Project Contract Price List Defaulting Behavior in Project Operations

January 4, 2025January 4, 2025 priyeshwagh777 Project Operations dynamics 365 crm, price list in project operations, price lists, Project Operations

In Project Operations, if you are creating Project Contracts, you must be adding them explicitly to the created Project Contract. Also, the ways to create a Project Contract might be different in your case.

Let’s review some options on how you can configure Project Operations to create attach a Project Price List to a Project Contract in Project Operations –

Project Parameters for Price Lists Defaults

Here are some options on how you can set preferences for Project Price List Contract creation in Project Operations –

If you navigate to Project Parameters in Project Operations, you’ll see the below section where you can set Defaults for setting Price Lists on the Project Contract.
If you notice, the Price List Defaulting behavior applies to when the Project Contract is created as Project Contract controls the Pricing in project operations.

Below are the two scenarios in which Project Contract can be created –
1. Direct Project Contract Creation
2. Project Contract Creation from Quote.

And option on how Custom Pricing should apply is provided.

Default Behavior

Let’s look at the scenario of what happens when you create a Project Contract directly or through a Quote or without a Quote and create it directly –

The Project Contract will be created without associating a Project Price List and you’ll see this notification on the Project Contract asking you to associate a Project Contract Price List to the Contract for Pricing to be calculated –

For Direct Project Contract Creation

Let’s see what options we have for direct Contract creation and implications of each –

Below are the 2 options available when creating Project Contracts directly i.e. not going from a Quote being marked as Won.
And if we select the first option i.e. to Associate existing applicable standard price lists to project contracts, we have to also set a Price List in the Project Parameter itself to be defaulted.
You’ll see a Pricelist tab on the project parameter record itself and you can add a Price List which you want to be considered as default.
Now, when you create a Project Contract, the same Price List will be defaulted to the Project Price List tab and you won’t see the notification.
And when you choose to associate a “copy” of the Default Price List set in the Project Parameter.
And when you now create a Project Contract directly, you’ll rather see a new Project Price List created by copying the one defaulted.

For Project Contract Created from Quote

Let’s see what options we have for Contract creation from Quote and implications of each option available –

This is the parameter to configure for Project Contracts created from Quote.
And below are the options available when creating Project Contracts from Quotes on what types of Price Lists should be associated/created for Contracts.
When we choose the first option to associate the Quote Price List to Project Contract, as below –

we’ll see in second screenshot how the Price List is associated to the created Contract.
I have the below Quote Price List associated with the Quote

Now when I mark the Quote as Won, this Price List will be associated with the created Contract, this Price List is associated with the Contract itself without creating a new copy of any other Price List.
When I select the second option to associate quote price list to project contract with contract-specific price overrides for components estimated on the Quote.
So what this does is, for example, I’ve quoted some hours for Supervisor on the Quote and overridden the Price of one of the Quote Line Details

And when I create a Project Contract out of this Quote,
For the next option, as it states, you can simply create a Copy of the Prict List associated on the Quote Price List to the Contract Price list so that the reference can be of the Quote’s Price List but the Contract will have it’s own copy and not reference the one on the Quote already.

Now, let’s say I have this Price List on the Quote

Custom Pricing Options

Let’s look at some Custom Pricing Options –

We have the below 2 options for how Custom Pricing should be calculated. If none is selected, the Custom Pricing button on the Quote Lines and Contract Lines won’t function.
Now, when the Option 1 is selected i.e. Create full copy of the standard price lists – this will work how it used to in PSA. It’ll create a timestamped copy of the Project Price List which is already associated with the Contract.

See below –
It’ll create a new Price List and will retain all the Price List items which were part of the original Price List.

And this is the timestamped copy of the Price List which includes full Price List Items included.

And the items are included as well –
Now, when you select the second option i.e. Create protected price overrides for price list components used on the quote or contract.
It’ll create a copy but with only the items referenced in the Contract Line / Quote Line.

It’ll create a Price Override record in the referenced Price List itself. So, if you open the Price List, you’ll find the Override as below –

Hope this was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Rejection & Recall comments on Time Entries

August 31, 2024 priyeshwagh777 Project Operations customization, Project Operations, time entries

In case you are wondering where are the Rejection Notes in case you need to run reporting on Rejected Time Entries and Approvals – and what you could potentially do with this – this short summary should help.

Rejecting Time Entries Notes

Let’s look at Rejecting the Time Entries Submitted by a Resource –

When you see a Submitted Time Entry. You can choose to Reject a Time Entry.
When you click on Reject, you’ll be asked to enter the Notes.
And then you open the Time Entry record itself, it’ll be in the Notes of the Time Entry record on the Form.

And that’s where it is which you can choose to send it out to the Resource i.e. upon creation of a Note where Regarding is set as Time Entry. But hang on! There’s another type of Notes that gets attached to the Time Entry as well. See next section –

Recalling Submitted Time Entry Notes

Let’s look at Rejecting the Time Entries Submitted by a Resource –

When you have submitted a Time Entry and the same has been Approved, you can choose to Recall it using this button as shown below –
And then you recall a Submitted Time Entry as opposed to recalling a Draft Time Entry, you’ll be asked to enter the Notes/Reason for recalling an Approved Time Entry as below –
And these Notes too go on the Time Entry record itself.

So, the bottom line is – If you want to send out the Notes to different audience based on where the Note came from – do it alongside identifying the field “Entry Status” so that you know if the Note is supposed to be sent to the Approver or the Bookable Resource.

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you

Project Status Update Reports on Projects using Copilot in Project Operations

February 27, 2024 priyeshwagh777 Project Operations ai, copilot, copilot for project operations, power apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, Project Operations, project status update report in project operations

Now that you must have enabled Copilot for Project Operations [If not, you can refer this post to learn how you can enable Copilot for Project Operations – Enable Copilot for Project Operations]

Note: Please note that this is a Preview feature at the time of writing this post and hence, not recommended for Production usage.

Enable Copilot For Project Operations

First, you need to ensure that Copilot is enabled for your Project Operations environment – Enable Copilot for Project Operations

Once this is enabled, you’ll be able to see Copilot on the ribbon button on the Project. Let’s look at the same in the below section.

Project Status Update Report

Now that you have Copilot enabled for Project Operations, you can now create Task Plans for a Project in Project Operations –

When you navigate to a Project, you’ll see Copilot appear on the Ribbon given that you have enabled it for your Project Operations instance.
Once you select Status Report, it’ll give you option to generate either an Internal or an External Report. Then it runs in the background and takes a few minutes till Copilot will gather all the information for you and generate a report.
External Report generated is as below –
Internal Report generated is as below –

Here’s Microsoft’s Full Documentation on how Project Status Update Reports are generated in Project Operations’ Copilot (Preview) – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/release-plan/2023wave1/finance-operations/dynamics365-project-operations/generate-project-status-reports-using-project-manager-copilot?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Risk Assessments on Projects using Copilot in Project Operations

February 27, 2024 priyeshwagh777 Project Operations ai, copilot, copilot for project operations, power apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, Project Operations

Now that you must have enabled Copilot for Project Operations [If not, you can refer this post to learn how you can enable Copilot for Project Operations – Enable Copilot for Project Operations]

Note: Please note that this is a Preview feature at the time of writing this post and hence, not recommended for Production usage.

Enable Copilot For Project Operations

First, you need to ensure that Copilot is enabled for your Project Operations environment – Enable Copilot for Project Operations

Once this is enabled, you’ll be able to see Copilot on the ribbon button on the Project. Let’s look at the same in the below section.

Risk Assessment

Now that you have Copilot enabled for Project Operations, you can now create Task Plans for a Project in Project Operations –

When you navigate to a Project, you’ll see Copilot appear on the Ribbon given that you have enabled it for your Project Operations instance.
Once you select Risk Assessment, it runs in the background and takes a few minutes till Copilot will populate the Risks for you.
Once this is generated in a few moments, it appears in the Risks tab on the Project itself.
Additionally, you are free to use this in reporting as well

Here’s Microsoft’s Full Documentation on how Risk Assessments work in Project Operations’ Copilot (Preview) – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/release-plan/2023wave1/finance-operations/dynamics365-project-operations/assess-issues-risks-project-using-project-manager-copilot?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Setting up Project Operations Lite | Blog Series

January 2, 2024January 8, 2024 priyeshwagh777 Project Operations Dataverse, Dynamics 365, power apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, Project Operations, project operations lite, project operations setup

I felt that I should document steps to setup a Project Operations Lite Trial environment for everyone who’s trying to spin up a Project Operations Instance and trying to get the basic setup done as of January 2024.

Hopefully, this blog series will help you to quickly access and understand the info you need to setup your Project Operations Lite trial environment –

Provisioning a Project Operations Trial

Blog	Description
Starting a Project Operations Lite Trial Environment	Describes how you can provision a new trial for Project Operations Lite and

Setting up Master Data in Project Operations Lite

Blog	Description
Setting Up Default Organizational Unit, Cost and Sales Price List in Project Operations Lite	Find and rename a default Organizational Unit, attach a Cost Price List to the default Org Unit and also create a Sales Price List (Roles, Prices will be added in preceding post)
Resource Roles and adding Role Prices to Cost and Sales Price List in Project Operations	Review and Create Resource Roles, Add Resource Roles to Sales and Cost Price Lists

Billing / Invoicing

Blog	Description
Time and Materials Billing Backlog table in Project Operations	Explains what Time and Materials Billing Backlog table in Dataverse in Project Operations is used for.

Copilot for Project Operations

Blog	Description
Enable Copilot for Project Operations	Enable / Disable Copilot as a feature for Project Operations
Create Project Plan using Copilot in Project Operations	Create a Project Plan for your Project using Copilot based on the Description and other details on the Project record.

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Setting Up Default Organizational Unit, Cost and Sales Price List in Project Operations Lite

January 1, 2024 priyeshwagh777 Project Operations Dataverse, Dynamics 365, organizational units in project operations, power apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, price lists in project operations lite, Project Operations, project operations lite, roles in project operations lite

One of the first things to do when starting a new Project Operations Lite environment is to start setting up organizational data for your environment and in that, setting up Organizational Units, Price Lists and Roles is one of the first things to start setting up –

Let’s see on how you can start the same!

Organizational Unit

One of the first things is to find the Default Org unit for your Project Operations Lite environment –

Ensure that in your Project Operations environment, you are in Project Operations app. On the SiteMap, switch to the Projects area and then, Settings sub-area.
Now, locate Parameters and there should be 1 record in the Parameters which is mapped to the Default Organization Unit. Select the same (click on the clickable Default Organization Unit lookup itself to directly go to the Organizational Unit [or referred to as Contracting Unit in further blogs])
Once in the Org Unit record, update the name to what should be relevant based on your use case.
I’ve renamed this to a more readable name based on my example. Now, it should be easy for you to deal with this Org Unit while referencing further.

Cost Price List in Organizational Unit

Now that the Org Unit is found and renamed correctly, let’s add a Cost Price List first –

In your Org Unit record, click on Add Existing Price List.
Then, click on New Record button upon clicking the Look for records lookup field.
Select Price Lists as the record type and it should be the only option there.
Then, it’ll open the Price List record creation form on the window and you can start filling in the details. Make sure the Context selected is of type Cost.
Also, the Effective Start Date and Effective End Date should be relevant as all calculations will be successful only if the dates to be processed for transactions fall inside the intended Price List dates.

Save and Close the record once completed.
Then the saved record will be shows as selected on the lookup field and you can then click on Add button at the bottom.
Once added, the sub-grid on the Org Unit will take a while to refresh and then show you the tagged Cost Price List correctly.

Now, you have tagged a Cost Price List successfully. Let’s quickly add a Sales Price List.

Sales Price List

Now that you have created and tagged a Cost Price List in the previous section, let’s quickly create a Sales Price List shell so that you have a corresponding Sales Price List to look at as well –

Navigate to the Sales area and then select, Sales sub-area in the Sitemap.
Here, click on the Price Lists table and then click to add a new Price List record.
Note that the Context of the record should be Sales this time since we want to create a Sales Price List. Save & Close once the record looks satisfactory based on your relevant information to fill in.
Now, you can see that the Sales and Cost Price Lists are ready in your environment.

Next Section here will cover adding Resource Roles, and then adding Role Prices to the Sales and Cost Price Lists.

In later parts of this series, we’ll continue to add more to the Price Lists, Roles etc.

Hope this post was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Starting a Project Operations Lite Trial Environment

January 1, 2024 priyeshwagh777 CRM with .NET Web Applications Dataverse, Dynamics 365, power apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, Project Operations, project operations lite, project operations lite trial

One of the first things you want to get done is to spin up a Project Operations Trial environment. Here’s how you do it!
Note that no Credit Card is required for a Project Operations trial environment.

Project Operations Trial Environment

Here’s how you start a Project Operations trial environment –

Navigate to https://trials.dynamics.com/ which will be redirected to https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics-365-free-trial/ and the page you’ll see will be something like this –
Scroll down on the page till you see the option for Project Operations. Click on Try for free.
Once you click on Try for free, you can enter a new email on which you want to start a trial. I’ve come up with a sample email which I haven’t used before. I prefer not to enter an email/username which I already use.
Click Next and then you can select Setup my account.
Then, you can validate/enter the details which would be something like this and click Next.
Then, choose if you want to receive an OTP via Text or a Call. Text is my preferred way so I selected that and clicked on Send verification code.
I received an OTP which I entered as asked on the next pane and clicked Verify.
Further, I’ll be shown the login details of the trial environment I want to create. Once this is done and I save the information, I click on Next.
Then, you’ll be shown the details of the environment you’ll be provisioning. Save this info before proceeding.
Next, click on Start using Dynamics 365 Project Operations (CE) – Preview Trial. It’ll redirect you to the questionnaire page on a new tab where you’ll need to answer the questions before choosing the Deployment Type.

Deployment Type Questionnaire

As we left off from the Step #9 in the above section, you’ll be taken to a questionnaire Wizard in order to provision a Project Operations trial –

Yes to managing Opportunities as they move through the process.
Yes to requiring advance or extensible resource management.
Yes to requirement of workflow for approval of Time and Expense.
No to advanced Expense management.
No to Non-Stocked Materials
No to Stocked materials as well.
Select the version here. Even if you would have answered the questions randomly, you would have still gotten to choose a different version than recommended. Hence, the answers above point to a recommendation of Project Operations Lite type of Deployment.
Click Begin Setup once Lite Deployment is selected.
Setup will start provisioning once you click on Start.
And it’ll take a while and it’ll say that it will redirect you to the Power Platform Admin Center.
And once you are redirected to Power Platform Admin Center and you’ll see that the environment is provisioning. This will take a few minutes before completion.

Set Name and URL for your environment

Provisioning a Project Operations trial will get set a predefined URL and name which you should update to be readable –

Open the environment once the link is clickable and the State is set to Ready.
Then, click on the Edit button
Once you click Edit, you’ll get to update the Name and the URL. Set to something that is relevant to the purpose of the environment.
Once you click on Save, you’ll see this loading page which will take a while to complete and finally, your Project Operations Lite environment setup will be ready!

Here’s Microsoft’s Documentation detailing which all Deployment Types have different Project Operations features available – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/project-operations/environment/determine-deployment-type?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Hope this post was useful!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Difference between Project Operations Deployment Types

January 1, 2024 priyeshwagh777 Project Operations Dataverse, Dynamics 365, power apps, Power Automate, Power Platform, Project Operations, project operations deployment types

Now, as you know that there are the following 3 types of Project Operations Deployments –

Project Operations Lite (Deal to Proforma Invoicing).
Project Operations for resource/non-stocked scenarios.
Project Operations for production/stocked scenarios.

To keep the comparison understandable and simple, let’s review the below in a short summary.

Comparison

Project Operations Lite	Project Operations for Resource/Non-stocked	Project Operations for Production/Stocked
Finance & Operations module is not setup	Finance & Operations setup is required	Finance & Operations Setup is required
No Dual Write Integration	Dual Write Integration is required.	Dual Write Integration is required.
Up to Pro-forma Invoicing is available	Pro-forma Invoicing in PO and Customer-facing Invoicing in F&O	Full Invoicing in F&O
Basic Expense	Basic and Full Expense with Receipt OCR	Full Expense with Receipt OCR

Hope this quick summary was useful. I’ll continue adding more to this article over time.

Here’s official Microsoft Documentation for full deployment guidance with questionnaire –

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/project-operations/environment/determine-deployment-type?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Thank you!

Resolve Project Operation errors | PSS Error Logs

March 27, 2023 priyeshwagh777 Project Operations Project Operations, pss error logs

In case you are new to Project Operations or have recently upgraded from Project Service Automation to Project Operations, and if you are running into some issues, here’s how to identify them

Error

Here’s an example error –

Let’s say you are trying to add Tasks to the Schedule in Project Operations, and you see the below error in a few moments.
Now, if you look at the above error in red, it won’t let you know exactly is the issue. Hence, here’s how you find it. Check the next section.

PSS Error Log

Here’ s how you can get to where the error is –

You can look for the issue in the below section –
Go to Settings in the Project Operations App.
Then, go to the PSS error logs and you’ll find an entry there.
And once you open it up, you’ll find the issue there. There could be different issues based on what operations you are trying to perform in Project Operations.

Now, based on your knowledge of Error Resolution in Dynamics 365 CRM application, you can work towards solving your errors.

Hope this helps!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Background Processing Flow for Approvals in Project Operations

October 28, 2022 priyeshwagh777 Project Operations approval set in project operations, background processing flow for approvals, Project Operations

If you have newly provisioned a Project Operations instance and if you’ve come across the below error message –

The error message says, “The background processing cloud flow is inactive. Approvals will be processed while you wait. Please report this to your administrator to enable background processing.“

Background Flow for Approvals

Here’s what it means when you see the above notification –

You can go to the Power Automate portal (https://make.powerautomate.com/) and then navigate to the Environment on which Project Operations is installed on.
If you go to My Flows, you’ll see this Flow with the title “Project Service – Recurrently Schedule Project Approval Sets“
You just need to turn this Flow on.
This Flow comes from the Project Operations Solution in your environment.
And you’ll see the same Flow here as well. And you’ll notice that it will be Off by default if you are in a newly provisioned environment.
Once this is turned on, you won’t see the notification in Approvals.

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

Project Parameters for Price Lists Defaults

Default Behavior

For Direct Project Contract Creation

For Project Contract Created from Quote

Custom Pricing Options

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Rejecting Time Entries Notes

Recalling Submitted Time Entry Notes

So, the bottom line is – If you want to send out the Notes to different audience based on where the Note came from – do it alongside identifying the field “Entry Status” so that you know if the Note is supposed to be sent to the Approver or the Bookable Resource.

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Enable Copilot For Project Operations

Project Status Update Report

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Enable Copilot For Project Operations

Risk Assessment

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Provisioning a Project Operations Trial

Setting up Master Data in Project Operations Lite

Billing / Invoicing

Copilot for Project Operations

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Organizational Unit

Cost Price List in Organizational Unit

Sales Price List

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Project Operations Trial Environment

Deployment Type Questionnaire

Set Name and URL for your environment

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Comparison

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Error

PSS Error Log

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Background Flow for Approvals

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