Category: Dynamics 365 Updates

Visualize this view – what this mean to developers and end users…?

Hi Folks,

Have you noticed Visualize this view button in in the app bar of any grid view of Dynamics 365?

Here is a dashboard built within couple of minutes. While this can greatly help end users visualize the data present in the system. So, in this post, let’s understand bit more details about this capability and what are the some of the features which are left behind.

Let’s understand the how’s this is generated along with its capabilities and disadvantages compared to traditional Power BI dashboard both from Developer and end user perspective, please note that this is my understanding..

For Developers:

a. Visualize this view uses a PCF Control which calls the Power BI REST API and then generates the embed token for the report embedding that into an Iframe.

b. Then uses Power BI JavaScript API to handle user interactions with the embedded report such as filtering or highlighting data points.

c. When Power BI first generates your report, it takes a look through your data to identify patterns and distributions and pick a couple of fields to use as starting points for creating the initial set of visuals when data is not preselected.

d. Any changes to the data fields calls the UpdateView of the PCF Control and there by passing the updated data fields to REST API and then displays the visuals.

e. Visuals will be created with both selected and non-selected fields which are the related to the selected fields in the data pane.

For End Users & Developers:

Advantages:

  1. Visuals are generated when no data is selected
  2. Cross Highlighting is possible
  3. Click on the Report to see Personalize this visual option
  4. People with Contributor, Member, or Admin role assigned can save the Report to workspace
  5. Users with no access to Power BI cant view this feature, they can request for free Power BI License
  6. Free License users can save the Report to thier personal workspace
  7. Users get build permission when any role above Contributor is assigned and reshare permission is given
  8. The report will be saved as direct query with SSO enabled and honours dataverse settings
  9. Show data table presents a list of tables if the model comprises of multiple tables.
  10. Able to specify the aggregation for each of the field in the model.

Disadvantages:

  1. Only able to export summarized data from Visuals, you will be able to export the data in table from data table.
  2. Only Visual Level, no page level or report level filters
  3. During these reports creation, the model is configured to use Direct Query with Single Sign On.
  4. Embed a report on a Dataverse form requires modifying the XML of the solution
  5. Report published into the workspace are available to download but downloaded reports will not be able to customize further in Power BI Desktop as it would be built using Native Queries.
  6. If the page is kept ideal for long time or the user navigates to other browser window, the session and report will be lost.

Considerations & Limitations:

  1. Power BI Pro license is required to create these reports
  2. While this is wonderful for end users to visualize the data but this is not an alteranative to building reports using Power BI Desktop.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

PMDY

Using Preferred Solution in Power Apps saves you time..Quick Review

Hi Folks,

Today, I will be pointing out the advantages of using Preferred Solution and it’s consequences of using or removing it…while the feature is out there from quite few months, yet many of the Power Platform Projects are not utilizing this feature, it can reduce your hassles when many people are working together in a team and you can make sure everyone’s changes go to this solution.

Here we understand what Preferred Solution means to the makers, firstly in order to use this affectively, let’s turn the feature to create Canvas Apps & Cloud Flows in Solutions by enabling this preview feature as suggested below from https://admin.powerplatform.com, this is not mandatory step but would be better as you can add Power Automate flows and Canvas Apps in the Solution and click Save.

Next navigate to https://make.powerapps.com –> Solutions –> Set preferred solution

If no preferred solution is set, by default, it will show the Common Data Service Default Solution to set as Default Solution, if you wish to set another Solution, you can select the respective Solution from the drop down.

Enable/Disable the toggle to show Preferred Solution option in the Solutions Page.

Just click on Apply.

Advantages:

  1. Once preferred Solution is set, any components added by the makers would by default go the Preferred Solution, so makers need not worry about choosing right Solution while creating Power Platform Components.
  2. No need to worry if the solution components will be added in the default solution as the new components will be added to the preferred solution automatically.

Limitations:

  1. Preferred Solutions can be only set in Modern Designer
  2. Components created in Classic Designer won’t go to Preferred Solutions
  3. Custom Connector, Connections, DataFlows, Canvas Apps created from Image or Figma Design, Copilots/Agents, Gateways

You can always delete your preferred solution so that other makers can set their preferred solution, but do this with caution so that none of your team members or your works gets impacted.

Hope this saves few seconds of your valuable time…

Cheers,

PMDY

Dataverse Accelerator | API playground (Preview)

Hi Folks,

In this post, I will be talking about the features of Dataverse Accelerator in brief. Actually, the Microsoft Dataverse accelerator is an application that provides access to select preview features and tooling related to Dataverse development, it is based on Microsoft Power Pages. This is totally different from Dataverse Industry Accelerator.

Dataverse accelerator app is automatically available in all new Microsoft Dataverse environments. If your environment doesn’t already have it, you can install the Dataverse accelerator by going to Power Platform Admin Center –> Environments –> Dynamics 365 Apps –> Install App –> Choose Dataverse Accelerator

You can also refer to my previous blog post on installing it here if you prefer

Once installed, you should see something like below under the Apps

On selection of the Dataverse Accelerator App, you should see something like below, do note that you must have App-level access to the Dataverse accelerator model driven app, such as system customizer or direct access from a security role.

Now let’s quickly see what are features available with Dataverse Accelerator

FeatureDescription
Low-code plug-insReusable, real-time workflows that execute a specific set of commands within Dataverse. Low-code plug-ins run server-side and are triggered by personalized event handlers, defined in Power Fx.
Plug-in monitorA modern interface to surface the existing plug-in trace log table in Dataverse environments, designed for developing and debugging Dataverse plug-ins and custom APIs.
Do you remember viewing Plugin Trace logs from customizations, now you don’t need system administrator role to view trace logs, giving access to this app will do, rest everything remains the same.
API PlaygroundA preauthenticated software testing tool which helps to quickly test and play with Dataverse API’s.

I wrote a blog post earlier on using Low Code Plugins, you may check it out here, while using Plugin Monitor is pretty straight forward.

You can find my blog post on using Postman to test Dataverse API’s here.

Now let’s see how can use the API Playground, basically you will be able to test the below from API Playground similar to Postman. All you need to open the API Playground from Dataverse accelerator. You will be preauthenticated while using API Playground.

TypeDescription
Custom APIThis includes any Dataverse Web API actions, functions from Microsoft, or any public user-defined custom APIs registered in the working environment.
Instant plug-inInstant plug-ins are classified as any user-defined workflows registered as a custom API in the environment with a related Power Fx Expressions.
OData requestAllows more granular control over the request inputs to send OData requests.

Custom API, Instant Plugin – You select the relevant request in the drop down available in API Playground and provide the necessary input parameters if required for your request

OData request – Select OData as your request and provide the plural name of the entity and hit send

After a request is sent, the response is displayed in the lower half of your screen which would be something like below.

OData response

I will update this post as these features get released in my region(APAC), because at the time of writing this blog post, this API Playground feature is being rolled out globally and was still in preview.

The Dataverse accelerator isn’t available in GCC or GCC High environments.

Hope learned something about Dataverse Accelerator.

Cheers,

PMDY

Setup Copilot in a Model-driven app – Quick Review

Hi Folks,

Wondering how you can enable Copilot in Dynamics 365 Model Driven App …? Then you come to the right place, few days ago, I was trying to use it few days back but couldn’t. Hence this blog post is from my experience.

There were few things to configure for your Copilot to respond to your queries. So, I will be taking about that in this blog post today. Let’s get started…

Copilot in model-driven Power Apps was in Preview since July 2023.

Prerequisite: You must have a non-production environment with Dataverse database, apps, and data.

Step 1: Go to Power Platform Admin Center –> Select the environment –> Settings –> Product –> Features –> Select On for AI-powered experience as highlighted below, if you were App maker and want to try it for yourself, you would also need to check the option in yellow below.

Step 2: Go to Power Platform Admin Center –> Select the environment –> Settings –> Product –> Behaviour –> Select Monthly channel or Auto  for Model-driven app release channel option and click save.

Step 3: Well, this step is important, in this task, we configure a Dataverse table and columns for Copilot.

Go to Power Apps and make sure that you have the correct environment.

Select tables and navigate to the respective table for which you want to enable Copilot capability.

Step 4: Here I am using OOB Account entity, you can choose whichever entity you wish to setup.

Step 5: Navigate to Properties for the Account table as below

Step 6: Choose settings as highlighted below and click on save.

Step 8: Open the Account table and go views

Step 9: Here in this step, would need configure the Quick Find View, add the necessary fields to the view for it to be searchable for Copilot. Add in the fields which your users would be searching for in the Copilot.

Step 10: Here we have to make sure the fields are added to the view and then save and publish.

That’s it, the configuration is done.

Step 11: In this step, we will test the Copilot by opening the App in which the configured entity is available. Click on the Copilot icon as highlighted below, this shows the Chat window for Copilot

Step 12:

Test 1: Prompt: How many Accounts are there which Primary Contact starting with H? Well, it showed correctly as below.

Test 2: Prompt: Show Accounts whose Annual Revenue is more than 300,000? It showed correctly as below.

Hope this helps you to setup Copilot for your Model Driven Apps. I will leave it to yourself to try this out.

Make sure, you give all the details in the prompt itself, it will not be able to store the previous response, meaning you can’t continue your conversation providing information in bits and pieces. You can setup the same for your Custom entity also, make sure you add the fields to the quick find view of that entity.

It is not recommended for Production environments as it is still a preview feature. In case, the response is not accurate, you can report this to Microsoft by hitting thumbs up or thumbs down and provide the relevant feedback.

Lot more to come in the upcoming days, learning different aspects of Copilot became a necessity these days.

That’s it for today…hope this helps…

Cheers,

PMDY

Start Transitioning your Dynamics 365 Client Applications to use Dataverse Client

Hi Folks,

This blog post deals about what you need to do for your client applications in specific to use Dataverse Client API instead of existing CrmServiceClient(Core Assemblies) API.

Below were 3 reasons cited by Microsoft and why we need to just be aware of this move.

1.Cross Platform Application Support: With the introduction of Microsoft.PowerPlatform.Dataverse.Client, the new Dataverse Service Client supports Cross Platform Support.

2. MSAL Authentication: New Dataverse ServiceClient API uses MSAL while our older CrmServiceClient API uses ADAL. ADAL.Net is no longer supported.

3. Performance and functional benefits: We can have one authentication handler per web service connection instead of just one per process. The Dataverse Service Client class supports a smaller interface surface, inline authentication by instance, and Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger.

What’s the impact?

  • Plug-ins or custom workflow activities – no changes
  • New or existing online applications – changes are needed but not immediately…
  • On-premises applications – this article is not for you, yet

So, meaning it impacts Online Client applications only. While you really don’t need to worry much about this the class member signatures of ServiceClient and CrmServiceClient are the same, except for the class names themselves being slightly different. Application code should not need any significant changes.

As of now, no changes to your code are required, but it is better to keep in mind that in the future the CRM 2011 Service End Point would be deprecated, and this change would be made mandatory.

So, what should you do to incorporate this change?

Use the following assemblies from Nuget instead of CrmSdk.CoreAssemblies

Add the below using statement to use Microsoft.PowerPlatform.Dataverse.Client

Use ServiceClient instead of CrmServiceClient, ServiceClient would return your OrganizationService.

Instead of

Be strategic to minimize the impact to your apps.

Cheers,

PMDY

Create a Custom Connector for your Web API from within Visual Studio

Hi Folks,

In this blog post, let’s see how we can create a custom connector without leaving our own Visual Studio for building a custom connector. Ideally for building any custom connector, we need to create them in https://make.powerapps.com or https://make.powerautomate.com. Last month Microsoft Announced that Power Platform is now a connected service in Visual Studio 2022. In this blog, we will utilize its capability…

Before diving deeper, let’s see what are the prerequisites..

  1. Visual Studio
  2. ASP .NET Web API knowledge
  3. Canvas Apps knowledge

Let’s get started..

Step 1:

Create ASP.NET Web API Project in Visual Studio

Step 2:Choose your option as below and click on Next..

Step 3:

Choose your next steps as below and click on Next to proceed, make sure to choose authentication type as None

Step 4:

Create a ASP.NET Core Web API Project

Step 5:

By adding Power Platform as a service dependency, you can update an existing custom connector, or create a new one from your API.

If you want to expose your local running API to a public endpoint, I prefer using Dev Tunnels feature of Visual Studio…

That’s it, you have started running your API.

Step 6:

Now let’s create a Mobile App with Power Apps…with the same login you have used for the Visual Studio to create a custom connector..

Step 7:

First check if Custom Connector has been created in your tenant and authenticate the connection….navigate to https://make.powerapps.com and click on Discover at the left of the page….and then click on Custom Connectors, you should see a connector which we created from Visual Studio….nice isn’t it…

Step 8:

All you need to create a connection by clicking on the + sign available..

Once connected, now try creating a mobile Canvas App..

In the Canvas App, try adding data…and search for Weather Sample which you created, you should see something like below…

Step 9:

Once the web API is running in your development environment, you can debug in real time and even Hot Reload your code.

References:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/test/dev-tunnels?view=aspnetcore-7.0#create-a-tunnel

Thank you for reading…

Cheers,

PMDY

What’s the new table type being introduced..?

Hi Folks,

While you may have noticed this or not, but it’s real. Now Dynamics 365 CE existing table types have a new companion called Elastic, it is yet to be announced.

However let’s take a quick look of the table types showing up when you were trying to create a new one in Dataverse.

While everyone is aware about Standard, Activity, Virtual types in Model Driven Apps. Elastic tables are new tables which came in to Dataverse and probably it will be announced in the upcoming Microsoft Build 2023.

From my view, Elastic tables were

1. Built similar to the concept of Elastic Queries in Azure which is usually meant for the purposes of Data archiving needs.

2. You can scale out queries to large data tiers and visualize the results in business intelligence (BI) reports.

3. Elastic Query provides a complete T-SQL Database Querying capability on Azure SQL, possibly Dataverse.

Hope we get all the capabilities released with Elastic Queries of Azure SQL be released in Dataverse as well.

References:

Data Types in Model Driven Apps

Elastic Queries in Azure SQL

Cheers,

PMDY

Changing Data Type of Primary Column now allowed in Model Driven Apps

Hi Folks,

Do you know you can change the Data type of an Primary column between Single Line of Text and Autonumber even after creation of your entity specifying a defined Primary Name Column. There is a catch….

So let’s see…

I first created a brand new Table called Demo Table and kept the Primary Column as Single Line of text. Earlier once the table is created, you will not be able to change the Primary name column if you wish to, the only way was to delete the table and re-create it with the correct type. But now you can change the type of the column at least to a unique autonumbering.

I want the Primary Name column to be unique, but when I look at the data in my table captured, I see many duplicates.

So let’s change the data type of the primary column data type to Autonumber.

The primary field look as below initially…

Select the Data Type available…

Now Select the Autonumber from the drop down available…you can optionally specify any custom prefix which you want for your Autonumber…and click Save and publish the customizations.

Now go back to your model driven app and then try creating a new record for the respective entity.

Since it was a primary field column, it is by default made mandatory…what’s up…the Autonumber column data type change is not reflecting….this is the same even if you check and publish the solution multiple times. Neither you can’t specify the field value because you already choose this to be an Autonumber and system should create it by itself.

If you were scratching your head, then this simple tip will help…

Just make the field read-only from the form where this field is being referred, so you don’t need to really enter value for it…then publish the customizations.

Once you have done…

Now try to save the record..

There you go, you can see an Autonumber being populated in the primary field…

Cheers,

PMDY

Simple Approval Design For Model-Driven Apps

temmyraharjo's avatarTemmy Wahyu Raharjo

Do you know the In-App Notification feature from Model Driven Apps? This feature can create a notification that targeted a specific User. We also can add action to the notification so the User can also interact with multiple actions (now is limited to just an open URL). In short, this feature is very useful for creating the Approval process. Without further ado, let’s go to my proposed solution! 😎

The Necessary Part

I created the below table for this demonstration purpose:

Request Table

As you can see, the User will fill in the Approver that needs to approve the request. Then in the status field, there are 3 options which are Draft, Approved, or Rejected.

For the next one, you need to create a Model-Driven App. The reason for it is because we need to turn on the feature from the Settings (in top-left from the App > go…

View original post 631 more words

Cancel the save based on the result of an asynchronous operation

In 2017, Natraj Yegnaraman shared a clever method to cancel the save of a form. His approach was to cancel the save before the asynchronous operation and then retrigger the save if needed after the asynchronous operation is resolved. You can find all the details on the following link. This approach is explained by the […]

Cancel the save based on the result of an asynchronous operation