System updates are crucial for keeping systems secure, functional, and up to date with the latest technology advancements and user needs. They are typically provided by software developers, manufacturers, or service providers, and users are often encouraged or required to apply them regularly. System updates are essential for several reasons: One famous story of a catastrophic incident caused by a failure to update a system is the Equifax Data Breach of 2017. Here’s what happened: The Incident: In 2017, Equifax, one of the largest credit reporting agencies in the U.S., suffered a massive data breach that exposed the personal information of over 147 million people. The data leaked included sensitive details like Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and in some cases, credit card information. Cause: The breach occurred because Equifax had failed to apply a critical security patch to a known vulnerability in Apache Struts, an open-source web application framework used in one of their online portals. The vulnerability had been identified and a patch was made available in March 2017, but Equifax did not apply the patch in time, leaving the system exposed. Hackers exploited this known vulnerability in May 2017, and over the next few months, they accessed Equifax’s systems and stole massive amounts of personal data. It wasn’t until July 2017 that the breach was detected, and Equifax publicly disclosed the breach in September 2017. Impact: The consequences were severe: Lesson: This breach became a stark example of why system updates and security patches are critical. A failure to update systems, even with known vulnerabilities, can lead to disastrous consequences, including financial loss, reputational damage, and exposure of sensitive information. Microsoft Dynamics 365, which includes Finance and Operations, has around 500,000 users worldwide as of 2024.With four service updates released each year and roughly one quality update each month, it is crucial for organizations to stay current with the latest features and security enhancements to ensure optimal performance and protection. I am confident that this article will highlight the importance of system maintenance and upkeep. References Details Proactive Quality Updates (PQUs) are automatic updates that bring important bug fixes and new features quickly, without interrupting your work.Delivered through Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS), PQUs are applied in the background, so businesses hardly notice them. Benefits of PQUs Why PQUs Cause Little Disruption If a serious issue (like downtime or slow performance) happens during a PQU, Microsoft will pause the update and work with customers to fix it. If only one customer is affected, they can open a support ticket to stop the update for their environment. When Might PQUs Be Skipped? PQUs cannot be undone once applied. However, Microsoft can turn off specific changes if needed. Service updates are regular system improvements that give you new features without needing major upgrades.They contain both application changes and platform changes that are critical to the service, including regulatory updates.These updates are backward-compatible, meaning your custom code will still work.Microsoft suggests using the Regression Suite Automation Tool (RSAT) to test updates and make sure nothing breaks. How to Manage Service Updates: Four service updates are released by Microsoft annually in February, April, July, and October.You’re required to take at least two updates per year but can take up to four.You can also pause one update at a time for either your sandbox or production environment. Pre-Servicing: For service updates, the preservicing step starts when the update process begins.During this time, Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) shows the environment as Preservicing.This means the environment is online and accessible, but no other service actions can be performed.In this step, the system checks for specific errors that could cause the servicing process to fail.If any errors are found, a soft rollback occurs, which means the system goes back to its previous state without a point-in-time recovery (PITR).To resolve the issues, you can check the environment’s history logs for the errors and make necessary fixes before trying to update again. Post-Servicing: During the post-processing step after offline servicing is complete, the environment status in LCS is marked as Post-servicing.This means that any index creation or changes that couldn’t be done during offline servicing will now occur while the system is online.Users can still access the environment and continue their regular activities, but performance might be slower due to the updates being applied. However, users will not be able to cancel existing service requests or start new ones during this time. Notifications: You will receive several notifications about Microsoft Dynamics updates: Conclusion By keeping your system up to date with these automatic updates, you’ll enjoy new features, regulatory improvements, and better performance—all without the hassle of big upgrades. If all this feels overwhelming, feel free to reach out so we can help you getting this set up and manage it for you! Taking action now will lead to better user experience, minimal disruption in service and smoother operations for your business. 

Introduction: With the latest update of Power BI, you can now ask top-n type questions and get answers based on your dataset. Questions like ‘What are the top 3 products by sales?’ or ‘Top Manufacturer by country’ are examples. This is also valid for bottom-n type questions like ‘Least selling product in a country’. Steps: 1. Go to your PowerBI Workspace and select your report. 2. Click on the ‘Edit’ button. 3. Select ‘Ask a question’. 4. Type in your question and the visualization will form with the answer based on your dataset. 5. Make changes to your Axis, Legend and Value fields if required. Conclusion: This feature enables the User to obtain important information from the dataset quickly and easily using natural language thereby enhancing the capability of Power BI to provide self-serving business intelligence.