Today, I will show you the Environment Setup for PSA to F&O integration with CDS. Step 1: Create the environment Open the link https://admin.powerapps.com and click to create new environment Following pop-up window will appear and enter the details and click on Create Environment, so new environment will gets created   The environment will get created   Step 2: Create the connections To create the connection, open the link https://web.powerapps.com and go to the connection in newly created environment (In this case: DemoEnvironment) In the data section click on connections section and click on the “Create a connection” to create new connection Following screen will be visible, select the “Dynamics 365” connection. When clicked on the Dynamics 365 popup window will appear asking whether to create connection or not. Click on create and enter the credentials     And finally source connection gets created Now create the Destination connection In the connections search for “Dynamics 365 for Fin & Ops”, when clicked it will ask whether to create connection or not click on create and then enter the credentials and finally connection will be created     Once we created the Environment and connections now create Connection sets and create project   Go to https://admin.powerapps.com and open the Data Integration tab.   2. Click on the connection set section and click on the “New Connection Set” following popup window will appear and click on Create   Step3: Once Connection set gets created now let’s create the Project   Go to project section and click new project and following form will be visible and enter the Integration project name and select the ready made template available or create custom integration project. In this case we are selecting ready made template for account and click on next.   Select the connection set from the drop down select the connection set which we have created earlier: DemoConnectionSet and click on next Select organization and click next and finally click on create   So now we have created accounts integration project Hope the above helps!

Introduction: This blog explain the steps to lock the columns of Editable Grid in D365 CE UCI. Scenario: Lock the View columns of Editable Grid in D365 CE. Steps: Below are steps to be performed for locking fields of Editable Grid in View Create Business Rule to lock the field. 2. Mark the Scope of Business rule at Entity level 3. Editable Grid with locked columns in View   Note: Fields are locked for all Views and subgrid.  Conclusion: This blogs helps developers to lock columns of View and Subgrid in Editable Grid of D365 CE.

Key Technologies: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Exchange Online, Outlook 2013 Introduction 1. Server Side Synchronization(SSS) is setup for Email processing between Microsoft CRM Online and Exchange Online within Office 365. 2. Appointments, Contacts and Tasks in CRM can also be synchronized using SSS. Pre-Requisites An Office 365 user must have the following licenses to setup SSS in CRM: 1. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. 2. Office 365 Enterprise E1 / E3 / E4 license. 3. Setup OWA once an Office 365 Enterprise license is assigned. Enable Server Side Sync for a Mailbox 1. Before we enable SSS for a Mailbox. We need to turn SSS on at Organization level as shown below: 2. Then, select the Mailbox you want to enable Server Side Sync for under Mailbox option in Email Configuration area. 2.1. To do so, you need to select the Mailbox and “Approve Email” (shown below) for the same if Process emails only for approved users was check marked as in the System Settings as shown above. 2.2. Then choose, Approve Email. 2.3. Once the mailbox is Approved, choose to Test & Enable Mailbox for the approved Mailbox. 2.4. Once, all the tests are successful, you should see the same as shown below: You should also receive an Email in your Outlook that your Mailbox was successfully able to send out an Email. Setting Personal Options for Tracking Email in CRM for Outlook 1. We can set Personal Options for tracking email in our CRM. Click the gear icon on the top right corner of your CRM interface. 2. Navigate to the Email tab. Where there will be an option Select the email messages to track in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Under the dropdown menu labelled Track, there are 4 options to select the tracking method used in CRM. They are:   1. All email messages – Tracks all email messages. 2. Email messages in response to CRM mail – Track email messages only if the person has a record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. 3. Email messages from CRM Leads, Contacts and Accounts – Track email messages only if they originate from someone with a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Lead, contact or Account record. 4. Email messages from Microsoft Dynamics CRM records that are email enabled – Tracks email messages from all record types (including custom record types) that contain an email address field. Now, you are configured for using Server Side Sync for Dynamics CRM with Outlook. Hope this post was helpful !

Key Technologies: CRM Online, Scribe Insight Note: This article assumes understanding of CRM Online entities and relationships. Knowledge of Scribe insight tool for data integration. For more information on Scribe Insight refer https://www.cloudfronts.com/scribe-integrationsmigrations/ Connections can be used to define the relation between the two entities. You can have an account related to any contacts. With the help of connection you can define that one of the contact is actually the employee in the company and another an employer. 1. Before connections, you should have connection roles and association between the roles defined. 2. Connection Roles A role should have a role category. Consider, a role ‘Client’ which is part of ‘Business’ category, ‘Sibling’ which is under ‘Family’ category. 3. Connection Role Association After defining a role, we should associate different roles. This entity stores guid of the main role and the associated role. Role ‘Client’ can have other roles associated with it. See below example. 4. Select record type ‘All’ to avoid restriction on any entity. 5. Connections Map the following fields for connections between records of different entities. • Record1id • Record2id • Record1objectTypecode (ex: account) • Record2objectTypecode (ex: contact) • Record1roleid (ex: Client) • Record2roleid (ex: Employee) • Description • Status • Ownerid Below is a sample of a contact with role ‘Client’ connected to another with role ‘Attorney’.

A CRM project of 3 to 6 months’ time is a good medium sized project, a medium scale organization looks for. It allows them to do proper resource allocation and extend their horizon to showcase their talent to bring out the best from the venture. But, this needs to be handled well with a full time PM dedicated for the project. Along with this the entire project cycle has to be ethically followed. Below is a step by step quick guide that can help a successful CRM Implementation for such projects to be done. 1. Prepare a project proposal and get the Sign – off/Approval on the hours estimated for the bifurcated tasks from client. 2. Create a Project Charter to assign a Project Manager to the project. 3. Allocate the resources needed. Here we carefully do a right mix of senior resources vs junior resources to develop the project. 4. Once the above is fixed the PM needs to prepare a project plan. Allocate the resources at task level. (Use MS Project for creating project plan). 5. Get the environments ready to start the work. Ideally we need 3 environments for the entire project life cycle: a. Dev Environment – Where developer carry there development activity. b. UAT Environment – Where Client performs test for the development done. c. Production Environment – Where the final product shall be deployed. 6. Since the development happens in Phases for a CRM project, we can follow “Agile Methodology” for development of CRM application. Following are the phases in which the development is carried out: 1. Design Entities. 2. Design Views. 3. Design Forms. 4. Create users in CRM. 5. Assign Business Units and Security Roles to the users. 6. Write Scripts/Business logic. 7. Write Plug-in’s if required. 8. Write workflows. 9. Do any Third Party integration – If Required. 7. With the above phases defined we can split then into 4 phases. Phase 1: (CRM Look and Feel) > Design Entities. > Design Views. > Design Forms. Phase 2: (User Security Roles & Business Unit) > Create users in CRM. > Assign Business Units and Security Roles to the users. Phase 3: (Business Rules) > Write Scripts/Business logic. > Write Plug-in’s if required. > Write workflows. Phase 4: (Any Third Party Integration) 8. For all the 4 phases defined above schedule UAT’s as and when they are finished. They should be defined as milestones in the project. 9. Each phase should be minimum of 1 week’s duration, which includes bug fix if any. (Depending upon the complexity and size of the project). They should also be reflecting in the Project Plan. 10. With all of the above set follow the Project development methodology defined. 11. After we are done with the Requirement Gathering Phase of the project which might be a littles exhaustive as we need to have call with the client for more than 3 days a week. 12. Post the requirement gathering phase is complete and we are in actual development phase we need to do a couple of things in order to proceed: a. Document the Function Requirements and prepare a “FRD (Functional Requirement Document)”. b. Simultaneously with project development prepare a “TSD (Technical Specification document)”. c. Schedule a bi-weekly call with the client to provide status update and also discuss on other requirements if any. 13. Ask the client to create User Test cases for all the entities. Hand over the same to us 1 week in advance before each phase is pushed to UAT. 14. After each Client meeting do make it a point to send out precise Minutes of meeting. 15. Every week once send a status update and work review report to the client. 16. At any point of time the project should have a following set of updated documents to refer to: a. FRD – Attached with CR’s. b. TSD c. Project Plan (MS – Project) d. One Note: This contains the following other project related information like i. Environment Details/ Credentials. ii. Agenda’s for each project meeting schedules. iii. Minutes of Meeting. iv. TO DO’s/ Tasks for the team. e. Issue Tracker Sheet. (Shared with the client) 17. At the closure of the project we should have the following documented and preserved as companies knowledge base: a. Learnings from project. b. Issues/ Challenges faced.

Office 365 groups are available with Dynamics CRM Online who don’t use CRM. In simple words, Sales team don’t have access to input important input from various people. Office 365 in this case provided a collaborative location to share documents, conversations, meetings and notes. Office 365 groups can be enabled for any entity. Important: Users must have an Exchange mailbox setup. Also, Server-based SharePoint Integration needs to be enabled to be able to see the documents. Provision Office 365 Groups Preview Navigate to Office 365 admin center, choose CRM as shown below. Then choose, Solutions. Then choose, Office 365 Groups and then choose Install. Review the terms of service and then choose install. Once installation is complete, you can configure Office 365 Groups. Check Required Privileges The security privilege, ISV Extensions, is required to use Office 365 Groups. You can add or remove this privilege from custom or default security roles to meet your business needs. If a user does not have this privilege, they will not be able to see the Office 365 Groups item in a record’s navigation menu. Configure Office 365 Groups In CRM Online, navigate to Settings > Office 365 Groups. On the settings page, choose Add Configuration and choose the entity. Auto-create can also be chosen if you wish to create O365 Group to be automatically created. Finally, choose Publish All. Hope this was helpful. Thank you.

Before release of CRM 2015 Update 1, user needs to call different request to perform the below operation. 1. If user wants to update the records he needs to call the UpdateRequest 2. If User wants to Change the Status of record he needs to call the SetStateRequest. 3. If a user wants to change the ownership of the records then also he needs to perform the AssignRequest. 4. Similarly user needs to call below request to perform the below operation So, if user needs to perform below operation on a record, a: Update b: Assign c: Status Then user needs to call three different request which hits the server thrice and if there are so many records then it will increase the load. But in this release there is good news for the developer, now user can perform all the above operation in a single request. User just needs to call the UpdateRequest to perform all the above listed operation. Notes: For Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online organizations, this feature is available only if your organization has updated to Dynamics CRM Online 2015 Update 1. This feature is not available for Dynamics CRM (on-premises). Though above listed messages have been deprecated for future releases, it will continue to be available with the 2011 endpoint. However, the recommendation is to use the UpdateRequest or Update method when possible to set these attributes. You can continue to use these specialized messages of the 2011 endpoint in your code. However, the Web API that eventually replaces the 2011 endpoint supports only the Update message for these types of operations. If you want to get a head start on changing your code to align with the Web API, you can now do so. See Web API Preview for more information. Following are the impacts on the Plug-ins and workflows Plugin: When update requests are processed that include both owner fields plus other standard, plug-ins registered for the Update message in pipeline stage 20 and/or stage 40 execute once for all non-owner fields, and then once for the owner fields. The new API would not execute the SetState or Assign message plugin, BUT, it will call an UPDATE request for each of these messages a. 1st time for the updating-This time, the target would receive only the non-owner/non-status fields) b. 2nd time for the Owner-only the owner field is available in Target c. 3rd time for the state-This time only status fields are passed in Target. In order for plug-in code to receive the full data changes of the update, you must register the plug-in in stage 10 and then store relevant information in SharedVariables in the plug-in context for later plug-ins (in the pipeline) to consume. Workflow: a. When update requests are processed that include both owner fields plus other standard fields, workflows registered for the Update message execute once for all non-owner fields, and then once for the owner fields. Workflows registered for th Assign message by users continue to be triggered by updates to owner fields. b. When update requests are processed that include both state/status fields plus other standard fields, workflows registered for the Update message execute once for all non-state/status fields, and then once for the state/status fields. Workflows registered for the Change Status step continue to be triggered by updates to state/status fields.