Nishant Rana's Weblog

Overcoming unprecedented business challenges with Microsoft Dynamics 365

In such unpredictable and challenging times, organizations must make sure they’re getting maximum value and efficiency from their Microsoft Dynamics 365 investment.

Through this blog and social media, I’m passionate about sharing my knowledge and helping other Dynamics users get the most out of the platform. That’s why I was excited to contribute to Nigel Frank International’s new white paper Overcoming your business challenges with Microsoft Dynamics.

To help Dynamics customers navigate these unprecedented waters, 16 Microsoft Dynamics 365 professionals and experts shared their thoughts on topics such as cutting costs, ensuring business continuity, data security in Dynamics, growing at scale, and how to make the most of remote working.

The result is over 65 pages of practical advice and actionable tips to help users of all Dynamics apps are fully utilizing their CRM or ERP and taking advantage of its functionality, scalability, and flexible nature to ensure the continued success of their operations.

With more people than ever working from home or on personal devices, I believe the advice on data security is particularly relevant today. In this section of the white paper, Dynamics 365 experts address the new and increased security risks that can arise as growing numbers of Dynamics users access the platform remotely. You’ll find many tips and tricks on how to safeguard your Dynamics data, tools to use to step up your security levels, and how to equip users to work safely in the face of this new normal.

You can download the white paper here—I really hope you find it useful!

How to -Provision Omnichannel for Dynamics 365 Customer Service

For one of our projects we are exploring capabilities of Omnichannel.

Below are the steps for provisioning the Omnichannel for Dynamics 365 Customer Service for quick reference.

Posts on Omnichannel for Customer Service (Dynamics 365)

First, we need to make sure we have the Customer Service Hub already installed.

https://trials.dynamics.com/

Next, we need to have an active subscription of Chat for Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Dynamics 365 Digital Messaging

The other options

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/omnichannel/try-channels

Navigate to Microsoft 365 Admin Center

https://admin.microsoft.com/

Select Purchase services
à
Add-ons

Select Dynamics 365 Customer Service Digital Messaging Add-on trial.

And also assign the add-on license to the users who need to work with Omnichannel Service.

We’d be presented with the below message.

Login to Dynamics 365 Administration Center and navigate to Applications Tab and click on manage for Omnichannel for Customer Service.

https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/environments

This opens the Manage environment page for Omnichannel.

Click on Add Environment to add the environment.

Here we can select the environment to which we want omnichannel solutions to be configured.

Click on next and we can then add chat as one of the channels.

Click on Next to similarly setup SMS, Social, and Microsoft Teams as the channels.

Click on Finish to start the installation.

It will show the status as Installed after some time. (took around 1 and half hour in our case)

To manage the channels or delete the omnichannel we can use the same Manage option for Omnichannel for Customer Service in the Applications tab within Dynamics 365 Admin Center.

We can use the Delete button to remove the Omnichannel configuration à

We’d also see the Omnichannel Administration and Omnichannel for Customer Service apps in the list of Dynamics 365 Apps.

Get all the details here

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/omnichannel/administrator/omnichannel-provision-license

Hope it helps..

Setting up default authentication provider in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portals using identity provider configuration UI

Debajit's Dynamic CRM Blog

In this blog, I will set-up the default portal authentication provider using the new PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portal identity provider configuration UI. If you are not aware of the preview feature, please visit the previous blog to know more about this new preview feature.

So below is the identity provider screen.

And by default, Azure Active directory and Local sign in is enabled. Say we want to enable Azure Active Directory as the default authentication. Before this UI, came into effect we needed to create some site setting configurations to do the same. But now it’s quite easy. All we need to do is click the three dots in Azure Active Directory and mark it as default

You will get a confirmation box. Just click OK.

Once done, you will see a tick in pink with the associated provider which basically means it is the default provider.

What exactly happened…

View original post 136 more words

Multi-Currency in Dynamics 365

Multi-currency was introduced in the product with version 4.0

Thought of just revisiting it as we were recently having certain requirements around it.

Below are few points for quick reference (Nothing new, as most of the things remains the same with Multi-currency in the product) à

There can only be one Base currency that can be defined while setting up the organization or the instance. The base currency cannot be updated.
To define additional currency, navigate to Settings à Business Management

By default, we can see 18 currencies defined.

We can create additional currencies either system or custom.

For system currency, we can select any of the existing currency code.

If we do not find our currency in the system, we can define Custom Currency

Through Set Personal Options, the user can specify default currency

The default currency will be set as the currency for the user while creating a record as shown below.

The base amount is calculated after the record is saved.

The calcuation considers the Exchange Rate defined in the Currency record.

Exchange Rates are not updated automatically. We should have some mechanism in place to update the exchange rate.
The base amount is re-calculated if the money field in the record is updated or state of the record is changed.

E.g. we have updated the exchange rate to 25.

The record still shows the old base value.

Here updating any of the currency fields will trigger the recalculation.

Below we have updated the value for the Actual Revenue field and saved the record which triggered the calculation for the base fields using the new exchange rate defined.

We can write a console application or SSIS packages that will update the money field of the existing records, whenever the exchange rate is updated to trigger the recalculation of the base currency field if needed.
Create a new currency field for an entity will create a corresponding base currency field. It will also create Currency and Exchange rate field if this is the first currency field created for the entity. Any subsequent new currency field created will not create the currency and exchange rate field.

Updating the status of the record will also update the base currency as shown below.

Below are some of the helpful articles with regards to currency and exchange rate in Dynamics 365.

Using Power Automate to update the exchange rate

https://2die4it.com/2018/10/01/schedule-update-of-currency-exchange-rates-in-dynamics-365-ce-with-flow/

https://alphabold.com/dynamics-365-update-currency-exchange-rates-using-power-automate/

https://www.dxrms.com/blogs/d365blog/2019-11-07-schedule-dynamics-365-currency-rate-updates-using/

Exchange Rate Control in PCF Gallery

https://pcf.gallery/exchange-rate-control/

Update exchange rate through a Console app

https://blog.crgroup.com/keeping-the-exchange-rates-of-currencies-in-dynamics-crm-up-to-date/

Through XrmToolBox plugin

https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/plugins/CRMGG.ExchangeRates/

Using workflow and dialog (deprecated)

https://alphabold.com/update-opportunities-based-on-exchange-rate/

Hope it helps..

Few points to consider -Status Reason transitions in Dynamics 365

We can specify Status Reason Transitions for Case as well as custom entities. Using the status reason dialog box, we can define (filter) which values are available to be set as next status reason.

Let us take a scenario where we have the following values defined for Status Reason for Active State in a custom entity named Test Entity.

Just to keep it simple we have a just on transition defined i.e. from A1 we can only select A2.

So now when a user creates the Test entity record with A1, the only other option user can select is A2.

Now let us try updating it through backend and set value as A3 for the same record with value A1 as status reason. (Here we have used SQL 4 CDS plugin)

Well, it updates the record with value A3 and doesn’t throw any error.

This would make us think that it only works from the client side and will not work from the server side.

Let us now create a workflow to update the value to A3.

Let us update the subject of the record to trigger the workflow for the below record.

Interestingly we get the error and are not able to set it to A3 as expected.

That was with the real-time workflow, for the asynchronous workflow also we get the error.

Let us give it one more try and update it through service.

Through the service call, we can update it.

So basically, the State transition rules will work as expected from user interface and workflows, however, through service we are still able to override it, which we need to be aware of before using this feature.

Hope it helps..

Sample Decision Matrix Template for Single vs Multi Instance – Dynamics 365

Deciding on a single instance or multi instance is a difficult process, specially for an Enterprise Customer, as each has its own share of pros and cons.

Sharing a sample decision matrix that could help us to decide on single versus multi-instance.

Download it here –

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uRRZHyPjEo8QoD-OGaJqmyc5QLBf8mNB/view?usp=sharing