Category: SharePoint

Benefits of Office 365 integration with Dynamics 365

I’m going to keep this introduction short and sweet. If you are making the decision between Dynamics 365 and another software or are wondering how to leverage Dynamics 365 and the other Microsoft productivity tools, it is a no-brainer to use the integration between Office 365 and Dynamics 365. Here’s why:

Outlook

These days, every CRM system needs to integrate directly with Outlook – and none do it better than the Dynamics App for Outlook. You can work in Outlook all day and have complete access to the full functionality of Dynamics without skipping a beat. If you have emails coming in from leads all day, Dynamics 365 will know their data without your input and you can update their information right from the Dynamics 365 side panel. Turning on email tracking will also allow any emails sent to/from records in Dynamics will be tracked to its timeline.

outlook integration

Cortana

Microsoft is pushing Artificial Intelligence very hard. And one of the main places they are pushing it is in Dynamics 365. The relationship assistant monitors daily actions like tasks, sentiment in emails and opportunities nearing their close date to provide you with actionable insights. Data cards show up in your dashboards and on forms to give you friendly reminders to send the client that email or follow up on that opportunity. Just look at this list of AI features rolling out in the October ’18 releases here. AI is going to give you everything you need to have a leg up on the competition and close more deals.

RA1RA2

Flow

Use Microsoft Flow and it’s expansive list of connectors to send data to and from Dynamics, Office 365, Azure, SQL and many other 3rd party software…. the list goes on.

SharePoint

Another powerful tool that you should leverage with your Dynamics implementation. Every business uses documents and needs a place to store them. With the SharePoint integration, you can link those documents to that quote, opportunity or any record you choose, and it can all be surfaced in SharePoint. Along with all the functionality you get with it, such as versioning and workflows.

OneDrive

By enabling the OneDrive integration, you can manage and work on documents from Dynamics 365 and have them automatically synced to your desktop or mobile device. Go with OneDrive if you want a more private file management solution.

Excel

The integration with Excel allows for data export/import, creating templates, and being able to refresh or edit Dynamics data directly from Excel using Dynamics worksheets.

PowerBI

PowerBI is a no-brainer when it comes to business analytics and interactive reports. Create powerful visualizations with your Dynamics data and embed it right into the D365 dashboards. You can also share these reports with non-Dynamics users.

PBI

OneNote

For every record in Dynamics, you can keep a OneNote notebook to store notes, pictures, videos or voice recordings. This enables your employees to collaborate on the sales deal or project in one of the best productivity tools that Microsoft has to offer.

O365 Groups

With this integration, you can create or link O365 groups to Dynamics 365 records. This gives you a way to link emails, conversations files and collaborations to a record. This is great for projects or big sales opportunities that may involve several users that need a place to collaborate.

Skype for Business

Dynamics allows you to click on any phone number in the system to automatically open your Skype for Business account and give them a call. This is a great tool for sales people who are constantly calling their contacts, lead ands opportunities that don’t want to worry about managing contacts and phone numbers.

Dynamics 365 is a powerful platform on its own, but when you can leverage the functionality available in all the other Office 365 applications it cannot be beat. Combining the two will bring your organizations productivity to another level.

How to get rid of that pesky GUID in your PowerApp

This is a common problem with PowerApps that isn’t immediately evident to someone who may be a citizen developer. You want to create an app to view or edit the data you have stored in SharePoint, Dynamics or some other connection that you have made. But why do the Lookup columns or fields display the GUID?

GUID example

It is a simple fix that just takes some experience in PowerApps to Master.

As an example, I will walk through this issue with Opportunities data from Dynamics 365.

1.  To start, go to PowerApps and click “Create an App.”

Create an app

2. From here, you will be asked to choose your data source, if you don’t find your data source, Microsoft might not offer an out of the box app for it. You should still be able to get connected by starting from a blank app or using a Dynamics or SharePoint data source as a template and substituting your data source in for it. I’ll cover this in a later blog.

Choose your data source

3. After selecting your data source, you will need to specify what environment this data is in, as well as what table you would like to pull from.

Connections - dataset

In this scenario I am connecting to “Opportunities” from our production environment of Dynamics 365.

Opportunities from Dynamics

4. Your app will be built automatically by PowerApps! Sit back and relax…for the time being.

Building your app

After your app has been created, you may notice that some of the fields are an incoherent mix of numbers and letters. This is a GUID and means that there is a lookup field in our data! Not to worry, we can fix this.

GUID

 

 

 

 

This happens because we only are able to specify 1 connection when creating the app, and the lookup values on the opportunity entity stores the GUID for Accounts and Contacts, not the friendly names.

5. To fix this we need to add connections for the Account and Contact entities or tables.

The first step is to click “View” from the top menu of our app and then “Data Sources.” This will flyout a menu with a list of all our sources.

Data Sources

As you can see, “Opportunities” was our only option so we need to click “Add data source.” From there, we can add the Accounts and Contacts from Dynamics 365 as our Data Sources.

Add Data Source Add Accounts  Add data

6. After adding the Accounts as a data source, now we can go to the PowerApp to edit the field that is using the GUID. To make this a friendly name, we use the Lookup() function to lookup to the Account entity or table. In our scenario, the formula is as follows: Lookup(Accounts, accountid = ThisItem._parentaccountid_value, name).

This formula basically says “Lookup to the Accounts table, where you find a match in the Account ID to this items’ Parent Account ID, return the Name of the Account.” Pretty straight forward, but if this is your first go around with PowerApps – it might not come very easily.

Account lookup

7. Now, do the same for contacts – and there you have it!  No more GUIDs!

Account Lookup 2

PowerApps Checklist: 10 Things you need to know before getting started

Are you are getting ready to build your first PowerApp? Here is a list of what you should know before you begin:

  1. Do you know your data source?
    • This is an important question, and you guessed it, because of licensing… but I will get to that at a later point. PowerApps has nearly 300 connectors, which can be found here. A decision needs to be made on where you would like to store your data. Common storage locations are SharePoint, Dynamics 365, Excel and Common Data Service (CDS)(Link to blog about what CDS is).
    • Your data source could also determine what type of app you can build. With the Common Data Service, you can build model driven apps which are designed around business functions and business processes.
  2. Do you need a custom connector?
    • If you do not see your data source in this list of connectors, you may need to build your own custom connector. With a custom connector, you will be able to bring data into your PowerApp just like the out of the box connectors.
  3. PowerAppsWhat license is needed?
    • Depending on what connector you need for your data, you can use PowerApps for O365, P1, P2, or Dynamics 365 licenses.
      • If you have O365, you will be able to use PowerApps at no additional cost if your connector is on the list of free connections. Some of these include: SharePoint, Excel, and OneDrive.
      • If you are an end user that needs to connect to a premium data source, such as Common Data Service, you will need a P1 License.
      • If you are an app builder that needs to connect to a premium data source, such as Common Data Service, you will need a P2 License.
      • If you are already using Dynamics 365, you will inherently have a full PowerApps license for no additional cost.
  4. On what device will users be accessing the app?
    • The decision here is an important one for usability. If most of your users are out in the field and will be using the app on their cell phone, you should build the app in “portrait” mode. If users will be accessing on their desktops, you should build the app in “landscape” mode.
  5. Do you need any workflows?
    • Flow is the preferred choice for running any workflows based upon data in PowerApps, and O365 in general. Make sure to document these workflows as part of the beginning stages of any project. With Flow, you will have access to the same connectors used in your PowerApps,plus handy connectors like Approvals, which are easy ways of generating email approval workflows.
  6. Do you need custom branding? Or can you get away with an out-of-the-box theme?
    • When you create PowerApps, you are easily able to switch between the out of the box themes that are made available from Microsoft. But sometimes, they might not fit the branding you are looking for. Currently, you are not able to make a custom PowerApps theme. If you will need a lot of custom branding for your PowerApp – you may need to budget more time for the creation of your app.
  7. Do you need to report on your data?
    • If you need to report on your data, the best place to do so would be in PowerBI. You can create powerful visuals based on the same connections that you have used to create your app. So no matter whether the data is in SharePoint, CDS, Dynamics, Excel, or any 3rd party connectors, you can get powerful insights.
  8. Who will manage the PowerApp?
    • A very important question. When change requests inevitably happen, who takes ownership of those changes? Is it IT or a power user within the team? PowerApps is designed for power users to be able to handle much of the workload, but it is still a great idea to have an IT member or external consultant with more expertise on call.
  9. Who will train end users?
    • The great thing about PowerApps, is that they can be designed in a way that is intuitive to users. Of course there will still need to be some training. Outlining who should be conducting the training is crucial so that users don’t get left behind. Poor user training generally leads to weak user adoption.
  10. Get familiar with the PowerApps roadmap
    • This is important to check every so often due to the steady rollout of new features coming from the PowerApps team. By checking the roadmap here, you can see the new features coming down the line that might solve the need you are looking for, or provide a more usable feature for your end users.