Dynamics 365

Enable D365 For Teams Integration Preview

priyeshwagh777 Dynamics 365 , , ,

Finally, D365 Teams Integration is out in Public Preview and I was excited to try it out on one of the D365 9.1 trial environments.

Currently in Preview so it is not recommended for Production purposes. Anyway, let’s dive into seeing how we can enable the Preview.

Enable the Preview in D365

  1. Enable the Preview of the D365 For Teams from System Settings > Previews.
    systemSettings
  2. And click on Yes to enable it. It will ask for confirmation.
    settingConfirmation
  3. Click OK and it will ask for confirmation
    applyConfirmation
  4. And it takes a few minutes to provision.
    provisionTeams
  5. And in a few minutes, you’d be done.
    provisioned

Logging into Teams and get the App

  1. Now, suppose you already have Teams app on your desktop. Go to Store and look for the Dynamics 365 (Preview) as shown below.
    getInTeamsApp
  2. Click on Add to a Team to disable it and only enabled it for me. Maybe I’ll write another post on what these settings do, but to continue for myself, I’ll select only Me.
    addForMe
  3. And if you wish to open any of those, else close out the window.
    previewAvailable
  4. Now, let’s configure this for first time use. Find the app in the menu like so.
    findTheAppInTeams

Configure the App

  1. Now, let’s configure it by connecting to your D365 environment. Click on Configure.
    configureNow
  2. It will ask you Organization you want to connect to, select the same.
    selectOrg
  3. And provide your credentials –
    credentials.png
  4. Grant consent too.
    grantConsent
  5. Finally, you’ll get it enabled.
    enabledNow

Seeing it work

And to test it out, I put in natural langauge ‘show me alpine sky house’

And I had the results
results

D365 Quick Tip – Why should you Reassign Records to another user?

priyeshwagh777 Dynamics 365 , ,

An underrated feature of Dynamics 365 sitting since a long time is the Reassign Records. This is a particularly important feature that if a key person stayed with the organization for quite some time and worked deeper in Dynamics like written plugins or have workflows owned by them, it is imperative that the records they owned need to be reassigned to someone else when that employee leaves.

Given the scenario – An employee, Somesh, left the company but has several records under his ownership. Even some workflows (we’ll get to that a little further.) Sample Original Records owned by the user –
originalRecords

And when the user leaves the company, in general practice, we revoke the D365 license for reuse. In that case, the user is Disabled in the system –

disabledUser

Important: Before you proceed further, please make a list of all Active workflows which are owned by the Disabled user before Reassigning Records. You can use Advanced Find to find such workflows.

Why should you Reassign Records

Workflows

Since the user who left was owner of any workflows having Scope of Organization level, they’d fail and if them being background workflows, you wouldn’t know what happened in the background. On investigating, you’d see error like –

errorInWorkflow

I noticed that workflows which are set to User scope will behave like they didn’t trigger.

Reassign Records

Use this feature to reassign records of the Disabled User to the new Administrator/User who should carry forward the smooth processing of day to day operations of Dynamics.

  1. Go to the user by going to Settings > Security > Users. Find the user and open the record.
    reassignRecords

  2. On clicking on Reassign Records as shown above, you’ll be asked whether you want to assign the records to yourself or some other user.
    reAssignToOtherUser
  3. The loading will complete and once you check, all the records that were previously with Somesh will be assigned to Vishal. See below –

    assignedToNewUser

  4. The workflows get assigned too. But, you have to do some activity before you say you’re done.

Reactive the Workflows

So, the records got swiftly got assigned to the new user. However, the workflow which Somesh owned were Deactivated, assigned to Vishal but were left Deactivated!
deactivatedWorkflows

And with that, you’ve saved some hours trying to find out why certain things went wrong. Hope this helped!

D365 PSA v3 – Resource Assignment and Booking

priyeshwagh777 Dynamics 365 PSA , ,

Now, since PSA v3 is a major shift from it’s previous version, ways to do certain things have changed. Let’s quickly look at one of the many ways to book a resource by Assigning them and then Booking them in PSA v3.

Project

I have a sample Project called Grand Chocolatiers Inc. whose Schedule looks like this (the WBS is now Schedule in PSA v3) –
project

I will now Assign and Book a Resource to show you how this is done in PSA v3.

Assigning Resources

1. Now, you don’t have any resources Assigned to the Project you just created, so let’s go to the Schedule in the Project and add a new Resource, say, Alicia Baker
addAlicia

aliciaAdded

I’ve added Alicia Baker without booking her.

2. Coming to the Team and refreshing the grid, I’ll see Alicia being Assigned the 12 Hours.

aliciaAssigned

 

Booking Resource

  1. Now, I’ll come to the Resource Reconciliation section and see how I can book Alicia on the task. I’ll select the Previous Difference in order for me to see the distribution I want to book Alicia on.
    aliciaInRecon
  2. After I double click on the Hours denoted (1), I’ll see and expanded view (2)
    expandExtension
    expandedExtension
  3. Now, if I only select the below highlighted days, I’ll be booking Alicia for those hours on the 3 selected days only
    select3Days
  4. Then, I’ll click on Extend Booking
    extendBooking
  5. Once I confirm the 3 days that I see, the resource will be booked for that time
    confirmExtension
  6. And I’ll see the updated Reconciliation View after I book the resource
    extensionCleared
  7. Now, if you check the Team or the Schedule Board, you’ll be able to see that Alicia is now Booked for the selected duration
    aliciaIsBookd

Hope that was helpful!

To read more about Reconciliation View in D365 PSA v3, refer Kuldeep Gupta‘s blog post on Reconciliation View & Scheduling a Resource in PSA v3

Cheers!

‘My Apps’ missing from D365 SiteMap

priyeshwagh777 Dynamics 365 , ,

At times, if you don’t see My Apps under Settings in your D365 SiteMap, fear not. Put this link in your URL with your Org details and you can simply land on the My Apps page.

myAppMissing_D365

https://<Your ORG URL here>/tools/AppModuleContainer/applandingtilepage.aspx

And you’ll be landed on the My Apps page that you would otherwise be able to access from the SiteMap itself (without the main Navigation Pane, though) –

myAppPage_D365

Hope this quick tip is helpful! đŸ™‚

My takeaways from CRMUG Summit 2018 in Phoenix last week

priyeshwagh777 D365 Events and Community ,

IMG_3857.JPG

https://www.crmugsummit.com/

I participated in the CRMUG Summit at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona last week (16th to 18th Oct) and it was an extremely beneficial experience. Something that was needed to keep up with the knowledge of what to expect in the D365 ecosystem in coming months.

I’ll share a few thoughts on the experience here –

All sessions I attended gave great insights on the October 2018 release of D365 and how things will change for our customers in the near future.

Lots of emphasis on the ‘Digital Feedback Loop’ where the focus is to drive data back to the system using digital signals across business and take corrective actions.

IMG_3811

The sessions –

Great sessions on Flow, PowerApps and PowerPlatform being the go-to methodology to implement business applications going forward. And how architecture is being unified by the Common Data Model, a session held by Mike Hammons from AKA.

Leveraging Portals and Unified Client is the way forward.

Sessions on technical deep-dives for Integrations to be carried out by Varun Bhat on Smart Strategies to upgrade Custom Scripts to v9 was insightful for developers who are in the migration season.

Even us, CloudFronts, presented a session on our product called SOS developed for company ‘Technical Sales Development’ which makes Sales cycle more visual and intuitive.

Also, a vivid expo setup where palpable energy was evident. Got to meet other partners and firms who got in their products to the stage.

I can’t wait to check out and explore and write more about these in days to come. đŸ™‚