Kanban view in Dynamics 365 Sales | 2020 Wave 1 Early Access Feature

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Kanban View in D365 is another desired feature for Dynamics 365 Salespeople is here in the 2020  Wave 1 Early Access feature-set!

Disclaimer: Before we proceed, please note that this is a part of the Wave 1 2020 Early Access. We can’t be sure if this will make it to the final release. Also, you can enable Early Access into your Sandbox instance only and test since it’s not recommended for Production at this point.

Enabling Kanban View

  1. Navigate to Opportunities and open the My Open Opportunities view
    openOppView
  2. Then, select Custom Controls to change to a Kanban view
    selectCustomControls
  3. Select Kanban and make sure it’s selected for all device types
    selectKanban
    clickOK
    Finally, just Save and Publish.

Using Kanban View

Now, once changes are published, on your My Open Opportunities view (you should already see it in Kanban). If not, select the Show As to show Kanban as an option and then select Kanban.
showAs
selectKanbanFromView

Once done, you can select the Kanban type i.e. based on Business Process Flow or based on the Stage of the Opportunity.
toggleType

How to Read the Kanban View

In the below, screenshot, the value denotes the total of the relevant Amount in that stage. Say, total of Estimated Revenue when an Opportunity is Open and the one on the right denotes total records that can be currently seen against how many records are actually present in that stage
howToView

Based on Status

Now, the Kanban view based on Status will let you move your Opportunity between two statuses. Say, in this example, the status is in Open, you want to mark it as Won.
dragStatus

And when you drop it on the Won status, the Opportunity Close dialog will appear where you can just fill in the required information and just close.
dialogToFill

Based on Business Process Flow

And in Business Process Flow type, you can just move the Opportunity between different stages of the BPF

bpfType

Moving the card to either direction will open up the actual record itself to make the final change.

Hope this post helps you get started!! 🙂

Unified Interface App URLs – 3 different ways

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Couple of different ways you can generate/get your Unified Interface App’s URL from. And another one if you want to go an unusual way –

Additionally, if you’re also looking to change the App Icon for Unified Interface, check this – Change the Unified Interface App Icons

App ID Method

This being the easiest and most obvious way to save your App URL when you create a new Unified Interface app –

whileCreating

Or when you’re in the App Designer, look for the Properties of the App itself and in the bottom, you’ll see the URL, you can save this too –

inAppDesigner

So in this case, your URL is – https://<orgname&gt;.<CRMRegion>.dynamics.com/Apps/uniquename/<AppUniqueName>

App Suffix Method

This is another easy way to create your Apps URL. You can get it when you open the Manage Roles option in My Apps and open the same.

Open Manage Roles –
openManageRoles

And in the right hand pane, you can set the App Suffix
addAppSuffix

In this case, your App Name will simply be – https://<orgname&gt;.<CRMRegion>.dynamics.com/apps/<AppSuffixName>

Once you add an App Suffix, the same can also be seen in the Properties as well in the App Designer and the URL Interface URL will be the one with the Suffix Name unlike the one without Suffix in the first method above.
appSuffixAdded

GUID Method

This is not the best way to save or use an App URL, but if you’re interested, here we go! 🙂

You can use this URL – https://<orgname&gt;.<CRMRegion>.dynamics.com/main.aspx?appid=<GuidFromAppDesigner>

You can get the GUID part from the App Designer itself –

guidPart

Obviously, this is not recommended but I thought I’ll share anyway.

Hope this helps!

Save generated PDFs to SharePoint directly – 2020 Wave 1 | Early Access Feature

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With Wave 1 of 2020, Early Access lets you use fantastic features in Dynamics 365 CE. For Sales customers, this little feature will definitely be a delight!

Disclaimer: Before we proceed, please note that this is a part of the Wave 1 2020 Early Access. We can’t be sure if this will make it to the final release. Also, you can enable Early Access into your Sandbox instance only and test since it’s not recommended for Production at this point.

Let’s start! Till now post Wave 2 2019, you were able to generate PDF Documents from the Document Templates you created for entity records. You can now take it a step further by having to choose between just downloading the file or Saving it to SharePoint directly behind the record.

Pre-Requisites

  1. SharePoint Integration enabled in D365
  2. Generate PDF option enabled for the entity record you want this feature on.
    If you are looking to enable this feature, check this post – Create & Send PDFs from Word Templates for Quotes in D365 CE Wave 2 Updates
  3. Wave 1 2020 Enabled for your Sandbox Organization.

You don’t need to perform additional settings for enable/disable this feature.

Creating PDF

  1. Just as you used to create a PDF from Wave 2019 updates, you need to do the same.
    createQuote
  2. And you’ll be prompted if you want to also save it to SharePoint.
    saveRec
  3. Once successful, you’ll see that it was saved to SharePoint.
    savedToSP

 

Saved to SharePoint

You can check the Documents grid, the Document will be attached there –
DocView
onSP
In this scenario, it won’t do both -Download and Save to SharePoint.

Hope you find this feature helpful!

Check Managed Solution failures in Solution History in Dynamics 365 CRM

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At times, solution upgrades failed for Managed solution and you have to get in touch with Microsoft support to figure out and get this through –

Example: You’re upgrading a solution like Project Service Automation (or any other for that matter)

Solution Failure

installationFailed

Solution History

So, instead of directly opening a support ticket with Microsoft, it’s best to dig a little into Solution History to get an insight of what exactly failed and to see if you have a quick resolution for this yourself-

  1. Navigate to Solution History in Settings in D365.
    solutionHistory
  2. Switch the view to see All Solutions
    switchView
  3. And open the one that failed recently
    openFailed
  4. In my example particularly, I found the below component had a conflicting dependency which caused the solution to fail-
    dependentComponent

Checking in Dependency Viewer

Now, this isn’t very subtle to check the Dependency Viewer –

  1. In the Exception error message, right click the solutions layers link from the error message itself. Use the scroll wheel itself to click on the link instead of clicking or right clicking.
    openSolutionLayers
    In my case from the above screenshot, the issue was that the managed workflow Update User Work History was set to Draft and hence, the upgrade failed. It could be anything else in your case.
  2. If this doesn’t open in a new window and opens in the new tab with some additional characters in the URL, then trim the beginning and ending of the text in the bar to make it a legitimate URL and press enter
    trim1

trim2

Post this, you’ll need to work your way to fix the solution and then try upgrading again.

So, if you have a particular solution like restoring back the missing component or fulfilling whatever the dependency may be, you can retry upgrade and this should work successfully.

Finally, if things don’t work out, it would be best to open a support ticket with Microsoft and they should help.

Apart from this, there are still failures which unfortunately, only Microsoft could tell. Those are usually the ones that happen due to data as Microsoft Support said. I’ll follow up this blog in the future once I uncover more details.

Hope this helps!

Button Flow in Power Automate to replicate a Quick Create Form in D365 CE

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I wanted to try a quick example of a Flow Button. I thought, why not make a simple Quick Create like form to enter data in Dynamics from Flow itself? So here’s a little form I did –

Create Button Flow in Power Automate

Now, let’s start of by creating a Flow button itself.

  1. Choose the template to create a Flow button.
    createFlowButton
  2. And give a suitable name and select the Flow trigger which is a button
    createAccountNew
  3. Now, select what input controls you want to add to the Flow Button. Click on Add Input and then select the Input you want to start off with
    addInput
    chooseControl
  4. Now, since in this example, I’m trying to create a simple Quick Create like form for D365, I’ll choose the most obvious fields I want and create the inputs as below
    buttonLayout
  5. Further, I’ll connect the same to CDS and Create a record in Dynamics using the input I receive from the Flow button, so – my CDS mapping in the Flow below looks like this –
    upperFlowBody
    I’ve mapped the Company Name and Annual Revenue fields.

    And now, I map the remaining Email address field to create my record.
    lowerFlowBody

    My Flow is now ready and after testing it, I’m ready to use it on my phone.

Run the Button Flow on Phone

On the phone app, make sure you have access to the Flow and navigate to Buttons on the screen-

  1. In Power Automate app, open the Buttons section and check for the Flow Button you created – Create Account in this case –
    buttonView
  2. Once you push the button, you’ll see the form you created with the input fields
    blankForm
  3. Finally, when you fill out the form, you’ll simply need to hit Done and that should be it.
    readyToSubmit

 

Check the Record in D365

Now, if you check in Dynamics, the record must’ve been created already!
record

 

Hope this quick tutorial helps!!

Adding a Canvas PowerApp to Teams

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Let’s take a look at how you can simply export the Canvas App from your Organization and import it to Teams. And you should be good to go!

Exporting Canvas App

  1. Assuming you are an Admin and you have Owner/Co-Owner rights to the App, you can click the ellipses part on the App and look for Add to Teams option.
    addToTeams
  2. Once done, you can check on the right hand-side to see some details and Download the zip file of the Canvas App when ready
    downloadApp
  3. And that’s it, it gets downloaded like any other Model Driven/Canvas App solution file.
    downloaded

 

Importing App to Teams

  1. Now, you can import the same as a custom App in Teams. Navigate to the Apps section and look for Upload a custom app in menu as shown below.
    uploadACustomApp
  2. Now, chose the Org you want to import the solution file to. In my case, it’s just one organization, you may have multiple.
    selectOrg
  3. A dialog box will pop up to ask you to select the solution file, navigate to the saved location and pick the file.
    selectSolution
  4. And you’re ready. The App has been imported. You can see it in the Apps section under Built for CFT 146.
    findAppOnTeams

 

Adding App Per User

Each user needs to add the App themselves in order to be able to access it.

Also, remember that the user who is adding the App should have rights to access the App itself i.e. the App should be shared with those users.

Let’s say Kuldeep is another user in the CFT 146 Organization. He can explicitly search for the App and add it as below –

  1. Go to Apps, then look for the area, Build For <Org Name> and then look for the App that was imported.
    Attendees AppfindAppOnTeams
  2. Click on the App, and the dialog box will provide with a button to Add to Teams, along with other details mentioned alongside.
    clickAdd
  3. Once added, it will appear next in the left navigation menu and you can simply run it by clicking on it.
    appRunning
  4. In case the user doesn’t have appropriate rights on the App, they will see this message when trying to open the App in Teams.
    errorInAccessing

Hope this helps!! Happy 365ing!

Correctly connect to an Excel file in a Canvas PowerApp

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Now, just putting an Excel with some crude data in it won’t really be identified in the Canvas App you are making. Perhaps you’re missing something.

Let’s say, I want to read an Excel file from OneDrive For Business into my Canvas App, I select the Excel file from the OneDrive for Business connection like below –

excelToConnect

But, I’m treated with the below error while making a connection – CanvasAppExcel

 

Correcting your Excel

Well, if your Excel looks like this –

crudeExcel

Then, that’s the reason Canvas App is not able to connect to the data in the Excel. Here’s what you need to do – click on the top left corner of where your Table should start from and then click on Table from the Insert tab as shown below
convertToTable

Confirm that diagonal end of the Table you want to consider and click OK once confirmed
confirmSelection

Once you confirm, you’re Excel data will look like this which is correctly formatted into a Table –
formattedTable

 

Reading the Table

Now that you’re set, you should be able to read the Excel file’s Table which you can connect to.
tableAppeared

Hope this quick tip helps!!

 

Create a support Queue in Dynamics 365 CRM

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I thought I should share my best practice of creating a quick Support Queue purely to receive Emails in Dynamics 365.

In my example below, the support email address is a User in Office 365 assigned any license that has Exchange Online service present. My example user needn’t have a Dynamics license for purely for the purpose of a Queue. Your application may vary.

Let’s take a look!

Support Queue Email

Now, typically a Support Queue’s Email is purely to track support requests raised over the email address provided. Typically, support@emailaddress.

  1. To start off, I’ll create a user in Office 365 called Support Queue and the login address I choose is support@cft146.onmicrosoft.com and assign only the license which is needed for the Queue i.e. any license having Exchange Online service in it, (E5 in my case) you may chose any other.
    licenseAssigned.png
  2. Then, I make sure my Mailbox is created in a few minutes post assigning the licence and then I’m good to go once I setup the Timezone and Language on the mailbox.
    mailboxReady.png

 

Create a Queue in D365 CE

  1. In D365 CE, directly head-over to create a Queue in D365. Assuming you are a System Admin, head over to Settings > Service Management and go to Queues. And then create a new Queue.
    queueInD365

    newQueue

  2. Enter the details as below, remember to keep the email address the same as the Exchange Email address for this user and click Save.
    createQueueDirectly.png
  3. Once you click Save, the Mailbox will be automatically created.
    SupportQueueMailBoxCreated.png
    That’s it. Now, let’s head towards enabling the mailbox for Server Side Sync.

Enable Server Side Sync on the Support Mailbox

To enable Mailbox, the Email address needs to be Approved by the Global Administrator of O365. [Your org could even be set to not requiring any Approval prior to enabling synchronization, you may need to ask you Admin for the same]. But assuming it’s required – approveEmail

Note that Incoming Email and Outgoing Email above is set to Server-side Synchronization or Email Router. [Incoming enabled is a must to receive emails in the system]. Click OK.
clickOKApprove

Once this is confirmed, see in the next step – the warning message disappears which is shown previously and you can now Test & Enable Mailbox for Server Side Sync. Now, click on Test & Enable Mailbox
test&amp;Enable

Make sure that if you have multiple environments and you want to sync with only the current environment, check the option as below and then confirm.
confirm1EnvironmentOnly

Now, once the test is completed, you’ll be able to see the Success in the Active Mailboxes
enabledSuccessfully.png

 

Testing the Queue

Now, the Queue is ready to receive emails already. If you take look at the Queue, the test emails must have already come in by now.
QueueIsCorrect.png

Now, let’s say that a user has submitted an email to support@cft146.onmicrosoft.com [Your support email here 🙂 ], it will appear in the Queue as below
emailSent.png
itemReceived.png

And then you can continue to build your Queue use cases as per your requirements.

Hope this helps!

Create new Sandbox and copy Production over to it in PowerPlatform Admin Center

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This is one of the standard approaches if you want to copy over a Production instance over to a Sandbox one. Most common scenarios being when you’ve on-boarded a new client to Dynamics 365 / PowerPlatform and you’re nearing Go Live for the first time!

You need a Sandbox to then follow new customization on the Sandbox and avoid doing anything on the Production. Here’s how you copy over from Production to Sandbox!

 

Creating a Sandbox

  1. Create a new Environment by clicking on the +New button as below
    newButton.png
  2. Now, you can directly create a new Sandbox environment in the PowerPlatform Admin Center (https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/environments)
    Remember: Both the source and target environments need to be in the same region to copy.
    createSandbox.png
  3. Additionally, I’ve selected the Create a Database option too since I want to speed up the process.
    addingDatabase.png
    Note that you can chose which all apps you want to deploy if you chose Enable Dynamics 365 apps

And that’s it. You’ll need to wait for some time until this is processed!

If you’re also looking to create a Database explicitly for an existing environment using a previous method, you can check this post – Create new CDS Environment and Database quickly from PowerApps Admin Center

While this happens in the background, you can see the message on the Environments section on the Power Platform Admin Center
preparing.png

 

And upon completion, you’ll see the below message
completedCreation.png

Copying From Production to Sandbox

Next step is to copy over the Production to the newly created Sandbox environment.

  1. Select the Production environment you want to copy over and look at the ribbon, you’ll see a copy button.
    copyButton.png
  2. Once you click on the Copy, you’ll be asked about the target environment, chose the created Sandbox.
    selectTarget.png
  3. Once you confirm, the copying process will start. And you’ll be taken to this page which tells you what stage the process is in –
    currentProcess.png
  4. Once all the copying is completed, this notification will appear. Now, the next step is to turn off Administration Mode. Click on settings link as shown below by arrow.
    copySuccess.png
  5. Once you flick the switch and Save, Administration Mode will be disabled letting others to log in as well. Additionally, now we have the option to keep Background Operations On as well while keeping Administration Mode On as well.
    disableAdminMode.png

Now, you are all set. Hope this helps!

What is “Does not support untyped value in non-open type” ODataException in creating records in D365 CE?

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One of the most common errors we come across while calling API to create records in Dynamics but isn’t clear what it means? One such issue is – “An error occurred while validating input parameters: Microsoft.OData.ODataException: Does not support untyped value in non-open type.”

On the console of the browser, you’ll see this –
consoleLoggedError

But, if you open the <objectName>.responseText of the Failure message of the call, you’ll see the below –

originalErrorA more zoomed view of the error would be below –

badRequest

This is because of my typo in the code [Which is the case for most scenarios] where you mistype a name of the field and neither does the error itself doesn’t specify which field you’re missing out on nor what it means!

Reason

This is because of a simple typo  in one of the fields in the object I was creating using AJAX

faultLine

In my case, this should have been “entity.duration” and not “entity.durationn“.

It was a simple issue which led me wander troubleshooting in areas which I shouldn’t look into.

Hope this saves you some valuable time! Happy 365ing!