General availability of PowerApps Solution checker makes it easier to check Dynamics 365 solution quality

On May 2th Microsoft announced the general availability of the PowerApps Solution Checker, tooling which allows you to run a static code analysis of your CDS and Dynamics 365 solutions against a set of best practice rules. By running these checks, you can identify problematic patterns in your code base which might impact performance or maintainability/upgradeability of your code.

Tooling like this is a must have for Dynamics 365 CE Online where releases are delivered on a continuous basis (with bi-weekly releases). With this release schedule, the risk of low quality solutions (from ISVs or SIs) interfering with Microsoft updates becomes more probable.

But this is not only about Microsoft safeguarding their Dynamics 365 SAAS platform but also about delivering value quicker and in a reliable fashion. I truly believe that code quality is a good indicator about how quickly developers can add business value to a software system. Static code analysis tools such as PowerApps solution checker might not be the holy grail but they at least give you an indication of the amount of technical debt that you have amassed within your Dynamics 365 instances.

I have been using PowerApps solution checker since a couple of months now and for projects with lots of different teams working on solution it allows you to have some indication of code quality without having to delve through 10.000 lines of code.  I also think that announcements such installing the solution checker by default, introduction of the Solution Health Hub and the announcement of PowerShell script support coming soon are showing Microsoft’s commitment on finally delivering on a good DevOps story for Dynamics 365.

References:

• Use solution checker to validate your model-driven apps in PowerApps
• Best practices and guidance for the Common Data Service

Dynamics 365 monthly reading list April 2019

Technical topics (Configuration, customization and extensibility)

• Integrating Dynamics 365 with Azure Function using Managed Identity
• Create Model Driven Apps for CDS environments
• PowerApps sample – visualization of beautiful mathematics
• Using the new Top and Bottom operators in views and fetchxml – part of the April 2019 release
• Working offline with PowerApps
• Understanding data loss prevention policies in Power Platform admin center
• Activating Field Service Mobile app licenses
• Dynamics 365 & Azure DevOps – Unit testing
• Does enterprise scale Dynamics 365 require multiple instances?
• Solution history entity in Dynamics 365 CRM
• PowerApps solution designer vs classic solution designer
• Power Platform & Azure enable developers to build applications faster than ever
• View solution layers (docs.microsoft.com)
• Dynamics 365 CE – set classic UI and navigate to classic UI
• Mobile offline for Dynamics 365 CE apps available in public preview
• Updates for the basic list and campaign management capabilities for Dynamics 365 applications (Mar-May 2019 release)
• Use Flow to monitor multiple Dynamics 365 instances
• PowerShell scripts to discover and manage specific features in the Power Platform
• Tricky application ids in Dynamics 365 apps
• Using a service principal with the CDS connector
• Demystifying PowerApps environments – Part 1 – default instance
• Demystifying PowerApps environments – Part 3 – production environments

Topics for Dynamics 365 Business Application Platform analysts, project managers and power users

• Microsoft, Adobe CEOs detail latest data sharing efforts and here the official announcement Adobe, Microsoft and SAP announce new Open Data Initiative details
• Microsoft product priorities that will shape Dynamics 365 partner efforts
• Power Platform – the Uncommon Data Service
• Dynamics 365 – Dead is a strong word
• Business Applications ISV news at Build 2019
• You don’t have to be a developer to turn a great idea into an app
• Microsoft steps up to Salesforce’s AppExchange
• Has Microsoft just introduced a 20% tax on Dynamics 365 ISVs?
• Upcoming program for Business Applications ISVs
• Use playbooks  for guided selling in Dynamics 365
• Project accurate revenue with sales forecasting in Dynamics 365 CE (Preview)

Quick tip: solving rendering issues in PowerPoint presenter mode

After upgrading to a newer version of Office, my PowerPoint slides displayed incorrectly in presenter mode – see screenshot below. I googled around but did not find anything useful.

Fortunately I remembered  a similar issue that I had in Internet Explorer 11 see Solve image rendering problems in Internet Explorer 11 on HP ZBooks. It seems that PowerPoint has a similar setting – go to Options>Advanced and underneath the Display section I had to check the “Disable Slide Show hardware graphics acceleration."

Dynamics 365 monthly reading list March 2019

Technical topics (Configuration, customization and extensibility)

• Getting model-driven app record id in the embedded canvas app
• How to spot negative comments in NPS surveys
• Increase sales with Dynamics 365 AI for Sales
• Guidelines on working with embedded canvas apps
• Dynamics 365 UXI app icons blueprint
• Keeping Dynamics 365 Apps up to date – very interesting read with background info on how Microsoft releases new functionality by @jukkan
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) – Asynchronous Service Quotas
• Dynamics 365 AI for Customer Service Team Blog
• Power BI URL Query in Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement (CE)
• Monitoring Dynamics 365 front to backend activities with Azure Application Insights
• Solving login issues with Dynamics 365 mobile app on iOS
• Alexa, ask Microsoft Flow to read out my latest e-mail
• Lightweight geospatial in Dynamics 365 for phones
• Autonumber fields are now supported by the modern entity designer
• PowerApps components patterns
• Avoid model driven failure – short checklist to use when a user can’t see an app or certain parts of an app
• Camera capabilities or how to add a photo id capturing to a contact screen in Dynamics
• Replacing a Dynamics 365 dialog with an embedded canvas PowerApp
• Embed Power BI Visuals in Dynamics 365 – with Secure Embed
• Send Action card from Dynamics 365 CE as Actionable Message via Email

Topics for Dynamics 365 CE business analysts, project managers and power users

• I wish there was no scrum master in my Dynamics CRM team
• Customer Success Executives Need to Answer These 3 Critical Questions
• Microsoft quietly sets new data storage pricing for PowerApps, Dynamics 365  Customer Engagement
• Out-of-the-box LinkedIn profiles and simplified Sales Navigator installation
• The future of Microsoft Dynamics 365 projects
• Forrester names Microsoft PowerApps a leader in low-code development platforms
• The Microsoft Power Platform – Empowering millions of people to achieve more

Dynamics 365 certifications and course material update March 2019

Warning: I will update this blog post on a regular basis as new material becomes available or changes on certification are made by Microsoft
Updated March 31th: Added information on new roles (field service functional consultant and marketing functional consultant) and exams

For consultants wanting to certify on Dynamics 365, quite a few changes have been announced the last couple of months. In December 2018, Microsoft announced that they were retiring a whole set of Dynamics 365 exams (see Exam and Certification Retirement Roundup, December 2018).  Microsoft stated that many of the upcoming changes are part of the evolution to focus more on role-based certifications – for Dynamics 365 CE there are following roles defined but some content is not there yet (these roles were announced on Introducing New Certifications for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Functional Consultants )

• Dynamics 365 for Sales Functional Consultant Associate
• Dynamics 365 for Customer Service Consultant Associate
• Dynamics 365 for Field Service Functional Consultant Associate
• Dynamics 365 for Marketing Functional Consultant Associate

Meanwhile Microsoft also started retiring the content on the Dynamics Learning Portal (the traditional source for training content on Dynamics 365) and decided to made new content available as shorter learning paths on Microsoft Learn. The applicable learning paths are listed on the exam requirements pages listed below. But there are also a number of self-paced trainings available on https://openedx.microsoft.com . Big thanks to @Jukkan and @nz365guy for providing the direct links to these hidden treasure. The retirement dates below have already shifted a few times (initially the first retirement of Dynamics 365 exams was planned for March 31th)

Exam Number	Exam Name	Retirement Date	Replace Exam	Course material
MB2-715	Microsoft Dynamics 365 customer engagement Online Deployment	June 30, 2019	MB2-200	Dynamics 365: Power Platform applications (8 hrs) Dynamics 365: Power Platform automation (8 hrs) Dynamics 365: Power Platform integrations (8 hrs) Dynamics 365: Power Platform test and deploy (8 hrs) Dynamics 365 core exam study guide created by @JonasWauters1 Revision guide for MB2-200
MB2-717	Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales	June 30, 2019	MB-210	Dynamics 365 for customer engagement for sales (8hrs) Dynamics 365 for sales exam study guide  created by @JonasWauters1
MB2-877	Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service	June 30, 2019	MB2-240 (Beta – published March 31th)
MB2-718	Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service	August 31, 2019	MB2-230 (Beta)	Dynamics 365 for customer engagement for customer service (8 hrs) Dynamics 365 for customer service exam study guide created by @JonasWauters1 Study guide for MB230 by @BenHosk
MB2-719	Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing	August 31, 2019	MB-220 (Beta – published March 31th)

A new exam which has been introduced is Exam MB-900 Microsoft Dynamics 365: Fundamentals

References:

• New Courses for Learning Power Platform & Dynamics 365 
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 / Power Platform Training and Exams 2019 
• Power platform learning resources
• Overview of role based Microsoft certifications

Making sense of XRM, PowerApps and some other acronyms (CDS, CDM, …)

With the July 2018 update of Dynamics 365 (9.0), Microsoft released an interesting architecture update to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement where they separated the “core” features of the platform and the various business modules (Sales, Customer Service, Marketing, Field Service, etc…). This separation of the “core” platform features allows not only Microsoft Business Applications to leverage the platform capability but also third party providers and ISVs.

The term XRM  was used in the past to describe the ability to built business applications with minimal development effort (relying on configuration and customization) on top of the Dynamics CRM platform. These applications allowed you to model business entities and their relationships (xRM or any Relationship Management) and keep track of this information in a database without having to develop everything yourself. With the platform separation, we can now finally think about XRM and CDS in the same way (check out Yes, XRM is the new Common Data Service (2.0) by @Jukkan for more information).

From a solution architecture perspective we can see a number of main building blocks in the schema above:

• Common Data Service (CDS)
• Common Data Model (CDM) - is a standardized, modular, extensible collection of data schemas published by Microsoft that are designed to make it easier for you to build, use, and analyze data. All entities (and fields) used by Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications are described in the CDM schema. For more info see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/common-data-model/  as well as https://github.com/Microsoft/CDM. Actually check out the Common Data Model Poster (A3 format) for a high level view of the different entities.  Other vendors such as Adobe and SAP will also start levering the CDM as part of the Open Data Initiative - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/open-data-initiative
• Common Data Service for Apps framework  - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/common-data-service/data-platform-intro  which plugs in to the CDM model (and associated storage) but also provides standard framework functionality such as security (authentication/authorization), auditing as well as extensibility points (workflows, business rules and other extensibility points such as plugins) and an API and connector framework for these entities.
• Power Platform
• Power BI -  interactive data visualization platform 
• PowerApps – allows you to build canvas driven apps and model driven apps. Canvas driven apps  are apps that you can build using  a drag and drop design interface without requiring a developer - especially very productive to built mobile/tablet applications. Model driven apps also allow you built business applications without requiring a developer but unlike canvas apps you don’t have full control on the user interface but with additional functionality such as process support, full extensibility, etc … This was previously referred to as the xRM capability – sometimes also referred to as CDS for Apps. Initially PowerApps was a completely separate platform but with the Spring 2018 update Microsoft decided to merge the two different platforms. Read PowerApps Spring Update – if you want to get your heads around the new CDS for Apps and to understand how everything seems to finally come together. Definitely also subscribe to the PowerApp blog to keep up to date on the fast pace at which this platform is evolving. Microsoft is on a weekly release schedule for PowerApps which is also visible in the Released versions of Microsoft PowerApps
• Flow  - an easy to use workflow and integration platform. A power-user can use this platform. Programming skills are not mandatory  https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/ . With over 250+ connectors and a huge number of templates, Microsoft Flow allows you to automate your daily work.
• Azure – Microsoft’s cloud platform powering all of the above. The Power Platform as well CDS for Apps also have built-in capabilities to integrate with a lot of Azure building blocks – an interesting read on this topic is https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/create-business-apps-using-powerapps-and-azure-functions/

I had a number of interesting conversations with Microsoft about the Microsoft Power Platform when attending the Microsoft Fasttrack bootcamp for solution architect in January 2019 which convinced me that this is not something that you can dismiss as a Microsoft Dynamics partner. The future toolkit for customization and extending Dynamics 365 CE will be PowerApps and Flow. But it seems that non-Dynamics partners are amongst the first movers to take a large part of this new market opportunity. As a Dynamics 365 partner (or consultant) take a look at Why Microsofts Power Platform is one of its biggest bets for 2019 which explains where Microsoft is moving to and how they plan to leverage the data captured in the Power Platform/CDS to provide more actionable insight - see https://aka.ms/allaboutbase

"The true value of Microsoft Business Applications platform is the ecosystem it resides in, the 

AI signals (internal and external) that enrich it, and the overall 

outcomes it creates for your business."

Background information:

• Microsoft takes off its xRM platform-as-service gloves
• Making sense of Microsoft’s Common Data Service makeover
• Common Data Service for Apps Developer Overview
• Accelerating digital transformation with the Spring 2018 release for Dynamics 365 and Business Application Platform
• xRM = CDS, building powerful business apps
• New features in the Common Data Service for Apps! (Spring update)
• Introducing model-driven apps – a new way to create
• Exploring CDS for Apps platform licensing

Check Dynamics 365 solution quality with the new PowerApps Solution Checker

End of November 2018, Microsoft quietly launched a preview of the  Solution checker for Dynamics 365 as part of the Common Data Service for Apps platform update.  The solution checker analyzes the different solution components for unmanaged solutions within your Dynamics 365 tenant. I accidently stumbled upon it when reading this interesting article from Steve Mordue – How about some solution quality?. The solution check will analyse the different artifacts or components within your solution like plugins and custom workflow activities, web resources as well as Dynamics 365 configuration such as SDK messaging steps.

The solution checker has been built based upon the experience and internal tooling of Microsoft Premier Field Engineers (definitely check check out the Dynamics 365 PFE blog Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement in the Field) and has been already used quite extensively at big customers in the past couple of weeks.

Solution checker currently only works for Dynamics 365 Online and is only accessible from within the https://web.powerapps.com user interface but I suspect that Microsoft will make this accessible using an API since it makes sense to integrate this check in your Dynamics 365 continuous build process.

Solution checker for Dynamics 365 is made available within https://web.powerapps.com and to install you can  follow the steps as outlined in Make higher quality apps with solution checker.  It is installed from within AppSource but can only be found in AppSource when starting from the PowerApps web portal. The solution checker will need to be installed per instance for which you want to check the solutions. Since it only checks unmanaged solutions - you will typically only install it on your development organization/instance.

It might take a couple of minutes before the PowerApps Checker solution is installed - on this page you will also see when it is completed successfully.

It is a good idea to run the solution checker on a regular interval as Microsoft is continuously expanding the code quality rule sets which are used.

The result of the solution check is a zip file which contains the result in CSV and Excel format. The excel will contain an overview page with a summary of the issues and a second sheet with details of the different issues.

For each issue you will have a detailed description of the issue explained using multiple fields. Some  values in fields are only relevant to plugins/workflow assemblies whereas other apply to all types of artifacts/components.

Report field	Examples	Description	Applies to
Issue	il-avoid-specialized-update-ops	The title of the issue identified in the solution – take a look at .. to see an overview of the different types of issues which are being checked	All
Category	Performance, Maintainability, UpgradeReadiness, Supportability	Categorization of the issue identified	All
Severity	Low, medium, high,informational	Represents the potential impact of the issue identified.	All
Guidance	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=398563&error=meta-remove-inactive&client=PAChecker	Link to the guidance articles – most of them link to a section underneath the new Best practice and guidance for the Common Data Service Apps but some links point to older reference articles which still apply. Microsoft plans to consolidate all the guidance relevant for CDS in one location in the end but this is a work in progress	All
Component	Configuration, plugin, webresource, …	The solution component where the issue was identified	All
Location		The location and/or source file of the component where the issue that was identified occurred, such as the assembly or JavaScript file name.	All
Line#	...	The line number reference of the issue in the impacted web resource component.	Web resource
Module		Module name where the issue identified in the assembly was detected.	Plug-in or custom workflow activity
Type		Type of the issue identified in the assembly.	Plug-in or custom workflow activity
Member		Member of the issue identified in the assembly.	Plug-in or custom workflow activity
Statement		The code statement or configuration that resulted in the issue.	All

Solutions which do not follow the guidance will cause lot of support issues down the line especially with Microsoft rolling out a steady stream of updates of the Dynamics 365 platform.  So start using solution checker to make sure that you can concentrate on adding value with your Dynamics 365 solutions and apps.

Microsoft cloud IT architecture resources available

Summary: Learn core cloud architecture concepts for Microsoft identity, security, networking, and hybrid. Review prescriptive recommendations for protecting files, identities, and devices when using Microsoft's cloud. Learn how to deploy a modern and secure desktop with Windows 10 and Office ProPlus.

These architecture tools and posters give you information about Microsoft cloud services, including Office 365, Windows 10, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and hybrid on-premises and cloud solutions. IT decision makers and architects can use these resources to determine the ideal solutions for their workloads and to make decisions about core infrastructure components such as identity and security.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/microsoft-cloud-it-architecture-resources

Dynamics 365 monthly reading list December 2018

Technical topics (Configuration, customization and extensibility)

• Enrich your model-drive forms with embedded canvas apps (Public preview) – official announcement on the PowerApps blog (December 12th)
• Embedded canvas apps and passing a dynamic Dynamics 365 context which is similar to Embedding Canvas app on a model –driven app’s form (preview) – passing list of related records as context
• Updated tools to build and configure Dynamics 365 applications
• Power Apps Canvas App coding standards and guidelines
• Introducing the new WYSIWYG model driven form designer (Public Preview)
• Announcing: the Dynamics 365 for Marketing December 2018 update is now available
• Implementing Dynamics 365 using the Scrum Framework Technical Lead Perspective
• Previewing April 2019 release functionalities and updates for Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement
• General availability: Dynamics 365 Channel Integration Framework – bring your own channel provider with ease
• PowerApps: Understanding what it is and why to use it?
• Enable and configure Relationship assistant
• Dynamics 365 Knowledge Article Versioning
• PowerApps: sending text/sms messages
• Creating custom icons in Dynamics 365 (Youtube video)
• Upgrading to Dynamics 365 v9 – the experience of @ramontebar with the upgrade
• Office 365 + Dynamics 365 + LinkedIn  = Microsoft Dynamics 365 Relationship Analytics for sales demo (Youtube)
• Optimum batch size and thread while deleting records using SSIS integration toolkit for Dynamics 365
• QueryExpression and how to boost performance !
• Overview of Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights (Youtube 00:25:04)
• Chrome browser best practices for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement projects
• Dynamics 365 Tip: do not delete system components
• Dynamics 365 Server – version 9.0 download link
• Dynamics 365 v9.1 Enable Unified Interface UI updates on upgraded organizations
• Power Platform – Ryan’s Five things – feedback from Steve Mordue’s interview with Ryan Jones – Group Program Manager at Microsoft
• How to configure Dynamics 365 AI for sales in CRM?
• PowerApps and Microsoft Flow Governance and Deployment Whitepaper is now available

Topics for Dynamics 365 CE business analysts, project managers and power users

• The biggest Microsoft Dynamics stories of 2018
• Dynamics 365 and Power Platform product roadmap – after having disappeared a new version of the product roadmap has been made available to the public.
• Microsoft Business Applications – breaking down the landscape
• PowerApps quick overview mind map
• Dynamics  365 – when you should clear your browser cache and how
• Top 3 themes for Dynamics 365 in 2018
• The brand new org chart in Dynamics 365
• If Bob Paisley managed a CRM team
• Be prepared with the new playbooks in Dynamics 365 for Sales
• Playbooks for Dynamics 365 Activity Templates

Whitepaper– Artificial Intelligence in Belgium and Luxembourg: Outlook for 2019 and beyond

Microsoft recently commissioned a study with over 277 European companies on how companies currently manage their AI activities and how they see the challenges and opportunities ahead – 21 companies out of Belgium and Luxembourg have participated in this study amongst them Ageas, Afga Gevaert, Alpro, Arcelor Mittal, Katoe Natie, KBC Group, Proximus and Solvay – some interesting findings:

• Machine learning (81%), smart robotics (62%) and NLP (48%) are most useful for companies in Belgium and Luxembourg. Smart robotics ranks considerably higher than the European average (44%)
• Current use cases highlighted by executives include predictive maintenance, using demand forecasting to optimize supply chain operations and automation of logistics
• Advanced analytics is considered to be one of the most important capabilities (out of 8 capabilities) necessary for AI success in Belgium and Luxembourg

Download AI in Belgium and Luxembourg: How 277 major European companies benefit from AI

Integrate Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps with Microsoft Teams (Preview)

Warning: This preview is currently only fully available for organizations in the North American region.

Microsoft Teams is a chat-based collaborative tool, where people can work on documents, exchange information using chat – check out the what is Microsoft Teams video from the Microsoft teams video training series if you have not worked with it previously. One of  the interesting capabilities of Microsoft teams is that it allows you to add new apps within your team workspace – these apps are available in the Teams store, and can be custom built by you for distribution through the store or directly to your users (also Take a look at 30 invaluable integrations that you should be using with Microsoft Teams for some great examples of apps that are available)

In November 2018 Microsoft added a “Dynamics 365” app to this ever growing list of apps – it currently provides 3 important capabilities:

• Provide  Dynamics 365 chat bot functionality in the team  conversations
• Work with Dynamics 365 records directly from within Microsoft Teams.  Teams now has the possibility to link an existing Dynamics 365 record so that users are able to both view and edit information about this Dynamics 365 within Microsoft teams and even navigate to related records without leaving Microsoft teams.
• Link Microsoft Teams files to Dynamics 365 records

In the next sections we will delve a little deeper in some of the functionality.

Working with the Dynamics 365 bot in Teams
After you have installed the Dynamics 365 App from the Teams store (See Install and setup the Dynamics 365 App for Teams for more details) , you will be able to use the new sales bot functionality within the Conversations tab of the app

When you first open the bot you need to connect it to a specific Dynamics 365 organization instance – afterwards you are able change this setting.

For the moment the functionality is still rough on the edges basic but more functionality will probably be added throughout the preview.  The bot allows you to lookup information in Dynamics 365 using natural language – e.g. you can search for an opportunity “Audio equipment” by just typing “search audio equipment” or “lookup audio equipment” or “find audio equipment” which will surface a card with information about that opportunity.  Behind the scenes the bot will connect to the LUIS Azure Cognitive Services to understand the intent of your message to retrieve the most important information. Through the bot you will also be able to update basic information of this opportunity like the amount, close date, etc… This functionality is also available from within the Microsoft Teams mobile app

Working with Dynamics 365 records from within Microsoft Teams
You can now also add a new tab to the top of your channel which uses a specific app – if you link the Dynamics 365 app here you can connect it to a specific Dynamics 365 record.

Users who do not have a Dynamics 365 license or not a valid security role in Dynamics 365 will not be able to access the information but will receive a warning

Linking Microsoft Teams files to Dynamics 365 records
When you create a new Microsoft team behind the scenes a SharePoint Online site is being used, and each channel in a team gets a folder within the default team site document library (Read How SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business interact with Microsoft Teams for more details and watch the video Foundations of Microsoft Teams to get an architectural overview)  So basically the integration between Dynamics 365 and files in Teams is being built on top of the existing SharePoint integration for which the fundamentals already existed.

To be able to link Microsoft Teams files to Dynamics 365 records you will first need to activate preview functionality within your Dynamics 365 system settings (Settings>Administration>System settings)

Next a new button will appear in your mean which allow you to link to a specific team and channel.

The linked  Teams documents will appear in the same place as linked SharePoint documents (under the cover they actually are stored in SharePoint  - take a look at Showing SharePoint document properties in Dynamics CRM views for a more detailed explanation of how this is done).

For the official documentation on this preview see  Preview: Integrate Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps with Microsoft Teams

Must read Dynamics 365 App for Outlook blog series

Great series from Aaron Richards on the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook

• Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Part 1 – The basics
• Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Part 2  - What is supported – some interesting gotchas on Outlook App on mobile and OWA as well as supported scenarios for hybrid setups.
• Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Part 3 – Settings that affect tracking and correlation
• Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Part 4 – Working with Emails
• Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Part 5 – Working with Appointments
• Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Part 6 – Working with Contacts
• Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Part 8 – Email governance

Other interesting blog posts:

• Adding custom entities to the Dynamics App for Outlook and official documentation Filter entities and views that appear in the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook - when the Outlook App for Dynamics 365 (9.0) was initially released, it was not possible to customize the Outlook app module now it is
• Make the most of the new Dynamics 365 App for Outlook
• How to initiate the Outlook App deployment

Dynamics 365 monthly reading list November 2018

Technical topics (Configuration, customization and extensibility)

• Dynamics 365 FastTrack Architect bootcap – security, scale groups, releases and some technical stuff
• How to create realistic test data for your CRM project and why you should
• “Sorry something went wrong while initializing the app” – Outlook CRM app error after upgrade to Dynamics 365 9.1
• Connect Power BI to Common Data Service
• Microsoft Flow – Business Process Flows from a traditional CRM perspective
• Microsoft Ignite 2018 Event Recap – PowerApps & Microsoft Flow
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Deployment – MB2-715 study notes
• Microsoft’s Common Data Model – what users – not just Dynamics 365 users  need to know
• Demo scenario using Dynamics Customer Engagement with the Titanic demo set
• CDS and data object prefix
• Dynamics 365 architecture: examining record status and flagging strategies
• How to override out of the box buttons behavior in Dynamics CRM
• Upgrade to new Xrm client API object model (v9) smoothly using XrmToolBox plugins
• Personalizing custom entity icons with Metro Studio
• Using PowerApps to support warehouse processes in Dynamics 365 F&O
• Solutions for image rendering problems in Dynamics 365
• Power Platform Administration Center
• Using PowerApps and Flow with Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations – Part 1

Topics for Dynamics 365 CE business analysts, project managers and power users

• Embedded Intelligence with Email engagement in Dynamics 365
• Using marketing lists to enhance advanced find in Dynamics CRM
• Using Microsoft Flow with Excel to publish data to Dynamics 365 ( Youtube 00:34:00)
• Dynamics 365 – Consumption vs licensing

LearnAI: Enterprise Knowledge Mining bootcamp training material

I recently stumbled upon this interesting training material https://azure.github.io/LearnAI-KnowledgeMiningBootcamp/ . It explains how to built an enterprise search solution by applying knowledge mining to business documents like contracts, memos, presentations and images and expose these using a bot.  You will use Microsoft Azure Cognitive Search, Azure Bot Framework, Azure Functions, etc..

Dynamics 365 Saturday Belgium slidedeck on Dynamics 365 and bots

Dynamics 365 Saturday Brussels 11/2018 - Dynamics 365 and chatbots from Joris Poelmans

Dynamics 365 Organization Insights revamped - welcome Common Data Service App Analytics

I’m a big fan Dynamics 365 Organization Insights and I have been using for more than a year now  since it was released in February 2017.   Organization Insights provides a number of key statistics about the usage, activity and quality of service (failing API calls, plugin execution failures, etc…) for your Dynamics 365 (online) instance.  A couple of weeks ago Microsoft moved the Organization Insights functionality to the new Power Platform Admin Center . You will find the Organization Insights dashboards by selecting Analytics in the left navigation bar and selecting Common Data Service for Apps.  The analytics for Common Data Service for Apps provides more detailed information and also allows you to filter and download the information in CSV format. The filter functionality allows you to select the specific instance for which you want to see information as well as see define a time frame for which you want to see information.

Please remember that the new Power Platform Admin Center is currently still in preview, so you might stumble upon some quirks but overall I like it a lot. For more information read the Microsoft documentation at Use the Organization Insights Solution to view metrics about your instance

Microsoft Ignite 2018 session downloader

If you want to download all the videos and powerpoint decks of Microsoft Ignite 2018 – you can still use the PowerShell script written by @mderooij. It allows you to download individual sessions by using the schedule code or by solution area. To download all 134 sessions about Dynamics 365 and related applications use this syntax

  .\Get-EventSession.ps1 -downloadfolder "d:\ignite2018" -solutionarea "Business Applications"

Speaking at Dynamics 365 Saturday Brussels 2018

I will be delivering a session about chat bots and Dynamics 365 at Dynamics 365 Saturday Brussels on November 17th. Registration is free. Dynamics 365 Saturday is a Technical & Strategy event organized by the community with the following credo: “Learn & share new skills while promoting best practices, helping organizations overcome the challenges of implementing a successful digital transformation strategy with Microsoft Dynamics 365”.

Dynamics 365 monthly reading list October 2018

Technical topics (Configuration, customization and extensibility)

• Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement on-premise October 2018 update brings new user experience
• Continuous integration, deployment and test automation for Dynamics CRM
• Getting started as a Dynamics 365 CE developer
• Managing auto save in Dynamics 365
• How to upgrade deprecated client APIs to support Dynamics 365 v9
• How to disable Javascript in Dynamics 365 Apps
• Best practice: apply labels in TFS to deployment versions
• Announcing changes to new trials and new Common Data Service (CDS) for apps environments
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales: Sales automation and productivity with Microsoft apps (Ignite 2018 recording 00:47:42)
• Powering digital transformation with business applications: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Ignite 2018 recording 01:33:15)
• Public preview of Dynamics 365 Channel Integration Framework is released – bring your own channel provider with ease
• Case closed: managed or unmanaged solutions in Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM
• Canvas App samples by Scott Durow
• Configuring dashboards for business process flows
• If you’re using ILMerge with your plugins – make sure you read this by Scott Durow
• Power Platform Admin Center aka the new Dynamics 365 admin center (Youtube 00:06:10)
• Create a customer sentiment solution in Dynamics 365 CE using Azure Cognitive Services and Microsoft Flow
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online release (Microsoft support)
• Introducing Dynamics 365 App for Outlook

Topics for Dynamics 365 CE business analysts, project manager and users

• Announcing new AI and mixed reality business applications for Microsoft Dynamics
• Dynamics 365 CE licensing guide changes October 2018
• Features that are new to the next release of Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement applications (on premise)
• New languages, regions and pricing for Dynamics 365 for Marketing
• Dynamics  365 AI for sales – how to sell smarter with embedded AI-driven insights (Youtube 00:01:52)

Quick tip: CRMServiceClient vs CRMConnection

Starting with Dynamics 365 build number 9.*  you must use the XRM Tooling assemblies and the CRMServiceClient instead of the CRMConnection class – see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/developer/choose-development-style for more information.
First you will need add the nuget package Microsoft.CrmSdk.XrmTooling.CoreAssembly (Core assembly required to develop managed code using the Xrm Tooling Connector)

Afterwards, there are a number of ways that you can instantiate a CRMServiceClient object – see  Use CrmServiceClient constructor to connect to Dynamics 365 or Use connection strings in XRM tooling to connect to Dynamics 365