Toggle Experimental Features in Power Automate | Quick Tip

If you are working in Power Automate, you might want to check if you are already using the Experimental Features or not.

Here’s how you check and toggle between turned on and off.
Also, please note that it is not recommended to use Experimental Features on a Production instance. Please use Experimental Features only for Sandbox environments.

Experimental Features

Here’s how you can turn Experimental Features On or Off.

While making Flows, you can click on the Gear Icon to go into Settings on the top right corner.
When you click on it, you’ll see the dialog box where the Experimental Features could either be already turned on or off.
And that’s it. You can just save and this dialog box will be closed.

Identify Experimental Feature Turned On/Off

In order to identify how the Experimental Features are turned on or now, here’s what you check –

When turned OFF, the Dynamic Content will load on the right hand side as it always used to from the start.
And when turned ON, the buttons to choose either the Dynamic Content or the Expressions will show when clicked on a field in a Step. And then you can choose either to show the menu.

And the menu will look like this upon clicking –

Here’s official Microsoft Documentation on Experimental Features – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/experimental-features?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this was useful!
Here are some more Power Automate posts you might want to check –

Thank you!!

Auditing Enhancements for Dynamics 365 CRM in Power Platform Admin Center

February 10, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Power Platform Admin Center delete audit logs in crm, new auditing in d365 crm, Power Platform Admin Center, record access auditing in dynamics 365, user access auditing

Audit Management has improved lately in the Power Platform Admin Center (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/), let’s review what’s new!

Auditing in Power Platform Admin Center

Given that you are in the Power Platform Admin Center, let’s look at an org CFT 158’s Audit Settings –

You’ll now see an Auditing section in the environment –
And if you click on Manage as shown below, you can see what all is Enabled / Audited.

In Manage, you’ll see the below Auditing enabled and also how long the Audit Logs can be Retained for –
And you can choose for a particular environment, as to how long you want to retain the logs for. Let’s say, you don’t want to retain Audit records for Sandbox environments for more than a certain time.

Audit Log Deletion

Now, you have the ability to select what Audit Logs you want to delete based on a certain Table, People/System or from selection of Dates. –

Under the Free up capacity label in the Auditing summary on the Environment in PPAC, you’ll find a link for Delete logs.
In this menu, you’ll be able to select what Audit Logs you want to delete.
You can select from within a Table, Date selections or Access logs, by people and systems.
Beginning to Date Range
Now, let’s select by Date i.e. Deleting Logs from beginning and up to the selected Date.
Now, these are the Audit records for a sample account.
Now, I’ll select a Date i.e. 5th Jan – so, it’ll delete the Audit everything till 5th Jan (will leave 5th Jan probably because of the Timezone issue on my end.)
And once you set this, you’ll be asked for confirmation.
Once you confirm, a Bulk Delete System Job will run and look like below
And if I check my System Jobs (It probably left out 5th Jan’s logs because of time zone not set correctly)
And everything prior to 5th Jan will be deleted.
So, to verify this, I added 1 more Auditing record and then ran another job for 6th Jan to verify if 5th Jan is deleted or not.
And it deleted the 5th Jan records
Table
Now, you can also select a specific table/entity you want to delete Logs for.
And select the Tables you want retaining others. I choose Contact for example.
And it’ll ask for confirmation as well. Once I select Confirm, it’ll Delete Audit Logs only for Contact.
And the third type is to delete the Access Logs.

Note: Please note that at times, some Bulk Delete Jobs could be waiting to be submitted.

Hope this summary was useful!

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

Thank you!

Flows with Dataverse triggers not working after Minimal Copy in Sandbox instance | Power Automate

February 4, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Power Automate callback registrations, Dataverse, flow not working, minimal copy, Power Automate

There are 2 possible ways the Flows are not triggering on the Sandbox instance after a Minimal Copy.

Let’s look at both the scenarios!

Administration Mode

Let’s get the more obvious options out of the way first. So let’s look at the Administration Mode scenarios where the Background Processes are turned off right after the Minimal Copy is completed –

In Power Platform Admin Center (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/), you can navigate to the environment and look if the Administration Mode is enabled or not.

And if it is, the Background Processes are still turned ON or not.
Now, the Administration Mode can stay ON, the Background Operations however should be Enabled.

If not, then the Administration Mode itself can be disabled entirely which will keep the background operations enabled.

But even if this doesn’t help and your Flows are not triggering, below is another possibility.

Callback Registrations in Dataverse

Callback Registration records are created when you create and Save Flows –
Microsoft Docs on Callback Registrations here – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customerengagement/on-premises/developer/entities/callbackregistration?view=op-9-1?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Now, the reason the Flows are not triggered are because of the Minimal Copy, the Callback Registration records on the Environment also got deleted.
So, you can now create a new Flow to query all the Callback Registration records on the environment.
Add Row Count as 100 or something so that you don’t get a Flow Checker warning. 😊
Now, when you read what Callback Registration records are retrieved, you’ll only find 0 records because all the Dataverse trigger Flows are deleted
And all the other Callback Registration records which should belong to the other Flows (which has Dataverse as the trigger and not other Flows) in my environment are not listed!
And that’s why, the Flows are not triggered which are supposed to be triggered from Dataverse/CRM.

Solution

There are 2 solutions to this –

First is to Delete the Trigger itself
And then re-add the same trigger
And make sure it has all the right steps which it was supposed to have and then Save.
Now, if you Run the on-demand Flow to check the Callback Registrations, 1 record must now have been created.
And it belongs to the entity which you created the Trigger for. Annotations (Notes), in this case.
And now, if you perform the operation in Dynamics – the Flow will be triggered.
Second solution is to Re-import the Flow or the Solution in which you Flow belongs.

Hope this was helpful! Here are some more Dynamics 365 posts which you might be interested in –

Thank you!!

Ribbon button visibility based on a null value in field in Dynamics 365 | Ribbon Workbench

February 1, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Ribbon Workbench dynamics 365 crm javascript, Ribbon Workbench, show hide ribbon button, valuerule in ribbon workbench

In case you are using ValueRule already for showing / hiding a ribbon button, but wondering how you can check for the same field for null values i.e. showing the ribbon button only when the field contains data?

I’ll explain in this post –

You can also refer this post for showing/hiding button based on a certain value – https://d365demystified.com/2021/01/08/ribbon-button-visibility-based-on-a-field-value-in-dynamics-365-ribbon-workbench/

ValueRule

Let’s consider an example where you want to show a Subscription button based on the Group Code field on the Account form –

I have a Group Code button on the Account Form, if this contains data, only then the Subscription button/flyout button should show.
So, in the Ribbon Workbench, you can select your button and start by adding a Display Rule (Assuming you don’t have other Display Rules already set which you’ll need to take care of)
In the Display Rule, you can select the type as ValueRule
In the value Rule, the field you are checking for in this example is Group Code (Name: cf_groupcode)

At this point, if I leave the Value as blank in the above screenshot, the button will be hidden if the value is blank in the above shown Display Rule. This acts as Show when “Group Code Does Not Contain Data“

In this case, the button will be shown when the Group Code field is blank.

And hidden when the Group Code field Contains Data
Now, if we choose to Invert Result, you’ll get this – This will act as Show when “Group Code Contains Data”

Now, in this condition, the Ribbon button will be shown is the Group Code has data in it.

And will be hidden when the Group Code field is blank.

Also Ensure

If you are wondering if your changes are being applied, also cross check the below two points –

The Command must be attached to the button.
And the DisplayRule must be attached to the Command itself.

Hope this was useful!

Here are some more XrmToolBox related posts which you might want to check –

Thank you!

Access Customer Insights in your Office 365 tenant

January 30, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Dynamics 365, Office 365 Administration customer insights, dynamics 365 admin center, Power Platform

As a newbie to Customer Insights myself, I struggled to find where from Office 365 or Dynamics itself do I access Customer Insights!

I tried looking in the Office 365 under All Apps, I couldn’t find it as any other App

Here’s a direct link for the same –

Direct Link

Use this link in the O365 Logged In browser to access Customer Insights – https://home.ci.ai.dynamics.com/ (Bookmark this 😊)

And you’ll be taken to the Home Page which appears like this –

Alternatively

You can also search for Customer Insights and it’ll give you the Log In page as below from which you can click on Sign In –

And the first result will open the Sign In page for Customer Insights if you are already logged in the browser with the O365 account already.

From Admin Portal

Here’s how you access it from the Office 365 Admin Portal.

Go to Admin Center area in M365 Admin Center and click on All admin Centers. It’ll show the list of all Admin Centers in your tenant.
Clicking on Customer Insights there will then open up the Customer Insights and will help you navigate from choosing between Audience Insights / Engagement Insights (preview at the time of this post)

Hope this was helpful! Here are some more Dynamics 365 posts which you might be interested in –

Thank you!!

Try Catch error handling using Scope in Power Automate

January 20, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Power Automate flow, Power Automate, scope, try catch, try catch in flow

As a programmer, using Try-Catch is a common programming practice to handle exceptions. Now, since we’ve moved more towards low-code platform implementations, error handling here is a must as well.

Generally, if a Flow fails as per below, we should be able to handle the exceptions effectively –

And this is what happened to my action step –

And this Flow will end in Failed Run status. So let’s ensure we handle this in a simple way.

Group actions using Scope

First step is to club the actions into a group which can be accomplished by an action called Scope. This will give us controls as to what happens if this Scope fails, succeeds, times out or is skipped –

Search for Scope in the Flow and add it.
Now, add the actions which needs to be handled for Exceptions in the Scope you just added.
And it should looks like this – Also, consider renaming the Scope as you might want to handle each section of the Flow differently for different potential actions

Here, your Try block is ready.
Now, let’s design the Catch block. Add one more Scope to the Flow (Ideally, after the Try Scope we just added)
For example, you can add an email step to notify the developer, typically.

Configure Run After

Now, let’s configure the Run After on the ‘Catch SP Exceptions‘ scope we added in the step above

Now, go to the ellipses on the Catch scope we just created.
You’ll find Configure Run After. This defines that when should this selected Scope Run based on the results of the previous Scopes.
And you can select the criteria you are defining for the ‘Try – SharePoint Actions’ scope’s results.
The below implies that run ‘Catch SP Exceptions’ block after the ‘Try – SharePoint Actions’ block failed (or any action in it fails)
And at this point, you are done. You can see a little i icon to see what is configured.
The arrow connecting the steps are also different (in brown as compared to other black/dark gray arrows.)

Testing

Now, let’s test this simple scenario and see how the executions will take place in terms of error.

We’ll resubmit the same failed Run to now go through these Scopes and observe our course of action.
As you see below, Try – SharePoint Actions scope has failed as expected but because we had configured the Catch SP Exceptions to Run After the Try – SharePoint Actions failed.
And note that the End Result of the Flow is also a Success.
Now, let’s see what happens if the Exception doesn’t occur and it succeeds.
But, notice that even the steps after the Catch SP Exceptions didn’t execute.
Now, I’ll explain below why that happened.
This happened because Catch SP Exceptions itself didn’t execute and the Delay step is connected to Catch SP Exceptions steps by default.
Now, you’ll need to also configure the Delay Step to Run After the Try – SharePoint Actions is Skipped executed. Then, the Flow will continue it’s normal execution that point on.
And if you Run this again, since the Catch SP Exceptions is Skipped, the Delay will continue to Run.
And everything after that. See another step added to validate this.

Hope this was quick and easy to understand.

Here are some more Dynamics 365 posts which you might be interested in –

Thank you!!

Remove attachments from Dynamics 365 CRM Notes using Power Automate | Dataverse

January 18, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Dataverse, Power Automate delete crm notes attachments, delete notes attachments in crm, notes, notes attachments in crm, Power Automate

If you are looking to remove or delete the attachments from Notes (Annotation entity) in Dynamics 365 CRM / Dataverse (and not delete the Note itself), hopefully this will help!

Disclaimer: I’m not covering ‘how you can save your attachments elsewhere’, I’m only covering how you can delete from Notes given that you have handled your attachments before deleting them.

Identifying Attachments

Here are some points which will help you identify once attachments are included when you create a Note in Dynamics 365 / Dataverse.
Note that these are not in Attachments entity.

You can have a Flow that is triggered on the create of a Note (annotation) in Dataverse.
So here, the Document is Note is attached on a Note.

And the Trigger of the Dataverse connector in Flow is on the create of a Note
And when the Note is attached, the triggerOutputs body will show this data that denotes the attachment on the Note.

Clearing Attachments

Here’s how you can clear the attachments from the Notes (by not deleting the actual note). If you want to move to SharePoint, it’s a recommendation, but that’s not something I intend to cover here (Assuming you are doing something with the attachments and then wanting to delete them) –

Now, in this example, I’m attaching a Note which will be further cleared using the Update step which I’ll show.
Here’s an update step I have on the same Note which will set the Document Body & Name to null in order to clear the attachment.
To test this, I had another Flow which is triggered on the update of the Note i.e. the step above.
Once there’s nothing in the Document (documentbody), the filesize will be 0 & isdocument flag to false automatically. Also, setting the Name to Null is important – Else, you’ll still see the attachment on the Note (Just that you can’t open it)
And when you refresh the Timeline, you’ll see that the attachment is now removed.

Hope this was helpful! Here are some more Dynamics 365 posts which you might be interested in –

Thank you!!

Create file correctly in SharePoint from Dataverse connector using Power Automate | Using base64ToBinary expression

January 12, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Power Automate attachments in crm, attachments in sharepoint, base64 file, base64tobinary, Dataverse, Power Automate, sharepoint file

If you are creating a file from Attachment from a Dynamics 365 CRM record and trying to load it in SharePoint and it doesn’t get created/read correctly?

Although, it might appear it was correctly uploaded, it might not open correctly and could look like this.

Scenario

Consider this scenario – You want to store the Documents that you attach in Notes to SharePoint.

Let’s assume you are uploading this PDF document on the Note and now you want to upload this to SharePoint.
And you have a Flow to send this document to SharePoint which runs when you create a Note in Dataverse (Dynamics 365 CRM)
Now, the Create file action in SharePoint will look something like this –

If you use the new Dataverse [green] connector to pick up the attachment from the Note created in Dynamics CRM –

It’ll let you add the Document to the File context in SharePoint’s Create file action.
This is triggerOutputs()?[‘body/documentbody’] if you hover over it.
And upon running this Flow, the document will be created in SharePoint.
But when, you open the file, you’ll find this error that you can’t read the file although it appears that is was uploaded correctly.
And also, the browser can’t open it either even if you download it.

Use base64ToBinary conversion

Here’s a step to create a File in SharePoint in your mentioned SharePoint library –

In order to correctly pass this through, use the base64ToBinary expression in the Create file’s File Content field.
And in base64ToBinary, put the Document so that it looks like this – “base64ToBinary(triggerOutputs()?[‘body/documentbody’])“
And when you re-run the test, the document will be created in the same way.

And now when you open it, it’ll open properly.

Hope this solves the issue!

Dataverse (Legacy) connector

Here’s a difference you’ll notice in when you are using the Dataverse (Legacy) [gray colored] connector –

If you are using the older Dataverse Legacy connector to pick your file from Dynamics 365.
And try to add it to the Create file in SharePoint’s connector –
It’ll let you add it but not let you save it.

You’ll face a validation error – “Flow save failed with code ‘OpenApiOperationParameterValidationFailed’ and message ‘Input parameter ‘body’ validation failed in workflow operation ‘Create_file’: The parameter with value ‘”@triggerOutputs()? [‘body/documentbody’]”‘ in path ‘body’ with type/format ‘String/bytes’ is not convertible to type/format ‘String/binary’.’.“

Here’s a detailed post of a scenario posted by my friend Linn: https://linnzawwin.blogspot.com/2021/02/handle-base64-and-binary-file-content.html

Hope this was helpful! Here are some more Dynamics 365 posts which you might be interested in –

Thank you!!

Dynamics 365 JavaScript Client Scripting for Beginners | [Video Series]

January 8, 2022 priyeshwagh777 D365 WebAPI / JavaScript client side scripting in dynamics 365 crm, dynamics 365 crm javascript, javascript for dynamics 365 crm

Hi! If you are a newbie to Dynamics 365 JavaScript, I’ve made a short series on the same from a Beginner’s perspective.

I’ll keep enriching this series with advanced topics soon.

Pre-Requisites

In order to be able to start JavaScript form scripting for Dynamics 365 CRM / Model-Driven Apps, you must have the below –

Beginner to moderate JavaScript knowledge
Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code
System Customizer / System Admin access to the Dynamics 365 / Model-Driven environment.

Also, for complete reference to Dynamics 365 Client Scripting, here’s the official Microsoft Documentation on the same – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/developer/model-driven-apps/clientapi/reference?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

YouTube Videos

Hope this was useful. In order to also look for a beginner series on writing Plugins for Dynamics 365 CRM / Dataverse, I’ve created a Blog Series for the same as well – Plugins Development in Dynamics 365 CRM for Beginners | [Blog Series]

Hope this is a helpful start!
Here are some more Dynamics 365 CE / CRM posts which you might want to check –

Thank you!!

Plugins Development in Dynamics 365 CRM for Beginners | [Blog Series]

December 31, 2021 priyeshwagh777 Dynamics 365 CRM Plugins c# plugins in dynamics 365, crm plugins, Dynamics 365 CRM Plugins, plugins basics

If you are looking to start Plugins development in Dynamics 365 CRM Online instance but are a bit digressed in the process, I’ve created this short Crash Course to help you get started with your first plugin on Day 1!

Here are the list of the posts –

Setting up Visual Studio Project – https://d365demystified.com/2021/12/31/plugins-development-in-dynamics-365-crm-part-1-setting-up-visual-studio-project/
Registering your plugin – https://d365demystified.com/2021/12/31/plugins-development-in-dynamics-365-crm-part-2-registering-your-plugin/
Adding Logic – https://d365demystified.com/2021/12/31/plugins-development-in-dynamics-365-crm-part-3-adding-logic/
Debugging the plugin – https://d365demystified.com/2021/12/31/plugins-development-in-dynamics-365-crm-part-4-debugging-the-plugin/

Further, I’ll enrich this series with posts on best practices and links to useful Tools and code samples by fabulous and brilliant community members! 😊

I hope this is a good enough starting point to you all.

Hope this was helpful! Here are some more Dynamics 365 posts which you might be interested in –

Thank you!!

Experimental Features

Identify Experimental Feature Turned On/Off

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Auditing in Power Platform Admin Center

Audit Log Deletion

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Administration Mode

Callback Registrations in Dataverse

Solution

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ValueRule

Also Ensure

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Direct Link

Alternatively

From Admin Portal

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Group actions using Scope

Configure Run After

Testing

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Identifying Attachments

Clearing Attachments

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Scenario

Use base64ToBinary conversion

Dataverse (Legacy) connector

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Pre-Requisites

YouTube Videos

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