Introduction:  In this blog, we will see what includes in Kernel Hotfix and Application Hotfix in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.  Details:  1. Kernel Hotfix:  ·    This hotfix updates Microsoft dlls. E.g. update are the executable files (ax32.exe, ax32serv.exe) and assemblies (Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.*.dll) ·    There are no code-level changes. ·    This hotfix required to install at all the client PCs & Servers, where any of the components of AX is installed. ·    A kernel fix is always cumulative. 2. Application Hotfix:          ·   This type of hotfixes affects code development done by partners. ·    Updates in the SYP, GLP, FPP & SLP layers (the layers reserved for Microsoft code). These changes are made in the AX model store in AX 2012 and later versions ·    An application fix is NOT cumulative.

Introduction: In this blog, we will see how to set up email parameters and SMTP configuration for sending test mail from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. Details:  Go to the Email Parameters by follow this path: System administration -> Setup -> Email -> Email Parameter. Another easiest way to find the email parameter in a quick manner, go to the search box and simply write email parameter as below shown screenshot Steps:  1. In the configuration tab, set up the SMTP as in shown below image Move SMTP in the right box named with ENABLED to enable  2. In SMTP settings tab, configure the below stuff:      Outgoing mail server: smtp.office365.com     SMTP port number: 587     Username: put the email id from which email should be sent      Password: appropriate password of the email     Specify if SSL is required: true 3. In Test mail tab:      Email provider: SMTP     Send to: Put the email to whom test mail should be sent  In the final, click on the “Send test mail” and then sample mail will be sent to the respective email address.      Conclusion: In the above blog, we have seen how to set up SMTP configuration to test “send email” functionality from the email parameter form.  Thanks for reading !!!

In my last LinkedIn Post (Cash Position Report), I talked about the strategic importance of Cash on hand for a Professional Services Organization. In this post, I want to talk about the importance of the Overdue Accounts Receivable (AR) Report. As a Professional Services firm, most of our revenue comes from Project based delivery of Services. We have some top-line revenue from the subscription services we sell like Dynamics 365, but it’s not significant. So, our primary source of revenue is Services. We needed to ensure we bill on time, get paid on time. So we developed our Power BI AR Report as shown below – So let’s dive in! A few things to note in the above Report – It is a PowerBI Report embedded in our Leadership Team in our Microsoft Teams platform. We call it the PSA AR Report, as the reporting comes from our invoicing in Dynamics 365 PSA. Dynamics 365 PSA is our ‘single source of truth‘ for all our Project based billing. The bottom of the Report has two tabs – Services and Licensing/Commission Invoices. More on that shortly. Dynamics 365 PSA is our the single source of truth for all Customer Invoicing. We run all our Project based Services Invoicing from the Invoicing and Contract Milestone Schedule in Dynamics 365 PSA. This means our Allocations, Contract Milestones and our Time entries are always up-to-date, otherwise our invoicing schedule would be incorrect. This ensures good Project Management practices. Now PSA does not handle taxation, so you have to either setup your taxation customization or use an off the shelf tax add on that is available on the Microsoft AppSource. If none of these options are possible, then you can decide to create your invoices in your Accounting system and integrate those into Dynamics 365 PSA. We do that for our Licensing invoices to our Customers and integrate those from our QuickBooks Online Accounting system into Dynamics 365 PSA. We also ensure that invoices are only emailed to customers from Dynamics 365 so we can track these emails. Further, we update Invoice Statuses from Draft to Sent to Paid. Now let’s get into the Report. Basically, we have color coded our Report based on the following simple rules – Red for anything that is overdue by 30 days or more, yellow for anything that is between 1-30 days overdue and no color coding for current invoices. The visual impact of color coding can’t be emphasized enough. On the top left corner of the Report, we have an option to search by Customer, so we can quickly get all invoices for a specific customer in the AR Report. This becomes very useful when you want to just share a snapshot with your customer for overdue invoices.  Handling Multiple Legal Entities: We have three legal entities – India, USA and Singapore. We have three separate QuickBooks Online Accounts for each legal entity, but we use a single Dynamics 365 CRM platform. We have made customizations on our Invoice entity to ensure we capture the correct legal entity. In the example below, you can see we classify our Invoices by legal entity in our Report – You can see there is column called ‘link’ in the above reports. Clicking on any invoice in this link directly takes us to the Invoice record in Dynamics 365.  Overdue Reminders Alerts- We automated the Overdue Reminders so that our system automatically sends out a reminder for all overdue invoices every Monday.  After all this effort, you still need to ensure regular and rigorous review of this report to ensure you can take action on overdue invoices. This is done through our scheduled Monday morning Management Status Meetings. The agenda for this meeting is recurring and hence set in advance, but this Management meeting always starts with AR Report Review. Our Accounts Manager is invited for the first 15 minutes and we go through all Overdue Invoices (especially the Red color coded ones!) and decide if we need to take further steps like setting up a meeting with the customer.  If you are a small or mid sized Services organization, it is of utmost importance to get paid on time. By ensuring you have such a report and reviewing and planning action items for overdue invoices, you will run an efficient Services organization. In addition, there is another strategic benefit here – this report is like a Quality Check on your services. If your customer is paying on time and suddenly does not, your proactive action to talk with the customer can help you understand if there are any issues in your Services and you can take corrective action. Our PSA AR Report is available to our Management team (this includes our Delivery Heads and Practice Leads as well) through Microsoft Teams and they can view it any time they want, planning action items as needed. If it is hidden away only with the Accounts Team and available through some weekly PDF report, it is not efficient for your organization. This Report will help your organization achieve it’s Objective – ‘bill on time, get paid on time.’ If you are keen on understanding more about our Internal Systems that keep us running and growing, our Internal Systems page is a wonderful resource – https://www.cloudfronts.com/our-internal-systems/ or reach out to me at ashah@cloudfronts.com.

One of the issues with Dynamics 365 Retail is the way the errors are displayed to end users. I have come across many instances where it becomes very difficult to investigate and get to the root cause of an error message. The lack of clarity becomes an issue when you are not very familiar with the functional/technical aspects of HQ and POS. One of the many common errors I have seen is server side and database related issue as you can see in the below screen grab. Here the issue is with the loyalty card setup in payment methods. However the error message is not very clear in terms of where exactly the issue is. I have seen similar error once when there was an issue with printing the receipt. The issue was with the design itself. When we redesigned the receipts while adhering to proper layout the error went away. Hope this helps!

Hi everyone in this blog we will see the different DAX that are used to define or use the relationship between two tables. In Power BI there are two type of relationships                 1. One to One  (1:1)                 2. One to Many   (1:*) Now lets look at the DAX functions that we can use with these relationships. USERELATIONSHIP-  Specifies the relationship to be used in a specific calculation as the one that exists between columnName1 and columnName2. Syntax  USERELATIONSHIP(<columnName1>,<columnName2>) Where, columnName1         The name of an existing column, using standard DAX syntax and fully qualified, that usually represents the many side of the relationship to be used; if the arguments are given in reverse order the function will swap them before using them. This argument cannot be an expression. columnName2         The name of an existing column, using standard DAX syntax and fully qualified, that usually represents the one side or lookup side of the relationship to be used; if the arguments are given in reverse order the function will swap them before using them. This argument cannot be an expression. Key Point The function returns no value; the function only enables the indicated relationship for the duration of the calculation. Example = CALCULATE(SUM(ISales[SalesAmount]), USERELATIONSHIP(Sales[ShippingDate], DateTime[Date])) Limitations           USERELATIONSHIP can only be used in functions that take a filter as an argument. USERELATIONSHIP cannot be used when row level security is defined for the table in which the measure is included. RELATED – Returns a related value from another table. Syntax RELATED(<column>) Where, column        – The column that contains the values you want to retrieve. Key Point A single value that is related to the current row. Example FILTER( ‘Sales_USD’, RELATED(‘Territory'[TerritoryCountry])<>”United States”) RELATEDTABLE Evaluates a table expression in a context modified by the given filters. Where, tableName – The name of an existing table using standard DAX syntax. It cannot be an expression. Key Point A table of values. Example = SUMX( RELATEDTABLE(‘Sales_USD’)       , [Amount_USD])  Limitation The RELATEDTETABLE function changes the context in which the data is filtered, and evaluates the expression in the new context that you specify. This function is a shortcut for CALCULATETABLE function with no logical expression. This function is not supported for use in Direct Query mode when used in calculated columns or row-level security (RLS) rules. Hope this helps.

In D365 there are several option to export/Import data like Data Entities, BYOD, Aggregate measurements/Entity store. In this blog we will learn How to create entity store in D365 Finance and operations. Aggregate Measurements/Entity Stores are use to create Power Bi reports with nearly Live data where user have option to set its recurrence that is how often you want to refresh entity store there is no need to manually refresh the data as per suggested Batch job will run for respective entity stores. You can also forcefully refresh data by pressing refresh button on entity store page. So lets start with development of aggregate measurements, aggregate dimensions. Add New aggregate measurements object to the project where we required Add required attributes Add required measures Add required dimensions Add dimensions where view of dimension and aggregate measurements are different Build The Model Refresh Entity store from D365 Finance and Operation Environment Verify that respected view is created for aggregate measurement                     Add New aggregate measurements object to the project where we required.   In this step we need to right click on new item     Now select aggregate measurement and name it as per requirement in our case its “CFSAggregateMeasrure”   Now assign required views in table property of the aggregate measurement as follow     In my case I have selected “InventOnHandByWarehouse” view.                       Add required attributes Now add required attribute by right click on Attributes and assign required field in attributes as follows                         Add required measures After adding attributes add dimensions same how we added other attributes as follows   After adding measure assign required field to it and operation which you want to perform on that field (for example. :- count, Average, etc. )                           Add required dimensions By default some of the dimensions are provided like company and date which are showed in screen shot. And assign required fields in relation of dimensions                            Add dimensions where view of dimension and aggregate measurements are different If dimensions needs different view we need to create new aggregate dimension as follows   In my  case name of aggregate dimension is “CFSAggregateDimension ” Now assign required view to dimension as follows.     After this create new attributes and assign fields to that attributes as follows       After adding new dimension attribute if required you can assign more than one field reference as follows   After this step assign fields to the respective field reference as follows.     Now select the respected attribute and select its usage property and change it as key which will make it as dimensional key which will be helpful while making relations.     There are 3 options under usage property description of each as follows                               Key If you specify usage property as “key” system will define the key of the dimension using this attribute                               Parent If you specify usage property as “parent” system will parent child hierarchy with this field as parent level.                               Regular If you specify usage property as “Regular” ,this is an attribute without any special behavior and it is default value. After setting usage property attach this dimension to our aggregate measurement by dropping required aggregate measurement on dimension section of it.   Now define its dimension attribute property as follows   After this you need to make relationship among the views as follows   Fact Dimension If you want to make desired aggregate dimension as fact dimension go to desired dimension in aggregate measurement and make set “is fact dimension” property to yes/No as follows                       Build The Model   After this case build the model which is used for this development of project as follows                             Refresh Entity store from D365 Finance and Operation Environment   After successful build go to environment page’s Entity store section using following navigation System administration >> setup >> entity store and refresh the desired entity     On required entity please press the refresh button     You can also set schedule to refresh this entity by selecting edit button and enable its automatic refresh toggle and the set its recurrence as follows                             Verify that respected view is created for aggregate measurement In final step go to your VM’s SSMS and look for Axdw database in which in view section look for views with your aggregate measurement and dimension and name as follows   After select query you can see the data of that view     Now your entity store is ready to consume by power bi reporting service. Thank You!

Introduction: We are aware of dynamics 365 CRM’s Document template functionality. However document templates do not need XML Mapping which limit the fields that we can populate in template. SO here’s a way to use Power Automate and SharePoint and implement the Document template functionality. Steps: Create Word Template with content controls and Upload to SharePoint. Enable the Developer tab and click on Design Mode. From the available controls add the Content controls, repeating controls(For data table). Click on properties and add title, tag. Once done save the word and upload to SharePoint. In you Power Automate (You can trigger the power automate as per your requirements). Action 1: Get File Content. Site Address: your SharePoint link File Identifier: Your uploaded document template. Action2: Populate a Microsoft Word Template. Location: SharePoint Location. Document Library: Share Point Site Contents. File: Your uploaded document template. Content control: the content controls from your template will be visible here. Action 3: Create file. File Name: Should end with .docx File Content: will be the populated word template. Conclusion: Thus when your power automate runs, a Document will be created in SharePoint from the document template. It is easy to populate a Content control, to know about how to populate a repeating control- check my blog. Populate Repeating Control of Word Template using Power Automate.

Introduction: Power Automate makes it easy to populate word template, we can have table (Repeating control) that can be populated using Power Automate, For information on how to create and Populate Word Template- Refer my Blog: Create and Populate Word Template Using Power Automate Steps: Create a table and add content controls for each cell. After adding content controls, select the entire row and add repeating control. In Power Automate initialize an array Variable, Use append to array action and create the table you wish to populate in the Word Template. Note: Value for the array variable will be {“title in content control properties” : “actual value”} In Action populate the word template, you will see repeating control, Change the form to accept an array input, by clicking on the symbol highlighted in below screenshot. Now Add your array as input in populate word template action. Conclusion: You can populate any of your CRM Data to Word Template by using Power Automate.

Below is a simple example for importing data from CSV file in D365 FO using X++: /// <summary> /// import color code /// </summary> class CFSImportColorCode {     /// <summary>     /// main     /// </summary>     /// <param name = “_args”>_args</param>     public static void main(Args _args)     {         AsciiStreamIo                       file;         Array                               fileLines;         FileUploadTemporaryStorageResult    fileUpload;         CFSEcoResColorCode                  colorCode;         CFSImportColorCode                  importColorCode = new CFSImportColorCode();         Counter                             counter = 0;         EcoResColorName                     color;         #OCCRetryCount         try         {             //Upload a file             fileUpload  = File::GetFileFromUser() as FileUploadTemporaryStorageResult;             file        = AsciiStreamIo::constructForRead(fileUpload.openResult());             if (file)             {                 if (file.status())                 {                     throw error(“@SYS52680”);                 }                 file.inFieldDelimiter(‘;’); //separator                 file.inRecordDelimiter(‘\r\n’);             }             //Read a CSV File             container rec;             ttsbegin;             while (!file.status())             {                 counter++;                 rec = file.read();                 if (conLen(rec))                 {                     color = conPeek(rec, 2);                     colorCode = CFSEcoResColorCode::find(color);                     if(!colorCode.RecId)                     {                         colorCode.clear();                         colorCode.Name  = color;                         colorCode.Code  = conPeek(rec, 1);                         colorCode.insert();                     }                 }             }             ttscommit;             info(“Operation complete.”);         }         catch (Exception::Deadlock)         {             retry;         }         catch (Exception::UpdateConflict)         {             if (appl.ttsLevel() == 0)             {                 if (xSession::currentRetryCount() >= #RetryNum)                 {                     throw Exception::UpdateConflictNotRecovered;                 }                 else                 {                     retry;                 }             }             else             {                 throw Exception::UpdateConflict;             }         }     } }

Introduction: In this blog we will see how to add/insert images in Canvas App. Step 1: Click on Media icon as shown below: Step 2: Select Upload -> Upload images Uploaded images will be shown under the “Images”. Step 3: Click on ellipsis -> Select Add to Canvas Output Screen: Hope this helps !