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.

Dynamics 365 for Financials supports Multiple Legal Entities. Assisted Setup helps in setting up the new company in few hours and get it ready for use. Please find below the steps on how to create a company and set it up : To Create a new Legal Entity In the top right corner, choose theSearch for Page or Report icon, enter Companies, and then choose the related link. Click on New to create a new company. Provide the Name of the Company and tick on Enable Assisted Company Setup To Open New Company To change the legal entity the user need to go into My setting (Top right corner of the Homepage) Change the company to the newly created company. The user needs to sign out from Financials and log in again to Open a New company. Using Assisted Setup & tasks Once the new company is opened on the home page in the Action bar there is a button of Assisted Setup & tasks. On opening the assisted setup, it will show the following options: Migrate Business Data – Lets you import your existing company data such as vendors, customers, and items from Excel or QuickBooks. Set up My Company – It will show as completed as we have already created a Company. Set Up Cash Flow Forecast- Sets up the Cash Flow Forecast chart, so you can view the predicted movement of cash in and out of your business. The chart is available on the Accountant Role Centre. Set Up Approval Workflows-Sets up the ability to automatically notify an approver when a user tries to create or change certain values on documents, journal lines, or cards, such as an amount above a specified limit. Set Up a Customer Approval Workflow-Sets up the ability to automatically notify an approver when a user tries to create or change a customer card. Set Up Email-Gets you ready for sending email messages directly from, for example, sales orders or contacts in Financials. Set Up Email Logging-Sets up the capability to log email correspondence in Financials to follow up on interactions. Set Up Outlook for Financials-Sets up the ability to use and launch Financials from Outlook. Set Up Reporting-Sets up data sets that you can use to build powerful reports using Excel or Power BI, for example. Set Up and Item Approval Workflow-Sets up the ability to send a notification to an approver when a user changes or creates an item. Set Up a Payment Approval Workflow-Sets up the ability to send a notification to an approver when a user sends payment journal lines for approval. Set Up Dynamics CRM Connection-Sets up a connection to Dynamics CRM, which allows you to synchronize data such as contacts and sales order information. Set Up Sales Tax-Gets you started with default Tax groups and assigning Tax area codes that you can assign to customers and vendors to automatically calculate sales tax in sales or purchase documents. Some of the above tasks can be skipped based on the requirement. The status is set to completed when the setup of each task is done ensuring that the company is ready for use. Conclusion D365 for financials is a very good product for Small and medium size enterprises. The assisted company setup feature is just a checklist to ensures that all the required setups are completed and the users can start using the system.

We all need to remind ourselves of what to do when we navigate around in our Dynamics 365. What if someone reminds you to do the same? Hence, Relationship Assistant. Relationship Insights are a new set of features introduced as preview in the Dynamics 365 December 2016 release. It is only available in the US market i.e. .crm.dynamics.com. Setting up Since Relationship Assistant is a part of Relationship Insights, Relationship Insights is available in this version for preview only. To enable this for the organization, navigate to Settings > Administration > System Settings (picture 1) and on the last Previews (picture 2) tab, scroll to the very bottom. As shown in the picture 2 above, shift the radio selection to Yes on the Enable Relationship Assistant. You’ll have Relationship Assistant now enabled for your organization. Next, to see if Relationship Assistant is setup and tweak the settings of the same, you’ll need to go to the Relationship Insights option under Settings as shown below: On the same, you’ll be asked to agree to the terms and move ahead. (which I already did while writing this blog) Once in Relationship Insights, you’ll see 3 tabs to show 3 sub-features of Relationship Insights. Under Relationship Assistant tab, make sure the option Turn on the Relationship Assistant for your organization is tick marked as shown below: A typical card   Here’s how a typical card in Relationship Assistant looks like. (1) is the entire card. It shows you information subjective to the card. It will tell you what type of card it is. The icon on the card quickly tells us what type of card it is with the heading. (2) – These are the actionable buttons for the card. Like in the example above, the card is showing that there was no action in recent past. So, you can either chose to open the opportunity or send an email to the Regarding of the Opportunity contact with the mentioned actionable buttons. (3) – This button snoozes the card for a while and removes it temporarily. (4) – Close the card from here. Using Relationship Assistant Here’s how you can use the new Relationship Assistant. Navigate to a Contact record, you’ll see Assistant as the new section in your Activity feeds area. Once you click on Let’s Go, you’re all set to use the new assistant. It’ll take a while to load everything for you. Now, I have an example where there is a Contact called Priyesh Wagh and I also an Opportunity regarding the same Contact that is due the next day. So when I open the Opportunity, the Assistant prompts me that the Opportunity is closing soon. Since these cards are actionable, you chose what to do with it. You can snooze it, close it out or Open the record from the button provided there. This helps you to take measures in the right directions easily with the help of Relationship Insights. There are several cards that are context based and appear in various areas throughout Dynamics 365. Check Relationship Assistant Preferences area below.   Relationship Assistant Preferences Under the Relationship Assistant area, you can see there are several types of Cards which you can enable/disable or set different preferences for. Highlights of the same are as below: Base Cards These cards are based on the activities or actionable items that are due the same day. Here is what they all are. Email Cards from Exchange These cards are fetched based on Emails and Appointments available in Exchange. Dynamics 365 polls for your Exchange Account and fetched information which is relevant to D365 records and show appropriate cards where needed. These are the cards which can be enabled. Relationship Analytics Cards These cards are based on your actions taken in Dynamics 365 in the past. Cards based on the same can be set preferences for here. Email Engagement Cards Email Engagement is a separate suite feature of Relationship Assistant. It is based on whether you want to track the email sent from Dynamics 365 or not. If yes, assistant shows you the following cards based on the below preferences: Productivity Cards These cards are productivity based and shows you information based on what is important soon or nearby. ‘Today’ cards Self-explanatorily, these cards show what is upcoming for the same day. You’ll need to save your changes to reflect them throughout Dynamics 365.

Microsoft made some Developer Experience Updates in different tools and Web API in order to enhance the CRM functionality and also fixed the bugs addressed to Microsoft in previous release. 1. Authentication Existing authentication flows require username + password –> Requires password maintenance –> Requires user license Server to Server Authentication –>Available in Fall 2016 release –> “Client Credentials” flow –> Authenticate with AAD using a secret or certificate –> Support for 3rd party solutions –> Does not require a user license. 2. Introducing client APIs for creating and managing records in Dynamics 365 mobile clients while working offline Use new client APIs for Dynamics 365 for phones and Dynamics 365 for tablets Utility.getCurrentPosition: Returns the current location using the device geolocation capability. Utility.getBarcodeValue: Returns the barcode information, such as a product number, scanned using the device camera. Get Barcode value Xrm.Utility.getBarcodeValue().then( function (result) { Xrm.Utility.alertDialog(“Barcode value: ” + result); }, function (error) { Xrm.Utility.alertDialog(error.message); }) Get GeoLocation Xrm.Utility.getCurrentPosition().then (function (location) { Xrm.Utility.alertDialog(“Latitude: ” + location.coords.latitude + “, Longitude: ” + location.coords.longitude); }, function (error) { Xrm.Utility.alertDialog(error.message); }) 3. Dynamics 365 Web API enhancements Access to local data while Dynamics 365 for Outlook is offline Instead of using getServerUrl() make use of getClientUrl(). getServerUrl() method is deprecated context.getClientUrl()- Return Type(string) Return entity data on create or update Create with Record URL The create request previously provided the response as shown below. Only the record Id is obtained in the response header. Create with data returned The create request after D365 update provides us with all the data of the created record. The below screenshot shows the data of the entity created as no query is specified in the URL. Now if the developer need any field data that got created such as created on, modified on fields data can be retrieved in the same create request. No need of another retrieve request. Note: This capability is applicable only for dynamics 365 (online and on-premises) You can compose your POST request so that data from the created record will be returned with a status of 201 (Created). To get his result, you must use the return=representation preference in the request headers. To control which properties are returned, append the $select query option to the URL to the entity set. The $expand query option will be ignored if used. When an entity is created in this way the OData-EntityId header containing the URI to the created record is not returned. This example creates a new account entity and returns the requested data in the response. Request POST [Organization URI]/api/data/v8.2/accounts?$select=name,creditonhold,address1_latitude,description,revenue,accountcategorycode,createdon HTTP/1.1 OData-MaxVersion: 4.0 OData-Version: 4.0 Accept: application/json Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 Prefer: return=representation { “name”: “Sample Account”, “creditonhold”: false, “address1_latitude”: 47.639583, “description”: “This is the description of the sample account”, “revenue”: 5000000, “accountcategorycode”: 1 } Response HTTP/1.1 201 Created Content-Type: application/json; odata.metadata=minimal Preference-Applied: return=representation OData-Version: 4.0 { “@odata.context”: “[Organization URI]/api/data/v8.2/$metadata#accounts/$entity”, “@odata.etag”: “W/\”536530\””, “accountid”: “d6f193fc-ce85-e611-80d8-00155d2a68de”, “accountcategorycode”: 1, “description”: “This is the description of the sample account”, “address1_latitude”: 47.63958, “creditonhold”: false, “name”: “Sample Account”, “createdon”: “2016-09-28T22:57:53Z”, “revenue”: 5000000.0000, “_transactioncurrencyid_value”: “048dddaa-6f7f-e611-80d3-00155db5e0b6” } Update with data returned Request PATCH [Organization URI]/api/data/v8.2/accounts(00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001)?$select=name,creditonhold,address1_latitude,description,revenue,accountcategorycode,createdon HTTP/1.1 OData-MaxVersion: 4.0 OData-Version: 4.0 Accept: application/json Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 Prefer: return=representation {“name”:”Updated Sample Account”} Response HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: application/json; odata.metadata=minimal Preference-Applied: return=representation OData-Version: 4.0 { “@odata.context”: “[Organization URI]/api/data/v8.2/$metadata#accounts/$entity”, “@odata.etag”: “W/\”536537\””, “accountid”: “00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001”, “accountcategorycode”: 1, “description”: “This is the description of the sample account”, “address1_latitude”: 47.63958, “creditonhold”: false, “name”: “Updated Sample Account”, “createdon”: “2016-09-28T23:14:00Z”, “revenue”: 5000000.0000, “_transactioncurrencyid_value”: “048dddaa-6f7f-e611-80d3-00155db5e0b6″ } HTTP headers Every request should include the Accept header value of application/json, even when no response body is expected. Any error returned in the response will be returned as JSON. While your code should work even if this header isn’t included, we recommend including it as a best practice. The current OData version is 4.0, but future versions may allow for new capabilities. To ensure that there is no ambiguity about the OData version that will be applied to your code at that point in the future, you should always include an explicit statement of the current OData version and the Maximum version to apply in your code. Use both OData-Version and OData-MaxVersion headers set to a value of 4.0. 4. Reference metadata by name Get the metadata information by the URLs specified below. 5. Discovery Service Enhancements Existing Region based discovery service Global Discovery Service With new discovery service you are able to hit a single end point which will return all the organization for a user. Available only for commercial hosted instances. Will return all the CRM versions (8.0,8.1). No need to worry about the versions used by the client. You can use the single end point to discover all the instances by using v1.0 6. Tooling Updates Tools that have been updated. Solution Packager –> Updated support for localization of Sitemap, Solution info, and BPF/Process objects –> Added support for new solution component types added for fall. Plugin Registration Tool –> Updated to support Service Bus connect string based connections only. I don’t have a connection string will be removed soon. –> Added Event Hubs support Configuration Migration tool –> The things that are common between Field Service and Project Service are added to core engine of CRM itself. –> Added support for new “specialized” types in Resource management entities in CRM CrmSvcUtil –> Updated to support connection string and better handling of option set data. Tooling.Connector (Performance is improved as it uses the string that is present in the cache, if call is made to same connection for 2nd time using the constructor) –> Added new connection string options to support creating new connections or reusing existing connections –> Updated connection fault recovery logic to better handle unexpected faults and cleanly recover connections. Tooling.CrmConnectControl –> Updated with Accessibility Support –> Added new feature to configure display language at runtime. Powershell –> Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.Connector and Microsoft.Xrm.Tooling.PackageDeployment updated to support new logging feature to allow for better control over log files and capture of content.  

TIBCO Cloud Integration NAV Connector is compatible with Dynamics 365 Financials. Prerequisite: Dynamics 365 Financials. TIBCO Cloud Integration Subscription. Steps: Login to TIBCO Cloud Integration URL: https://app.scribesoft.com/ Create a new connection by selecting the connector type as Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Fill in the required details. OData Service URL: For the OData URL, login to Financials and search for ‘Web Services’. Search button is on the top right side of the home page. You will find OData V4 URL of individual Web Services. Copy the URL till OData. Username and Password: Search ‘Users’ in Financials. Select the logged in User. Username is the required User Name in Connector and Web Service Access Key is the password. Company Name: It is displayed on the Home Page. For entities or pages to be visible in Scribe, you need to create Web Service for each required page. Search for ‘Web Service’ Click on the Action Tab and then Click on Create Data Set. Setup Page Will Pop-Up; Click ‘Next’ Select ‘Create a new data set’ and then ‘Next’ Give a name and select Data Source Type as ‘Page’, Data Source Id as the required Id of page. Example: Currencies = 5 Select the fields that you need and then click ‘Publish’. Final Step, reset the metadata in TIBCO Cloud Integration and you are set for building Integrations!  

Microsoft made new enhancements in Dynamics 365 Mobile App. The App incorporates the new UI and additional features to help users seamlessly interact with their CRM Data. In this blog, let’s have a look at the changes done in Dynamics 365 Release. Enhancements in Mobile App Logo Changes Microsoft Released all new logo for Dynamics 365. Below image shows the new look for D365 App in Mobile and Tablet.   UI Changes Dynamics 365 released with new bright colours and fresh feel for new Mobile App. Layouts are more compact and optimized to provide essential information at one single glance i.e. to have the “Bird Eye View”. Dashboards are now displayed in Stack Components format to expose more information in visual format in single view. Both Forms and Dashboards are now visible with minimum amount of Panorama Scrolling thus making the navigation more user friendly. The below image shows the stacked view of Dashboards. Device Integration Mobile /Tablet Device can now be integrated with Camera and Voice Recorder to add Photos, Videos and Audio in Notes. Users can also use Geo location support. Utility.getCurrentPosition() will give the Longitudes and Latitudes co-ordinates for the User. There is additional setting that needs to be enabled to allow the access from the Home Screen. As shown in the image below, user can select the setting of what resolution pictures he/she wants and whether they want to store the pictures in the Photo Gallery. And also whether user wants to give device access to share their location by enabling second option of “User Content and Location”. Enhanced Notes Notes can now be added with inline view format i.e. with relevant information on form we can continue to add notes without navigating to additional page. Attached Images can be previewed within the page, without having to open them individually. Image (a) shows the Inline Notes with Image Preview whereas Image (b) shows Note as separate page. In notes users can now add photos, voice recording and video recording from their Mobile/Tablets. Sensor Integration As seen in Device Integration Mobile App can now use Camera and Microphone to add data through Mobile App. A new Barcode Control is added on Single line of Text field with Text Format. This Control scans the barcode with the help of camera incorporated in the device and automatically populates the code in the field. Note: This field only works with Barcode and not for QR code. Workspace Workspace is all new personalized action hub in mobile app to help users do common tasks seamlessly. Workspace includes the list of suggested priorities known as “Action Cards” in the left hand side of the window. These Action Cards may include the upcoming meetings and information relevant to that day’s activities and the things that need attention. Functionality to Dismiss and Snooze Action Cards is also available on Mobile Client. Workspace also includes list of favourites and most recently used items. Items can be added to Favourites by clicking on “Star” Button present in Recent Feeds. New Activity and Records can be created immediately from the Workspace Workplace settings can also be changed to display respective “Task Flows”. These settings can be changed from Home Screen -> Settings as shown in Image below. Editable Grids on Mobile Editable grids provide the rich inline editing in main and sub-grids so that users can update the information with fewer clicks. Editable grids are added as the control in Dynamics 365 which can be enabled for Mobile and Tablets apart from Web Client. Task Flows in Mobile Task Flows in Mobile were earlier the preview feature but now are available completely on Mobile. Task Flows are just another types of Business Process Flow for Mobile that enable users to seamlessly do the tasks without navigating through series of records. These can be accessed from the Home Screen on the below left hand side corner Icon. Below are some screenshots that will guide us that how task flows work in Mobile. The Scenario is that the Manager needs to approve the Credit Limit with Task Flows. So Manager will open the Opportunity Record for which he/she needs to approve, so with simple steps the Manager can approve the Credit Limits without opening the actual records. Task Flows can now also be imported and exported in the Solutions. Offline Enhancements Mobile Offline was introduced in the last release but now in Dynamics 365 new enhancements are incorporated, below are some key points that are added: JavaScript Client API supports CRUD operations when Client is in Offline Mode. Enhanced Sync Status Earlier when Admin used to configure Mobile Offline there was no status that on what state the process is running, Is the Process Running or not. So now the Enhancement is that the Admin can now see how many steps are performed while configuring Mobile Offline. New OS Support Mobile App is now supported on following OS: 1. iOS 10 2. Android N 3. Windows 10 Redstone 1 Thus, these were some enhancements that are added in Dynamics 365 Mobile Cleint.  

In this blog article, we will see how we can export model in a model file, then import model file in development environment and delete existing model in development environment. Prerequisites: D3fO Environments. Steps: Export Model in a Model File. Import Model File. Resolve Conflicts. Build and Synchronize Model. Export Model To export a model in a model file, use the ModelUtil.exe tool which is located in j:\AOSService\PackagesLocalDirectory\Bin and the -export directive. ModelUtil.exe -export -metadatastorepath= [path of the metadata store] -modelname=[name of the model to export] -outputpath=[path of folder where model file should be saved] Example: Import Model To install a model file in development Environment, use the ModelUtil.exe tool and the -import directive. ModelUtil.exe -import -metadatastorepath=[path of the metadata store where model should be imported] -file=[full path of the file to import] Example: If the model already exists in Development Environment, then first delete the model using ModelUtil.exe tool and -delete directive. ModelUtil.exe -delete -metadatastorepath=[path of the metadata store] -modelname=[name of the model to delete] Example: Resolve Conflicts If the model you installed has customizations in higher layer, you need to resolve code or metadata conflicts. Under Dynamics 365 -> Addins -> select Create Project from Conflicts. In dialog box, select the model you installed, to check for conflicts. Click Create Project. New Project is created with elements having conflicts. Resolve the conflicts. Build and Synchronize Build the Model and Synchronize the Database.

We have a requirement that we want to change button text and description for case entity to the incident. Since the case is system entity which is managed, dynamics 365 not allowed you to make any modification in button text or description. For the unmanaged entity, you can make a modification with the help of third party tool like ribbon workbench. In this article, we will see how to change button text of system entity (managed). Kindly follow below steps. Create a new solution and add selected entity in that solution. In my example, I want only case entity. Make sure you have checked “include entity metadata”. Click on export translation The zip file will be downloaded to your system. Extract that zip file in your local system. Open CrmTranslations file in excel Select Display String sheet Find text that you want to replace. I want to replace all case word with incident. Make necessary changes and save the file. Again zip CrmTranslations folder and click on import Translation. Import zip file to the solution Publish the solution and go to entity form. You can see button text and description changed to the incident. Similar way you can do it for another system (Managed) entity.  

In this blog article, we will explain you on how to connect dynamics 365 financials service inside of Power BI. Earlier Microsoft dynamics 365 gives out of the box connectors for Sales, service Manager and Marketing to connect over Power BI for readymade dashboards but on the new powerbi updates we have direct connector for Dynamics Financial 365. Below are the steps to connect over Financial OData: Open the Power BI desktop tools and clicked on getdata Select “Dynamics 365 for financial” in Online services. When Promoted, enter your Microsoft Dynamics Financial OData URL For getting this ODAT URL, you need to first login on dynamics 365 portals and then search web services in the search button, so you get below screen and copy the OData url. Please use url up to “OData” flag only. After connecting this ODATA URL, it will ask for the authentication so choose basic authentication Mode and your User Details. 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 you will get all the tables loaded in to powerbi desktop tools and from that we can design a dashboard.