This blog will have a quick walkthrough of the Microsoft Entra ID security group and team members’ management.

Managing team from Microsoft Entra ID admin center

You can navigate to Power Platform Admin Center and under Admin centers > “Microsoft Entra ID” will be available as one of the options.

On being clicked> It will redirect you to the Microsoft Entra URL Page. From within the sitemap, you can navigate to Identity > under it expand Users entity > Select All Users and that will display all the users as shown below

Managing from Azure Portal

The other way is to log to the Azure Portal > Under All services > select “Microsoft Entra ID” as shown below:

NOTE: The Azure AD product icon is replaced with the Microsoft Entra ID product icon as highlighted above.

Now let’s create a team in CRM with the type “Microsoft Entra ID Security Group” and manage the members in it. If you don’t know how to create teams in CRM then you need to refer to our previous blog wherein we have explained how to create a team of type “AAD Security Group” which is now renamed as “Microsoft Entra ID Security Group”.

When you try to create a team from Power Platform Admin Center > Select the appropriate Environment > Settings > Teams > Click on Create team > Quick create form will open as below.

You will observe that under Team Type these new renamed options are displayed. “Microsoft Entra ID Security Group” formerly called “AAD Security Group” and “Microsoft Entra ID Office Group” formerly called “AAD Office Group”.

When you select Team Types its relevant fields will be visible, as in this scenario when Team Type is selected as “Microsoft Entra ID Security Group” the below fields become visible on the form:

• Group Name
• Membership Type

• Group Name– When you start typing the group name here, it helps you to select the group from existing groups that are created already in the Microsoft Entra admin center. For this demonstration select the “Sales Team” group as below:

Before starting to enter the text, make sure groups are pre-created in the Microsoft Entra admin center. As you can see “Sales Team” was already created as a security group in the Microsoft Entra admin center below:

• Membership Type– which is defaulted to “Members and guests”, If you want you can change it to Members, Owners, or Guests as per need.

When you open the Team in CRM, you will find the “Azure AD Object Id for a group” gets auto-populated matching with the Group Object ID created in the Microsoft Entra Admin center.

Screen clip of “Sales Team” in CRM

NOTE: it is observed that in CRM when the “Entra Security Group” type team is created its associated queue is not created, and hence “Default Queue” is not granted for this type of team which does happen when you create Owner type team.

Screen clip of “Sales Team” in Microsoft Entra admin center

From within the sitemap, you can navigate to Identity > under it expand Groups entity > Select All groups, and open the appropriate team as shown below:

After creating the team, you can add members and select corresponding security roles.

NOTE: When you add members to Team from the Microsoft Entra admin center that doesn’t reflect in the CRM team instantly until that user first time accesses the environment.

As you can see from the Microsoft Entra admin center the above group has 2 team members but not all users are synced instantly to the corresponding Team created in CRM. Hence if you go and check the team members list in the CRM team it may show you a discrepancy in count as shown below only 1 member is shown below:

The simple reason for not displaying another member (Mike in our scenario) is it displays the list of users who have accessed the environment and as Mike hasn’t accessed the environment yet, Once he accesses the environment it will get instantly added in the team, and will inherit the security roles as well in run time.

NOTE: As per Microsoft the team member list in CRM doesn’t show all the group members of the Microsoft Entra group. The group member is added to or removed from the CRM group team only when a Microsoft Entra group member accesses the environment next time. You can refer Note section of this Microsoft doc for more details.

Conclusion

From within the Microsoft Entra Admin Center you can manage Groups, Group Members, Group Licensing, and Group Security quickly and easily.

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM offers a plethora of robust features and capabilities, making it a highly sought-after solution for businesses aiming to enhance their customer relationship management processes. Dynamics 365 offshore development services can be a great way to leverage the benefits of this platform while reducing costs, gaining access to a wider talent pool, and expediting software development cycles. In fact, it is projected that the global offshore development market will reach a substantial value of USD 283,457.5 Million by 2030. However, these partnerships often present significant cultural and operational challenges that must be effectively managed to ensure success. When it comes to Dynamics 365 offshore partnerships in the context of Microsoft 365 CRM, organizations need to be proactive in addressing these challenges to maximize the potential of their collaboration. This blog article will look at these problems and offer helpful methods for dealing with them.

Operational Challenges in Offshore Development Partnerships

Aside from cultural obstacles, offshore development collaborations may face operational issues that must be carefully managed. Among these difficulties are:

• Project Management:

Effective project management becomes crucial when working with Dynamics 365 outsourcing company. Clearly defining and communicating project goals, timelines, and milestones are essential for successful collaboration.

• Quality Assurance:

Maintaining consistent quality throughout the development process can be challenging when working with remote teams. Establishing quality assurance methods and testing methodologies to deliver high-quality solutions is important.

• Security and Compliance:

Sharing sensitive data and information is common in Dynamics CRM professional services. Ensuring the security and compliance of sensitive data in accordance with relevant regulations is critical to safeguard the organization and its stakeholders.

Cultural Challenges in Offshore Development Partnerships

Working with offshore development teams presents cultural differences that might be challenging. Here are a few common roadblocks that businesses may face:

• Language and Communication Barriers:

Language issues can impede effective communication and understanding between onshore and offshore personnel. Miscommunications and misunderstandings can lead to project delays and errors.

• Different Work Cultures:

Every country and organization has its own work culture, encompassing customs, values, and communication styles. Cultural differences can impact teamwork, decision-making processes, and project outcomes.

• Time Zone Differences:

Dynamics CRM bespoke development often involves teams operating in different time zones. This can pose difficulties when scheduling meetings, addressing urgent matters, and maintaining constant communication.

Offshore Development Partnerships – Tips for Managing Cultural and Operational Challenges

To overcome the cultural and operational challenges that arise in offshore development partnerships, consider implementing the following tips:

• Communication:
  • Establish clear communication channels and use tools that facilitate seamless information exchange.
  • Consider using a common language or providing language training to improve communication effectiveness.
  • Be tolerant and understanding of cultural differences when communicating and resolving disputes.
• Project management:
  • Create a detailed project plan that clearly defines objectives, deliverables, and dates.
  • Establish defined roles, responsibilities, and communication channels.
  • Track and analyze progress on a regular basis to ensure transparency and alignment.
• Security and compliance:
  • Implement strict security measures like encryption, access controls, and secure data storage.
  • Comply with any compliance requirements and standards for your industry and region.
  • Assess and update security processes on a regular basis to reduce risks and secure critical information.
• Quality assurance:
  • Implement a robust quality assurance process that includes thorough testing at all phases of development.
  • Conduct regular quality assurance inspections and provide timely feedback to offshore teams.
  • Foster a culture of continuous improvement and learning to enhance the quality of deliverables.

Offshore development partnerships with Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM offer significant benefits for businesses seeking cost-effective solutions and global expertise. However, these partnerships can be challenging to manage due to cultural and operational differences. To overcome these challenges, organizations must address language barriers, understand different work cultures, manage time zone differences, and implement effective project management, quality assurance, and security measures.

Inogic is a leading provider of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform services. As a reputable Microsoft Gold ISV Partner, we are known for delivering exceptional solutions in this field. With our cutting-edge apps, Inogic fills functional gaps, enhances user adoption, and optimizes productivity within Dynamics 365 CRM. Inogic offers a diverse range of over 15 Microsoft AppSource Preferred apps that cover various areas such as geospatial functionality, visualization, file and storage management, user adoption, productivity, integration, and SAAS management.

By choosing Inogic as your outsourcing partner, businesses can benefit from our extensive experience, technical expertise, and unwavering dedication to customer satisfaction. Whether it’s app customization, system integration, or overall platform enhancement, Inogic’s expertise and comprehensive solutions make us an ideal partner for organizations looking to maximize the potential of Dynamics 365 CRM and Power Platform. To learn more about how Inogic can enhance your Dynamics 365 CRM and Power Platform experience, please visit our website at www.inogic.com or contact us via email at crm@inogic.com.

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As companies increasingly look for ways to digitize and automate their business processes, Power Platform is becoming a top choice to quickly develop and deploy custom applications. Power Platform is a low-code development platform that allows users to build custom applications with little to no coding. These platforms provide a great opportunity for leaders like Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) to leverage outsourced development teams to accelerate their digital transformation efforts. In this blog, we will explore the benefits of embracing Power platform adoption for CTOs through outsourced development. We will discuss how Power Platform can help CTOs achieve their digital transformation goals, the benefits of outsourcing development work, and how to select the right development partner for your organization.

The Benefits of Power Platform Adoption for CTOs

Power Platform helps businesses to be nimbler and more efficient in their operations. Here are some ways in how Power Platform Adoption benefits CTOs

• Accelerate digital transformation: Power Platform enables CTOs to achieve their digital transformation goals by providing a fast and flexible way to develop and deploy custom applications. By using a low-code approach, Power Platform empowers non-technical users to create business applications and automate processes, reducing the need for custom development by IT.
• Optimize IT resources: Power Platform help CTOs reduce their reliance on IT resources, allowing IT staff to focus on more strategic projects. By enabling business users to create applications without coding, Power Platform shifts the burden of application development from IT to the business, freeing up IT resources to work on projects that require specialized skills.
• Foster innovation: Power Platform allow CTOs to quickly prototype and test new ideas, enabling them to stay ahead of the competition. With their low-code approach, Power Platform makes it easy to create and modify applications, allowing business users to experiment with new ideas and test them with customers. This can lead to faster innovation cycles and more successful product launches.

The Benefits of Outsourced Development

Power Platform outsourcing saves vital time for own rapid development as a company. Here are some key benefits to CTOs.

• Access to specialized skills and expertise: Outsourcing can provide CTOs access to specialized skills and expertise that may not be accessible in-house. This can help them build custom applications that require specialized knowledge or expertise.
• Cost reduction: Outsourcing Power Platform development can help CTOs reduce their development costs as outsourced development teams are often located in lower-cost regions like India. This means development work can be completed at a lower cost than in-house development with no compromise on quality.
• Faster time-to-market: Outsourcing development work can help CTOs reduce their time-to-market for custom applications. Outsourced development teams can work around the clock to complete development work, which means that custom applications can be developed and deployed more quickly than in-house development teams.

Selecting the Right Development Partner

When it comes to selecting the right development partner, there are a few key factors to keep in mind:

• Experience with Power Platform: Since Power Platform is relatively new, it’s important to choose a development partner that has experience working with them. This will help ensure that the partner is familiar with the platform’s capabilities and can effectively leverage them to meet your business needs.
• Industry expertise: Choosing a partner that has experience working in your industry can be beneficial in several ways. They’ll be more familiar with the unique challenges and requirements of your industry, and they’ll be better equipped to provide custom solutions that meet your specific needs.
• Proven track record: It’s important to select a partner that has a strong track record of delivering high-quality development work. You can evaluate this by reviewing their portfolio, reading customer reviews, and speaking with references. This will help you gauge their level of expertise, professionalism, and ability to deliver on their promises.

Other factors to consider when selecting a development partner might include their communication skills, project management capabilities, and pricing structure. Ultimately, the goal is to find a partner who can work closely with you to understand your needs and deliver a solution that meets or exceeds your expectations.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, embracing innovation and new technologies is crucial for companies looking to stay ahead of the competition. For Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), this means adopting Power Platform, which offers numerous benefits, including faster application development and deployment, reduced reliance on IT resources, and the ability to test and prototype new ideas quickly.

With Inogic Power Platform professional services, businesses can unlock their full potential by leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365 deployment automation. Inogic, a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner can accelerate process flow, improve efficiency, and enable precision and seamlessness across industrial environments. By choosing Inogic, businesses can reduce development costs, shorten time-to-market, and enjoy the benefits of a proven track record of delivering high-quality development work. Inogic with an experience of 1000+ completed projects understands that innovative solutions require in-depth analysis, and their team is here to support you every step of the way.

To learn more about Inogic Professional Services, visit their New Services website for more details, or email at crm@inogic.com. Stay connected with Inogic on social media and subscribe to their YouTube channel for regular updates. With Inogic, take your business to new heights and stay ahead of the competition with crafty and professional solutions.

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Let’s see how to use this feature in everyday life.

Suppose our organization wants to create an App (Canvas or Model Driven App) in Dynamics CRM. We have a file on the web that we want to enable our users to download regularly through our App. This would get them updated data by simply clicking on Download File.

This can be achieve using the below steps:

Step 1:

Create an App in CRM (Canvas or Model Driven App).

Step 2:

Insert Label Control into App.

Step 3:

In Power Apps, select the label and in Power Fx, onSelect of label, add Formula with Address as a Parameter “Download (Address)”.

Address– The URL address of a document or file to download

Step 4:

Once you publish the app, you can click on Download File to download it.

Conclusion

With the help of download function in Power Apps, we can easily download online files to local devices.

The post Transfer online files to a local device using ‘Download function’ in Power Apps first appeared on Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM Tips and Tricks.

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In this blog, we have explained the latest enhancements in model-driven apps for Mobile devices and tablets.

Lock the tabs on the form

By enabling this the tabs displayed on the form will be locked and remain visible at the top of the form even while users scroll through the form. This feature will allow the user to switch the tab at any time.

Below are the steps to be followed to enable the Lock tabs at the top of forms on mobile and tablets and other features mentioned below.

Select the model-driven app-> Select Open in App Designer-> Select Setting-> Go to Features-> Enable the Lock tabs at the top of forms on mobile and tablet features.

Below is the screen clip for reference:

After enabling the above setting the tabs displayed on the form will lock even during the scrolling, as shown below.

Mobile Commanding Improvements

Once the user enables the Mobile Commanding Improvements to feature it hides the Delete button if no record is selected in the grids. It also hides the Process button when there is no Process enabled for the respective entity. Enabling this feature will help users in better efficiency making the command bar more compact and readable, below is the screen clip for reference.

Native Mobile Date Time & Native Mobile Inputs

This feature once enabled makes the date & time control and keyboard input type as per the mobile device and tablet settings.

Tablet Optimization for Command Bar

After enabling this feature it replaces the native command bar with the new web command bar at the top of the record. It also displays more commands in the command bar and helps users to visualize and use the commands effectively, below is the screen clip for reference.

Conclusion

Enabling these features for mobile devices and tablets will help the user increase productivity and efficiency.

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It’s that time of year once more… It’s time to huddle indoors, build a fire, find a cozy nook, and wait for spring. As we approach the end of the year, we like to reflect on the year that has passed us. That means better understanding our readers—and seeing where we can improve for next year—for our small but formidable content team. Our team is constantly on the lookout for new innovations introduced by Microsoft that will provide users with significant capabilities for transforming their businesses. With new features being included in Microsoft releases and updates for Dynamics 365 applications such as Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, and many others, Inogic always strives to find the best matches and deliver the same through our blogs. First and foremost, you enjoy learning, growing, and improving. All of our top blogs provide fresh perspectives, how-to instructions, and other important information for sharpening skills, optimizing procedures, and boosting teamwork. Let’s get to the exciting stuff now! Here are the top 5 most popular blogs in 2022.

Configuring Timeline(Show/Hide) activity display information within  Dynamics 365 CE

One of the main reasons people continue to use Dynamics 365 for their CRM needs is the ability to customize fields, forms, and views. Inogic began investigating timeline configuration capabilities in the 2021 release wave 2. We came across a request from a customer who wanted to show/hide a few activity field labels and data that are presented in the timeline by default. During the process, we discovered a new improved feature for configuring the activities in the timeline. It allows users to show/hide the activity field label and activity data that is shown across the timeline based on their business needs. As we are all aware, while displaying activity information in the timeline, there are two alternatives available: “Default form” or “Card form.” This blog illustrates how to simply configure both forms using the configuration form setting.

Avoid buffer size errors for List Rows using Power Automate Flows

Have you encountered the dreaded maximum buffer size exceeded error? Yes, that one is a pain. We got many inquiries about the following error message, which can appear when attempting to retrieve data from a table using the List Rows action of the Dataverse connector. “Cannot write more bytes to the buffer than the configured maximum buffer size: 104857600,” says the error. Because the error message is created on the Encodian Flowr action, it is natural to believe that the Encodian Flowr action has failed, but it hasn’t (kind of)! This blog discusses how to overcome this limitation and ensure a seamless workflow.

Reusable components using Component Library within Canvas Power Apps

Components are reusable building blocks for canvas apps that let app developers use a component library to construct bespoke controls for usage within or across apps. It also helps to prevent re-designing or re-coding the same components over and over again, and it provides a single centralized location to manage upgrades or modifications. If you update a component definition within the app, your changes are reflected in all instances. Components also eliminate the need to copy/paste controls, reducing duplication of work and improving performance. This blog post will provide some information about reusable components in Canvas Power Apps that utilize the Component Library.

How to trigger flows with the Power Automate Button

Users can now run/trigger the flow from their mobile device from anywhere at any time, thanks to the flexibility given by the Microsoft Power Automate Button. Users can now quickly search for the Button and perform the flow by utilizing the ‘Power Automate’ app on mobile. This blog discusses one such business requirement in which Dynamics 365 CRM users can mark all of their Orders as ‘Submit,’ and when the user clicks ‘Order Submit,’ the current pre-built integration logic will trigger and transport Orders to another system. Orders were typically filed at any time because there was no set deadline. However, they desired to run flow at their leisure. The steps to carry out the aforesaid business scenario are outlined in this blog.

An exclusive sneak peek at the new Virtual PCF Component

As part of the platform’s maturation, Microsoft has been continuously pushing new tools and capabilities built specifically for the professional developer community. The PowerApps component framework (PCF) for model-driven programs, which is now in public preview, is one such enhancement. If you construct PCF components, you should be aware that when we create a standard control, we render it on the container given by the PowerApps Component Framework. This blog provides users with an early look at Microsoft’s new Virtual Control. This control, as its name implies, creates and renders on the Virtual DOM.

We know what it’s like to go from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds. Inogic, a top Microsoft ISV Gold Partner, is well-known for its blogs and articles containing new approaches, how-to guides, and other useful information. Our user-friendly blogs are highly rated and cover a wide range of topics, including Dynamics 365 CRM, Power Platform (Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate), Azure, Sales, Dataverse, Field Service,  and more. Inogic also shows basic usage through blog compilations and guides such as Microsoft Model-driven apps tips, Canvas Apps with Microsoft’s AI Builder, Microsoft Power Automate features, and others.

Inogic has a dedicated Services division that works exclusively on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Professional Services to build solutions that are perfectly tailored to your unique management strategy. We provide a variety of Dynamics 365 bespoke development services to businesses as your Technical Extension, leveraging on our certified resources and thousands of man-hours of development experience on the Dynamics platform. Among our technical specialties are Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Sales, Power apps, Power Pages, Power automate, Power BI, and others. Please contact us to get a free quote!

Try Business Process Checklist, our newest addition to the portfolio of 15+ Productivity Apps for Dynamics 365 CRM and Dataverse, to work smarter and faster by incorporating best practices into your daily tasks! To become a member of the Inogic family, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for regular updates on whats new at Inogic.

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In our previous blog, we have already explained the enhancements available while setting up the security model in Microsoft Dataverse. While exploring, then, the UI setting was not available for displaying security roles across business units.

There is a setting available named “Record ownership across business units (Preview)” in the Power Platform Admin Center which is in PREVIEW for a long time.

Need:

With this new feature, you can add security roles from other business units to a user besides the user’s standard business unit. The result is that users have privileges from their security roles in their business unit as well as privileges from the other security roles from the other business units.

Configuration:

Sign in to the  Power Platform Admin Center select the Environments tab, and then choose the environment that you want to enable this feature.

Select Settings > Product > Features > Record ownership across business units (Preview) > Turn on the toggle as shown:

NOTE:

• By default this feature is disabled and needs to turn on manually.

This feature changes the way we were managing the security roles till now. If you are thinking to implement the “Role-based security model” then if you remember the security roles were created at the root level and these security roles were inherited by the child business units.

But with this feature, you are now allowed to create a security role at individual BU as well. You can either create a new role from scratch or copy the existing role in the child BU itself, independent of the parent BU.

Use Case:

Let’s say you have two different business units (BU1, and BU2) with different groups of users.

Let’s say “Paulina” belongs to “BU1” and has BU level access as shown below, If she needs access to data created in “BU2” then below are the possibilities:

NOTE:

• BU1 and BU2 are child BU’s of another BU “Innosight” and they are independent of each other.
• If BU1 and BU2 were child BUs of each other then providing parent-child BU access level would have provided the access across the BUs (through Business units hierarchy).

There are a lot of possibilities around to achieve this in Dynamics 365. For example, record sharing, hierarchy security, business unit hierarchy, and team ownership.

Out of all these possibilities, the new modernized business unit structure brings a more enhanced and easy way of doing it.

Before turning on this functionality, if you observe the manage security role page then you will experience that changing/selecting another BU is not allowed.

Navigate to Environments > Select an appropriate environment  > Settings > Users > Select the user > Manage Security roles. On this page you can observe changing the BU is not allowed:

After turning on this functionality you have the flexibility to change the BU and can assign the desired security role from the respective BU among the list.

As shown below created the “BU2 Salesperson” role under “BU2” and assigned this to “Paulina”

“Paulina” can now access records from both BU1 and BU2 even though “Paulina” belong to BU1. This is because we have assigned security roles to the “Paulina” from BU2 as well.

Though “Paulina” belongs to BU1, roles from other BU (i.e. BU2) can be assigned, Refer to the below screenshot:

As “Paulina” user have a security role from BU1 and BU2 which allows her to access both BUs data as shown:

Conclusion

By using this feature users can easily assign the security roles independent of BUs and can access the data from other BUs with little effort

Ps: Our favorite Community Summit is back trending with #MySummitNA – Eagerly awaiting to meet our CRM friends in person. Inogic will be at Booth #1334 at the Summit, Gaylord Palms, Orlando, FL from 10^th to 13^th October 2022. Do block your calendars for 12.15 pm on Oct 12^th for our Partner Solution Showcase session Maps for CRM – Maplytics by our CEO at Room Coastal 7 – Convention Center, Level 2. Register now using our Promo Code INOGIC10, and avail of 10% off on your registration! 

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Powered by passion – Inogic is a leading Microsoft ISV for Dynamics 365 CRM for over more than a decade. We brew innovative products and fuel Dynamics 365 with our range of solutions. Inogic also offers bespoke high-quality low-cost offshore development services for Microsoft products such as Power BI, Flow, PowerApps, Portals and others.

Given our super modern slick technology, we believe in sharing tips and tricks with our community from time to time. Therefore, we come up with informative blogs and are quite active on community forums. In this blog we are going to compile the top five blogs of 2018 which have been most clicked. Compiling them again for our friends who missed these posts. Thank you so much for sharing our posts and encouraging us to explore Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.

Dynamics 365 v9.0: Xrm.WebApi – CRUD Operations Part – 1

This blog talks about how Xrm.WebApi acts as a boon for developers. In the versions prior to v9.0 one had to create their own libraries or use third party libraries or create XmlHttpRequest and AJAX request. With Xrm.WebApi enhancement in Dynamics 365 CRM v9.0 developers’ life is made easy. In a continuation to this blog Dynamics 365 v9.0: Xrm.WebApi – Operations Part – 2 we have discussed how to Retrieve Multiple records and Execute Actions.

Integrating Dynamics 365 with Azure Functions – Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Azure function is a server-less architecture where you can host your code on cloud without any infrastructure. In this blog we have taken example of creating Azure function and called same through workflows. We have also depicted how a function can be executed as an HTTP request. This series of blogs talks about invoking Azure functions from Dynamics 365.

Working on Lookup Field of Dynamics 365 in PowerApps

PowerApps allows building business Apps that run cross platform. Citizen developers with minimal development capabilities can build Apps and deploy them for usability. These apps are modular in nature and these can be dragged and dropped to build an App in short span of time. It allows anyone in an organization unlock new business agility.

Given a business requirement we needed to set lookup fields using PowerApps in Dynamics CRM. This is not inherently supported in PowerApps so after a little research we found out the solution to this. This blog explains the steps to read and set Lookup fields of Dynamics 365 in Power Apps.

Show Lookup Dialog in Dynamics 365 v9.0

This blog discusses about how using the new feature introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 v9.0 users can show lookup dialog using Xrm.Utility.lookupObjects method. The parameters required for Xrm.Utility.lookupObjects are list of the entities to be displayed, default entity to be shown in lookup window, Guid of default view, specification whether to allow user to select multiple records and list of views that need to be available for lookup dialog. Using these parameters a lookup dialog can be seen.

JavaScript: “Execution Context” provides Form Values on Web as well as UCI in Dynamics 365 v9.0

After the introduction of UCI there is a generic interface for the end users, this is about UI but behind the scene for developers Microsoft provided “Execution Context” object which is a collection of array. This blog talks about how we can pass the Execution Context using “Primary Control” CRM Parameter to Script function which we can call on Click of Custom Button.

If you want to explore more informative blogs visit this space.

We provide services for PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Portal, Power BI and others. Contact us for any query, suggestion or feedback at crm@inogic.com

Keep Exploring!

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In this AI Builder three-part blog series, first blog was about how to use AI Builder to extract Form document data and second blog highlighted the use of AI Builder Text classification model.

Now in the third and final blog we will see how to build an AI Object Detector using Power Platform.

Object detection refers to the capability of computer and software systems to detect images, locate objects in an image and identify each object. Object detection can be used to expedite or automate business processes in multiple industries.

AI Object detection is a new feature in Power Platform which can be accomplished using AI Builder. AI Builder allows you to add artificial intelligence to your apps even if you have no coding or data science skills.

Let’s see how an AI object detection model is built using AI builder. On the other hand, Object detection App is built using PowerApps and data is transferred from PowerApps to Dynamics 365 CRM using Microsoft Flow in Power Platform.

1. Build Object Detection Model using AI Builder

a. To build a model using AI Builder, sign in to PowerApps and, in the left navigation pane, select AI Builder > Build. Then select the Object Detection model type.

b. Name your model and Create

c. Select object names – Select the object names by selecting an entity from Common Data Service. Here, we have selected a custom entity with name ‘Electronic Item’ and Field ‘Name’. This entity has records with name of electronic items like Monitor, Keyboard, Mobile and Mouse.

d. Add images – Click on ‘+Add Images’ button to upload images of objects that you want to detect and identify. Upload 15+ images of each object.

e. Tag images– Teach the model to identify objects by tagging and labeling them. For each image, draw a rectangle around the object which you want to identify and tag it with correct name. Go through all the images to tag the objects. Once all the images have been tagged, click on Done tagging.

f. Train Model – Click on Next >Train. It will take several minutes to train the model. Use Quick Test to test the model’s accuracy and then Publish the model to consume it in the app.

Once the model is published its status changes to Live from Draft.

2. Build Object Detector App using PowerApps

a. Click on Create app button shown in previous step. You can create a Canvas App or Model-driven App or Portal from blank depending upon your choice. In our example, we are creating a Mobile Canvas App.

b. Insert Object Detector by navigating to Insert > AI Builder > Object detector. Drag the Object detector to your screen and select the existing object detector AI model.

The object detector control looks like below:

c. Insert a Gallery Control with Title and subtitle layout.

Set the properties of Gallery and its Title and SubTitle as follows:-

Gallery Items  = ObjectDetector1.VisionObjects

Title Text = ThisItem.displayName

Subtitle Text = ThisItem.count

d. Insert some label controls for storing the values of Count for each individual item i.e. Monitor, Keyboard, Mobile and Mouse Counts and set their text properties.

For Example: –

lblKeyboard.Text =First(ObjectDetector1.VisionObjects).count

lblMobile.Text= First(Filter(ObjectDetector1.VisionObjects,StartsWith(displayName,”Mobile”))).count

lblMonitor.Text= First(Filter(ObjectDetector1.VisionObjects,StartsWith(displayName,”Monitor”))).count

lblMouse.Text= Last(ObjectDetector1.VisionObjects).count

You can make your own formula by utilizing the Gallery or Object Detector controls

e. Insert a Create button. Click on Create button, navigate to Action > Flows > Select the existing flow or Create a new Flow as described in 3^rd point. It will start processing and add the selected flow to PowerApp.

Modify the function of Onselect as shown below by passing the parameters to the flow. Here, CreateElectronicEntry is the name of flow.

OnSelect =CreateElectronicEntry.Run(Concat(Gallery1.AllItems,displayName & “-” & count & “,”),lblMobile.Text,lblKeyboard.Text,lblMonitor.Text,lblMouse.Text)

f. Save and Publish the App.

3. Pass data from PowerApps to Dynamics 365 CRM using Microsoft Flow

You can pass data to Dynamics 365 CRM using the Patch statement on click button in PowerApps itself but here we are showing it using a flow because Microsoft flow has many capabilities and you can perform so many tasks by connecting your app to different connectors depending on your business requirements.

a. Create a new instant Flow with trigger of PowerApps.

b. Add New Step >> Search for an Action ‘Common Data Service’ >> Create a New record.

c. Select your ‘Environment’ and ‘Entity Name’. We have created another custom entity ‘Electronic Entry’ which has the fields Monitor, Keyboard, Mobile and Mouse which shows the count of these devices.

d. Map the fields by clicking on ‘Ask in PowerApps’. It will automatically map relevant PowerApps fields with the CRM fields.

e. Save the flow.

4. Run the App

You can capture an image from your mobile camera or select an existing image from Gallery. Click on the Detect button. The objects will be identified if it matches with trained objects and the list would show count of each object detected in the image.

When Create button is clicked it triggers the flow which creates a record in CRM as shown below: –

Conclusion

In this way, you can build AI Object detection App which is an easy to use tool, just point and click, to tailor AI in your business as per your requirements. Object Detection lets you to count, locate and identify selected objects within any image. You can use this model in PowerApps to extract information from pictures you take with the camera.

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The post Power Platform: How to Build AI Object Detector using Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

As Microsoft comes up with new connectors in Power Automate frequently, one more useful action has been added which is going to simplify the number formatting while working with Power Automate.

In many scenarios, when we work with invoices where the amount required should be in the specific currency format, the format number action can be used highly while working with Power Automate which can easily format the amount of the invoice in the specific currency.

In this blog, we will see how it going to help us to format numbers or currency in the required format with the help of this action.

For instance, suppose I want to retrieve Dynamics 365 entity fields (numeric/currency) and perform further action like send an email, I want the currency should be formatted.

Before I start, first quickly see how we will get the currency value from the fields without using the number format action.

I have retrieved lead to show you the Annual revenue of the same. So, we will get the revenue as shown in the below screenshot:

As we can see in the above screenshot, if I want to use the currency, there is lots of work required to get the same in the required format.

So, now I will use the “Format Number” action to format this currency in my required format. Post List Records I am adding the Format Number action as shown below:

It will look like below:

You will have the options to choose as below:

Number: You can manually enter the number or select the field which you want to format.

Format: Select the required format from the provided list or you can enter your custom format as well.

Locale: This option can be used to format the currency based on the country. The default option is “en-us”.

Post running the flow, as shown in below screenshot, the Annual revenue has been formatted:

Similarly, we can format the number using the custom format as well as shown in the screenshot below:

Conclusion

Using the “Format Number” action we can format the numbers in the required format using Power Automate.

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