Introduction OData Bound Actions allows us to perform logic in Business Central by hitting specific end points. We can also pass in parameters and get results in response. It’s very similar to using Azure Functions but is natively built into Business Central at no extra cost! In this example, we’ll be returns the Base64 version of an Image of a Customer, we will also see how to get the Image for any other customer as well. Pre-requisites Business Central OnCloud/OnPrem References WebServiceActionContext Data Type – Business Central | Microsoft Docs Creating and Interacting with an OData V4 Bound Action – Business Central | Microsoft Docs Configuration OData Bound Actions are written on Pages or API – Pages that you are declaring as Web Services. In this example below, I’ve created a simple Customer Page with a few fields and kept the OData key field as the “No.” field. I’ve also defined this as a Web Service in Business Central.  To create a OData Bound Action, we create a Global Procedure with the Service Enabled decorator. In this procedure, we have to create a WebServiceActionContext variable and set the “ObjectType”, “ObjectID” and Keys that we are using for this Web Service, which is “No.” in this case, after our processing is done we also need to set the “Result Code” for this request.  In the above piece of code, I’ve written simple logic which converts the content of a Media Data Type (Image field) to Base64 Text and returns it. In Post-Man if you check of the metadata, you’ll be able to see this action defined in the metadata.  Now, it’s time to test out OData Bound Action! To call the OData Bound Action, we need to be working with a single record. So we specify the “No.” field to identify a single record.  Now, we append our procedure name as “NAV.[Procedure Name]” and make a POST request.  If we put this Base64 through a Base64 to File Converter, we can see that the original data is recovered.  Now, we create a new procedure, which will take the System ID as a parameter and return the Image data for that Customer Record.    If you want to pass the parameters to the OData Bound Actions, you have to do it as the Body of the Request.  Conclusion: P.S. I’ve tried but it seems polymorphism doesn’t work with this. I hope this was insightful and a quick start on how to write OData Bound Actions. Happy coding!

These are the following requirements for enabling D365 for Outlook.  License that includes Outlook Email Exchange services  Mailbox configured in D365 CRM  Steps Below are the steps to approve the mailbox configuration of the Outlook add-in – Go to Advanced Settings -> Email Configuration 2. Select Mailboxes 3. Select the User you want to configure mailbox  Note: Global Admin is required for Mailbox Approval. Once done proceed to next step 4. After clicking on OK, click on Test & Enable Mailbox  5. You will see success status as below  6. After the status changes to success, go to Outlook -> File -> Manage Add-ins  7. n Add-Ins for Outlook, search for Dynamics 365 and add it That’s it.  Now you have D365 Addon for Outlook enabled.  Hope this helps!!

Use Case – To Switch form based on the value selected from option set field. Steps – 1. We have a Option Set field – “Lead Type“ Based on the Option selected – the form will switch For example – “PMO Member” – On change of the option, it will switch to PMO Member Form “HR” – On change of the option, it will switch to HR Form 2. To get the current form Guid use the following in the console- 3. Below JavaScript Code- Hope this helps!!

In today’s blog, we will cover how to change the BPF using JavaScript in the unified interface when the form loads based on a custom field Lead Type on the Lead form. Let’s take a closer look! Steps – In the example below, we have a new option set field called Lead Type with values of TAB Member and TBO. When the Lead Type has a value of TAB Member, update the business process flow to the TAB Member BPF and when the value is TBO, update the business process flow to TBO BPF. 2. Create two separate BPFs for the required entity. In this case, we created two separate BPFs for the Lead entity. 3.  From each BPF, grab the record GUID using the console. 4. JavaScript Code- Results – Hope this helps!!

In the previous blog, we learn about how to use the Environment variable in Azure Function. Environment variables are most important and confidential as they might contain the system credentials or configure that you don’t want any to access directly. The most unsecure way to store them is directly inside the Configuration of Azure function so in this blog we will see how to store the Environment variable inside the Key Vault and use the Key Vault reference in Configuration. You can create an Azure function and use Environment Variable to do so do refer to my previous blog: Step 1: Create a Key Vault Login to Azure Portal and click on + Create a resource called “Key Vault”. Click on Create You can create a new resource group or select the existing group based on your preference. (You can create all resources related to a single project in one resource group so that it will easier to manage resources project wise) You need to set up the Access policy during the creation or after creating the Key Vault. We will set up an access policy for Azure Function later in the blog. Step 2: Set an Access policy for Azure Function. Open the Azure Function in which you want to use the reference of Azure Key Vault. Navigate to Identity Tab and toggle System assigned status to “ON”. Copy the Object (Principle) ID as we are going to use it during adding access policy. Open Azure Key Vault and Navigate to the Access Policies section. Click on + Add Access Policy We will only Add Get Permission in the Secret permissions section. You need to only add the permission that you want to allow your Azure Function can perform. Select the Principle User. Copy the Copied “Object ID” into search it will be easier to find it. Click on Add. Once you will add a resource in the access policy, it will allow your resource (Azure Function) to perform a Get operation on all the secrets from Key Vault. Do not forget to Save after you add the policy. Step 3: Add Secret and Configure it inside Azure Function Navigate to the Secrets section and Click on + Generate/Import Enter the Name and Value(Credentials/Configuration) Open the current version and Copy the secret URL as it will be required while configuring the Reference. Navigate to the Configuration section of Azure Function. Change the Configuration and add the KeyVault Reference as below: @Microsoft.KeyVault(SecretUri=<Copied SecretURL>) Do not forget to Save after changing the configuration Step 4: Testing using Postman We will require the API testing tool, here I am using Postman and the following is the link to download “Postman”. https://www.postman.com/downloads/ Copy the Function URL and send a post request. As result, you will notice the username is coming from KeyVault as we have to change the configuration. Conclusion: This is how you can secure your Environment Variable using Azure KeyVault. You can set up multiple KeyVault for different deployment and access policies depending on the requirement. When you are storing the Credentials and Configuration in KeyVault, you just need to set up the Access policy. All configuration is managed by the Azure Admin and if origination has a policy that they don’t want to share the credentials they can follow this process and only share the KeyVault URL with the developer so that they only need to configure it.

In this blog, we will see how we can trigger the logic app using the azure function app. Let’s start with creating a logic app (HTTP triggered) that sends an email when the logic app URL is hit in the function app. Step 1: Create a logic app resource and start by adding an HTTP GET request trigger. Url will auto-generate after saving the logic app. Step 2: Add send email block after that to receive an email Step 3: now create a function app in visual studio by creating a new project. Step 4: Add project name and now select type of function app, select the create option Step 5: Add the below code to the auto-generated code template in the visual studio Step 6: Run the function locally. then you will get URL in the command prompt copy that and paste it into your browser. Step 7: After entering the URL you should receive an email as mentioned in the logic app. In this way, the logic app triggered successfully using the function app Hope this blog helps you. Thank you!!

Introduction With SMTP Mail being deprecated, Business Central now provides us with a new and enhanced way for writing custom logic to send emails. To use this new functionality you have to first configure Email Accounts in Business Central, which you can find here. Pre-requisites Business Central onCloud References Developing with the new enhanced email feature | Dan Kinsella Configuration The new method uses the Email Message (ID: 8904) and Email (ID: 8901) Codeunits. I’ve added multiple actions below and I’ll be describing what the expected behaviour is. This is the simple piece of code which sends an email with the specified Recipients, CCs and BCCs.We can specify multiple recipients and dynamically as the lists are not bound by size. We can also call a simpler version of this method, where we don’t need to specify the CC and BCC. Changing the “OpenInEditor” procedure of “Email” codeunit causes a page to be opened up where you can edit the message before you send it. You can also add attachments or you can save the message draft. Changing the “OpenInEditorModally” procedure of “Email” codeunit causes a page to be opened up (as “RunModal”) where you can edit the message before you send it. You can also add attachments or you can save the message draft. “SaveAsDraft” procedure saves the email as a draft and you can view it in the “Email Outbox” where you can make any changes if necessary and send it directly from there. You can also add attachments to the email directly from code. Conclusion Thus we saw how we can send emails in Business Central v20.

Introduction LS Central has its own unique way of preventing Items from being sold which is different from the standard “Blocked” option field we get on the Item Card. It also comes with detailed and refined permissions which can fit most business needs. All of this is done using another related table known as “Item Status.” Pre-requisites: Business Central OnCloud/OnPrem LS Central v16 References: Item Status (lsretail.com) How to Block Items From Sale at the POS (navisiontech.com) Configuration Open the Item Card for the Item you want to block.  Open the “Item Status” for that Item.  Click on the “Status Code” and Click on “Select from full list.”  Create a new record with code “BLOCKED” and enable all the fields. Here, you can see all the detailed controls available.  Conclusion: Thus, we saw how we can Block Items on POS in LS Central and other finer controls available at our disposal in LS Central.

Introduction Have you ever faced the error: “Report ___ does not have a layout of type None.” Here’s how you can resolve it. Pre-requisites Business Central OnCloud/OnPrem References https://community.dynamics.com/business/b/think-about-it/posts/how-do-i-fix-error-report-x-does-not-have-a-layout-of-type-none Configuration With the earlier versions of Business Central, you were allowed to run a report without specifying a layout, even if it was not a processing only report. However with the recent version of Business Central it is mandatory to specify both the “DefaultLayout” and the path to the layout via the “RDLCLayout” or “WordLayout” or “ExcelLayout” properties. Once these properties are the defined the error is resolved. Furthermore you can also resolve this error by using the report rendering section which has been made available since runtime 9.0. However be sure to define the “DefaultRenderingLayout” property for the report to specify which of the layouts defined should be considered as default. Conclusion: Thus we saw how we can resolve the error: “Report ___ does not have a layout of type None.” Happy Coding!

Introduction We’ve all faced situations where we’ve had an operation take a long while which made the User wonder whether the system is stuck with something or is still processing. We can use simple dialogs which can enhance the User experience by showing User the progress of the operation. Some Business Central operations have out of the box dialogs which indicate progress like Posting documents or entries, Running reports with large data sets. Pre-requisites Business Central OnCloud/OnPrem References Dialog Data Type – Business Central | Microsoft Docs Dialog.Open(Text [, var Any,…]) Method – Business Central | Microsoft Docs Configuration While using the Dialog for creating windows, there are 3 procedures that we are going to be using. Open – It creates the window which we will be displaying the messages in. Update – It updates the content of the window based on the values that we pass in it. Close – It closes the window. We can create a simple Progress Window using the below piece of code. And this is the result for it. Please note that because there were two # in the Label, system has broken them into two separate lines. To avoid creating multiple lines within a single dialog box, we can use the StrSubstNo procedure which compresses the number of updates that we call to 1. We can now see that the content is visible in a single line. In Business Central 14 or previous versions of Business Central (which used windows client) it was possible to show the progress indicator in percentages using native APIs, however this functionality is not supported in Web Client. However we can still simulate it using text and creating our own basic procedure which converts the values to a String which will be used to indicate the progress. Conclusion: Thus we saw how we can use Dialogs to enhance User Experience and allow Users to visualize the processing of some long running task.