subscriptions list, we can note down the Subscription ID as we will need it while creating the Azure Connector. The “Subscription ID” is also available in the Overview section of the Subscription. Then go to the Access Control (IAM) tab and click on Add and then Add Role Assignment. Then go to Role -> Privileged Administrator Roles and then search for “Contributor”. Click on it and then click on Next. In the members tab, click on User, group or Service Principal and click on Select Members. After that search for and add “Dynamics Deployment Services [wsfed-enabled]” and your own user to this role assignment. Once that is done, we’ll get a confirmation message. After that, we can move back to the LCS for configuring the Azure Connector. We click on Add to create a new Azure Connector and get the following pop-up. Here we add a name for the connector, Azure Subscription ID and the Domain Name. Name can be anything that you want, the Domain Name in most cases is the part of your email address after the @. For e.g. it’d be “microsoft.com” in case of rbansode@microsoft.com. For the Azure Subscription ID, we have already stored that from the previous steps. Once we add the necessary values and click on next we get the following pop-up. We’ve already completed the necessary steps in the Azure Portal so we can simply click on Next. After that, we get the following pop-up. We’ve completed the steps mentioned in the Ensure you are a subscription user section. If for some reason you are facing any difficulties in that you can also try the steps from the Apply a Subscription Tag section. Apply a subscription tag When you click on Get a Code you’ll get the following pop-up which includes a unique verification code. We copy this and head on to the Azure Portal. Then go to your subscription in Azure Portal. Head to the Tags section and create a new entry with name as “LifecycleServicesAuthCode” and the value as unique verification code from LCS. If neither of those methods work, there is a soon to be deprecated method mentioned as well where you upload the certificate downloaded from LCS into the “Management Certificates” of your Azure Subscription. Hopefully, one of these three methods work out for you and you’ll get the following pop-up. Once you click on connect you’ll see an entry created in your Azure Connectors. This indicates that your Azure Account has been linked and now LCS can utilize it to create resources in Azure on your behalf. Side Note If you see the following error message then that means there was an error with one of the three suggested approaches you choose. You can try with another approach and start over. Conclusion Thus, we saw how to configure the Azure Connector in LCS. Happy Coding!

High-level steps to start building B2B logic app workflows: Creating a Key Vault for Certificate and Private Key Create an Azure Key vault. In the next step, Select Vault access policy and select the Users. Select Review + Create. Add the access policy and assign it to Azure Logic App. Create Certificate Click the Certificate and Download Create a Key and attach the .pfx format file. Creating two Integration Account for adding Partners, Agreements and Certificates Create 2 integration accounts, one for sender and one for receiver. Add the Sender and Receiver Partners in both the integration accounts. Add a public certificate in sender integration account and a private certificate in receiver integration account. Now we need to add the agreement in both sender and receiver integration account. Sender Agreement Send Settings Receiver Agreement Receive Settings Creating two Logic Apps, one for Sending (Encoded Message) and one for Receiving (Decoded Message) Create two logic apps and add the integration account in respective logic apps. Logic App for Sender (Encoding Message) Logic App for Receiver (Decoding Message)

In this Blog, it shows the detailed information for integration between SAP B1 to Salesforce. The AIS Interface is intended to Extract, Transform and Route the data from SAPB1 to Salesforce. The steps for integration would be same for different entities. Event Scenario Pre-Requisites: Process Steps: On Demand Load Scenario Pre-Requisites: Process Steps Based on the above Integration scenarios Azure Developer can easily navigate for the integration implementation and they can choose between Event Driven or On-Demand based on the business requirement. We are just getting started with Azure Integration Services and stay tuned for more in this series.