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!

In inventory management, there often arises a need for flexibility, especially when dealing with orders that exceed current stock levels. Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations offers a solution to this challenge through enabling physical negative inventory.   This functionality allows organizations to create sales orders even when inventory levels are insufficient, catering to scenarios where a stock may be incoming or when manufacturing units are involved.  Purpose of Physical Negative Inventory:  Some organizations encounter situations where they must fulfil customer orders despite lacking sufficient inventory on hand. This could be due to various reasons such as pending stock arrivals or the need to initiate manufacturing processes upon order placement.   Enabling physical negative inventory facilitates the creation of sales orders under such circumstances, ensuring business continuity and customer satisfaction.  Process to Enable Negative Inventory:  Enabling physical negative inventory involves configuring settings within Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. This can be achieved through the following steps:  Navigate to Inventory Management > Setup > Inventory > Item Model Group.  Within the Item Model Group, allow for physical negative inventory.  For further insights into this process, refer to our previous blog post on https://www.cloudfronts.com/blog/d365-enterprise/d365-finance-operations/physical-negative-inventory-dynamics-365-operations/ can provide additional guidance.  Necessary Steps to Manage Physical Negative Inventory:  Once physical negative inventory is enabled, it’s essential to adopt proper procedures for its management to maintain accuracy and efficiency.   • Ensure Availability of Physical Inventory during Shipment: Before shipping any items, verify the presence of physical inventory in stock. Only proceed with the shipment if the required items are physically available.  • Transfer Stock if Necessary: If the required stock is not available at the shipping warehouse but exists in the main warehouse, initiate a transfer process to move the items accordingly and receive that in a shipping warehouse.  • Periodic Inventory Closing: Implement regular inventory closing procedures to ensure accurate inventory valuations.  Issues Faced by Organizations if Proper Procedures Are Not Followed:  Failure to comply with the proper procedures can lead to various issues, including:  Invalid Cost Value of Items: This can result in an inaccurate inventory valuation, subsequently affecting main accounts and profit estimation.  In conclusion, by following these steps, organizations can effectively manage physical negative inventory within Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, ensuring smooth operations and accurate inventory valuations.  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 

Hello everyone, in this series of Blog, we are going to learn about the Advance warehouse management in D365.  In this blog we will learn about the basic setups required for the Advanced Warehouse Management process. These setups may vary depending on the business scenarios. For a Warehouse to work in an Advance warehouse scenario, there are some prerequisites that we need to do first. The following are the setups that we need to configure:  Path: Inventory Management Inventory Breakdown Warehouses.  Click on New. Enter the warehouse and Warehouse name.  Most importantly, for warehouse to work in a advanced warehouse scenario, we have to enable the “Use warehouse management processes”.  For advanced warehouse management, the location plays an important role for better inventory visibility and item tracking. For this, we need to do multiple setups as per below.  In the location type, I have mentioned four main locations. These are Baydoor, Floor, receiving and User.  These locations will increase or decrease as per business scenarios.  Recv: This location I am using primarily for entry of the goods/items in the warehouse.   Floor: This location I am using for storing the goods/items in the warehouse.  Baydoor: This location I am using for exit of the goods/items from the warehouse.  User: This location I am using for default. This user location will be used in the Warehouse management parameter, in User Location profile.  Location formats are used as the naming system by which we can create the unique and consistent names for different locations within the warehouse.  Here, I have mentioned the length as 1.   The location profiles will be used for connection between location type, Location formats and the locations. The location profiles are very important setup because the location capacity can be mentioned here. Also, how the inventory is stored in the location, and how the inventory is getting accessed is also dependent on the location profiles.  Here, I have enabled User license plate tracking, allow mixed items, Allow mixed inventory statuses, Allow mixed inventory batches.  Click New. Select warehouse from the drop-down menu. Enter location name as per requirement. Select the Location profile ID from the drop-down menu.  We can add as many locations as we want.  Now, the warehouse and locations are ready to use in Advance Warehouse process.  That’s it for this blog!!  How to use these warehouses and locations in actual transaction will be discussed going forward in the blog series.  Keep learning!!!!! 

Hello everyone, in this series of Blog, we are going to learn about the Advance warehouse management in D365.  What is Advance Warehousing Process?  The day-to-day transactions in the advanced warehouse are a bit different than in a normal warehouse. Workers in the advanced warehouse use mobile devices to move stock from one location to another. Here location doesn’t mean just the location, we can move it from one warehouse to another. So, instead of sitting in one place, workers can move around the warehouse to pick up or put the stock. In Advance warehouse management, the visibility of the stock is very clear. Workers can see where the stock is in the warehouse and in what quantity. This results in Streamlined warehouse operations, reduced inventory carrying costs, and thus improvement in customer satisfaction through faster and more accurate order fulfillment.  In this blog we will learn about the basic setups required for the Advanced Warehouse Management process. These setups may vary depending on the business scenarios. For an item to work in an Advance warehouse scenario, there are some prerequisites that we need to do first. The following are the setups that we need to configure:  Path: Product Information Managementà Dimension and Variant Groupsà Storage Dimension Groups.  In the Storage dimension group, activate the “Use warehouse management process.”   Once you activate the use warehouse management process, the Location, Inventory Status, License Plate will be automatically activated.   2. Reservation hierarchy   Path: Warehouse Management à Setupà Inventoryà Reservation Hierarchy.  A reservation hierarchy helps delay specific reservation details until after you’ve placed an order. This hierarchy relies on item-related factors like inventory status and license plate for storage and tracking. While it’s essential to have site, warehouse, and inventory status information during the ordering process, certain details like location can be added after making reservations. For instance, the warehouse management system can identify the best locations for picking based on this reservation hierarchy.   3. Unit sequence groups Path: Warehouse Management à Setup à Warehouse à Unit sequence groups.  Unit sequence group is mandatory setup which works when dealing with movement of material. Now take one example: If the Unit sequence group is mentioned as Each and Box, then While making product receipt from a Purchase Order, mobile device will show the options to receive the materials in two different units which are Each and Box.  Here based on my scenario, I have mentioned the default unit for Purchase orders and Transfer Order as Box.  Now, the Item is ready to use in Advance Warehouse process.  That’s it for this blog!!  How to use this item in actual transaction will be discussed going forward in the blog series.  Keep learning!!!!!  Next in the Blog series:  How to create Warehouses in Advance warehouse management in D365.  How to create Locations in Advance warehouse management in D365. 

Introduction: The Transfer Environment feature in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central allows you to seamlessly move an environment from one Microsoft Entra tenant to another. Here are the key points: Purpose: Self-Service Process: Steps: This streamlined process enhances flexibility and efficiency for managing Business Central environments across different tenants. Pre-requisites: Steps: 2. We are going to transfer “Shubham” to different tenant. Click on “Environment Transfers” 3. Go to Transfer Environment. 4. Select the environment that you are going to transfer and enter the Destination Tenant id. It is also possible to schedule the transfer within 2 weeks and set the time when it should be transferred. 5. Now go to Destination Environment > Admin Center. 6. Click on Environment Transfer > Receive Environment. 7. Enter the Source Tenant id (source from where the environment is to be send). Click on Next. 8. After that in Pending Incoming transfers the Environment will be displayed. Now just click on the Environment and Confirm. 9. The Environment is being successfully transferred. Note: If the destination tenant already has 1 Production environment and 3 Sandboxes, environment transfer is not possible. For successful transfer, the destination tenant must have no existing production environments (if you are transferring a production environment) or fewer than 3 sandboxes (if you are transferring sandbox). Conclusion: In conclusion, this blog has provided valuable insights about how to transfer environment in business central. Thank you very much for reading. I hope this helps!

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!

Introduction In this blog, we’ll be looking into creating a new environment for D365 Finance and Operations or D365 Commerce. Pre-requisites References Configuration Go to Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services and log in with your account. If you select D365 Commerce, you get the following screen. If you select D365 Finance and Operations, you get another screen where you have to specify whether the project is an actual implementation or just for evaluation after which you get the same screen as below. Once the Project is created, we get the following screen. From here, we click on the hamburger menu at the top and then click on Cloud Hosted Environments. Click on Add to create a new environment. If you get the below pop-up asking to configure an Azure Connector, please refer to my blog – “Configure an Azure Connector in LCS”. Once, you have an Azure Connector configured, you can click on Add again and get the following pop-up. After selecting the Application and Platform version, you’ll get the option to select the environment topology. DEMO – A demo environment includes only Microsoft demo data. You can use a demo environment to explore default features and functionality. DEVTEST – A DevTest environment is for development or build. You can use this environment for development or build. Then we get another pop-up to select the environment topology. After that is selected, we decide the environment name and the size of the VM that is to be used for this environment. You can read more about VM sizes here – VM sizes – Azure Virtual Machines | Microsoft Learn Once we click on Next we get the last pop-up after which the environment gets deployed. Once we click on deploy, it takes about 6-8 hours to deploy the environment after which it’ll be available in the cloud-hosted environments section. If, for some reason, you try to create an environment with the latest platform and application version and that deployment fails, you can try to create an environment one platform/application version below that. Conclusion Thus we saw how to create an environment in LCS for either D365 Finance and Operations. 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 Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (D365 F&O), the use of batch numbers is a common practice to manage and trace items with specific characteristics. Batch numbers are typically assigned to groups of items produced or received together, allowing for better control, tracking, and compliance with industry regulations. In this blog I will explain how to solve the expiration date issue while registering a Batch and Serial number tracked product. In the above screenshot you can see that the Batch Number 23010-CM-000088 has been assigned for my Item P-000014. Here, the Expiration Date is 08-04-2023. Now if I try to register this Item with the same Batch Number, I will get the Batch Number Expiration Date being past the Required Date error. Now to solve this error go to Inventory Management>Enquiries and Reports>Tracking Dimensions>Batches. Now on the Batch Number page go to Reset Tab then under the Reset tab click on Reset Shelf-Life Dates. The next step is to select the New Expiration Date and then Click Ok. This will Update the Expiiration Date of that Batch Number. In the above screenshot you can see that the Expiration Date has been changed. Now we will be able to register the Item. Here, you can see that now I am able to register the Item successfully. That’s it for this blog. Hope this helps you! Thank You!

Introduction: This comprehensive guide provides administrators with a step-by-step process for restoring Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central environments to a previous state within the retention period. Users with Restore Permissions: Only specific users, such as internal and delegated administrators, can restore environments. These users must also have the D365 BACKUP/RESTORE permission set in the relevant environment. Considerations and Limitations: Environments can be restored up to 10 times per calendar month. Restoration is limited to the same Azure region and country as the original environment. Preparation before Restoration: Before restoring an environment, it’s essential to communicate the plan within the organization, restrict user access, and consider renaming the environment to avoid conflicts. Restoration Process: 3. Click on Restore 4. In the restore environment window select date and time to which you want to restore the environment. 5. Select the type of environment such as sandbox or production. 6. Name for restored environment. 7. Click on restore. Important point: You can restore your production environment into a new production environment even if doing so results in exceeding your number of environments or database capacity quotas. You can however only exceed this quota by one extra production environment, regardless of how many production environments you have available for your subscription. This capability is provided as an exception, to ensure that you can always restore your production environment in critical situations. You must return within your quota within 30 days following the restore by either removing the original production environment or by purchasing an additional production environment. Once the data in the restored database meets your expectations, activate the users, initiate the work queues, and notify your organization that the environment is once again available for use and that the restoration procedure is now complete. Hope this helps!