UnBoxing the Power Platform Model-Driven Form Designer Preview

I saw recently on Twitter that the WYSIWYG Model-Driven form editor is in preview and I thought, “HEY, Why not do a video without ever opening and testing this functionality”… SO that’s exactly what I did. it’s a little bit all over the show and as I find stuff I get more excited. I had to edit out a cough a few times, but other than that, this is raw footage of a totally new experience for me (gulp).

My opinion is that this is a great preview and I think that this is really going to make config a lot easier when its complete. Yes, there are things missing, but its a PREVIEW. it was fun to test it and I’ll be doing my best to use this as often as I can to i can get used to it.

Attaching files to a record through Canvas Apps, using the Common Data Service Connector

I found this very cool little piece of functionality that allows you to attach a document directly to a record within a canvas app by leveraging standard functionality within the Common Data Service (CDS) Connector within Power Platform.

Now, this may seem silly, but previously I had been using SharePoint, Flow and all sorts of other creative little techniques to store documentation. I had never seen the attach “Field” available within the fields list in Canvas Apps. I am assuming that other folks might just scroll past it as well… So hopefully this pits a bit more focus on it.

The thing to remember here is that the document is stored within the CDS and will count towards the storage utilisation of the CDS instance and your current tenant. SO, make sure that if you are going to do this, you understand the repercussions that this has on your storage. This may be useful in demo or presales exercises as well.

To see how to do it, check out the video and follow the process.

My Quest to Dynamics 365 Saturday Stockholm

Recently I attended the Dynamics 365 Saturday event in Stockholm and I have to say, what an excellent event. I have never been to Stockholm, so I was already massively excited about this. I also got to meet a load of new people for the first time which was AMAZING!

These events are so important for the community because they are often the only opportunities some of the community members really have to interact with other customers, partners ISVs and Microsoft employees. I love running into people that have encountered the same issues as I have, that way I know I’m not going bonkers and we can work on a solution together.

The crowd was great! There were many enthusiastic people in the audience who were really getting involved in the sessions, looking for information and really testing all of the speakers knowledge. You can find the list of sessions and speakers HERE.

I big reason I really enjoyed this event was the different layers and levels of content being shared across the sessions. The sessions were split into three tracks, these being:

Applications (Dynamics 365 CE), Dev (Dynamics 365 CE) and Business & Project Management. This gave participants the opportunity to stick to a single, themed, track or weave between tracks. This is pretty much how my experience went. I went to at least 1 session from each track. I wanted to get a flavour for everything. I also got to see some wizardry from folks like Julie Yack, Gus Gonzalez, Nick Doelman and Gustaf Westerlund.

Other presenters and panellists included Sara Lagerquist, Jonas Rapp, Fredrik Niederud, Katherine Hogseth, Mark Smith and Antti Pajunen. Each delivering some amazing content based on their experiences with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.

There was a plethora of information and content being shared between speakers and passionate attendees. Everything from Microsoft Portals and Social Engagement to developing your own XrmToolBox tools (Careful with the spelling here….HAHA) was being talked about. I personally got involved in a number of Power Platform conversations, which suited me just fine because that’s kinda what I’m doing at the moment.

I had the pleasure of running 2 sessions. One in the Application track and one in the Dev track (I am no developer… Don’t judge me). The 2 sessions were:

1. Power Platform – How it all fits together (Download Here)
2. Building your first Canvas App with CDS, and Azure (Download Here)

Apparently people don’t like the first 2 rows.. great crowd though! Thanks to everyone that attended. Try work out what Mark is doing in the background there! HAHA!

The first presentation focused on the different elements of the Power Platform and the way it all works together. Many Dynamics 365 users often worry a bit about this because it seems so large and complicated, but it really isn’t once you have wrapped your head around the different technologies. To highlight the way the different elements of the technology worked together I included a Roadside Assist demonstration that was created during the PowerApps & CDS Hackathon Those Dynamics Guys and Hitachi Solutions Europe hosted together.

My second presentation consisted some of the “Do’s and Don’ts” around building your first Canvas App with your customer. I followed the presentation with the following:

1. Adding several fields to a custom entity in the Common Data Service (CDS)
2. Importing some data
3. Creating a new canvas app
4. Connecting the Canvas app to the CDS
5. Adding in the Azure translation service to the app
6. Publishing the app

The actual canvas app I created with the little model driven app solution, including data is available HERE.

The below pic gives of the impression that I am about to start having a conversation with my own hand, like an invisible Muppet. May be a great trick for my next demo 

One of the BEST sessions that I have been in was the "CAGE MATCH" moderated by the one and only Julie Yack,  This was EPIC fun! We were split into teams of 5 and given problems by the audience to resolve. It was a little daunting being in the presence of some of these long time MVPs, BUT, THE SHOW MUST GO ON, so we got stuck right in. Unfortunately, the team I was in didn't take the win :( Its cool, I am preparing my battle cards for the next one!

All in All, it was a fantastic event and a great opportunity to network with this amazing Dynamics and power Platform community that we all have grown to know and learn from. A MASSIVE thank you to the sponsors of the event!

Also, a big thanks to all of the folks that hung out after the event and enjoyed several beverages with me. Was a great time and I’d love to do it again J

Here are some more delightful images from the day :) My camera skills aren't great so i had to grab a few from social. Thanks to those that grabbed pics in my session! I hope that this encourages more people to attend these events because I genuinely gain so much from being there.

A Weird Little Option set Error in Canvas Apps

The other day I was getting this weird little error when building a canvas app. Basically, all of my CDS Optionsets just randomly stopped working.

I hadn’t actually realised that I had left the “Experimental Connector” setting on while testing out the lookups. I think there must have been some sort of update. Pop into File | App Settings | Advanced Settings and turn of that little toggle.

I hope this helps someone out because I had a mild panic 

Can't Associate Existing Contacts to an Account in the D365 UCI? - WHERE IS THE DAMN BUTTON??

Don't feel like the emotional post? :D :D FIND THE SOLUTION HERE!!

Recently I was doing some config. within Dynamics 365 for a customer that was keen on using the UCI (Unified Client Interface).  I've done a load of demo's for this type of thing but never actually helped configure for a live implementation. To be deadly honest, I had to change my mindset a bit about how I designed things.

After a few hours of build i ended up setting up a little training solution that allowed users the ability to associate existing contacts to an account. A pretty straight forward N:N relationship on the account form showing the associated contacts that had been trained and the internal users that had actually done the training.

I was happy with the setup but when it came down to testing, something weird happened... There was no button available on the sub grid that allowed me to associate an existing record. The Add Existing User button was there, but no "Add Existing Contact" button :( 

I checked if it was working in the Web refresh... Lo and behold, i could work just fine! No issues with adding existing contacts to an account. 

I tested out different views and still no luck I even tried a 1:N relationship to Contact and it only allowed me to create a NEW contact rather than add an existing one. 

After a bit of searching... I found the one solution that worked! THANK YOU to the Joel & THE TIP OF THE DAY team for this post! you saved me a TON of time. This could have been a rabbit hole. Also Scott, your Ribbon Workbench comes to the rescue again! Legends!

FIND THE SOLUTION HERE!!

Microsoft Translation Service - In a Canvass App

Some time back I saw Craig Bird from Microsoft do an amazing demonstration using Microsoft's Translator Connector in a PowerApp. Honestly, I was blown away at how powerful this functionality is. The crazy part is, not a load of people even know about it.

I did this quick little Video recording of me testing this out. I was actually amazed! You can watch it on Youtube, click here. I used it in a demo the next day and people really loved it.

If you get the time, I suggest you follow this step by step process, which shows you exactly how to achieve this awesomeness.

The one thing that I will say is that as cool as this is, I found that it needs to be baked properly into a larger application and have a story associated to it. In this scenario the app I created was a “Trade Show Application” that enabled users from company X the ability to interact with people from the trade show and capture contacts and leads. The translation functionality was used when the user was interacting with someone from a different country that did not speak English very well.

Anyway, thought that I’d share that little nugget of awesome with you!

Happy PowerApping!

Lookup fields when referencing Common Data Service through Canvass Apps

Recently, after attempting to build a canvass app connected to CDS I ran into a whole host off issues when it came to lookups. Well, it seems as if there is a solution now. I don’t know if this is new functionality of I’ve somehow always missed this… but hopefully this will help some of you out when Building CDS connected Canvass Apps.

The scenario here is that I manage a bunch of vehicles, contacts and policies in CDS. The important thing to remember here is that there are lookups on pretty much each of the entities referring to the related entities. The ERD (in a very basic format) looks like this:

The issue I was having on my Canvass app was that when I wanted to create a new inspection, I wasn’t able to select the vehicle record. There were a few issues; In most cases I just got the vehicle record GUID and in some cases the lookup field just came up as blank (not sure why).

The below screen shows a “Form Screen” that is connected to the inspection entity in the CDS.

To get the lookup working, simply select the field within the form to highlight the associated properties.

Select the actual associated data card within the field to show the properties.

You will see the option to select fields within the associated entity. These fields will be the ones that are then made available to the user when interacting with the lookup.

Finally, enjoy your newly configured Lookup field J

PSA & Field Service Schedule Board Error

Recently I ran into this little issue when trying to access the D365 schedule board for both PSA and Field Service. “Resource not found for segment ‘msdyn_FpsAction’. There were also a bunch of other general SQL / Unexpected errors when I was trying to access projects within PSA. This happened immediately after I installed the Microsoft Partner Portal solution with the additional PSA extension.

Basically, every blog I went to pointed me to the same link, which didn’t seem to work :(

So, for those of you that run into this error in the future, It has to do with certain processes being in Draft mode. I also discovered that a load of these processes didn’t even have an owner.

Firstly, I assigned the processes to myself.

Then activate the processes that had randomly been deactivated for no reason. This will then show the schedule board.

Viola… Your schedule board should now work…AND you shouldn’t get any random errors when trying to save projects. Seems the Partner Portal installation with the additional PSA extension deactivated a load of Actions and workflows and didn't reactivate them. 

Dynamics 365 User Group – Birmingham – 17 May 2018

Recently I had the pleasure of presenting at the D365 Birmingham User Group Meeting. Thanks to everyone that attended. Was really fun and I learnt a whole lot. For those of you that haven’t been to one of the D365UG meetings, and if you are utilising Dynamics 365, I suggest that you join and get involved.

I had the pleasure of following Julian Sharp, an absolute legend in the D365 world and a brilliant trainer whose focus is “Helping organisations make the most of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement through advice, optimisation and training”.

 Julian gave a great presentation on the importance of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement exams and as well as how to prepare for them and how to study. You can follow Julian on twitter using this handle: @Julianatvigence or check out his blog here for some really useful information.

My presentation was focused on why brand perception is so important within a business and the ability to generate more meaningful conversations with your customers utilising Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. This presentation was a “Spin Off” of the one I did at the D365 User Group Summit event. I only used Microsoft Social Engagement as the channel of interaction rather than use a load of channels. More information regarding this session can be found in my next post (Awaiting Hyperlink).

Just a quick summary of what the User Group is all about… it’s not a sales pitch for Dynamics, but more of a community lead initiative that enables the community to help and assist one another regarding all things Dynamics 365 related. There is a big mix of Dynamics 365 customers, Partners, ISVs and even Microsoft guests.

I’ve found it massively useful because the people part of the community just want to help and share info. It’s a super relaxed environment that promotes learning and development. To find out more and to even register, follow this link and get stuck in. There are User Group chapters popping up all over the place. Hope to see you there.

Follow the Dynamics 365 UK user Group on Twitter using the following handle: @CRMUGUK 

"UNEXPECTED ERROR" on Record Creation / Update in a Workflow

I’m going to share something life changing with you right now. Perhaps I’m the only one that ever experienced this… who knows, but I thought I’d share it anyway.

Have you ever created a workflow and added the “Update / Create Record” function? Have you ever created an “Automated Record Creation Rule” and added the same function? Have you ever received the below error? I’ve found that this generally happens on the Case entity…

WELL… If you have ever encountered this delightful little issue, then you are in the right place. After beating my head against a wall, I discovered that this appears when you activate and publish the Knowledge base functionality to the associated entity… This is why it was happening on the case record.

To resolve, simple pop into the relevant entity and disable the KB functionality on the forms.

The thing that made me very sad was that I discovered I needed to disable this on all the forms, not only the primary form. This may be an issue if you have a load of different forms.

Once I had disabled the KB functionality I could set the update fields in the case entity.

Once all your updates are made, simply go back into the case entity and re-enable the KB functionality J

I hope this helps someone because I fought for a while to get this right and I couldn’t find a load of stuff on the web.

HOUSING HACKATHON – Opinion Interview with Addi Ammar – Housing Rockstar!

Recently I had the privileged of having a chat to Addi Ammar, one of the Dynamics 365 housing specialists at Hitachi Solutions and also one of my mates. Addi is SUPER passionate about housing and has working in the industry for over 5 years. Her passion for the technology and for how it can be utilised to provide solutions in the housing industry is infectious. I really loved chatting.

Firstly, Thanks to Addi for taking the time out to chat to me. Was super fun and I learnt a whole lot. Recently Addi attended a housing hackathon hosted by Microsoft at the Thames Valley Park Offices on the 14^th of March. Addi and her team were the proud winners J very cool and congratulations to all who put in so much hard work to make this event possible.

Normally we would do a recording, but I thought we would try this in a Q&A / dialogue type structure just to see how it works. We did laugh a lot: D so, here we go.

Chris: Welcome Addi, thanks for taking the time to chat. So, after attending the housing hackathon at Microsoft yesterday, what did you think? Was it fun to hang around a bunch of like-minded people and chat tech / problem solving?

Addi: I thought it was a really interesting and insightful day. There were a number of housing associations there as well as a number of vendors with different technologies and different offerings. So, it was really good to get everybody in a room together and, kind of, pass the ideas around. What was interesting, was that every HA had the same pain points… Even though this is something that we know, it’s really nice to get that sanity check and to hear everybody saying, Do you know what? Repairs, how do we manage them? How do we make it more intelligent? And, in fact, for the hackathon, all the teams picked repairs as their biggest pain point.

Chris: HAHAHA, no ways! That’s really interesting.

Addi: EVERYBODY! So it was really hard for the judges, because they were judging 5 repairs solutions.

Chris: Wow

Addi: So our table was predominantly Dynamic vendors. We had Advanced at the table, we had RSM, and obviously Hitachi. We had ANS there who weirdly, I used to work for. ANS offer a solution where they can migrate your current platform up into the cloud. We also had our housing association we were working with. What was cool is at our table, they had brought one of their tenants, so instead of bringing all IT staff and people from the business, they brought a tenant as well, which is probably what gave us the edge, because we were able to talk about technology and its impact on people at the other end. The GENUINE customer experience. I thought it was a fab day. We had loads of idea sharing.

Chris: That’s very cool! So did you and your team come up with a great solution to solve problems with repairs? Did you focus on anything in particular about repairs, or just the whole process?

Addi: We looked at the End-to-End journey and we started by saying that you should be able to raise a repair through any mechanism because it has to be what meets the needs of the tenant. So as well as having a mobile app, Artificial Intelligence, Chat bots that learn based on what’s been done before, being able to take a photograph of the repair and being able to recognise what that is. We also looked at things like Alexa and Google home because there are tenants that might have a smart phone but have no idea how to use it, whereas, Alexa is something you can physically speak to. We actually talked about tenants with dementia and Alexa might be easier for them to interact with than handling a mobile phone or interacting over a portal. Then we looked at flowing that information in and routing it out to the correct services. We also looked at the commercial element as well.

Chris: Oh Really?

Addi: Yeah I think it’s one of the things that set us apart from the other teams and one of the reasons we came first. We said well, we’re putting all this good stuff in, but HA’s firstly have maintenance staff that aren’t always busy, but they could also run like a trusted traders thing. SO, for tenants and non-tenants, they could access a service and say, you know what, my flat needs a piece of work doing, it needs painting or a toilet seat and you could pick a trusted trader that the housing association has either employed or verified. It’s an income stream, because you could charge for those repairs AND if you are letting trusted traders advertise through your housing association, you are generating income. SO, Yeah, they really liked that.

Chris: So you managed to bring a load of the bits and pieces together from a repair point of view. Do you think that there alignment between the HA’s and the partners? I suppose different ideas come from different places! Do you think the HA’s even knew some of this technology existed?

Addi: My impression was, there is a lot of buzzwords in the industry at the moment and for some housing associations, they have not even started their CRM journey. They have a load of disparate systems, they have all this data that is sitting in different systems, but they can’t use it. They have heard buzzwords in the industry like Alexa and Chat Bots but they don’t know where to begin in applying that because they have not got the fundamentals in place yet. I think that was really interesting in its–self. I think different people are at different stages of the journey, and that was evident in the room. So one of the housing associations that presented have gone through their digital, I’m not going to say “transformation”. HAHAAHA! I’m not going to say “Digital Transformation” because that implies that there is a destination, it’s more of a journey.

Chris: I love that!!!

Addi: You should ALWAYS be moving with the new technology and moving with the times. Striving to always be better. But the HA previously mentioned, they have done their CRM bit, they have done their standardising and rationalisation of data, systems and processes, so they are now able to look at how to make all of this more innovative. How do we get our tenants plugged into this digital shift? Some of the other HA’s haven’t started that journey, so everyone is at different points. There is A LOT of noise in the industry at the moment about chat bots, AI, Alexa bit I don’t think people realistically know how they can be applied.

Chris: You know something interesting; I was having a conversation about Alexa the other day about using Alexa in areas like Social Care. You have a scenario where an elderly person is in a smallish house, they have a fall and they can simply call out to Alexa to contact the HA or emergency services. Now that may be a little way in the future, but I thought that would be something that would make a real difference to someone’s life.

Addi: yep, that parallels really nicely with the tenant at our table was talking about one of the people she works with (She sits on a tenant panel and offers support to other tenants) has dementia and has got fixated on her laundry. This person will go out to the laundrette multiple times a day because she can’t remember if she has taken laundry there and left it. She will continuously go and check. And I said, well, if she had something like Alexa, and she could say in the morning “Alexa, I’m doing my laundry today”, then she could ask later. This stops her having to go out multiple times in a day… and we are talking about going out in bad weather as well. So, she would get a taxi or take a walk down to the laundrette because she has no-one to remind her.

Chris: Wow, that’s tough!

Addi: She doesn’t want to give up living in her home. She doesn’t want to go into a care home. Technology would enable her the ability to stay in her social housing home and not have to move into a care home…. And actually live better.

Chris: That’s very awesome. That really improves someone’s quality of life. I genuinely think that leveraging tech in that way makes a difference.

Chris. So in your opinion, realistically, how close do you think housing associations are getting to actually implementing this type of tech?

Addi: I think again, it comes down to the fact that everybody is at a different point in the journey. Based on what was said in the room, it seems everybody knows that the capability is there, actually delivering that is another story… Simply because, the HA’s themselves aren’t necessarily there yet. It has to come down to; getting the fundamentals in and working and then acknowledging that you are not building the fundamentals just for today, you are building for tomorrow as well.

Chris: So it’s very much about future proofing?

Addi: Exactly!

Chris: During the event, you must have interacted with a load of different types of people. What was the general consensus on the event?

Addi: Everyone really enjoyed it! The team that Rob Fletcher (Green Square Group) was on came up with something almost like a Pokémon go type app where when you are walking around your property it could actually pickup that there was a potential problem. It could see the damp and see the boiler lights flashing. After chatting away to people like Rob and the other vendors, everyone was getting really fired up. Yes, we were competing against other teams, but it was friendly competition. We were genuinely working together to hack these issues.

Chris: I’m actually super jealous that I couldn’t attend! So, do you think that these types of events are beneficial to the housing industry? Do you think there should be more of them?

Addi: YES! YES I do! I think HA’s want to come and I think they want to talk about what ever part of their journey they are at! They want to talk about where to go next. I think regardless of the size of the HA, there will be interest and enthusiasm. I’d really like to be part of running one with Hitachi actually! Everyone seemed to be really bought in. It wasn’t like we were trying to design something that was never going to happen. In the near future, a lot of this stuff is seriously possible. I think it would definitely be worth having more of these types of events.

Chris: Fantastic! I’ll be at the next one!

Chris: LAST QUESTION, I promise…. Do you think the Microsoft product stack aligns nicely with the requirements being made by HA’s?

Addi: The Microsoft stack is offering HA’s the ability to get all their data and processes into one place. They are sitting on so many disparate systems. A lot of the HA’s are locked into systems that they can’t easily configure or change themselves. If they want to add a few fields they need to pay someone a lot of money to do that. The Microsoft stack is flexible and Dynamic. It’s growing because of the investment behind it, which is really important. We also would love people to stay with Hitachi as their provider, but if they decided to move on, it’s not as if they are locked into something so bespoke they can never get away from it. I’ve worked at housing associations where people have been depressed because they are stuck with a system that is so bespoke and they can’t move away from the supplier. HA’s are ready for a solution that allows for them to be put on one platform and where they can control their data and processes and can still do all this innovation. Because it’s Microsoft, the innovation will just keep coming.

Chris: Oh for sure, the innovation will never stop! NEVER!!

Addi: Well, in the keynote speech at the hackathon, Microsoft stated that they are constantly updating their vision, which will then reflect on the customers.

Thank you so much to Addi for this awesome chat! As you can see through the information Addi has shared with us, Housing Associations are clearly ready to be taken on the digital journey with Microsoft and the focus on innovation is hugely important. I love the fact that the tenant on Addis team gave so much information and I think that plugging tenants into the digital journey and showing that some of the processes and technologies can make life A LOT easier creates massive value all round.

Future Proofing your Implementation and Configuration – Part 3 - The Configuration Question

In part 2 of this 3 post series I spoke about the Microsoft and how you are able to keep up to date with what is being released, so that you don’t end up building something into your Dynamics 365 implementation that is going to be added in a next release. In this post, I am going to talk about why it is important to carefully consider the use of custom functionality versus the use of out-the-box functionality when implementing and configuring Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement.

Why would we want to make our implementation of Dynamics 365 future proof? Well, there are loads of reasons.

1.      So that upgrades are smoother and less painful.

2.      So that customers can leverage other parts of the solution to support their business.

3.      So that Dynamics can be grown from both a functional and business point of view.

Essentially, Dynamics is used to solve more problems, which then increases user consumption and adoption.

So, I guess the million-dollar question is “Should we configure this or should we use what’s available out the box”? I have been working with Dynamics 365 CE (CRM) since version 3 and a lot of the time, in the earlier versions, we needed to configure stuff from scratch. There was a load of great functionality there already, but the previous versions were nowhere near where Dynamics 365 is today.

I remember spending hours trying to get past a problem without using loads and loads of code. This is partially because I am no developer. There was a huge reliance on form side scripting (pre-business rules) where setting things like field visibility or business relevancy required several lines of JavaScript, and this was incredibly Important because the experience of the user was at stake. The reason we tried our best not to code was because when the next release came out, there were always issues with certain bits of code not being supported and not working.

Now, for all my developer friends out there, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with coding at all. What I am saying is that the role of the developer has simply changed from when the previous versions of Dynamics were released. Before, functional consultants like myself were expected to code and write plugins, and if you couldn’t then you needed a developer with you. Now, this may not be the case. There is so much one can achieve with what is available out the box in Dynamics 365 that developers are focusing more on REALLY extending what Dynamics 365 can do.

So, back to my question….. Do we build it or do we use what is already available? Well, in my opinion, the answer is relatively simple. We use what is already available and extend through configuration, customisation and ISV solutions where the functionality we require is lacking. This approach really is in line with the Microsoft future proof strategy where the current functionality utilised within the Dynamics 365 CE framework is supported. Caveat: Yes, Microsoft do often deprecate functionality that is not widely utilised (Such as contracts).

Some time back I had a scenario where it was suggested to me that I did not utilise the standard Case entity and I was told that it would be better to recreate this functionality in a custom entity because it gave me more flexibility and freedom to do what I wanted. (Multiplexing rules aside) I didn’t agree with this. Why? Well, to recreate the functionality that existed in the standard case entity would have taken me more than 3 times the amount of time that it would have taken me to just do some basic config to support the main case entity that is already available in D365 CE. I would have to do all sorts of crazy stuff around routing rules, SLAS, Entitlements, Case Resolutions, Case Hierarchy and much more. It seemed that the right thing to do would be to supplement the case entity with some related metadata entities that enabled the user to lookup to various sub entities. This worked well because it also gave the users the power to maintain their own lookups.

The other thing that we thought of was that we couldn’t ad hundreds of fields to the case form. This would make maintenance and business rules a logistical nightmare. We ended up creating several sub entities for each case category and then just associated the sub entity to the case. This way the core case management functionality was utilised but not drowned with attributes. This also made upgrades MUCH easier.

Scenario 2 was a little different where I wanted to utilise the standard Contract & Contract lines entity in Dynamics 365 CE. I found that the functionality that I wanted couldn’t be achieved through utilising this entity set. One thing that really stood out was I couldn’t enable a contract to be associated to the Business Process Flow functionality, which was pretty important as far as the “Agreement – Contract” process was concerned. I actually ended up creating a custom set of entities and only ended up replicating a very small amount of the current contract functionality.

There are hundreds of examples of this type of thing that I could bring up at any one given point. One of the most talked about scenarios at the moment is “Will Custom Controls (CCF) replace web resources”. In many cases, yes! Check out this video for a bit more information.

Essentially the moral of the story here is that the requirement to configure the solution versus utilise what’s out the box is entirely scenario based. What I’ve found is that the more I utilise out the box functionality within Dynamics, the ore future proof it is. HOWEVER, this needs to be done in such a way that you don’t completely overuse the standard functionality to a point that it can’t be leveraged across the rest of the solution. The example in scenario 1 with the case management is a perfect example of using what’s out the box, but knowing how to supplement with config.

When implementing Dynamics you need to be a bit like the precogs from the movie Minority Report. You need to look into the future and try to understand how your customer may grow as well as how the solution may grow in order to be more future proof.