Month: July 2021

Performance Insights for Model-Driven Apps | [Preview]

priyeshwagh777 Microsoft PowerApps, Power Platform, Power Platform Admin Center , ,

One of the important aspects of ‘User Adoption’ is also ensure that the Model-Driven App you’ve designed for your Org’s Users stays optimized and ensures the users get the best of it.

Let’s see how we can utilize Performance Insights to help us optimize our Model-Driven App!

Performance (Preview)

Performance Insights is in Preview and here’s how you can access the same.

  1. Go to https://make.powerapps.com/

  2. Now, in your Apps below, select the Model-Driven App you want to view Performance metrics of.


  3. Now, once you open, you’ll see the metrics as below


    Let’s understand how you can read these metrics and take actionable actions on the same.


Understanding the Insights

These insights are categorized based on severity. Let’s see which needs your attention the most –

  1. The Insights can be narrowed based on the timeframe of 24 hours, Unfortunately, I have only 1 Date to show in my case.


  2. I recommend paying special attention to the ones with Warning on them


  3. Now, looking at the first one for example is PluginTraceLog which I left ON while I was working on Plugins on this environment in the App.
    So, if I select the first one


    The right hand pane will detail out what the issue is and what Area to focus on.



  4. Also, if you look at the How to improve part, it’ll point you to the Microsoft Docs for the suggested workaround/action.


    It’ll take you to the Microsoft Docs section of the particular issue in question –


  5. In case you have a new environment and didn’t work inside the App significantly for a particular time frame, you’ll see this message.



    Here’s the complete Microsoft Docs article on the detailed Performance Insights for Model-Driven Apps –
    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/common/performance-insights-overview?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Here are some more Model-Driven and Canvas Power Apps posts you might want to check out –

  1. HTML Text control in Canvas Power Apps | Power Platform
  2. Disable Recent Records from Dynamics 365 Lookup Control | Model-Driven Apps [Quick Tip]
  3. Advanced Lookup in Model-Driven Apps | Power Platform
  4. New App Designer for Model-Driven Apps | Power Platform
  5. Rich Text Control for Canvas and Model-Driven App | Quick Tip
  6. Form Access Checker in new Power Apps Form Designer | Model-Driven Apps in Dynamics 365
  7. How to add Rating Values to Rating Models in D365 Field Service and PSA
  8. Log Canvas Power App telemetry data in Azure Application Insights | Power Apps
  9. Transition effect on Gallery Items when hovered over in a Canvas Power App | [Quick Tip]
  10. Retrieve Hashtags from Text in a Canvas Power App | Power Platform

Thank you!

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Primary Key of Activity type entity in a Dataverse connector in Power Automate | Quick Tip

priyeshwagh777 Power Automate , , , ,

In case it’s your first time creating a Cloud Flow using Dataverse connector and dealing with Primary Key of the Activity Type of entity, here’s a quick tip to keep in mind.

Normal Entity

As a creator for Flow, let’s say you have listed Records of an entity called as Accounts (out-of-the-box), you’ll notice that the name of the entity

Activity Entity

Now, if you try to search for the Name of the Activity entity, it won’t appear as it does for other entities, instead just search “Unique” and you’ll find an entry for Unique identifier of the activity entity –

  1. Name of my Activity entity is ‘Snapshot’, but it doesn’t show up when I search Snapshot.

  2. So instead, just search “Unique” or “Identifier”

  3. On the contrary, out-of-the-box entities have their own names named as Primary Keys

Here are some more Power Automate / Cloud Flow blogs you might want to check –

  1. Split On in Power Automate in SharePoint trigger for Item updates
  2. Search Rows (preview) Action in Dataverse connector in a Flow | Power Automate
  3. Suppress Workflow Header Information while sending back HTTP Response in a Flow | Power Automate
  4. Invalid XML issue in Dataverse connector for List Rows action | Fetch XML Query | Power Automate
  5. FetchXML Aggregation in a Flow using CDS (Current Environment) connector | Power Automate
  6. Invalid type. Expected Integer but got Number error in Parse JSON – Error at runtime after generating Schema | Power Automate
  7. Asynchronous HTTP Response from a Flow | Power Automate
  8. Converting JSON to XML and XML to JSON in a Flow | Power Automate
  9. Validate JSON Schema for HTTP Request trigger in a Flow and send Response | Power Automate
  10. Tag a User in a Microsoft Teams post made using Power Automate

    Thank you!

HTML Text control in Canvas Power Apps | Power Platform

priyeshwagh777 Microsoft PowerApps ,

As simple as a Label control, but supporting HTML formatting to it.

That’s HTML Text control in Canvas Power Apps. Let’s see how you can work with it.

HTML Text Control

Just like a Label control, you can pick and use the HTML Control from the Insert Menu.

In my simple use case, I’m using this to show the Ticker Symbol field from Dataverse in HTML formatted label i.e. HTML Text Control.

  1. Select the HTML Text from the Insert panel and it will appear where you want. In my case, in Gallery rows to show some data.


  2. By default, it will show you default values before you can start modifying the same.


  3. Then, since my use case is to dynamically have data in the HTML Text control, I’ll use the Concatenate method to form my HTML String.
    My HTML string contains some static text and then adding dynamic data to it for each row.



  4. Now, once I run the App, I’ll see how the HTML formatting with enrich the text displayed.


Usage

Interactive elements below are not supported.

  • <button>
  • <a>
  • <input>

Here’s the official MS Docs link for the same: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/controls/control-html-text?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this helped!

Here are some more Canvas Power Apps posts you might want to check –

  1. Transition effect on Gallery Items when hovered over in a Canvas Power App | [Quick Tip]
  2. Navigate Screen automatically based on Timer in Canvas Power App | Power Platform
  3. Search on multiple columns from a Dataverse table in a Canvas Power App Gallery control | Power Platform
  4. Call a Flow from Canvas Power App and get back response | Power Platform
  5. Enable Custom Code Components (PCF Controls) to be imported in a Canvas Power App | Quick Tip
  6. Retrieve Hashtags from Text in a Canvas Power App | Power Platform
  7. Rich Text Control for Canvas and Model-Driven App | Quick Tip
  8. Setting Correct Default Mode for Forms in a Canvas App | [Quick Tip]
  9. Rating Control to represent data from Dataverse in a Canvas Power App | Power Platform
  10. Clear a field value & Reset Form in a Canvas Power App [Quick Tip]
  11. Get Dynamics 365 field metadata in a Canvas App using DataSourceInfo function | Common Data Service
  12. Implement character length validation in a Canvas Power App | Power Platform

Thank you!

Single record and multiple record auditing in Dynamics 365 to Audit record access | M365 Compliance

priyeshwagh777 dynamics 365 administration , ,

One of the most important asks for organizations who are sensitive about tracking their data is – Which records are accessed by the user?
There’s a powerful tool in Compliance Center i.e. Audit that can record this as to when a certain D365 record was accessed and all the details about the same.

What is recorded?

Single record – Only access to Dynamics 365 record opening will be audited/captured.

Multiple record – Access to Dynamics 365 record as well as other controls that were in context of the record like sub-grid controls, timeline controls etc. will be audited/captured.

Pre-requisites

  1. The User whose D365 Record Opening activities are to be logged must either have a O365 / M365 Enterprise E3 / E5 License assigned to them.

  2. The environment should be a Production one.


Turn on Recording of Audit (Dynamics 365 & M365 Compliance Center)

Now, to be able to record Auditing of User Record Access, you’ll need to make sure the Auditing is turned ON at these places –

  1. In Dynamics 365, make sure the Auditing is turned ON at the Global Level and that Audit Read Access is enabled too.


  2. Next, make sure the entity’s whose record access you want to capture should have their Auditing as well as Single and/or Multiple Record Access Auditing turned ON as well.


  3. Now, the M365 Admin Center (https://compliance.microsoft.com/) should also be enabled for recording the Audit of User access. This will start recording User and Admin Activity.


    It’ll ask for confirmation and then start updating. In my experience, this failed a few times and I wasn’t able to know for sure when it actually got enabled.


    Then, it takes a few moments


    In my case, this resulted in an error.
    Now, I’m not sure if I missed anything although I made sure everything was correct. And when I checked after some time, it was enabled even without me retrying it. But it could just be for me and might work correctly for you.


Recording of Auditing

Let’s test a scenario where a User is not an Admin User and they try to access the Account record on which we’ve enabled Single and Multiple User Access Auditing –

Please note that it takes about 3-4 hours to the log information to be available in (https://compliance.microsoft.com/homepage)

  1. Now, if you navigate to Audit and search.



  2. Make sure your criteria is as narrow as possibly by including only the user you really want to find if that’s the case
    In my scenario, I was logged in as Priyesh Wagh user and opened a record in CRM.

    So, just to look at what all was logged, my search criteria will look like this –
    I’ll make sure All Dynamics 365 Activities is selected if you want to look at everything which is D365 CRM related.



  3. Next, since I’m only looking for my own user who opened the CRM record, I’ll search and select the user in the below filter.
    Not to mention the time frame is also narrowed to get limited results. 😊


  4. Here, my results will show up.


    If I zoom on in, I’ll see the different types of logs that are filed in the Compliance Center – The retrieve Account is the actual record where all the other events are registered based on the different controls that were loaded when I opened the record itself.
    In my experiment, I opened the same record twice, so it recorded the Retrieve account twice along with other event logs.


  5. If I open the record, I’ll see this info about everything that was tracked along with the link to the record as well –

You can refer the full Microsoft Docs reference – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/enable-use-comprehensive-auditing?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this summary was useful!

Here are some more Dynamics 365 Administrator related posts you might want to check –

  1. Enable Plug-in Profiler in Settings area in SiteMap in Dynamics 365 | [Quick Tip]
  2. Disable Recent Records from Dynamics 365 Lookup Control | Model-Driven Apps [Quick Tip]
  3. Language format for Whole Number field in Dynamics 365 CE
  4. Custom Help Pages and Guided Tasks for Unified Interface in Dynamics 365
  5. Make Managed fields Required in Dynamics 365 – Managed Properties Error [Workaround] | D365 CE Quick Tip
  6. Sign up for a Dynamics 365 Project Operations (Lite Deployment) environment and provision a new instance | Power Platform
  7. Show custom ribbon button based on Security Role of the logged in User in Dynamics 365 | Ribbon Workbench in XrmToolbox
  8. Filter records in a View owned by a Team you are a member of | Dynamics 365 CRM
  9. Duration field in Dynamics 365 converts Hours value to Days in Dynamics 365 | [Flow Workaround to convert in Hours and Mins]
  10. Form Access Checker in new Power Apps Form Designer | Model-Driven Apps in Dynamics 365

Thank you!

Split On in Power Automate in SharePoint trigger for Item updates

priyeshwagh777 Power Automate , , ,

Let’s consider this scenario where you have a SharePoint List and you need to Bulk Edit the same which triggers a Flow.

How would you want to capture the record updates in Flow Runs – Individually? Or all in an Array?

Let’s see how this can be done!

SharePoint Trigger in Power Automate

Let’s see what trigger is being used on which I can choose to have Split On in case of Bulk Update of Item Changes.

  1. In Power Automate, you can search for SharePoint and you’ll find the trigger on which for Item Update in SharePoint.

  2. Now, since I have a List called 2021 Onboarding in my SharePoint in the Site called Data Store Internal


  3. And this Flow will be triggered whenever there’s an Update to the Items on the List I’ve mentioned above.

Split On

Let’s look at what options are available us to toggle between having Split On and Off and what the results are –

  1. Go to the Settings of the Trigger to access the Split On setting toggle.


  2. You’ll see the Split On is set to ON i.e. as per below –


  3. Given that this can be turned ON and OFF, we’ll look at the difference between the two results when you Bulk Edit SharePoint Items which will initiate this trigger.

Example: Split ON

Now, let’s review how having Split On will affect the results.

  1. Now, let’s see Flow Runs are recorded when Split On is set to ON and the Split is on Body/Value


  2. Now, when I modify multiple items in SharePoint, say, the Group Code field in my SP List as below –


  3. Then, there will be 2 different Flow Runs.


  4. Now, if you look at the results, the way these exist per Flow Run is as follows. And for each record, this is the case –

Example: Split OFF

Now, let’s review how having Split OFF will affect the results.

  1. Now, once the Split is OFF and you Bulk Edit the records.


  2. And when you Bulk Edit the List in SharePoint the same way as you did above,


  3. Only 1 Flow Run will be created as shown below –


  4. And, if you open the results, you’ll see the multiple items in the body – value (Array of each record as value in the body) which were modified.


Hope this was useful!

Here are some more Power Automate / SharePoint Online posts you might want to check –

  1. Admin Center URLs under M365 – Power Platform, Teams, SharePoint, Power BI
  2. AddColumns() function to dynamically add columns to a Data table in Canvas Power App | SharePoint List
  3. Launch URL on a Data Table Text column selection in a Canvas PowerApp | SharePoint Lists
  4. Search Rows (preview) Action in Dataverse connector in a Flow | Power Automate
  5. Advanced Lookup in Model-Driven Apps | Power Platform
  6. Suppress Workflow Header Information while sending back HTTP Response in a Flow | Power Automate
  7. Adaptive Cards for Teams to collect data from users using Power Automate | SharePoint Lists
  8. Aggregate functions in a Canvas Power App | Using on SharePoint Lists
  9. Save generated PDFs to SharePoint directly – 2020 Wave 1 | Early Access Feature
  10. D365 Ribbon Button shortcut to open a Document in SharePoint Online

Thank you!

Enable Plug-in Profiler in Settings area in SiteMap in Dynamics 365 | [Quick Tip]

priyeshwagh777 dynamics 365 administration , ,

In case you are wondering why Plug-in Profiles under Extensions and Extensions itself don’t appear in your SiteMap because you want to debug from the Persist To Entity option?

But your Settings area still looks like this and don’t see Plugin-Profiles?

Install Plugin Profiler

You’ll need to install Plugin Profiler.

  1. Open Plugin Registration Tool and login to the environment.
    You should see an Install Profiler button. That’s the reason the Profile is not yet installed on the environment and it’s now showing in SiteMap.


  2. Now, when you click on Install Profiler, it’ll install the Profiler to the environment.


  3. Once this is installed, you’ll see it show in the SiteMap in Settings area.


  4. Also, if you notice the Solutions, a Managed Solution would also be installed which will SiteMap (it indicates the update that Plugin Profiles has been added to the SiteMap)


  5. Also, if you Uninstall the Plugin Profiler, the Managed Solution will be removed and also this will take Plug-in Profile off the SiteMap.
  6. Also, there’s another way to remove the Plugin Profiler – Workaround to get Plugin Profiler from the Unified Interface in D365 CE

Hope this was helpful!

Here are some more Dynamics 365 Admin related posts you might want to check –

  1. Disable Recent Records from Dynamics 365 Lookup Control | Model-Driven Apps [Quick Tip]
  2. Language format for Whole Number field in Dynamics 365 CE
  3. Custom Help Pages and Guided Tasks for Unified Interface in Dynamics 365
  4. Make Managed fields Required in Dynamics 365 – Managed Properties Error [Workaround] | D365 CE Quick Tip
  5. Sign up for a Dynamics 365 Project Operations (Lite Deployment) environment and provision a new instance | Power Platform
  6. Filter records in a View owned by a Team you are a member of | Dynamics 365 CRM
  7. Show custom ribbon button based on Security Role of the logged in User in Dynamics 365 | Ribbon Workbench in XrmToolbox
  8. Make On-Demand Flow to show up in Dynamics 365 | Power Automate

Thank you!

Action.ShowCard vs Action.ToggleVisibility in Adaptive Cards | Microsoft Teams

priyeshwagh777 Adaptive Cards , , ,

If you are new to Adaptive Cards, it may come across that Action.ShowCard and Action.ToggleVisibility seems to do the same thing.

But let’s look at the difference between the two!

To

#ActionDescription
1ShowCardShows or Hides a Card Structure enclosed on ShowCard Action
2ToggleVisibilityShows or Hides individual elements based on their IDs

Action.ShowCard

Below is JSON to understand the structure of how ShowCard Action exists and how it will function

  1. ShowCard is a standalone ‘Card’ within an Action Element CardAction.



  2. Now, let’s see how it works. When the Card is not shown, only the button will appear like any other Action button in AdaptiveCards.


    And when you click on it, the Show Card action will reveal the Card that is structured under it.

Action.ToggleVisibility

Similarly, let’s look at how ToggleVisibility will work as opposed to Show Card.

  1. The JSON structure for ToggleVisibility in ActionSet is as follows –
    Notice that the type: Action.ToggleVisibility



  2. Now, the “targetElements” in the above Action takes in array of Element IDs which should be toggled for Visibility.
    Since, I’ve mentioned only 1 element in it whose ID is “createdDate“, below is how the element looks and where you can get the ID from –


  3. Now, when I click on the button, it’ll consider all the element IDs mentioned in the array to toggle between Show / Hide.
    Before I click the button –



    And when I click on the button, the visibility is toggled to show this time –


  4. So as opposed to ShowCard, ToggleVisibility will toggle Show/Hide functionality of selected elements and not a Card structure that resides inside a ShowCard Action.

Placing Action Elements – ShowCard and ToggleVisibility

  1. By default, if you select an Action from the Elements menu on the left hand side, they’ll end up in the shown hierarchy.


    And the JSON for this will appear like this –

    The type of Element which resides in Body of the AdaptiveCard itself


    Zoomed Out, it’ll look like this –


  2. However, if you don’t wish to have it under an Action Set in the Body structure, you can place the type of Action whether it is ToggleVisibility or ShowCard in Actions section of the JSON as well.


    And this will exist in the Actions of the AdaptiveCard JSON and not in the Body as shown above.


Here are some more posts related to Adaptive Cards / Microsoft Teams which you might find useful –

  1. Save Adaptive Cards work using VS Code Extension – Adaptive Cards Studio | Quick Tip
  2. Adaptive Cards for Outlook Actionable Messages using Power Automate | Power Platform
  3. Visualize Adaptive Card for Teams user action within a Cloud Flow | Experimental Feature
  4. Adaptive Cards for Teams to collect data from users using Power Automate | SharePoint Lists
  5. Admin Center URLs under M365 – Power Platform, Teams, SharePoint, Power BI
  6. Tag a User in a Microsoft Teams post made using Power Automate
  7. Asynchronous HTTP Response from a Flow | Power Automate
  8. Using outputs() function and JSON Parse to read data from missing dynamic value in a Flow | Power Automate

Thank you!!