Writing walkthrough guides and technical documentation is more about the flow that you are describing rather than the actual writing itself because you are wanting to explain the process, not to write the next best seller on the NY Times book list.

But there is still a little creativity that you need to make the walkthrough interesting to the reader.

Although I have noticed that there are a number of different variations of the way that people want to have walkthrough guides structured depending on the audience.

In this walkthrough I will show a new Compose feature within the Author Tools template that may help a little with this problem.

I usually use a pretty simple structure while writing my walkthroughs. For example, here is an example blurb that I write for one of my guides that explains how to assign a Customer record a Type:

The first thing that we will want to do is set the type of customer record that we want to create.

Customers are configured either as a Person or as an Organization with their own specific naming format.

To do this, click on the Type dropdown list and select the Organization Type from the list

In this example we will set the Type to Organization.

Now we have set the Customer Type.

For example, here is the storyboard slide that I used for that example

And this works pretty well in most cases.

But there are some cases where you may not want to show all of the information that I have in the text of the slide.

For example, if I wanted to create a version of the walkthrough that shows just the step description and the sample data that I need to enter then I would have to create a new version of the storyboard and then cut up each of the text blocks and change the detail.

If you dissect it then you will see that it has these components:

Introduction: The first thing that we will want to do is set the type of customer record that we want to create.

Detail: Customers are configured either as a Person or as an Organization with their own specific naming format.

Action: To do this, click on the Type dropdown list and select the Organization Type from the list

Example: In this example we will set the Type to Organization.

End: Now we have set the Customer Type.

And within that structure there are also subcomponents that are useful, like:

Action Shorthand: Select the Customer Type

Example Data: Type: Organization

Not all storyboard slides are this detailed, or have all of these components in them, but it is a good example of a structured step with a lot of detail.

What I need to do though is extract all of these components out and then pick and choose when to use them.

To solve this problem I created an Advanced Storyboard template that I can use to extract out the different parts of the text block broken out into the different components.

This allows me to move the Text content into its corresponding text block and also create some additional variations of the instructions for the Shorthand and Data blocks.

Now that I have broken out all of the text into its component blocks, now want to use these to create my new variations of the final slide text that I will be using to create my documents from.

To do this I have added a new function to the Author Tools called Compose.

This allows me to select from a number of different composition templates that then specify how I want to build up each of the text elements in the storyboard – Subtitle, Caption, Text and Notes.

If I select the Guide template then this will copy the Shorthand to the Subtitle, the Data to the Caption, build up the Text from multiple different blocks and then also add a few more of the blocks to the Notes section.

If I change the Composition Template to the Lab template and then recompose the slide then you will see that only the Shorthand and the Data is added to the Text, but a lot of the description is added to the Notes section.

This is the perfect format for Presentations because the notes will show up in the Speaker Notes section.

If I change the Composition Template to the Exercise template and then recompose the slide then you will see that only the Shorthand is added to the Text, and the Data is added to the Notes.

This is the perfect format for hands on exercises because it is short and concise.

To see this in action, I have expanded out the Storyboard from that one slide to the full walkthrough with all of the different steps broken out to use the composition blocks rather than having all of the data in the text and then built the content of the text so that it has the Guide format.

If I switch to the Write tab and then select the Recipe template, then I can create my output document using this version of the content.

This will create my Recipe style document with all of the text giving me an instructional document that everyone is able to follow.

Now I will return back to the Storyboard and recompose the storyboard text using the Lab format.

When I recreate the Recipe document based on this version of the content then all of the steps are listed out for me showing the Shorthand and Data components, but no detail.

This is a great summary document for the expert users.

Finally, if I will return back to the Storyboard and recompose the storyboard text using the Exercise format then it is even more concise.

Bit one thing that I can also do here is update the template details and change the components that are being used to build the slide. Here I added the Shorthand to the Subtitle, and the detailed text to the Notes.

Now when I create the Recipe document it has each of the Steps listed out with the data from the step as detail. This is an even better version of the Exercise in this case.

Review

The decomposition of the Storyboard steps may seem like a little bit more work as you are writing your walkthrough guides, but it is worth it.

It makes you think a little more about the structure of the content that you are creating, and also then allows you to create variations of the walkthroughs for different purposes.

If you want to create a Presentation then you may just want to have the key information showing on the slides and not have the detailed text.

If you are creating a detailed Walkthrough guide then you may want to have more explanations for the screen shots than you would normally have to help the reader guide themselves.

If you are creating Hands on Labs then you may want to skip the detail, but have the steps and shortcuts in the document for easy reference.

If you are creating Student Exercises then you may want to have the step but no data so that you can provide that as a separate document.

And now we can do that through the Compose function.

How cool is that?

Flow is great, and just being able to point and click to build integrations is the thing that makes it so usable. But sometimes you want to be a little bit cleverer with your data and even use functions that remodel the data.

For example, when creating a new Customer within Dynamics 365 for Operations through Flow when a new Account is created in the Common Data Service, if you are like me, then maybe you will want to have a consistent naming convention, and you don’t want to use the standard Account ID that is created in the entity.

My customer naming convention is the first two letters of the Organization Name and then 4 digits, but I cannot change the default numbering format for the Account Id in the Accounts entity.

If I were doing this through Excel, then I would use this formula: 

Upper(Left(OrganizationName)) & Right(AccountId,4)

But how do you do this in Flow?

The good news is that there is a special Data Operations service within Flow that allows you to create a function using data from the previous steps in the flow, and then you can use the output in subsequent steps.

Here is how you do it.

How to do it…

To start off open Flow and then create a new Flow by clicking on the + Create from blank link.

When the trigger event is displayed, search for the Common Data Service actions and select the When a record is created trigger event.

This will then create a trigger for you that needs to be configured.

Click on the The database dropdown list and select the default database.

Then click on the The entity dropdown list and select the Account entity from the list.

Now that we have the trigger which will fire when a new Account is created within the Common Data Service we want to add a step that will create our new account name from the data. To do this, click on the + New Step button and then select the Add an action button.

When the action browser is opened, search for the Data Operations service and then select the Compose action.

This will open a simple action that just has an Input field. This is where we need to create our function that will create our new Customer Number.

The function will be written in the Azure Workflow Definition Language and if you want to find all the documentation on it then here is the link:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-workflow-definition-language

To create the new customer number that is the first two letters of the Organization Name and the last 4 digits of the Account Id (since this is a sequential number) then just paste in this function:

“@concat(toUpper(substring(triggerBody()[‘OrganizationName’],1,2)),substring(triggerBody()[‘AccountId’], sub(length(triggerBody()[‘AccountId’]),4), 4))”

After you have done that just give the Flow a Flow name and then click on the Create flow button.

After the record has been published then you will see that the Account ID is created for the Account.

When you return to you Flow you will see that is has been triggered and if you expand out the Compose action then the Output is now set to the format that we want for our Customer Numbers.

Summary

Now that we have composed our new field we can now use it in future steps within the Flow. For example if you continue on and add another action that created the Customer within Dynamics 365 for Operations, but when populating the Customer Number field, we can now use the output of the Compose action.

How cool is that? (Rhetorical question)

Power BI is a great tool for visualizing your data from Dynamics 365, but wouldn’t it be great if all of your reports and dashboards that you create were embedded directly into your dashboards. Don’t fret, you can do this without writing a single line of code.

Let’s see how to do this and how it works.

Topics Covered

• Enabling Power BI
  
• Adding Power BI Dashboards as Sales Dashboards
  
• Drilling through the Data within Power BI
  

Enabling Power BI

Before we start adding Power BI to our dashboards within Dynamics 365 for Sales we need to first make sure that it is enabled.

How to do it…

To do this, start off by opening the Dynamics 365 for Sales app.

Then click on the Sales tile in the header and click on the Settings tile. Then click on the Administration menu item within the System menu group.

When the Administration page is shown, click on the System Settings menu link.

This will open the System Settings options panel. Click on the Reporting tab within the options and you will be able to see an option called Allow Power BI visualization embedding.

All you need to do here is make sure that this is set to Yes.

After you have turned on Power BI then you can exit out of the options.

Adding Power BI Dashboards as Sales Dashboards

Now that Power BI is enabled, you can start adding Power BI visualizations directly within Dynamics 365 for Sales as their own embedded dashboards.

How to do it…

To do this, all you need to do is open the main Sales Dashboards by clicking on the Sales button in the menu bar and then click on the Dashboards menu item within the My Work menu group.

To add a Power BI Dashboard, just click on the New menu item and then select the Power BI Dashboard menu item.

This will open the Add Power BI Dashboard dialog box and if you click on the Dashboard dropdown list then you will see that all of the dashboards that you have access to within Power BI will show in the list.

All you need to do here is select the dashboard that you want to use as a dashboard and then click on the Save button.

After you have done that you will see the dashboard is now embedded within Dynamics 365 for Sales as one of your personal Dashboards.

Drilling through the Data within Power BI

Now that that you have Power BI dashboards embedded directly within the dashboards, let’s see what you can do with the data that is there.

This will take you over to Power BI Online.

But there’s more. If you click on the … in the top right of the Power BI Workspace, then you will see an option that allows you to Analyze in Excel.

If you click on this, you will be taken over to Excel and all the data that you had within the Power BI workspace will be available as a Pivot Table.

If you want to be a little retro, then you can then create your very own analysis through Excel using the same data that you have within Power BI.

Summary

Power BI is a great reporting tool to take advantage, and as you can see it’s super easy to get the dashboards embedded directly within Dynamics 365 for Sales and then act upon it right from there.

All you need to do now is create the dashboards that you want to include and then start embedding them.

In May I will be helping out with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Operations (Dynamics AX) boot camp in West Palm Beach at Palm Beach Atlantic University to train new graduates.　 So I thought that I would forward on the information about that and also the other boot camps that are being held this year in conjunction with the Microsoft Academic Alliance.

All classes/courses/boot camps to be held in West Palm Beach at Palm Beach Atlantic University and the classes for 2017 are:

May 22-26th – Microsoft Dynamics 365 Operations (AX-Axapta) Bootcamp
May 22-25th – Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM Bootcamp
July 2017 – Microsoft Dynamics 365 Financials Faculty/Professional Bootcamp

May Microsoft Dynamics 365 Operations or CRM Bootcamp

• Bootcamp $495
• Dorm Lodging $150 (for the week) Luxury dorms, many overlooking the Ocean
• Conference hotel rates also available
• Some scholarships available

July Microsoft Dynamics 365 Financials Bootcamp

• Bootcamp $595
• Low cost conference hotel rates available
• Family outings for participants interested in bringing their family
• Faculty receive coursework and outlines to jump start classroom learning

They are also looking for partners to participate, and is also a great place to find new talent.

If you are interested in helping here are the boot camps offered this Spring/Summer for

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Operations (Dynamics AX)
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Financials (Dynamics NAV)
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM (Sales and Service)

There is more information at www.aadynamicstraining.com

If you also want to complete the following 2 question survey then they will keep you updated on opportunities and details.

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07edrotzxriykvxzmv/start

You can pass this link onto others that may be interested as well.

Maybe I will see some of you all there 😊

Introduction

Dynamics 365 for Operations allows you to configure your own Vendor Evaluation Criteria and then track the vendor performance against any or all the criteria that you have defined.

In this worked example we will show how to configure the Vendor Evaluations groups and criteria and how you can record evaluation results against vendors.

Creating Vendor Evaluation Criteria Groups

The first step in configuring the Vendor Ratings within Dynamics 365 for Operations is to create some Vendor Evaluation Criteria Groups. These will be used to group common sets of evaluation criteria together and allow you to get summary results on the evaluations at the criteria group level.

In this worked example we will show how to set up a set of new Vendor Evaluation Criteria Groups.

How to do it…

To do this, open the navigation panel, expand out the Modules group, and click on the Procurement and Sourcing module to see all the menu items that are available. Then click on the Vendor evaluation criteria group menu item within the Vendor folder within the Setup menu group.

Alternatively, you can search for the Vendor evaluation criteria group form by clicking on the search icon in the header of the form (or press ALT+G) and then type in vendor eval into the search box. Then you will be able to select the Vendor evaluation criteria group maintenance form from the dropdown list.

This will open the Vendor evaluation criteria groups maintenance form, and we will see that we don’t have any records yet.

To add your first Vendor evaluation criteria group record, just click on the New button on the menu bar.

Now enter your Criteria Group code in the Name field.

For example, here we set the Name to QUALITY.

Next, give your Criteria Group a more detailed Description.

For example, here we set the Description to Quality Ratings.

Now we can continue and add a few more Vendor Evaluation Criteria Groups.

When we are done, we can just exit from the form.

Sample Data

Creating Vendor Evaluation Criteria

Once you have set up your Vendor Evaluation Criteria Groups, you will need to set up some Vendor Evaluation Criteria codes that you will use to rate your vendors.

In this example, we will show how to set up some Vendor Evaluation Criteria.

How to do it…

To do this, open the navigation panel, expand out the Modules group, and click on the Procurement and Sourcing module to see all of the menu items that are available. Then click on the Vendor evaluation criteria menu item within the Vendor folder within the Setup menu group.

Alternatively, you can search for the Vendor evaluation criteria form by clicking on the search icon in the header of the form (or press ALT+G) and then type in vendor eval into the search box. Then you will be able to select the Vendor evaluation criteria maintenance form from the dropdown list.

This will open the Vendor evaluation criteria maintenance form, and we will see that we don’t have any records yet.

To add your first Vendor evaluation criteria record, just click on the New button on the menu bar.

Now enter your Criteria code in the Name field.

For example, here we set the Name to Competitive pricing.

Next, give your Criteria a more detailed Description.

For example, here we set the Description to “The prices paid should be comparable to those of vendors“.

Finally, we will want to assign the Criteria to a Vendor evaluation criteria group.

For example, here we set the Vendor evaluation criteria group to “PRICING“.

Now we can continue and add a few more Vendor Evaluation Criteria records.

When we are done, we can just exit from the form.

Sample Data

Configuring Vendors for Evaluation

The final step in the setup process is to link the Evaluation Criteria with the Vendors within Dynamics 365 for Operations. This is done through the Procurement Categories.

In this example, we will show how to setup the Evaluation Criteria within the Procurement Categories and how to select the Vendors that you want to evaluate.

How to do it…

To do this, open the navigation panel, expand out the Modules group, and click on the Procurement and Sourcing module to see all the menu items that are available. Then click on the Procurement categories menu item within the Vendors menu group.

Alternatively, you can search for the Procurement categories form by clicking on the search icon in the header of the form (or press ALT+G) and then type in procurement cate into the search box. Then you will be able to select the Procurement categories maintenance form from the dropdown list.

This will open the Procurement categories maintenance form. Here we will see that we have several categories already configured.

Within the Procurement categories maintenance form select the top-level node of your Categories and then open up the Vendor evaluation criteria groups tab within the detail area. Here we will see that there are no evaluation criteria associated with this procurement node.

To associate your Vendor Evaluation criteria groups, click on the Add button in the tabs menu bar.

Select all the Evaluation Criteria Groups that you want the vendors to be measured on, and click on the -> button to add them to the selection box.

After we have done that we can just click on the OK button to return to the main form.

When we return to the Vendor Evaluation Criteria Groups we will be able to see the groups are associated with the procurement category.

Now we will want to associate the vendors that we want to evaluate at this procurement category.

To do this open the Vendors tab within the detail panel and click on the Add button within the tabs menu bar.

This will open an Add vendor dialog panel where we will be able to see all the vendors that we can add to this node.

All we need to do here is select all the vendors that you want to include in the evaluations, and click on the -> button.

This will add the vendors to the procurement category.

When you are finished, just click on the OK button to return to the main form.

You can continue this process for any of the leaf nodes in the Procurement Hierarchy.

Recording Vendor Evaluations

Once the evaluation criteria have been configured, you can start recording the vendor ratings.

In this example, we will show you how you can add Evaluation Ratings to your Vendors.

How to do it…

To do this, return to the Procurement Categories form, select the Procurement category that we have associated the vendors to.

Then select the vendor that you want to record the evaluations against and click on the Evaluations button within the tabs menu bar.

This will open the Vendor evaluation maintenance form with all the Evaluation Criteria Groups listed on the left, and all the Evaluation Criteria for that group on the right.

To update any of the vendor ratings, just select the rating for the criteria that you want to update and select the rating that you would like to apply.

Continue this process for all the evaluation criteria that you want to report on.

Repeat this for all the Criteria Evaluation Groups.

Notice that the Average Rating for the Evaluation Criteria Group will change as you enter in the results.

Once we have finished, we can just exit out of the form.

Conclusion

The Vendor Evaluation Criteria is a little hidden gem within Dynamics 365 for Operations. It allows you to start recording subjective ratings against the vendors and track the overall rating for the vendor based on performance.

There are times where you want to create alerts or notifications triggered off the data within Dynamics 365 for Operations. There are a number of different ways that you can do this, but one of the simplest ways to do this is through Flow which allows you to create simple integration points that trigger other events that you may want to chain off the data. All of this can be done without even having to resort to a single line of code, and also without touching the base Dynamics 365 for Operations functionality.

In this walkthrough we will show an example of how you can take advantage of Flow to create a simple email alert that is triggered off the creation of a new customer within the system.

Topics Covered

• Create a new Entity within the Common Data Service
• Creating a Flow to Add Operations Customers to the Customer Accounts Entity
• Submitting the Flow to the Template Gallery
• Viewing the Customer Accounts Entity Data
• Creating an Email Notification Flow triggered on New Customers Being Added
• Seeing it in Action

Read More

Recently I came across a problem where I realized that all of the e-mail addresses within my system were incorrect. The default email addresses that come with the demo environment are @contoso.com, and my demo tenant has the domain name of @contosoeastfoxtrot.onmicrosoft.com.

I wanted to change them all so that when I try to skype any of the other employees in the demo system, that all of them would work. I could have been minimalistic and just change one of the users, but if you are going to do a job, then you should do it right.

But editing each of the 500+ user accounts seemed a little bit daunting,

Luckily Dynamics 365 for Operations allows me to update the database through Excel, and if there isn’t a default template that I can get my hands on right away, that’s not a problem because we can make a new one on the fly.

In this article we will show how you can do this and make updating mass amounts of data a breeze.

How to do it…

So here is the problem – I don’t want to open up each and every worker record in order to make a quick change to their email account.

So we will want to create an Excel template that allows us to perform a mass update.

To do this open up the Organization administration menu and click on the Excel workbook designer menu item within the Office Integration menu group.

This will open up the Excel workbook designer utility and we will be able to see all of the different entities that we can create templates for.

To find the right entity we can just filter them out by typing in a search term into the filter box. The contact information is associated with the Party entities so we just type in party and we will be able to find the PartyContact entity which stores all of the phone numbers and email addresses for the contacts.

We will just select all of the fields from the Available fields list and put them in the Selected fields column.

Then all we need to do is click on the Create workbook link within the menu bar. This will allow us to choose where we want to save the file. For this example we will just create a local copy and select the Download option.

Within a couple of seconds Excel will open and we will see all of the fields that we selected from the entity. To make this live we just need to click on the Enable Editing button.

Next thing you know we will have access to all of the contact information that is stored within Dynamics. Since this is Excel we can just do a global search and replace for the domain name that we want to change and after updating the records within Excel we can click on the Publish link in the Microsoft Dynamics Excel Connector panel and all of the changed records will be pushed back to the Dynamics system.

Review

This is a super useful tool to have in your back pocket. There are always times that you want to make mass updates to data within Dynamics and being able to have a direct link through Excel is a great way to do this. You can save a lot of time, and also reduce your chances of getting an RSI through repetitive updates to records.

How cool is that!

As we have started to upgrade all of the Bare Cones Configuration Guide series to Dynamics 365 for Operations, we forgot that you all might want to know how to deploy out a new training environment through Lifecycle Service so that you can start this new journey of learning as well.

So as a result we sat down and created that guide just for you all. If you want to check it out here are all of the details.

BBCG.01.01.D365.1.D: Configuring a new Dynamics 365 for Operations Training Environment
Module 1: Creating a new Environment through Lifecycle Services

Creating a new demonstration or training environment for Dynamics 365 for Operations depends on you having an Office 365 tenant for authentication, and also for managing users etc.

Once you have your new Office 365 tenant you can then access Lifecycle Services, create a Dynamics 365 project and then deploy out a new Dynamics 365 for Operations environment that is linked to your Azure account.

In this walkthrough we will show you how to do this so that you can start your demonstration and training environments out the right way.

Topics Covered

• Creating a new Lifecycle Services project
  
• Link your Azure Subscription
  
• Deploying a Dynamics 365 Environment
  
• Logging into Dynamics 365 for Operations
  

If you are interesting in checking this guide out then here is the link to the digital version of the guide: http://bit.ly/2gMcZmU

If you are a premium subscriber then remember, you can download this guide for free.

Additionally, we have made this guide available as a PowerPoint which the industrious ones of this group can use as the basis for your own training and education programs. The PowerPoint version contains the same content as the guide except you can edit any of the content and also update any of the formatting to private brand it to your own organization.

To check out the PowerPoint version of the training guide, then click on this link: http://bit.ly/2gbEGoa

If you want to see all of the guides that show you how to set up a training environment for Dynamics 365 for Operations, and also Dynamics AX 2012 then just click here and you will be taken to the resource page with all of the different content including sample data to help you with the project: http://bit.ly/2gK4nzC

If you are really up for a challenge then you may want to take on the Bare Bones Configuration Challenge. You can start with this guide and as we start releasing out the other 15 guides in the series then you can work through them as well. These guides will teach you how to configure a bare bones installation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 from scratch. If you complete all sixteen modules then you will become a Bare Bones Configuration Privateer and we will send you a badge to prove it.

If you want all of the content on the site and all of the new content that we are delivering then you may want to think about signing up for a Premium Membership. Once you have that you can plunder the entire site and download any of the books at any time. Here is the link: http://bit.ly/2fYMgTW

Watch out for use to release more modules as we get them finished over the next weeks.