Tag: Microsoft Dynamics 365

How to – Use Advanced lookup in Model-driven Power Apps / Dynamics 365


To enabled Advanced Lookup, log into to Power Platform Admin Center, navigate to

Environment >> [Select Environment] >> Settings >> Behavior

Enable the Lookup behavior and Save.

This adds the Advanced Lookup option in the Lookup dialog.


Clicking on it opens the Advanced Lookup Grid 


We can perform SEARCH within a selected View, CHANGE a view, can FILTER it the results further to show only records owned, ADD a new record, SORT the grid.


The best part is we can open/edit an existing record as well as add new ones without losing the existing context.

Opening an existing record from the result opens the record in the new pop-up window as shown below.

Similarly, the Add new option opens the Quick Create form.

In case of special data type like Party List or Regarding, we can select multiple records of different entities we are presented with.

Similar the option to Add new records list all the tables/entities applicable to that lookup.

Thus the new advanced lookup makes working with Lookup much simpler and effective and we should start adapting / using it.

Blog posts on 2021 Release Wave 1 – Dynamics 365

Hope it helps..

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How to setup – Azure Synapse Link – Microsoft Dataverse


Azure Synapse Link (earlier known as Export to Data Lake Service) provides seamless integration of DataVerse with Azure Synapse Analytics, thus making it easy for users to do ad-hoc analysis using the familiar T-SQL with Synapse Studio, build Power BI Reports using Azure Synapse Analytics Connector or use Azure Spark in Azure Synapse for analytics.

Posts on Azure Data Lake

As a first step, we need to create the Azure Synapse Workspace.

Login to Azure Portal (https://portal.azure.com/ ) with appropriate roles and create a Synapse workspace.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/synapse-analytics/get-started-create-workspace

Wait for the deployment to be complete. Below are the resources created as part of the deployment.

Login to the maker portal (https://make.powerapps.com/ ) and select the appropriate environment

Click on Azure Synapse Link and check the Connect to your Azure Synapse Analytics workspace (preview) and specify the storage account created in the previous step

Here we have selected the Contact and System User table for export.

On clicking Save, we got this error couple of times, even though the account being used was Owner across the Azure resources. Trying save 3-4 times more, allowed the link to be created.

Click on Go to Azure Synapse Analytics workspace, opens the Azure Synapse Studio

Within Synapse Studio we can see our Dataverse Database and run query.

Similarly, we create a Power BI report with Azure Synapse Analytics (SQL DW) connector.

Copy the Serverless SQL endpoint of the Synapse workspace.

Select the Direct Query option.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/blog/power-your-business-applications-data-with-analytical-and-predictive-insights/

Hope it helps..

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How to – improve data migration performance – SSIS & Azure Data Factory (Dataverse / Dynamics 365)


In one of our projects, we were executing SSIS Packages (KingswaySoft’s Dynamics 365 SSIS Integration Toolkit) under Azure-SSIS Integration Runtime in Azure Data Factory.

Check out –

Deploy and run SSIS Package in Azure Data Factory

Deploy and run SSIS Packages that use KingswaySoft’s SSIS Integration Toolkit on Azure Data Factory.

After trying out different combinations, we eventually settled with batch size as 10 and thread as 15.

https://nishantrana.me/2021/06/08/data-migration-optimum-batch-size-and-threads-for-maximum-throughput-microsoft-dataverse-dynamics-365/

Also, we used multiplexing – running the CRM Destination Component under different application users.

To be precise, 4 in our case and we can increase it get further  improvement in the throughput.

And also based on the recommendation of our Microsoft’s Fast Track Architect we raised a Microsoft ticket to increase the number of web servers allocated from 2 to 3.

Below were our findings,

the earlier run was using batch size as 100 and thread as 20 with the number of servers as 2.

On updating the batch size to 10 and thread as 15 and with the number of servers allocated increased to 3, there was a huge performance gain.

Check the table below – 

The above table is sample run in the sandbox environment, during the final run in production we got the number of servers allocated, increased to 6, gaining further improvement.

Also, check out the below blog post to understand about the affinity cookie and its affect on performance, in case if we doing migration using custom code –

https://markcarrington.dev/2021/05/26/improving-bulk-dataverse-performance-with-enableaffinitycookie/

Hope it helps..

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Modern Model App designer (preview) – Dataverse (Dynamics 365)


A new Model App designer (preview) was added to the platform recently.

It follows a page-based authoring approach and resembles the new UCI.

Within the Maker Portal, while create an new Model-Driven App, we can select Modern App designer (preview)

Provide the name and description to the app and click Create.

Click on Play to see how the default app looks like

Now let us add the lead and contact entity and some dashboards to it.

Click on New Page

Select Table based view and form. The other option is Dashboard.

Search and select Lead and Contact and leave it checked – Show in navigation option

This adds the form(s) and view(s) for the table selected.


We can click on form and view and can either let all the forms and views selected by default or can specify specific views and forms.

“No forms have been explicitly selected. All forms will be available by default.”

Similarly, we can add a Dashboard

Here we have selected 2 dashboards and kept the option – Show in navigation checked.

We can update the title of the Dashboards added.

From the navigation menu, we can arrange the components added -i.e. move them up and down and as well remove them.

We can also add new Group and also the Subarea of type either Table or Dashboard.


Save and Publish the change and click on Play.

Our App is ready.

Similarly, we can edit an existing App in the new preview designer.

We can also Switch to classic 

Our Classic App Designer à

Lastly, the Data section in the new designer allows us to edit our entity/ table.

DataSection

Hope it helps..

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Data Migration – Optimum batch size and threads for maximum throughput – Microsoft Dataverse (Dynamics 365)


For one of our projects, we were trying to figure out the optimum batch size and threads while using the CDS/CRM Destination component of KingswaySoft.

https://www.kingswaysoft.com/products/ssis-integration-toolkit-for-microsoft-dynamics-365/help-manual/crm/destination

Now with Service Protection API limits in place, to get the maximum throughput the first point to consider is User Multiplexing.

Nicely explained here à

https://powerplatform.se/fast-data-management-in-a-limited-cds-world/

We are using the Conditional Split component to divide the load among the different CDS Destination Components which are running under different application users (using different CDS Connection Manager)

In the below data flow, we have 5 different CDS Destination components, each using a different Connection Manager configured using different users.

Here we took 50000 records as a sample for Contact – Create operation with 3 and 5
CDS Destination Component.

Below were our findings à

As suggested in the article, batch size as 10 and thread as 16 seem to give the best performance.

The trick is here to use as many threads as possible running under different users.

The CDS Destination component of KingswaySoft handles the server-side throttling automatically, it will follow the instruction and wait before trying again the same request.

On trying with 500 as the batch size, we got the error.

[Dynamics CRM Destination [18]] Error: An error occurred with the following error message: KingswaySoft.IntegrationToolkit.DynamicsCrm.CrmServiceException: CRM service call returned an error: The operation has timed out (Error Type / Reason: Timeout, Detailed Message: The operation has timed out) (SSIS Integration Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics 365, v20.2.0.3083 – DtsDebugHost, 15.0.2000.128)KingswaySoft.IntegrationToolkit.DynamicsCrm.WebAPI.WebApiServiceException : The operation has timed out (Error Type / Reason: Timeout, Detailed Message: The operation has timed out)System.Net.WebException (Status Reason: Timeout): The operation has timed out”.

So basically try out the different combinations to get the maximum throughput.

Also check à

https://www.kingswaysoft.com/products/ssis-integration-toolkit-for-microsoft-dynamics-365/help-manual/crm/destination

I think below will still be relevant but for CRM On-Premise

https://nishantrana.me/2018/12/19/optimum-batch-size-and-thread-while-deleting-records-using-ssis-integration-toolkit-for-microsoft-dynamics-365/

Batch Size and Copy of Paralleism for Azure Data Factory and Microsoft Dataverse

https://nishantrana.me/2021/05/25/write-batch-size-data-integration-unit-and-degree-of-copy-parallelism-in-azure-data-factory-for-dynamics-crm-365-dataset/

More articles on KingswaySoft and Dynamics 365 / Dataverse

https://nishantrana.me/2018/11/26/ssis-and-microsoft-dynamics-365/

Hope it helps..

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Posts on Omnichannel for Customer Service (Dynamics 365)


Configure WhatsApp channel – Omnichannel (Dynamics 365)

To configure the WhatsApp channel, we need to set up the account in the Customer Service Admin Center. Navigate to Customer Support >> Channels >> Messaging Accounts (Manage) Select the New Account option there Select WhatsApp as the channel Next, we need Account SID and Authentication token. To…

Nishant Rana's avatar by Nishant Rana
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