Introduction: Are you one of those traditional company who has been reeling under the burden of undergoing digital transformation just because there is enough buzz around and every other organization including your competitors are taking on their operational, human and several other business challenges head-ons with this digital transformation thing? You have no idea of where to begin with? Then this article is just for you. I am going ahead and listing down THREE factors you MUST consider even before riding your company through the much-hyped Digital Transformation process. Data Magic!! Leverage Your Data First! Nothing beats customer data when it comes to gaining critical insight into how to execute a digital transformation program. This depends on factors like the volume of data, the volume of business transactions and the daily operations, and how they have been able to dive deeper into a prospective customers’ specific demographic’s needs and wants, understand everything about their expectations, and then being able to target them effectively is the best way to begin a digital transformation initiative. Recent McKinsey research concluded that the executive teams that make extensive use of customer data analytics across all business decisions see a 126% profit improvement over companies that don’t. What types of data metrics come into play? Data metrics vary from one company to other. For example, in the case of retail industry, factors such as demographics, products purchased by category and type, the frequency of purchase and purchase value can really prove to be a great head-start. In this case, your technology consulting partner should provide a right consultation. In modern technological jargon, a business intelligence tool such as Microsoft Power BI would act as a catalyst in terms of accumulating data, grinding it and giving a critical insight into it which can fuel your business decision making. Its Desktop, but then Its Mobile too!! Today, customers and employees across the globe expect the flexibility of mobile (or portable device) platforms whenever they are engaging with brands. They expect the ability to access the responsive microsites, apps, or SMS, and to be constantly engaged and kept in the loop. Hence, to verify that a digital strategy is mobile-first, to avoid alienating modern platform users. Today, the digital platforms from Microsoft like Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement have availed separate apps for Field Service, customer service, sales and several other tasks which can be easily done when you are on the go. With just one download from the app stores, you’ll automatically gain access to all apps. Consult, Revamp Your Existing Platforms NOW! Digital Transformation programs thrive on the understanding of the company, industry, right audience and the need to increase their profitability. Then it may be by slicing human intervention costs or by increasing operational efficiencies.  In some cases, it is both.  Here, I am stressing a fact that a right customized solution is essential to drive the business decision making. For small and medium enterprise, it takes a great deal to undergo a digital transformation especially when there might be a profound investment involved. A minor rejig may also make a huge difference. For instance, in my experience, there is a company called as Eternity Lifestyles, which is a pioneer in the Indian sports eyewear industry. This company consulted its new solution partner to overview the existing systems and restructure it with an objective to reduce the overall operations cost. The result was such that they registered an 80% of the reduction in the existing systems’ licensing costs. Read the whole success story here. Another example, I would suggest is of a South Asian sporting goods retail company ‘House of Sonee Sports’, who underwent a huge digital transformation and registered a 22% ROI within just few months of the deployment of the new business platforms. You can check out more about how it went through this process in a simple way and ensured a successful future journey here.

Introduction In the blog we are going to see how to add Insights based News related to Companies/People on the Dashboards in Dynamics CRM Pre Requisites Insight, powered by InsideView Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Implementation Step 1: First we go the dashboard we want to customize and we add a web resource with the following details Web Resource: iv_/webpages/insights_dashboard.htm Name: WebResource_WebResource_insightdashboard Label: Insights Dashboard Also don’t forget to keep “Visible by default” as “Checked” Step 2: Now when we see the dashboards we will be able to see Insights news related to Companies/People Step 3: Additionally we could also add Companies/People to the watch list and we will be able to see news related to them on the dashboard by switching to the specific Watchlist Hope this helped!

Introduction: In my personal experience over the years, whenever I dealt with business owners, directors, and CTOs in the technology conferences and events, I come across many of them who always hold some misbeliefs about the Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP system. This persuaded me to pick and share some experiences and demystify topmost 3 myths regarding ERPs in this blog. Myth #1: Ah! ERP is expensive! The primary concern for any company prior to implementing ERP is its cost. But contrary to the belief, there are tons of other ERP solutions available in the market which are affordable. This sounds like a paradox, however; low-cost ERP system brings along the same impact to the firm as compared to high-cost ERPs. Many enterprises here fail to realize that choosing a right ERP partner is as much as important as selecting an ERP. Firstly, there are thousands of ERP software providers who may offer variable packages depending on the usage. Different ERP modules are used as per the different needs and requirements.  For example, few ERP software as a SAAS solution or Cloud solution reduces the entire cost of acquiring a whole new ERP for your business. Several factors like below contribute to the cost of an ERP. 1. ERP Development cost 2. ERP Implementation or customization cost 3. Cost of Licensing and finally, 4. Annual Maintenance cost The above costs can be drastically reduced by essentially considering planning and methodology which will result in optimizing the resources working with the ERP implementation. Here a choosing a right consulting partner would guide you perfectly into selecting a right ERP as per your business needs. Myth #2: ERP is not my cup of tea! It’s for Big Businesses! Although ERP systems are typically well known in the big enterprise domain, there are plethora of small and medium enterprises across the globe who are actually leveraging ERP system.  This is solely dependent on the variations of the ERP system that you choose to deploy. While it was a case a few years ago, that the ERP systems are more applicable to larger firms, it’s not applicable today given the similarity in the nature and scalability of operations. Today the world and market place is growing at a pace and to gain competitive edge, several small and medium organizations are making use of the latest technologies. To deal with those large organization, small and medium enterprises need to have a digital technology that can help them overcome problems faced during daily operations. For example, in a country like India, there is a diverse base of SMEs which need to benefit from the technology. The best example here can be of a company called ‘FarmLink’, which is backed by Swiss company called Pioneering Ventures. It is impressive to see how this agro startup focused on modernizing and transforming the supply chains across the Indian geographical region. Their key challenges were related to the handling of Supply chain operations, Inventory and vendor management, Provide them reports and easy to use dashboard. Post deploying a suitable ERP system, their entire operations was automated from inventory management to vendor management, generation of deep and critical insights due to reports and dashboards enabled them to execute faster and accurate decision making. The software was also implemented with an easy-to-use smartphone interface for the sales team. Hence it is just a myth that ERP software is only for big businesses and not for small and medium enterprises. Myth #3: ERP? Oh no! It’s too complicated! Many business owners, managers, and high-level executives have this fear in the mind that the ERP deployment might change the course of their regular tasks and disrupt the whole rhythm of the everyday operations. However, this is just not the case! An ERP is an enterprise, resource, and planning technology. It is developed with the fact in mind that numerous companies should be able to implement them easily and commence its operations flawlessly. The complexity of the ERP depends on range of factors such as the number of users, the degree of customization, size of business etc. Although its successful implementation requires a commitment from the system users, right training from an ERP provider is essential to ensure its smooth running. Hope the above myths are now eliminated and I would be happy to respond to any of your queries.

Introduction: This blog explains how to Create an Email activity in MS CRM through WebApi Request: Post URL:  <your instance url>/api/data/v9.1/emails Header: Content-Type: application/json Prefer: return=representation Body: 1. Creating Email with resolved emails (To field of email is record in MS CRM). { “description” : “Email Created”, ///Email Body “regardingobjectid_account@odata.bind” : “/accounts(69C38067-EDB7-E811-A961-000D3A363C81)”, “subject” : “Test Email Creation”, “email_activity_parties” : [ { “partyid_systemuser@odata.bind” : “/systemusers(CED2E02D-188E-4AA8-B6E2-D746E9B370C1)”, “participationtypemask” : 1 ///From Email }, { “partyid_account@odata.bind” : “/accounts(69C38067-EDB7-E811-A961-000D3A363C81)”, “participationtypemask” : 2 ///To Email }] } 2. Creating Email with unresolved emails (To field of email is not record in MS CRM). { “description” : “Email Created”, “regardingobjectid_account@odata.bind” : “/accounts(69C38067-EDB7-E811-A961-000D3A363C81)”, “subject” : “Test Email Creation”, “email_activity_parties” : [ { “partyid_systemuser@odata.bind” : “/systemusers(CED2E02D-188E-4AA8-B6E2-D746E9B370C1)”, “participationtypemask” : 1 }, { “addressused”:”vvyas@cloudfronts.com”, “participationtypemask” : 2 } ] } 3. Creating Email with multiple unresolved emails (To field of email is not record in MS CRM). { “description”: “Test Email”, “regardingobjectid_account@odata.bind”: “/accounts(69C38067-EDB7-E811-A961-000D3A363C81)”, “subject”: “Update Your Phone Number”, “email_activity_parties”: [ { “partyid_systemuser@odata.bind”: “/systemusers(CED2E02D-188E-4AA8-B6E2-D746E9B370C1)”, “participationtypemask”: 1 }, { “addressused”:” vvyas@cloudfronts.com”, “participationtypemask”: 2 }, { “addressused”:” smahato @cloudfronts.com”, “participationtypemask”: 2 } ] }

Introduction: Managers and employees need a good time entry application to record worked hours for billing, payroll, or operations. That information is used to automate payroll, invoice clients, and keep a business operating efficiently. While there are many good off the shelf time entry applications, the pre-built time entry capabilities of the model-driven approach in PowerApps provides a no-code or low-code component-based approach to facilitate the development of such an application development atop the Common Data. Model-driven apps run with the new Unified Interface client, which provides a responsive and accessible design running in browsers and on popular mobile devices.  This app type composes multiple component types including dashboards, forms, views, charts, and business processes which together form a great UI. In this article we will explore the steps to set up your own time entry application in PowerApps using the existing Time Entry entity. Steps  Select the environment you want or go to the PowerApps admin center to create a new one. Go to solutions, click on the “+ New Solution” button and enter the required details for creating a new solution and then click on “Create” option. In the solution, click on “New” and go to “App” and select “Model Driven Apps“. Enter the app name, description, image and the link to access the app designer. Add components to the app: Select the “Open the Site Map Designer”arrow to open the sitemap designer. On the sitemap designer select the new subarea and in the right pane select the properties tab. Then select the following properties: Type: Entity Entity: Time Entry On the app designer canvas select “Forms”, and then on the right pane under the Main Forms group select the “Time Entry Form”. On the app designer canvas select “Views”, and then select “My Time Entries By Date”. On the app designer toolbar, select “Save“. The App can now be validated to check for any error. The time entry entity is dependent on many other entities which will be shown as dependencies to be added during the validation process. All these entities need to be added so as to indicate all the resources, projects, tasks for each project and ensure they are shown properly. Now save and publish the application and you can directly execute the app from the app designer itself, by clicking on the “Play” button. Working with the new app: To work with your new time entry app, download the on your mobile device and login with the credentials into the time entry application as shown below. You can enter a new time entry by clicking on the “New” button, which can be accessed within the menu area. A message box is displayed and the status of the time entry changes to submitted. An existing time entry can be recalled for modification using the “Recall” button icon and a message box is displayed and the status of time entry changes to draft. For time entries such as absence or vacation, manager approval is required. Thus, when you type in absence or vacation it is mandatory to enter the manager name and an approval request is sent to the manager. When the manager name is included, the time entry is submitted and the approval request goes to the manager, who can either approve or reject the request. The status of the time entry changes to approved, when the manager completes the approval process. All the respective time entries managed via your Time Entry app are reflected in the Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation first-party app if it is in use. To share the model-driven application among multiple users, go to the solution and on the app select the share option. Conclusion Pros for model-driven PowerApps: The model-driven application approach for building PowerApps is much simpler as compared to the canvas apps. Model-driven apps can be from the Dynamics 365 first-party applications, which also makes it easy to use. It is helpful in creating your own data source from scratch, using the Common Data Service as the foundation. The Unified Client Interface means your app will look the same whether it is being viewed on a phone, tablet or desktop. Cons of model-driven PowerApps: The model-driven approach does not have a flexible interface, thus in such cases where we need to customize, the canvas PowerApps approach is recommended. It does not provide flexibility with development of functions and controls. There are still problems to solve with the time entry app described in this article. In particular, the time entry has a field date of the data type Date-Time which is set to the UTC time zone, thereby resulting in time entries based on UTC time zone. The solution to the above problem is as follows: Set the field as time zone independent. The change is permanent. Enter the time along with the date so as to get the entries on their proper day.

Most new users get stuck with issues saying ‘Email address of the recipient was not resolved’. Like in case you want to send out an email from D365 but you don’t have the same saved in the system as a Contact/Lead or any other record. And it resulted in this the big red cross like the one below – There’s a simple setting for this in Settings > Administration > System Settings, under Email tab. You can simply flip the switch on ‘Allow messages with unresolved email recipients to be sent’ to Yes. And, now simply enter the Email address in the Recipient (To) field and let the email go! Hope this quick tip was helpful!

Introduction: One of the most common blunders often made in Data Import are importing whole lot of records without finalizing. And when you import, you realize you needed to add something more to the Import or some things were pending in the Excel file and you ended up uploading them all! Delete Imported Records: Assuming your Import was successful and you want to now just revert what all was imported, navigate to Settings > Data Management > Imports. Open the Import job and look for the option under Delete which says ‘All Records Imported to This Entity During This Import’ And the button label is self-explanatory. Once you click on it, a Delete Job is triggered once you fill in the below information And once you click OK, a Delete Job will run in the background to delete the data that was imported. Navigate to Settings > Data Management > Bulk Record Deletion and open the Delete Job that you started in Step #3 above – Also, if you selected ‘In addition to deleting imported records, delete import job history’, the Import Job record will also be deleted. So, it will be No. of records imported + 1.

Introduction: While migrating Cases, the migration of activities of type ‘Case Resolution’ is necessary. However, the complexity in migrating this increases due to the fact that when the status of a case is updated, a blank case resolution activity is created automatically by the system. This system-generated case resolution needs to be deleted as this would result in each case having two case resolution activities after migration – one system-generated and one with the correct migrated data from the source. Solution: To tackle this issue, one must follow the following steps during migration: 1. Send all Cases (no matter what the status in the source environment) to the target with their status as ‘Open’. 2. Send all related activities to the target environment. 3. Update the case status in the target environment to its status as in the source environment. 4. For cases with status ‘Resolved’, a system-generated case resolution activity will be created. 5. In your case resolution migration map, first add a step to delete the existing case resolution in the target and then insert the case resolution from the source environment. 6. Now your case with status ‘Resolved’ will have only one case resolution and that will be the one migrated from the source environment with the correct data. Conclusion: Above steps shed some light on how to preserve the integrity of case resolution activity data in your target environment during data migration.

Introduction: In this blog we will see how to filter customer type field in Dynamics 365 to only show Accounts/Contacts dropdown. Implementation: Step 1: For demonstration purpose we will filter to only show Accounts. In the below image we can see that we have  a Customer type field which allows to choose from Contacts as well as Accounts. Note: Here accounts are called as Companies. Step 2: To display only Companies in the dropdown we register an event on Form Load. Here we are working on the Contacts form, hence we first write a JavaScript code to filter the lookup to show only companies. Below shown in the code: Code: var oContactFormCustomization = { setCustomerLookupToShowCompany: function (execContext) { var formContext = execContext.getFormContext(); if (formContext.getControl(“parentcustomerid”)) { var company = formContext.getControl(‘parentcustomerid’); if (company.getEntityTypes().length > 1) { company.setEntityTypes([‘account’]); } } }}; We add this script in CRM JS Web resource and add the library on the Contact form Properties Below shown is the Handler Properties Once this is done we can see when the form loads the scripts executes and we can now view only the Companies and not the Contacts Hope this helped!

I would like to share a consideration I take while designing Teams that you might need to make certain records shareable. I faced an issue once when users started to use Default Teams created on Business Units. And after several months, it occurred that some users from other Business Units too needed to be on that Team. And several records were already assigned to BU provided Default Teams. Scenario Priyesh belongs to Southeast Asia BU and Somesh belongs to North America BU. Some records were assigned to North America team which is the Default Team created by BU. Priyesh wanted to be in the North America team and hence the user tried to add him in that Team. So adding North America to Teams under the user Priyesh, but I get the below error – That is because you cannot add Default Teams to users in some other BUs. As a workaround, I only created a new Team and named it “<BU Name> – Shareable” team and assigned records to this team so that I know where I want the records to be visible as per my Security Roles setup. And hence, added the North America – Shared team for Priyesh. I would also like to hear your suggestions and any workarounds you may have. Thanks! 😊