Data is one of the most valuable assets for modern organizations. But without the right reporting structure, decision-makers struggle to extract meaningful insights. At CloudFronts, we specialize in tailoring Power BI to meet specific client needs. In this blog, we’ll share how we customized a territory-based account analysis report for a client’s sales team—and why such customizations deliver real business value. Problem Statement The client’s leadership team faced three challenges with their existing reports: 1. Lack of clarity: Territories on the map looked identical, creating confusion. 2. No drill-down path: Managers could not move easily from high-level territory views to account-level details. 3. Data security concerns: All managers could see all account data, raising confidentiality issues. These gaps reduced adoption of the reports and slowed decision-making. Solution Approach We delivered a tailored Power BI solution with the following enhancements: 1. High-Impact Visuals with Conditional Formatting Each territory was assigned a unique color on the map, instantly improving readability. 2. Structured Multi-Page Navigation – Page 1: Territory Map – for leadership to view performance at a glance. – Page 2: Drill-Through – for Territory Managers to analyze accounts in detail. – Page 3: Tabular Data – for operations teams to validate and export account data. 3. Data Security with Row-Level Security (RLS) Each Territory Manager could only view accounts from their assigned states, ensuring sensitive client data was protected. 4. User Adoption Focus By mirroring the real workflow of Territory Managers, adoption rates significantly increased. Key Learnings – Custom visuals drive clarity: Unique formatting makes reports intuitive. – Security builds trust: Clients are reassured when their data is properly protected with RLS. – Role-based design improves efficiency: Reports that align with how teams work reduce training needs and accelerate insights. – Better adoption leads to ROI: Customized reports quickly become part of daily decision-making, maximizing the value of Power BI investments. To conclude, for clients, Power BI customizations are not just a “nice-to-have”—they are a business necessity. By aligning reports with organizational structures, ensuring secure access, and simplifying navigation, businesses gain faster insights, stronger adoption, and higher ROI from their BI investments. We hope you found this blog useful, and if you would like to discuss anything, you can reach out to us at transform@cloudfronts.com.

Having a robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is crucial for managing customer data and interactions effectively. One way to enhance your CRM capabilities is through seamless integration with Azure Logic Apps, allowing for efficient CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations via OData endpoints. In this blog post, we’ll dive into a real-life business use case that demonstrates how to perform CRUD operations on a CRM system using Postman and Azure Logic Apps.  What Are CRUD Operations?  CRUD operations form the backbone of any data-driven application. They enable you to:  The Setup: Using Postman for API Requests  Postman is an incredibly useful tool for testing APIs, and in our case, it will help us interact with our CRM’s OData endpoints. Before we begin, ensure that you have the necessary API access and permissions set up.  Creating a New Record in CRM  Step 1: Prepare Your Request  To create a new record, you’ll need to set up a POST request in Postman. Here’s how to do it:  Step 2: Set the Request Body  In the body of your POST request, include the necessary details for the new record. For example, if you’re creating a customer record, it might look something like this:  Step 3: Send the Request  Hit the Send button. You should receive a response containing the payload of the newly created entry (e.g., CustomersV3).  Step 4: Verify Creation in CRM  Next, navigate to your CRM dashboard to verify that the new customer entry has been successfully created.    Updating an Existing Record  Step 1: Prepare Your Update Request  To update an existing record, you’ll be sending a PATCH or PUT request. Here’s how to set it up in Postman:  Step 2: Set the Request Body  Include the changes you wish to make in the request body. For example, if you want to update John Doe’s phone number:  Step 3: Send the Request  Once you send the request, you should see a response indicating the payload of the updated account.     Step 4: Verify Update in CRM  Check your CRM to confirm that the changes were applied correctly.     Future Topics: Logic App Creation  In our next blog, we’ll dive deeper into the creation of Azure Logic Apps and how they can automate these CRUD operations further, enhancing your CRM’s functionality. We’ll cover:  – Setting up triggers and actions within Azure Logic Apps.  – Automating data flow between systems.  – Best practices for managing CRM data efficiently.  Conclusion  By leveraging Postman for CRUD operations and integrating with Azure Logic Apps, businesses can significantly enhance their CRM capabilities, streamline operations, and ensure that their customer data remains accurate and accessible. Stay tuned for our upcoming blog, where we’ll explore how to create Azure Logic Apps to automate these processes, making your CRM experience even more efficient.  We hope you found this article useful, and if you would like to discuss anything, you can schedule a call with us by clicking the button below.

Introduction Seamless integration between systems is essential for efficient operations and data accuracy. One of the common integration challenges is syncing data between Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Finance and Operations (FNO) systems. Traditionally, dual write has been a solution for this integration, but it comes with limitations. In this blog, we’ll explore a real-life business use case where we replace dual write with Azure Logic Apps to enable real-time data synchronization between CRM and FNO systems. Understanding Dual-Write Dual write is a framework provided by Microsoft that ensures data consistency between Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (FNO) and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM) applications. It facilitates real-time and bi-directional data synchronization, maintaining records of table and field mappings between FNO and CRM. This ensures that any change made in one system is reflected in the other, providing a unified experience across the enterprise. However, dual-write has its limitations, such as complex setup, limited customization options, and potential performance issues in high-transaction environments. These limitations prompt businesses to seek more flexible and scalable integration solutions. The Business Use Case: Replacing Dual-Write with Azure Logic Apps Scenario: A manufacturing company uses Dynamics 365 CRM to manage customer interactions and Dynamics 365 FNO to handle finance and operations. The company relies on dual write to keep customer data synchronized between the two systems. However, they face issues with the dual-write setup, including occasional synchronization lags and difficulties in customizing data mappings. To overcome these challenges, they decide to implement Azure Logic Apps for real-time data synchronization between CRM and FNO. Objective: Create a Logic App that enables real-time data synchronization between CRM and FNO, replacing the existing dual-write setup. This Logic App will ensure that any changes in customer data in CRM are immediately reflected in FNO and vice versa, without the complexities and limitations of dual write. Steps to Implement the Solution Benefits of Using Azure Logic Apps Conclusion By replacing dual write with Azure Logic Apps, the manufacturing company can achieve a more reliable and customizable integration between their CRM and FNO systems. This solution not only enhances data consistency and real-time synchronization but also provides the flexibility to adapt to future business requirements. Azure Logic Apps empower businesses to streamline their operations, improve data accuracy, and ultimately deliver better customer experiences. In our next blog, we will explore in detail how this business use case can be fully implemented using Azure Logic Apps. Stay tuned for a step-by-step guide on setting up the Logic App, configuring connectors, and ensuring seamless real-time data synchronization between CRM and FNO. We hope you found this article useful, and if you would like to discuss anything, you can reach out to us at transform@cloudfronts.com

In this blog post, we are going to create an Azure Logic App that reads blob content from Azure Storage and responds with specific data. We walked through the entire process, from setting up the Logic App in the Azure Portal to configuring actions and testing the workflow. This Logic App provides a seamless way to automate the retrieval and processing of data stored in Azure Blob Storage, showcasing the flexibility and power of Azure Logic Apps in building serverless workflows.  Use Cases  Data Processing Pipeline  – Scenario: A company collects data from various sources and stores it in Azure Blob Storage for processing and insights.  – Solution: Use a Logic App to trigger new data uploads, process the data, and send it to downstream applications.  – Benefits: Automates data processing, reduces manual effort, and ensures timely data availability.  Configuration Management  – Scenario: An organization needs to fetch and apply configuration files from Azure Blob Storage dynamically.  – Solution: Use a Logic App to handle HTTP requests for configuration data and respond with the necessary settings.  – Benefits: Centralizes configuration management, ensuring consistency and reducing errors.  Customer Support Automation  – Scenario: A support system needs to fetch specific information from stored documents to respond to customer queries.  – Solution: Use a Logic App to trigger API queries, retrieve relevant documents from Blob Storage, and send responses.  – Benefits: Automates common customer query responses, improving support efficiency.   Prerequisites  Note:  – To learn more about how to obtain a free Azure account, click on Azure free account to create Free Trial Account.  – To learn how to create Azure Blob Storage Account & Container can refer blog: How to create: Azure Blob Storage, Container and Blob – CloudFronts  Steps to Create a Logic App in Azure  Step 1: Create a Logic App  Step 2: Fill in the necessary details:     Note:  – Consumption Plan: Ideal for scenarios with unpredictable or low to moderate workloads, where you only pay for what you use.  – Standard Plan: Best for high-usage, mission-critical applications that require consistent performance, dedicated resources, and enhanced development capabilities.  Choosing between the Consumption and Standard plans depends on your specific requirements regarding cost, performance, scaling, and development preferences.        Steps to Upload File on blob        Create a Logic App to Read Data from Blob: Step-by-Step Guide   Step 1: Set Up Logic App Designer     Step 2: Add Blob Storage Action     Step 3: Configure Blob Storage Action     Step 4: Add Response Action & Configure     Step 5: Save and Test the Logic App     Step 6: Test your Logic App           Conclusion  With the help of Azure Logic Apps, you can easily build automated processes that connect to a wide range of services and applications. By following this guide, you have learned how to build a Logic App that reads data from Azure Blob Storage and responds with specific information. This foundational knowledge can be expanded to create more complex workflows, offering endless possibilities for automation and integration in your business processes.  We hope you found this article useful, and if you would like to discuss anything, you can reach out to us at transform@cloudfronts.com  

Microsoft Azure provides a cloud-based storage service called Azure Blob Storage. It is made up of Blobs, which are files kept as individual units and arranged like folders inside of Containers. Uses of Azure Blob Storage include: Steps to Create Azure Blob Storage STEP 1: Access the Azure Portal. Before proceeding, please confirm that you have a subscription. You will already have a FREE TRIAL membership for one month if you made a free account for the first time. Note: To learn more about how to obtain a free Azure account, click on Azure free account to create Free Trial Account. STEP 2: Setting up the “Storage Account” is the first and most important step in generating Blob Storage. Go into the Azure interface and select “Storage Accounts” to start the creation process. STEP 3: After clicking on Storge Account, the following screen will appear and then click on ‘+ New‘ to proceed further. STEP 4: After selecting New, you’ll be prompted to provide the following information on the following page: After you have entered all the information, click “Create.” Step 5: As seen in the sample below, an Azure Storage Account offers four different kinds of redundancy storage. For the demo, Geo-redundant Storage (GRS) will be used. Step 6: The next screen displays the deployment status when you click the “Create” button. Once deployment is finished, select “Go to resource.” Steps to Create Container STEP 1: Now, we have to create a new Container for that click on ‘+ Container ‘. Step 2: After selecting Add Container, a form requesting the container’s name (which must be unique) and access level will appear. We have chosen Blob Public Level access for the demo. Select “Create” to continue. Step 3: As a result, the blob storage has been effectively constructed, the container named as demo. Steps to Create Blob Step 1: Click on the container demo. Step 2: Under overview blob can be uploaded. The connection string can then be found by selecting the Storage Account and clicking on “Access keys.” These Connection Strings are used to communicate with the Storage Account. Conclusion Azure Blob Storage features integration with other Azure services, built-in security safeguards, and accessibility through a variety of tools and APIs. Azure Blob Storage is a solid and affordable solution for companies looking to store and manage unstructured data in the cloud thanks to these benefits, Azure Blob Storage is a powerful and flexible cloud storage option that offers several benefits. With many storage layers, it provides an enduring and scalable storage solution to satisfy the demands of diverse applications in terms of both cost and performance. We hope you found this article useful, and if you would like to discuss anything, you can reach out to us at transform@cloudfronts.com

Azure Blob Storage Overview   These days Data is viewed as the most curial aspect of doing business because it is used to draw insights, take business decisions & plan future business strategy by understanding targeted audience behavior. In this entire process mostly in organizations data is coming from different sources it could be expensive to store and a challenge to manage as most of the data is unstructured, to tackle this situation organizations can consider opting for a blob storage account as it provides comprehensive support for unstructured data workload on a single modern platform.   By using blob storage, a company can store massive amounts of data inexpensively and make the most of what you have as it is scalable, durable, secure and capable of handling workloads which means it can meet any capacity requirement.   It allows us to protect and manage data with ease so the company can store binary.   data and application data, videos, audio files and anything knowing that business and data is well secured blob storage is built from the ground up to support scale security and availability requirements needed by mobile web and cloud need of application developers and we do so by using most popular developer frameworks.   Types of Blobs – There are three types of blobs supported by Azure Blob Storage which can be chosen based on the requirements:   Types of Blob Storage Access Tiers – Benefits of Blob Storage – Components of Azure Blob Storage – The following are the minimal technical needs to use Azure Blob Storage:  Azure Blob Storage Integration options with other systems – A few instances of how Azure Blob Storage can be connected to other Azure ecosystem services and systems. You can utilize Azure Blob Storage as a scalable and adaptable storage solution and investigate other integration options based on your unique requirements and use cases.  Conclusion – Azure Blob Storage is a powerful and flexible cloud storage option that offers several benefits. With many storage layers, it provides an enduring and scalable storage solution to satisfy the demands of diverse applications in terms of both cost and performance. In addition, Azure Blob Storage features integration with other Azure services, built-in security safeguards, and accessibility through various tools and APIs. Azure Blob Storage is a solid and affordable solution for companies looking to store and manage unstructured data in the cloud.  In the next blog, we will explore Azure Blob Storage in detail, which covers:  How to create Azure Blob Storage Components such as storage account, container, and blob.