Debajit Dutta (Former 6x Business Solutions MVP, MCT)

Control Next and Previous stage movement in Dynamics 365/ CDS Business Process flows using Client API

Honestly I was not aware of this function sometime back and this was purely an accidental discovery. And guess what when I queried around, I found that it actually missed the cognizance of so many consultants out there. And while this function have been introduced, we still keep telling the customer that it is kind …

Control Next and Previous stage movement in Dynamics 365/ CDS Business Process flows using Client API Read More »

Need to open up a webresource as modal in Dynamics 365 on-premise V9.0. Wondering how can you do since Xrm.Navigate.navigateTo is not available still on-premise? Dialog boxes with a little tweak can help you do that even in On-premise. Check this out!

When I came across this post by Bob Guidinger, I was like WOW! What an article and what a discovery. I could vouch that the most experienced of CRM consultants would envy to write a post like this. And guess what, no sooner than I wrote this post came the requirement where I needed to …

Need to open up a webresource as modal in Dynamics 365 on-premise V9.0. Wondering how can you do since Xrm.Navigate.navigateTo is not available still on-premise? Dialog boxes with a little tweak can help you do that even in On-premise. Check this out! Read More »

How to print special characters like Beta, alpha, Phi while using CSV writer in Python

This is my second blog post and gosh, I am loving it here. So here it goes. I had a requirement where I had to print the special greek characters like Alpha, beta, omega, Phi etc in excel using CSV module. Since I am pretty new to the platform, I searched around in the wonderful …

How to print special characters like Beta, alpha, Phi while using CSV writer in Python Read More »

Blank row getting inserted between each row of excel while using CSV writer in Python

I have recently started working on phyton and I just love it. And now I wonder why I didn’t get an opportunity to start earlier. So here it is. I was trying to write a CSV file. Below is the sample code for the same. import csv with open(’emissions.csv’, ‘w’, encoding=”utf-32″) as csvfile:     filewriter = …

Blank row getting inserted between each row of excel while using CSV writer in Python Read More »

{Solved} Typing in character t automatically inserting current datetime in datepicker controls on WebForms in Dynamics 365/ PowerApps Portals

Well, this one is indeed weird when I first time saw it. So basically we set up custom datetime format in portals to dd-MMM-yyyy. If you are unware of custom datetime format in portals, you can follow this blog here. All set and done, I launch a webform and the first step of the webform …

{Solved} Typing in character t automatically inserting current datetime in datepicker controls on WebForms in Dynamics 365/ PowerApps Portals Read More »

Show success and error symbol for each field on-change of field value in Dynamics 365/ PowerApps portals.

Recently I got a requirement where every time an user keys in a wrong email address, the user should get a error notification icon on the control and if the user key in the correct email address, the user should get a success notification on the control. Very common requirement I shall say but again …

Show success and error symbol for each field on-change of field value in Dynamics 365/ PowerApps portals. Read More »

Need to convert from LocalTime in any time zone to UTC time in Dynamics 365? The UtcTimeFromLocalTime request can help you with that. Check this out!

UtcTimeFromLocalTime – A function introduced in Dynamics 365 to allow you to convert time in any timezone to the corresponding UTC time. It has couple of parameters If you want to check on how to convert UTC time to local time in Dynamics 365/ Model driven apps, check this blog post. LocalTime – DateTime object …

Need to convert from LocalTime in any time zone to UTC time in Dynamics 365? The UtcTimeFromLocalTime request can help you with that. Check this out! Read More »

How to get Local Time From UTC Time in Dynamics 365/ Model driven apps webresource/ client side code

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. In today’s blog, we will discuss about a simple yet useful feature to convert UTC time to local time in Dynamics 365/ Model driven web resources. Before we get to the solution, let’s understand when you shall require to use this functionality. This scenario usually arise when you …

How to get Local Time From UTC Time in Dynamics 365/ Model driven apps webresource/ client side code Read More »

How to refresh Homepage Grid on click of custom ribbon button in Dynamics 365? Use Xrm.Utility.refreshParentGrid() API

This one I found pretty interesting. And in the community you will find this requirement popping up every now and then, specially the requirement to refresh HomePage grid and ribbon on click of a ribbon button. Let’s see the requirement that we had for this. In this blog I am going to discuss the following …

How to refresh Homepage Grid on click of custom ribbon button in Dynamics 365? Use Xrm.Utility.refreshParentGrid() API Read More »

{Quick Tip} Redirect to edit form post creating a record in PowerApps/ dynamics 365 portals

This one is a small tip for anyone who are trying to build up their portal application and did not have much exposure to portals yet. And this is one of the most common requirement that I face in almost every portal implementation. So you have your insert form and then when the portal user …

{Quick Tip} Redirect to edit form post creating a record in PowerApps/ dynamics 365 portals Read More »

Are you still including unnecessary fields on your Dynamics 365 forms so that your scripts can access it? May be it’s time to use Attribute dependency feature of webresources.

Sometimes we are so much busy in our day to day consulting stuffs that we frequently miss those small little gems in Dynamics 365 which are scattered throughout but we tend to ignore them more often than not. And one of them is the Attribute dependency feature in webresources. How many of you faced a …

Are you still including unnecessary fields on your Dynamics 365 forms so that your scripts can access it? May be it’s time to use Attribute dependency feature of webresources. Read More »

Want to show a global notification which appears anywhere on your Dynamics 365/ CDS model driven app? Xrm.App.addGlobalNotification does just that. Check this out!

This is one ask which customers had asked for sometime. We have form notifications and field notifications for quite sometime now and this API has also been there for quite sometime. However this is not much used or I shall say rather unknown and through my blog I want to spread the awareness of this …

Want to show a global notification which appears anywhere on your Dynamics 365/ CDS model driven app? Xrm.App.addGlobalNotification does just that. Check this out! Read More »

Have you understood the significance of Xrm.Utility.invokeProcessAction() API in Dynamics 365? And no it’s not to execute a Global action. It has much more to it than you can imagine! Check this out!

Xrm.Utility.invokeProcessAction – A function introduced in Dynamics API for quite sometime. And frankly with the magnitude of actions being used in each project, this should have been the most widely used function by now. But unfortunately this is hardly used and the reason for that being it’s purpose is not being understood. We may have …

Have you understood the significance of Xrm.Utility.invokeProcessAction() API in Dynamics 365? And no it’s not to execute a Global action. It has much more to it than you can imagine! Check this out! Read More »

Get displayed ViewId on click of ribbon button in Home Page Grid in Dynamics365/ PowerApps. Explore the hidden gem–Xrm.Navigation.getPageContext()

This is a requirement I received few years back. And that time I said it is unsupported and hence not possible. And today again I got this requirement and guess what I was about to say the same thing when I thought – “The API now is much more rich. There may be something in …

Get displayed ViewId on click of ribbon button in Home Page Grid in Dynamics365/ PowerApps. Explore the hidden gem–Xrm.Navigation.getPageContext() Read More »

Xrm.Utility.getResourceString in Dynamics 365. Which scenario it works and where it doesn’t? And what are the workarounds?

RESX web resources have been introduced for quite sometime but unfortunately even when I see project implementations today, I see constants file being used instead of Resource files. What more, you can even show specific values based on logged in user language. This blog post is not about how you can create a resource file …

Xrm.Utility.getResourceString in Dynamics 365. Which scenario it works and where it doesn’t? And what are the workarounds? Read More »

Planning to show a custom multi-select lookup. Use the Xrm.Utility.lookupObjects to show a multi-select lookup control in Dynamics 365

Recently in my project I had the requirement to show up a multiselect lookup for selecting records across multiple custom entities. The customer have created a PCF control where they have designed to show the selected records spanning entities. But the issue was to show a lookup control to allow the user to select multiple …

Planning to show a custom multi-select lookup. Use the Xrm.Utility.lookupObjects to show a multi-select lookup control in Dynamics 365 Read More »

AssignUserRoles and RemoveUserRoles message in plugins-Is this something you can really use in Dynamics 365

Over the last few months, I have receiving loads of request to train people who are new to Dynamics and Powerapps and trying to learn and make a footprint. However with my bandwidth, it becomes really hard to keep track and satisfy all those requests. Also I realized there is lot of query on some …

AssignUserRoles and RemoveUserRoles message in plugins-Is this something you can really use in Dynamics 365 Read More »

WebForm sessions in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 portals-All you need to know

Webforms are wonderful things in PowerApps portals. It allows you to design wizard control providing user with multiple steps to complete an operation. And one of the wonderful things with WebForms in PowerApps portals is to maintain sessions. Say a Webform have three steps – Step 1, Step 2 and Step 3. Say a portal …

WebForm sessions in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 portals-All you need to know Read More »

Common Data Service (Current environment) connector not showing up while creating a PowerAutomate flow? Check this out.

Couple of months back I wrote a blog post on Common data service (Current environment) not showing up while creating a PowerAutomate flow and the reason was that only for flows created through the solution have the connector available. Here is the link to the post – https://debajmecrm.com/quick-tip-common-data-service-current-environment-connector-not-showing-up-while-creating-microsoft-flows-power-automate/comment-page-1/#comment-17413 However post that I got multiple question …

Common Data Service (Current environment) connector not showing up while creating a PowerAutomate flow? Check this out. Read More »

All you want to know about “Rollup View“ Entity Relationship behavior in Dynamics 365

You might be wondering this is a pretty old feature and why I am writing this blog now. As I do quite a few trainings I always get lot of questions on relationship behavior. And specially related to Rollup behavior on entity relationship.I am not going to explain in this blog what this feature is …

All you want to know about “Rollup View“ Entity Relationship behavior in Dynamics 365 Read More »

Restrict Delete of Note attachment in Dynamics 365 if user is having missing Delete privilege on Note record.

Recently I had a requirement where my customer wanted to remove delete privilege for all regular business roles from Note entity. There is no big thing in this. All you need is open up the security role and under “Core Records” tab, remove the delete privilege on the Note Entity. As expected when the user …

Restrict Delete of Note attachment in Dynamics 365 if user is having missing Delete privilege on Note record. Read More »

{knowhow} How to refer a JavaScript file in your PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portal which is not accessible via public URL?

This is a big question I face whether I am conducting a training or whether I am working on PowerApps portal in customer location. And I am really not surprised. Say you have a custom .js file where you have scripted some wonderful functions and want to reuse in the portal. It’s a really big …

{knowhow} How to refer a JavaScript file in your PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portal which is not accessible via public URL? Read More »

Strip HTML characters using Liquid in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portals

I have been working lately a lot on PowerApps portals and one of the requirement that we got from customer is to render some HTML text as text in Portals. The customer had a field in Dynamics 365 which was storing rich text. We would retrieve the field value using fetchxml in liquid and the …

Strip HTML characters using Liquid in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portals Read More »

Working with custom DateTime formats in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portals

By default in PowerApps portals, the date and time is showed in the format as configured in CDS/ Dynamics 365. However you can override the default date/ time format to be used on portals with the below site settings. DateTime/DateFormat: The date format used on the portal. DateTime/TimeFormat: The time format used on the portal. …

Working with custom DateTime formats in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portals Read More »

Could not find a part of the path … bin\roslyn\csc.exe. Error while setting up of OAuth implicit 2.0 API for PowerApps portal

IF you are not aware of OAuth 2.0 Implicit grant for PowerApps portal, I suggest you refer this Microsoft Docs link. To put in Microsoft words – “This feature allows a customer to make client-side calls to external APIs and secure them by using OAuth implicit grant flow. It provides an endpoint to obtain secure …

Could not find a part of the path … bin\roslyn\csc.exe. Error while setting up of OAuth implicit 2.0 API for PowerApps portal Read More »

string to integer, string to decimal in liquid template–Is typecasting through liquid in PowerApps portals/ Dynamics 365 Portals adding to your woes? the type filter may just be you way out

First of all this is not specific to Dynamics 365/ PowerApps portals. However since I try to put everything related to my passion – dynamics 365 and PowerApps, I try to relate every blog post of mine with that. Coming to the topic, this is related to liquid. And as the title say’s, it is …

string to integer, string to decimal in liquid template–Is typecasting through liquid in PowerApps portals/ Dynamics 365 Portals adding to your woes? the type filter may just be you way out Read More »

Automatically sign-in with Azure AD in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portals on Sign in click.

Recently I had this requirement where the customer wanted to automatically sign in using the default Azure AD option on clicking Sing in the header menu in PowerApps portals. So when the Sign In link is clicked, the user should be automatically signed in without being redirected to the Sign In page and then clicking …

Automatically sign-in with Azure AD in PowerApps/ Dynamics 365 Portals on Sign in click. Read More »

Get Transaction currency name for logged in user in Dynamics 365

Recently Microsoft have released quite a few updates to it’s client API and one such is the update to API for getting the currency name of the logged in user. All this time, Microsoft had an API to get the transaction currency id of the logged in user using the API – Xrm.Utility.getGlobalContext().userSettings.transactionCurrencyId. You needed …

Get Transaction currency name for logged in user in Dynamics 365 Read More »

Out of the box API to get Logged In user’s security role names in Dynamics 365 is finally there. Is the long wait finally over?

Checking for logged in user’s security role is a requirement I haven’t missed in any of my implementations so far. From enterprise implementations to projects spanning couple of months, this requirement I had everywhere. And as much crazy it may sound, until recently there was no way to get the security role names directly using …

Out of the box API to get Logged In user’s security role names in Dynamics 365 is finally there. Is the long wait finally over? Read More »

Get formContext inside Webresource in Dynamics 365

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Ever since Xrm.Navigate.navigateTo has been introduced, it has been a big relief for consultants and customers alike. After all the ability to open a modal dialog was required so much but was missing for quite some time. But as everyone rushed in to implement the …

Get formContext inside Webresource in Dynamics 365 Read More »

Switch Business process flows in Dynamics 365 – Use Xrm.Navigation.openForm

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Xrm.Navigation.openForm – A function which has been used by almost every consultant to open a entity record whether existing or new record. This is a function which as a developer and Dynamics consultant, I believe is one of the most under utilized function. This function …

Switch Business process flows in Dynamics 365 – Use Xrm.Navigation.openForm Read More »

Notes (Annotations) not visible in PowerApps portals/ Dynamics 365 Portals?This can help!

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com This post is not about configuring Notes section on PowerApps portals. There are few good articles out there already and not to forget, the portal documentation on Microsoft Docs is pretty neat as well. Well this one is about the question I regularly come across …

Notes (Annotations) not visible in PowerApps portals/ Dynamics 365 Portals?This can help! Read More »

Custom ribbon buttons not showing up in Dynamics 365 forms/ grids. The wonderful Command checker tool from Microsoft might just save your day.

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com If you have ever worked in Dynamics 365 implementation then it is almost certain that you must have played around with ribbons. And more often than not you must have faced scenario where you have multiple enable and display rules on the form and not …

Custom ribbon buttons not showing up in Dynamics 365 forms/ grids. The wonderful Command checker tool from Microsoft might just save your day. Read More »

Stay on the same page when a lookup field is clicked in Dynamics 365 forms/ grids. Use the addOnLookupTagClick function

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com With every release of Dynamics 365, there is something always new for developers. In my last blog I explained about the enhancement in Xrm.WebApi.navigateTo method. Today we will discuss in detail about the new “addOnLookupTagClick” method introduced in Release wave 1, 2020. So what does …

Stay on the same page when a lookup field is clicked in Dynamics 365 forms/ grids. Use the addOnLookupTagClick function Read More »

How to Show Dynamics 365/ CRM form in a modal window? Use Xrm.Navigate.navigateTo

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com With PowerApps release wave 1 2020, Microsoft have released quite a few features under the hood. While some  have hogged the limelight, others continue to evolve in the platform like hidden gems. And one of them is the enhancement in much loved Xrm.Navigate.navigateTo API. Now …

How to Show Dynamics 365/ CRM form in a modal window? Use Xrm.Navigate.navigateTo Read More »

Custom Button on Entity form to Save a record in PowerApps portals/ Dynamics 365 Portals

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Recently I had a requirement where my customer asked me to put an additional button on the Edit page of a account form that will perform a set of operations before saving the record. They didn’t want to tamper the OOB functionality of Submit button …

Custom Button on Entity form to Save a record in PowerApps portals/ Dynamics 365 Portals Read More »

Quick find view search not working in Dynamics 365? There is Change in Default Search behavior in Dynamics 365 in release wave 1

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Well this one came as pure surprise and I got to know of this one only after one of our customer enabled 2020 Release wave 1 feature in one of their SandBox environments and updated us that search on entity grids is not working as …

Quick find view search not working in Dynamics 365? There is Change in Default Search behavior in Dynamics 365 in release wave 1 Read More »

How to reset controls inside Gallery in Canvas App

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Lately designing quite a few canvas apps for specific modules and this is one issue we faced recently while working for a customer. So the customer had a gallery control which was bound to CDS contacts and then there were some additional controls like Checkbox, …

How to reset controls inside Gallery in Canvas App Read More »

How to show ratings on PowerApps portals/ Dynamics 365 portals. All you need to know

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Recently we had this scenario where my customer was trying to configure ratings for a web page in PowerApps portal. Basically it’s a page where customers could login and rate the page content. So here was the developer who created the web-page and also checked …

How to show ratings on PowerApps portals/ Dynamics 365 portals. All you need to know Read More »

Configure redirects in Dynamics 365/ Powerapps portals.

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Recently I was working in some portal customizations for my client and one of the requirements that came in was to place a re-direct for a portal url. If you are unware of redirects in Portals, this docs link is the perfect place to get …

Configure redirects in Dynamics 365/ Powerapps portals. Read More »

Display entity image in your webresource in Dynamics 365/ CDS? Use entityimage_url instead of image content.

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com I was bit hesitant to write this blog to be honest as I thought it’s pretty mundane and must be quite known to everyone. And we had the same requirement for the customer. They wanted to show the entity image of a contact in a …

Display entity image in your webresource in Dynamics 365/ CDS? Use entityimage_url instead of image content. Read More »

How to update a record in CDS/ Dynamics 365 from canvas app without using primary key

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com I have recently been conducting some trainings on canvas apps and one of the questions that came up during the session was regarding the Patch function in canvas app. As the name suggests, you can use the Patch function to modify or create a record …

How to update a record in CDS/ Dynamics 365 from canvas app without using primary key Read More »

Show Consecutive line breaks in alerts in Dynamics 365/ CDS

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com By this time all of us are familiar with Xrm.Navigation.openAlertDialog. What’s more is going to be there in that API. After all it’s an API which just shows some alert. And yet the simplest of things sometime surprises us. The same experience I had today …

Show Consecutive line breaks in alerts in Dynamics 365/ CDS Read More »

Delegation in canvas apps power apps. know about it before you start working with large datasets.

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Canvas apps is certainly changing a customer’s view point on mobile rollout feasibility for their business. However more often than not, we as consultants come across customers having significant data in the system. And while we don’t think much about data volumes while dealing with …

Delegation in canvas apps power apps. know about it before you start working with large datasets. Read More »

How to create controls dynamically in Canvas App power apps using galleries

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Before I even go ahead and add more on this. Spoiler alert!  This blog is not going to introduce you to a new API which allows you to add/ remove controls dynamically in a canvas app. As of the time of writing this blog, there …

How to create controls dynamically in Canvas App power apps using galleries Read More »

Configure Customer lookup in canvas apps to show either contacts or accounts

Follow Debajit’s Power Apps & Dynamics 365 Blog on WordPress.com Happy new year to all my blog readers and this is my first blog of 2020. And how about starting with a simple one and that too on canvas apps! So this was my customer requirement. They were designing a canvas app for their business …

Configure Customer lookup in canvas apps to show either contacts or accounts Read More »

“File” data type in CDS. All you may need to know about it.

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com Well this one is pure serendipity. I was working for a customer and while creating a new field for an entity, I could see a new data type called – “File”. Honestly I …

“File” data type in CDS. All you may need to know about it. Read More »

{Know How} Apply Business process flow on create of a record or skip setting of default Process flow based on custom business logic in Dynamics 365 using ProcessId field of record

Business Process flows are used everywhere and as a Power platform consultant you might be working with them almost everyday. However sometimes the intricacies of the most mundane stuffs seems to baffle us. And one of them is was this requirement that I recently had. And trust me I found many was not aware of …

{Know How} Apply Business process flow on create of a record or skip setting of default Process flow based on custom business logic in Dynamics 365 using ProcessId field of record Read More »

Enhancement in Lead Qualification and Email experience in Release wave 2 in Dynamics 365

I have worked with lots of clients on Dynamics 365 for sales and we can’t ignore the fact that lead qualification is one of the major functionality in any tool. However even in a functionality as primitive as lead qualification, there were some issues which didn’t provide a great customer experience. Trust me on this, …

Enhancement in Lead Qualification and Email experience in Release wave 2 in Dynamics 365 Read More »

View emails as conversation in Activity Timeline in Dynamics 365

Release wave 2 have brought with it some nice little features and one of them is the ability to view email conversation threads in activity timeline. So let’s see what this feature is all about. Suppose a CRM user is having conversation for a customer and emails are going back and forth. There are a …

View emails as conversation in Activity Timeline in Dynamics 365 Read More »

Open webresources Modal or Inline using Xrm.Naviagtion.naviagteTo in Dynamics 365 Unified interface

Release wave 2 have released some wonderful features and one of them is the capability to open a webresource as modal or inline. I bet this is going to ease the life of lot of consultants who were traditionally using Xrm.Navigation.openWebResource or Xrm.Utility.openWebResource (deprecated) to open webresource and hear about the perennial client complaint of …

Open webresources Modal or Inline using Xrm.Naviagtion.naviagteTo in Dynamics 365 Unified interface Read More »

How to call CDS/ Dynamics 365 action from Microsoft flow (Power Automate)

For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365 and Portals Calling actions from Microsoft flow is now just a cakewalk. All you need to is to use the Common Data service (Current environment) connector introduced in flow. This is not to be confused with …

How to call CDS/ Dynamics 365 action from Microsoft flow (Power Automate) Read More »

{Quick tip} Common Data Service (Current environment) connector not showing up while creating Microsoft flows (Power Automate)

Flows are now Power Automate and why not? After all it is an enterprise process automation flow framework personally I believe the name change is long due. And the name change has brought with a plethora of new features but Robotic process automation (RPA) is the big brother taking all due credit. However there are …

{Quick tip} Common Data Service (Current environment) connector not showing up while creating Microsoft flows (Power Automate) Read More »

{Quick tip} : Determine if OpportunityClose dialog is opened for “Close as Won” or “Close as Lost” in Dynamics 365 Unified interface.

As many of us know, for unified interface now we can customize the “opportunityclose” entity. A feature awaited for a very long time and finally it’s here. If you are not aware, you can now customize the dialog box that pops up when you click “Close as Won” and “Close as Lost” button on the …

{Quick tip} : Determine if OpportunityClose dialog is opened for “Close as Won” or “Close as Lost” in Dynamics 365 Unified interface. Read More »

How to use Promise to evaluate your ribbon enable rules with asynchronous Xrm.WebApi methods in Dynamics 365 Unified interface.

We all have been using Xrm.WebApi methods isn’t it? After all why not? They are wonderful. You no longer need to write lengthy XmlHttpRequests and parse the raw JSON results back. Xrm.WebApi methods does the hard part of converting the raw JSON outputs into strongly typed objects. Not sure if anyone is still there but …

How to use Promise to evaluate your ribbon enable rules with asynchronous Xrm.WebApi methods in Dynamics 365 Unified interface. Read More »

Dynamics 365 integration with SmartSheet using Flows–What’s there and what’s not.

A dry spell of a month and here I am back to my favourite way of connecting with community which is writing one more blog post. So here I got a new requirement from my customer. Basically they are using Smartsheet and Dynamics 365 and the simple requirement is whenever any changes are made in …

Dynamics 365 integration with SmartSheet using Flows–What’s there and what’s not. Read More »

{Solved}WebAPI methods in PowerApps component framework (PCF) custom control returning null–Dynamics 365

PowerApps component framework has been like a tsunami hitting the power platform. From customer standpoint, now they are able to achieve any custom UI which otherwise all these days would come back as – “Not supported by Dynamics” from a CRM architect/ consultant. Not only for customers, PCF have been a shot in arm for …

{Solved}WebAPI methods in PowerApps component framework (PCF) custom control returning null–Dynamics 365 Read More »

Issues with self signed certificates for server-server integration between CRM and Sharepoint? Here is what you may need to know to save your day.

As promised in my last blog, I am back with one more scenario where consultants get stuck in on-premise environments. Server-server SharePoint integration with Dynamics is something we take for granted when we set up trial instances for demo in online environments. After all, entire internal plumbing is handled by Microsoft and we just need …

Issues with self signed certificates for server-server integration between CRM and Sharepoint? Here is what you may need to know to save your day. Read More »

Upload multiple attachments in CRM Notes/ annotations with metadata for each attachment- Introducing Notes Manager from XrmForYou.com

For consulting and training, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com It gives me great pleasure to announce the new CRM add-on from XrmForYou stable – Notes Metadata Manager utility from XrmForYou stable. Well Notes (Annotations) have existed in CRM since pre-historic times. And perhaps one of the most widely used feature in Dynamics till date since …

Upload multiple attachments in CRM Notes/ annotations with metadata for each attachment- Introducing Notes Manager from XrmForYou.com Read More »

{Quick Fix} SSRS instance showing blank while installing reporting extensions for V9.0 on-premise

It’s been couple of months since I have written a blog. One of those years where health has gone south for me and I am gradually limping in back into my stride. Ironically, as I am making my way back, I started with Dynamics V9.0 on-premise project for one customer as well and it’s been …

{Quick Fix} SSRS instance showing blank while installing reporting extensions for V9.0 on-premise Read More »

Understanding “Record Count” and “NULL” condition check expression in “List Records” step of Common data service action in Microsoft flows

Be it “Citizen developers” or long time technical consultants in Dynamics, Microsoft Flows haven’t ceased to impress all. It’s liked by developers and customers alike and many a times have a deciding factor when choosing Dynamics 365 as the desired CRM platform over its competitors. And if you have used Microsoft flows for Common data …

Understanding “Record Count” and “NULL” condition check expression in “List Records” step of Common data service action in Microsoft flows Read More »

Why is my calculated field not showing in rollup field definition?

And I had the same from my customer development team. The first thing I did was go to “Rollup Field” documentation in Microsoft Docs and sent to cross check the below points. After creating calculated fields over the years, I thought this has to be something related to configuration. (Pic courtesy: Microsoft Docs) Well, if …

Why is my calculated field not showing in rollup field definition? Read More »

{Solved}Why are my CRM SDK Assembly references in Azure functions throwing error? How do I refer my custom assemblies which are not in Nuget?

And this was the complaint from one my customer. Why CRM assembly references in Azure function apps are throwing error? To add to my woes, that was some pretty important functionality running inside those small little functions and alas, the last few runs have failed. It was few months back and at that point of …

{Solved}Why are my CRM SDK Assembly references in Azure functions throwing error? How do I refer my custom assemblies which are not in Nuget? Read More »

{Solved}–Invalid Argument error while showing Virtual entity using Custom Virtual Entity Data Provider on Unified interface

Virtual entities are there for pretty long time now. And why this done and dusted topic? Sometimes the greatest of surprises come from the simplest of stuffs and this was one such scenario. So here was my customer IT team who had developed a pretty good custom virtual entity data provider to show up virtual …

{Solved}–Invalid Argument error while showing Virtual entity using Custom Virtual Entity Data Provider on Unified interface Read More »

Unearthing “Solution Layering” feature of Dynamics 365. How are the good old concepts of patching and cloning related to it?

If you really ask me, solution layering is not a functionality in itself. Rather it is a visual representation to see the order in which a solution changed the component. Since you have visual representation of how a component got modified during the course of deployment of multiple managed solutions, this can be used for …

Unearthing “Solution Layering” feature of Dynamics 365. How are the good old concepts of patching and cloning related to it? Read More »

“Team Members Privilege Inheritance”–What is this doing in Security role screen of Dynamics 365?

My team mate had the same question for me. He was in the middle of preparing demo with the customer and he opened up Sales person security role to make some modifications and guess what, he sees something new in there. Just like the one in below screenshot. A new option with two values – …

“Team Members Privilege Inheritance”–What is this doing in Security role screen of Dynamics 365? Read More »

Azure AD Groups can own your Dynamics 365 records. Learn it how?

Just another day in office and just another new stuff to learn. I bet this one will excite almost all the CRM consultants worldwide. So what I am talking about in here. Well I am talking about “team ownerships”. I think it is being used in almost every project I have come across till date. …

Azure AD Groups can own your Dynamics 365 records. Learn it how? Read More »

CreatedOn, CreatedBy, ModifiedOn and ModfiedBy– All you need to know to maintain history during Data Migration in Dynamics 365

These are the days of PowerApps. Canvas Apps, Model driven apps, flows and myriad of new features which are introduced lately or over the past couple of years. And yet in day-day jobs in our client projects we tend to argue over mundane things which in-fact I remember discussing during my initial days in CRM …

CreatedOn, CreatedBy, ModifiedOn and ModfiedBy– All you need to know to maintain history during Data Migration in Dynamics 365 Read More »

Getting FormContext in Power Apps Custom Component framework–Gotchas!

Before I proceed further some disclaimers here. If you are thinking from the title that I have been able to resolve the problem completely, unfortunately it’s not. My approach works for certain scenarios and not for all scenarios and I will explain where it works and where it doesn’t. And this is of the time …

Getting FormContext in Power Apps Custom Component framework–Gotchas! Read More »

{Dynamics 365 for Sales AI} How are relationship analytics calculated? Let Microsoft Docs tell you

Recently I have been working on setting up various features of Sales AI for a customer and I have to tell you that there is so much to it than meets the eye. And one of them is the Relationship Analytics. If you go to Account/ Contact/ Lead/ Opportunity form then you would see some …

{Dynamics 365 for Sales AI} How are relationship analytics calculated? Let Microsoft Docs tell you Read More »

What does “context” object hold in Power Apps custom component framework. Organization info, user info, web API methods and more!

After my detailed post on Power Apps Custom component framework, I have getting loads of queries and among them the common ones are How do we get organization details within my Power Apps custom control How to get context user information How to get record information on which the control  is embedded How to query …

What does “context” object hold in Power Apps custom component framework. Organization info, user info, web API methods and more! Read More »

Talking points in Dynamics 365 AI for Sales–Gotchas!

Introduction of Dynamics 365 AI has been a game changer in the field of Dynamics 365 and personally I have seen that mentioning this feature many a times drive the decision makers to choose Microsoft CRM over it’s competitors. And if you are a Dynamics consultant, it’s obvious that you are have either read it …

Talking points in Dynamics 365 AI for Sales–Gotchas! Read More »

Create PowerApps Component framework (PCF) controls – A Complete hands-on Guide

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com In this blog I am going to walk you through on creating a PCF control step by step from scratch. Technically speaking it will be through a series of blogs. However this is …

Create PowerApps Component framework (PCF) controls – A Complete hands-on Guide Read More »

Part 6 – Embed your Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) control on CRM form

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com In our previous article, we learnt how to build and deploy our custom control to CRM environment. To test it, I will use the account entity. I will create three fields first in …

Part 6 – Embed your Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) control on CRM form Read More »

Part 5 – Build, Test and Deploy your Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) Custom Control

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com The article is a part of series of blog posts on Custom component framework topic. In order to get the context I would suggest to get started from beginning. Now that we have …

Part 5 – Build, Test and Deploy your Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) Custom Control Read More »

Part 4 – Develop your Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) control UI and events

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com The article is a part of series of blog posts on PowerApps Component Framework (PCF). In order to get the context I would suggest to get started from beginning. Let’s continue from where …

Part 4 – Develop your Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) control UI and events Read More »

Part 3- Set-up Manifest file for your PowerApps Component Framework (PCF)

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com As I explained in the previous article we are going to develop a file control with a submit button. So we need to prepare the Manifest file. As I explained earlier, manifest file …

Part 3- Set-up Manifest file for your PowerApps Component Framework (PCF) Read More »

Part 2: SET up development environment for PowerApps Component Framework (PCF) Project

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com The article is a part of series of blog posts on Custom component framework topic. Please start from beginning to get the context. For this article I will use Visual studio 2017 for …

Part 2: SET up development environment for PowerApps Component Framework (PCF) Project Read More »

Part 1: Understanding PowerApps Component Framework (PCF) and control lifecycle

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com The article is a part of series of blog posts on Custom component framework topic. In order to get the context I would suggest to get started from beginning. Let’s not get to the …

Part 1: Understanding PowerApps Component Framework (PCF) and control lifecycle Read More »

Insert Custom Controls in Dynamics 365/ CDS Business Process flows

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com Today I was just searching some stuffs on Custom Controls and then stumbled upon this link – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/business-applications-release-notes/October18/microsoft-flow/custom-controls-in-business-process-flows Although the documentation tell that it is possible to embed custom controls in Business Process …

Insert Custom Controls in Dynamics 365/ CDS Business Process flows Read More »

What is “Toast Notification Display time” in Dynamics 365

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.comWell this blog is pure serendipity. I was doing something else when I discovered this sitting quietly in Dynamics (not sure when it came in) and then I explored it. What I am talking …

What is “Toast Notification Display time” in Dynamics 365 Read More »

Azure AD B2C integration with Dynamics 365 Portals/ PowerApps portals

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com Off late I have been getting loads of queries regarding this topic and whenever I get this one, I always provide the below link https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/portals/azure-ad-b2c However more often than not I find them …

Azure AD B2C integration with Dynamics 365 Portals/ PowerApps portals Read More »

Data policies (DLP) in Power platform admin center

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com In my recently conducted training on Dynamics 365, I dealt a lot with the Power Platform admin center and could find that while there is great awareness of the CDS and how does …

Data policies (DLP) in Power platform admin center Read More »

Set TimeOut or wait condition in Power Automate/ Microsoft Flow

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com Lately working on Microsoft flows these days where I am helping my customer to migrate Dynamics 365 workflows to Microsoft flow. One of the workflow was using a timeout condition with  Duration Timeout …

Set TimeOut or wait condition in Power Automate/ Microsoft Flow Read More »

Invoke Power Automate/ Microsoft Flow from plugin in Dynamics 365

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.comFlows are the new path on which every Dynamics 365 consultant is treading now and while you move along, you discover many new stuffs on your journey.And  one of them is when customer walked …

Invoke Power Automate/ Microsoft Flow from plugin in Dynamics 365 Read More »

Create a AutoNumber field from your existing Text field in Dynamics 365/ CDS.

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.com Well this has long been awaited for. And how many  times I had my customer walking up to me and ask – “I have an existing field. Do CRM provide Autonumber feature? Can …

Create a AutoNumber field from your existing Text field in Dynamics 365/ CDS. Read More »

Enable Custom entity for email in Dynamics 365/ CDS

Follow my blog for more interesting topics on Dynamics 365, Portals and Power Platform. For training and consulting, write to us at info@xrmforyou.comAfter my last blog on canvas app and OPEN API, I would say this one is pretty basic. However time and again I keep hearing kind of similar questions based on this topic and …

Enable Custom entity for email in Dynamics 365/ CDS Read More »

OPEN API sample JSON

This post is being referred from this previous post. The explanation of the highlighted parts of is explained in the parent link. { “swagger”: “2.0”, “info”: { “description”: “API to save signature as base64”, “version”: “1.0.0”, “title”: “UpdateSignaturetoAccount”, “termsOfService”: “https://<your domain for http trigger>.westus.logic.azure.com/terms-of-service”, “contact”: { “name”: “Debajit Dutta”, “url”: “http://www.xrmforyou.com”, “email”: “debajit.dutta@xrmforyou.com” } }, …

OPEN API sample JSON Read More »