Introduction: Have you ever faced the issue of the Dashboard taking forever to load? If yes, then did you inspect the reason why? Anyways, the Dashboard loading times dependent upon the calculations used to generate the figures on each of the dashboard tile. Most of the times the calculations are so tedious that the results involve querying multiple tables with multiple filters. Let’s see how we can optimize the Dashboard load times. Pre-requisites: Microsoft Dynamics NAV / Business Central. Development Environment or NAV. VS code with AL Language Extension for Business Central. Solution: 1. Figuring out which all tiles required real-time calculations VS non- real-time. Thus, by separating real-time from non- real-time, we can differentiate the execution patterns. For eg: No. of Open Invoices VS Average Cost of an Open Invoice. 2. Settings different execution styles for Real-Time and Non-Realtime: i. Real-Time Calculations are trigger whenever we open the Dashboard i.e OnOpenPage Trigger on Role center page ii. Whereas Non-Real time can be set up as Job which refreshes every 5-10 minutes. 3. Setting the Dashboard Source of Data as Tables. It is easier for the Dashboard to Load the data from Tables rather than executing the query and storing the data as variables and populate data. 4. Setting manual Refresh Button to refresh the data on all the tiles. Code & Output: 1. Creating the Role Center with Source Table as the Table: 2. Trigger on OnOpenPage to modify the values in the Source Table with new real-time values:   3. Create a Codeunit which run as a Job every 5 – 10 minutes and store the data into the Source Table: Creating Codeunit to be executed as a Job. Setting Codeunit on Job Queue Entries   4. Output:   Conclusion: Thus using the optimization by using Table as the source of data for Role Center, we can reduce the load time exponentially to get a good performance. As per facts are concerned, in reality, the change in the load time was from 2 minutes 10 seconds to 15 seconds after the optimization.Happy Blogging! 🙂

Introduction While using fetch XML to retrieve records more than 5000 records and if you have multiple entities involve in it. There are chances that you will get into an infinite loop even if you have less than 5000 records. Description: We have noticed that after 9.0 if you are using the old method to retrieve more that 5000 records using the fetch xml in the script it is possible that you will get the into infilter loop. This happens due to the internal multiplication of table which gives fist and last records id same in fetch xml You need to make sure that include the header as shown in the below screen Need to make sure that you have below check condition before calling the fetch next record collection if (data[“@Microsoft.Dynamics.CRM.fetchxmlpagingcookie”] != null && data[“@Microsoft.Dynamics.CRM.morerecords”] != null && data[“@Microsoft.Dynamics.CRM.morerecords”]==true) { It has more than 1 record true only than call the next request. Conclusion Hope this helps you to solve your infinite loop issue.

Sales is the important part of any business. For doing the sales a company required Customers. Following is the process as how to create customers in D365 BC. To create a new customer card In the Global Search , search for Customers. On the Customers page, choose the New If only one customer template exists, then a new customer card opens with some fields filled with information from the template. If more than one customer template exists, then a page opens from which you can select a customer template. In that case, follow the next two steps. 3. On the Select a template for a new customerpage, choose the template that you want to use for the new customer card. 4. Choose the OK A new customer card opens with some fields filled with information from the template. 5. Proceed to fill or change fields on the customer card as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description. The customer is now registered, and the customer card is ready to be used on sales documents. If you want to use this customer card as a template when you create new customer cards, you can save it as a template. To save the customer card as a template On the Customer Cardpage, choose the Save as Template The Customer Template page opens showing the customer card as a template. Fill in the fields as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description. To reuse dimensions in templates, choose the Dimensions The Dimension Templatespage opens showing any dimension codes that are set up for the customer. Edit or enter dimension codes that will apply to new customer cards created by using the template. When you have completed the new customer template, choose the OK The customer template is added to the list of customer templates, so that you can use it to create new customer cards.  

There are tons of CPA software solutions that CPAs, accounting firms and other business professionals use to simplify their complex tasks. However, when it comes to mid-sized CPA firms, the only technology that will streamline processes in a good way is Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation (PSA). It is well-known that PSA is one of the most trustworthy and best CPA software solutions designed and developed by Microsoft. More than a utility software, it is more like a CPA Firms practice management software. Let me take you through an example of how U.S. based CPA Firm BPM is leveraging PSA to streamline their sales process and enhance their internal operations. About BPM Certified Public Accounting Firm: BPM is one of the largest California-based public accounting and advisory firms. Ranking amongst the 50 major firms in the US, they have offices across Oregon, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands. They serve a range of sectors from financial services, technology, life science and consumer business to real estate, non-profits, wine, and craft beverages. You can read more about BPM at https://www.bpmcpa.com/. Business Requirement: BPM wanted a solution that would streamline their sales processes and make customization and enhancements in their existing D365 for PSA for greater capability. Solution Delivered: CloudFronts commenced its professional journey with BPMC in December 2017 and continue to work with them. We worked with them every single day to cater to their existing Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation capabilities. The team rectifies and modify their reports, along with adding functionality to their existing PSA deployment. Further, the team had a review of the critical entities within the Sales module of Dynamics 365 and customized them as per the client requirements and specific business needs. Till date, the CloudFronts team is working with them to upgrade their D365 environments from v8.2 to v9. SSRS report was developed for Managers to view the availability of Team and their allocations on different Projects. Key Technologies 1.       Dynamics 365 Sales 2.       Dynamics 365 for PSA (Project Service Automation) 3.       SSRS Reporting Post Go Live: BPM went live with the project on 20 July 2018. With the ongoing support and maintenance of Dynamics 365 for PSA provided by CloudFronts, the BPMC team is now able to deliver projects on time without any obstructions while increasing employee productivity tremendously. By leveraging the enhanced capabilities of D365 Sales module, the BPMC team is now able to provide a robust end-end overview of the streamlined sales process thus increasing productivity and get actionable insights. Professional Services Automation software offers CPA’s digital tools they need to streamline and standardize their project accounting activities, even though each project is distinctly different from all the others. Fundamentally, every CPA firm is a business that sells the services of accounting, so mastering its business practices is key to its success. Several PMI studies reveal that adopting a standardized, structured approach to operations and practices was the strongest indicator of corporate success. Want to know how we can prove beneficial to you? Contact us now for free consultation and demo here. https://www.cloudfronts.com/contact-us/    

Problem Definition: As soon I upgraded my PSA version from V2 to V3, I saw that the role field got deprecated. Not only that, it was removed from Schedule (WBS in V2). We now had the functionality to directly assign resource to the task against having assign role. The projects that got migrated from V2 to V3 were all tagged with the resource named “Auto-Developer” and were with the roles, but, was not advisable to go the deprecated way. We now as an organization, heavily dependent on our day-to-day activities had to change the way we work and had to understand and reframe the working methodology for the following things: How to take care of the tasks that we need to make it Non-Billable Where to assign roles and learn to assign Resources instead. Solution: The above problem was not an easy cake to eat. The impact went all the way to Schedule Board and we need to redesign the way we allocate on tasks, since, I started seeing duplicate tasks on schedule board, one with Role and one without Role. I had to change the view query to reflect the tasks without role and match the remaining hours to the previously assigned hours on the task. Now this became a major challenge. We had to export all the bookings from the system and delete the previous allocations on the task with role to the task without role. This would then match the remaining hours to allocate on the task. The next things I did to make the tasks be treated as Non-Billable was to add the Column in the Schedule named Category, Wherein I added a Category named “Non-Billable”. This category was made Non-Chargeable. This is the Transaction Category which can be added from SettingsàTransaction Categories. I added a Calculated Field on the Project form then to calculate the Billable Hours which excluded this Non-billable Category task to see the correct Billable estimate of the project. BI Team in your organization will now need to change the reports adjusting to the above criteria to reflect the correct data. This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.

Introduction: In this blog, I will depict how a checkbox can be inserted in an SSRS report. Pre-Requisites: 1. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2. SSRS Reports Steps: 1. Create a placeholder in the Table and insert the character mentioned below. 2. Now select the Font as Wingdings. The following set of symbols can be seen on the Report Layout. 3. When the report is run from the Business Central the checkbox can be seen. Conclusion: Thus, by using the following technique checkboxes can be generated in the SSRS report.

In this blog article, we will see how we can create a project and deploy a dynamic 365 operations environment using Lifecycle services. Prerequisites: Azure Subscription Lifecycle Service Account Step by Step approach: Environment Setup  Azure Subscription: Login to the Azure portal using credential use below URL and buy Pay-As-You-Go subscription as LCS will consume more resource and if we choose start free option it will give error later when we deploy the VM. “https://portal.azure.com/” Once we done with the subscription go to the subscription tab and select the Access Control option and create a role select the role as the Contributor and Add a user select the user as the “Dynamic Deployment Services.” We can now login to the Lifecycle Services remember we should login in LCS using the account which has the admin access to the subscription. After login we can see the following screen. The first step in LCS is to create new project so click on (+) sign to create new project.  Once we click on (+) sign we’ll have different option the option may vary as per the version of LCS you are using, here we are setting up environment for development and learning purpose select the “Migrate, Create Solutions, and Learn” option. Enter the project details and click on the create option. All the information is related to the how you want your project settings to show and the methodology option let you select what you want to shows up on the default project information that shows up in lifecycle services so the migrate and create dynamic 365 for operation solution give you these options.  Once we click on create we’ll land to the life cycle project homepage Access the Azure subscription:- Scroll to the right and click on the project settings We are accessing the azure subscription so click on the Azure connectors options we’ll see the following screen. The first step is to authorize your organisation in the LCS click on the authorize link. Linking LCS to Azure subscription click on the Add option and set the required option make sure the subscription id is same as you have in the azure portal as we may have multiple subscription set so keep in mind to use correct subscription. Once we fill the required details click on the next. Once we click on next we’ll required to authorize the user to the subscription or we can download the certificate and upload to the azure portal by going to the Subscription > Management Certificates > Upload then upload the certificate that we have downloaded. Select the server environment region for LCS. Now we can see the azure connection in the project setting we got Azure subscription id that is showing . Deployment for the virtual machine In newly created environment go to the Project and in environment tab click on the (+) sign Once we click on (+) sign we’ll application platform option choose the latest application and platform version. Select the environment topology here we are selecting Demo environment Specify the Deploy environment setting by clicking on the Advance setting option Choose the below option and leave the other settings as default Click on the next. We can set size of the virtual machine of our choice it’s fine to keep the default settings and go ahead. Once confirm and deploy the VM deployment will start, usually deployment will take 3 hr. So, this will create the D365 Operation Environment for us. In next blog we’ll see how to setup the post deployment configuration setting for the environment

Often, one of the real-life scenarios is making time entries by either remembering what you did the whole week or looking at the Schedule Board and based on what you were booked, making each Time Entry in PSA manually. Tiresome and inefficient, right? Not any more, a cool feature let’s you just create Time Entries in PSA v3 by a single click. Now, let’s say your Bookings look like the below. I’m booked on 2 projects across the week. And now let’s see how we import these. Import Time Entries Let’s see you want to make time entries now based on you Bookings in D365. On the Time Entries scree, drop down to the arrow besides Import. Select Resource Bookings. (Obviously, like this method – you can import from Resource Assignments and Outlook Sync too! But we will keep that for some other day) Then, you can select what all Time Entries should actually make it to the records. So you can select the ones you need and leave the rest. Once you click on Import, it’s done! Time Entries are created. Works like a breeze!

Introduction While fetching images using fetch XML there is a possibility that you will not able to get the complete image. You will also notice that these issues generally happens when you are using multiple internal entities. Description: We were working on a project where we displaying the records notes using the multiple entities, we noticed that it is not showing the complete images, but it is truncated or incomplete. Let’s see the actual query and the output Scenario 1: In the below query we are getting the incomplete images as a base 64 string. Result Scenario 2 In the below fetch xml we are getting complete image If you will closely look into the query distinct parameter for the first was true whereas in the second case it was false. Conclusion Hope this helps you to retrieve the complete image and not the truncated one

Problem Statement: Well, my client is a Trader of Oils & Fatty Acids and has multiple legal entities to perform various sets of operation on the TRUCK-LOAD(a.k.a. Load). One legal entity creates the Load and schedules it, while another manages with the freight requirements. The information is not shared between both the legal entities. Thus, we need to store the data separately.   Pre-requisites: For Microsoft Dynamics NAV: – C/Side Development Environment – Multiple legal entity(Company) setup For Microsoft Dynamics Business Central: – Visual Studio Code – AL Language Extension – Multiple legal entity(Company) setup Solution Design: 1. Create two Tables say LoadCompany1 and LoadCompany2 with same fields 2. Set DataPerCompany property is to TRUE on both the tables. 3. In NAV/ BC, there are common tables but the data into the tables are different. Thus, the system has to manage different version for a single table based on an entity that you’re currently working on. In this case, I need to set data in different tables and synchronize data between them as shown below. Code: 1. In this case, to synchronize data, I’ve used TRANFERFIELDS function. Syntax: DestinationRecord.TRANSFERFIELDS(SourceRecord) 2. To change between working companies for the given table, I’ve used CHANGECOMPANY function. Syntax: Record.CHANGECOMPANY(CompanyName) Output: Inserting Loads Inserting Loads from Table Company1 Load to Company 2 Load   After processing, the system Inserts the Load from Company 1 to Company 2     Modifying Loads: There is an existing Load in Company 2   Modifying the Load in Company1 should modify the Load in Company 2 as well     And that’s how I achieved synchronization of data between two companies in Business Central. In the same way, we can also do the same task in NAV as well. Thanks. Happy weekend 🙂