Dynamics Articles

Cheat Sheet / Updated 11-04-2022

If you’re a user of Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM or ERP software, you can improve your user experience with these shortcuts and time-savers. And if you hit a snag, there are plenty of places to find even more help online.

Article / Updated 07-15-2022

Dynamics 365 makes Finance and Operations easy work with D365O. Navigating around D365O is simple. The D365O home page contains your dashboard which houses your tiles. These tiles lead you to workspaces, which opens the door to more tiles, reports, graphs, and other links where you can find an abundance on information. Navigating with tiles in D365O Tiles, which are an important navigation feature of D365O, are menu items that appear on the screen as squares or rectangles that you can click; they’re sort of like oversized command buttons. Clicking a tile usually takes you to another screen. (The concept of tiles was introduced with the Windows 8 operating system.) There are four types of tiles in D365O: Standard: Standard tiles have a title (label) but show no additional information. Count: Count tiles display a number that’s updated by a query that refreshes periodically. For example, a count tile in the Manage Customer Credit and Collections workspace, called Sales Orders on Hold, shows the number of sales orders in the system that are in a Hold status. When you click the tile, you’re taken to a list of those sales orders that are on hold. KPI: Key performance indicators are metrics that you use to evaluate the status of important aspects of your operations. For example, a key performance indicator for many companies is the number of orders shipped today or the total currency value of today’s shipments or this week’s sales, for example. The KPI tile shows a summary or grand total for the metric it is tracking; for example, the total sales today KPI might read $25,000. When you click a KPI tile, you’re taken to an expanded view of the KPI report. Link: Link tiles have a title (label) but, as with standard tiles, they don’t convey any information; however, unlike standard tiles, link tiles map to a URL (website address). When you click a link tile, your web browser launches a new web page, taking you to the URL specified by the tile; these links can take you to an external website outside of Dynamics 365 proper. Setting user preferences in D365O User options allow you to tailor your D365O experience to suit yourself. User options range from the “nice to have” variety such as color themes to the more crucial settings of language and time zone found under the User Preferences tab. To set your user preferences in D365O, follow these steps: Click the Gear icon on the navigation bar at the top of the web page. It’s on the right side of the page. A drop-down menu appears with the following choices: User Options, Task Recorder, and About. Select User Options from the drop-down menu. The Options window appears.The navigation tab defaults to Visual; here, you can change the color scheme of the application. Click the Preferences tab on the left side of the web page, under the word Visual. The Setup Default Preference page appears. In the Startup section, select the company that you want as your default company when you sign in from the Company drop-down list. If your organization has multiple legal entities that are being accounted for in D365O, you can specify here which of these will be the default company that you’re logged in to when you sign in to the system. In the Startup section, choose the initial page you want from the Initial Page drop-down list. Here’s where you specify which dashboard appears when you initially sign in to the system; your initial In the Startup section, make a selection from the Default View/Edit Mode drop-down list. Select View if you want pages to open records in Read-Only (unable to be edited) mode. Normally, you would set this to Auto, in which case the system determines whether the page is locked or editable. In the Language and Country/Region section, select your preferred language from the Language drop-down list. Language preference can be set at the individual user level, which is great because you can have two different users in the same company but have the screens displaying labels in different languages, to accommodate users’ language abilities and preferences.For example, after setting the language preference to Spanish the screens were automatically translated into Spanish. In the Language and Country/Region section, select your preferred options from the Date, Time, and Number Format drop-down list. In the Language and Country/Region section, select your local time zone from the Time drop-down list. Be sure to set your time zone so that you view scheduling information accurately; the system displays universal times stored in the database in your local time zone. In the Language and Country/Region section, make a selection from the Country/Region drop-down list. Click the Save button. The Save button is located in the top left corner of the web page.Your preferences have been saved.

Article / Updated 12-29-2018

Let’s take a look at some core settings and features of Dynamics 365 Business Central as it comes out of the box. You start out this tour of Dynamics 365 Business Central by setting up your books by adding accounts to the chart of accounts, and then move to defining general ledger (G/L) account categories. Lastly, you take a look at specifying bank accounts for those accounts. Fortunately, Business Central does not define the account number master record as a fixed string inclusive of all segments, like some other Microsoft ERP products do (Dynamics GP, for example). Instead, Business Central defines the account number master record as just the natural account number. Segments can be defined separately and are referred to as dimensions. You first specify the natural account (sometimes referred to as the main, or root, account) and then add dimensions later. You do this because many charts of accounts end up with astronomically high account counts (sometimes in the hundreds of thousands). With dimensions, Business Central is able to tag transactions in ways that not only define which business unit or geographical area a transaction affects but also include data such as what was sold, who sold it, and the category of customer(s) that bought it. This allows for a smaller chart of accounts and an extremely powerful business intelligence (BI) integration on the back end that will both qualify and quantify transactions. Adding accounts to the chart of accounts in Dynamics 365 Business Central To add a natural account (the only kind that exists in Business Central) to a chart of accounts, follow these steps: With Business Central open, click the main Finance drop-down menu, at the top of the screen. A menu appears immediately below, displaying all available options within the Finance category. Choose the Chart of Accounts option. The list of accounts is displayed. Click the New button at the top of the list. The new G/L Account card form opens in Edit mode. Enter the account number and name in the appropriate fields. The red asterisk to the left of the text box indicates that the No. (Number) field is a required field. Select the account category. When you select this category first, the Income or Balance option automatically defaults to the most likely category. Assign the account subcategory. This step helps for reporting purposes, to further break down subsets of accounts and dimensions of those accounts. Define the default entry type (Debit/Credit) for the account. This refers to whether the transactions posted to this account are typically credit, debit, or both (such as a clearing account) by default. Select the account type. Select one of these types: Posting, Heading, Total, Begin-total, or End-total. If the account is set to a totaling account, define the totaling accounts. The totaling accounts are a list of the account’s whole totals sum to the balance of the account. Separate account numbers by using the pipe (|) symbol. Click the Ellipse button on the page to bring up a selection of accounts. To select multiple accounts, hold down the keyboard’s Ctrl button while clicking each account. Some sample text input for this field is 10200|10500|10800|10940|20400 After you enter the account numbers on this screen, the Balance field on the account setup automatically updates to reflect the selected accounts. Select the appropriate boxes in the General section to specify whether this is a reconciliation account, a direct posting, a blocked account, or another option. A blocked account specifies that the related record may not be used in posting a transaction while it remains blocked. Fill out the rest of the account information on this screen. If you hover the mouse over the label of a field, a pop-up Help box appears that describes the field. Finally, use the top bar above the card to select dimensions (if these have been defined) to tag transactions reflected within this account. You can view the account balance, view the account balance by dimension, and modify the posting setup. (That last step is important if you’re working with accounts with different sales and purchasing accounts associated with them). Click the Edit button on the Home tab of the menu at the top of the screen to save your changes. Clicking the Edit button moves the account from Edit mode back into View mode. There’s no Save button on this screen, even for new accounts. Click the X to leave that account card (or press Esc on the keyboard). To edit an account already in place on the chart of accounts, click the Ellipse button next to its name and choose Edit from the menu that appears. When you’re viewing the chart of accounts, you’ll notice accounts displayed in bold, which typically indicates whether an account is a totaling account for the accounts rolled up within it (refer to the Totaling column). When editing an account, notice that a) the pipe symbol (|) allows you to input specific pipe-delimited accounts in a list and b) if you click the Ellipse button, you’re presented with a menu where you specify a series of accounts. For example, in the sample data, the total income account has 40001..40990 as the setting in the Totaling column (indicating that any account between 40001 and 40990 is included in the total). You may, however, instead specify a discontinuous range of accounts — the 10200, 10500, 1800, 10940, and 20400 accounts, for example — by using the text 10200|10500|10800|10940|20400. Defining G/L account categories in Dynamics 365 Business Central Business Central has a simple yet effective way of setting up account categories. These categories make it easy to map general ledger (G/L) accounts to specific categories. You can also create subcategories and assign those categories to existing accounts. Each group shows you the total balance of the accounts within those categories within the different financial reports available throughout Business Central. These categories are a handy way to quickly specify the totaling on your financial statements. You may change these on the fly, making account categories a robust way to categorize your financial data. For example, a department may change its basic functionality from one year to the next. Account categories allow you to create and maintain financial reports more easily. Account categories determine how accounts roll-up to calculate totals used on financial reports. For example, Current Assets is an account category with no specific G/L accounts explicitly defined on the account number level. However, Cash, Accounts Receivable, Prepaid Expenses, and Inventory are all account categories that roll-up within the Current Assets category. This means that the Current Assets category reports the total of all G/L accounts represented in those four categories. Check out the main screen for G/L account categories. On this screen, you see a list of every account category. To get things started, go ahead and make a new item. The following steps show you how: With Business Central open, choose Finance →   G/L Account Categories from the menu bar at the top of the screen. The list of G/L account categories appears. Choose Manage →   Edit List from the menu that appears, immediately above the list of G/L account categories. You’re now in List Edit mode, where you can add new G/L account categories or edit existing ones. Select a G/L account category from the displayed list, and then click the New button on the Home tab of the menu at the top of the screen to create a new category immediately below the selected category. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to place the new G/L account category where you want it to fall within the list. Under the G/L Accounts in Category column, specify the G/L accounts that pertain to the new G/L account category. The Additional Report Definition column is used to determine where the G/L category would appear within a statement of cash flows (called the cash flow statement in Business Central), so be sure to specify that setting if you intend to use the cash flow statement. Business Central has no concept of roll-ups or subcategories: Instead, it has account categories that are “indented” to become part of another category above them in the structure. Neither does Business Central display how “deep” within a hierarchy an account lies on all forms, which can be troublesome when you’re trying to ensure that you have properly assigned an account in the proper level of a roll-up. If you moved an account accidentally on the category screen and are having trouble restoring it in the correct part of the hierarchy, use both the Indent and Outdent buttons, as well as the Move Up and Move Down buttons, to reposition it. Specifying bank accounts in Dynamics 365 Business Central Business Central lets you link bank accounts by way of a secure interface — definitely one of the nicest features of this cloud-based application. One thing, however, that is not so easily discovered, is how to set up API connections between your bank and the Business Central system, to drastically help with the reconciliation of bank accounts. Here, you find out how to Set up and link bank accounts Enable automatic bank imports using Envestnet Yodlee Bank Feeds (the connection Microsoft has authored, installed, and enabled by default) Match transactions within the interface to bank transactions Reconcile your bank accounts Here, you discover how to perform automatic bank reconciliation and the import of transactions. You can do all this manually, but one of the many benefits of this application is that you can import transactions automatically and reconcile them within an easy-to-use interface. The system even attempts to automatically reconcile and gives you a match-confidence score based on a few unique matches, such as amount and date and other information related to that transaction. Follow the next set of steps to set up all these features, and you’ll be on your way to saving time when the time comes to reconcile your bank accounts. To link a bank account to an account set up in Business Central, follow these steps: Choose Cash Management →   Bank Accounts from Business Central's main menu at the top of the screen. Doing so displays a list of available bank accounts. You can create a new bank account by clicking the New button and filling out your bank account information. In this example, you use an existing bank account. Click the Ellipse button — the one in the second column, immediately to the right of the name of the bank account — on the row for the bank account you want to edit. A small drop-down menu appears. Select Edit from the drop-down menu. The Edit Bank Account Card form appears. Click the Link to Online Bank Account button in the Home ribbon. The Link to Online Bank Account form appears. When prompted, ensure that you’re on a secure connection, enter your banking information, click Next, and then click OK. A new screen appears, displaying the accounts already linked. Click OK. Doing so brings you to the next section, where you set up automatic bank imports. Click to select the account name for which you want to set up automatic bank imports, and then click the Automatic Bank Statement Import Setup button. You configure this on the bank account card, which tells you the bank account linking status in the top right corner of the general section. In the Import Setup window, select the number of days to include in the import and then select OK. The specified transactions are imported into your payment journal. After these transactions have been imported, you’re ready to reconcile. Reconciling electronic transactions refers to the act of ensuring that the transactions within the system for any given bank account match the transactions listed on the bank ledger. You must regularly reconcile your bank, payable, and receivables accounts by applying your payments recorded in the bank to associated credit memos, unpaid invoices, and open entries in Business Central. You can do this in the Payment Reconciliation Journal window. You can use the Bank Account Payment Reconciliation Journal form to import bank transactions manually via a bank file transaction download. The automatic import simply saves you the trouble of having to download a file daily or weekly from your banking institution. The Bank Account Payment Reconciliation Journal form lets you execute these actions on a transaction: Have the system apply payments automatically Post payments only Transfer the difference to another account Apply payments manually Remove specific applications already made Post payments only After you have applied the transactions, click the Post Payments and Reconcile Bank Account button and your bank account will be reconciled. As you can see, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central makes bank reconciliation a much swifter process by using intelligent algorithms to match payments to outstanding invoices, credit memos, and accounts. This makes the month-end closing procedures much more efficient, with fewer manual entries being required for bank reconciliation. This kind of automation is a tremendous time-saver for you and your staff. When selecting anything from a list (including transactions on the Bank Account Payment Reconciliation Journal form), you can hold down the Ctrl button on the keyboard to select multiple items at the same time. If you’re on a touchscreen, tap the Ellipse button from any line item and then tap the Select More option from the menu that appears. This brings up a previously hidden check box column. Simply tap the transactions you want to select.

Article / Updated 12-29-2018

The main menu items for Dynamics 365 for Field Service are shown on the Tile Selector pull-down menu when you click the Field Service tile. To view the main Field Service-related menu items, follow these steps: On the black navigation bar at the top of the screen, click the down arrow to the right of the name of the module you’re in. The Tile Selector pull-down menu appears. Click the Field Service tile. The Field Service tile is the blue tile to the right of the orange Marketing tile. The menu items and menu item headings change to reflect the choices most closely related to the Field Service module. This list describes the key components of Dynamics 365 for Field Service: Work order: The work order is the heart of the Field Service module. It’s where you specify all the facets of a service call: where to go, what needs to be done, what parts are used, who is doing the work, and so forth. Schedule board: The schedule board is your master control center — you can see at a glance where everyone is and where they need to go next. Color coding is used to show the status of each booking in real-time. This schedule board is flexible. You have the ability to instantly switch the view between hours, days, weeks, or months or to view a person’s schedule horizontally in rows, or vertically in columns. You can assign a technician to a service call directly from the schedule. You can see the work orders on a map (like Google Maps or Bing Maps) that you can zoom in or out. The work orders appear as pushpin icons that are located on the map where the work is to be performed. Pushpins are color coded, with each technician having her own color. Unassigned work orders appear with a gray pushpin. Resource booking: A resource booking is the assignment of a resource to a work order. A resource is usually a technician or another worker, but it can also be a piece of equipment that is needed for the job or even another resource type. Customer asset: A customer asset is a piece of equipment that is located at a customer’s site in the field. You can specify subcomponents, which is especially useful if the equipment has parts inside that have their own, separate serial numbers and warranties, such as a condenser coil or a compressor inside of an air conditioning unit. Agreement: An agreement is a sort of template for generating work orders and invoices and is similar to a contract that you have in place with your customer. The agreement can specify the price of the service and can contain one or more schedules; this way, you can have one agreement that covers different types of work that are performed at different periodic intervals. Time-off request: A time-off request is important because, after it has been approved, it shows up on the schedule board as a grayed-out area for the technician who is taking time off. In this way, the dispatcher avoids booking technicians who are on vacation or otherwise unavailable for work. Purchase order: A purchase order can be used to acquire inventory (parts) that can be either stocked in a warehouse or sold directly to a customer on a work order. Inventory transfer and adjustment: Inventory transfers record the movement of inventory items between warehouses so that the system knows the correct on-hand quantity at each warehouse location. Inventory adjustments are used to correct the on-hand quantity, usually after a physical count has revealed that the quantity in the system doesn’t agree with what is actually on the shelf. You could use an inventory adjustment to add inventory to the warehouse, but normally you add purchases of inventory using a purchase order receipt; so adjustments are mainly for error correction. Warehouse: A warehouse is a physical location where inventory is stocked. A warehouse doesn’t necessarily have to be a warehouse building; it can be a van, a truck, a room in an office building or any place you want to isolate inventory for managing it more effectively. Return merchandise authorization (RMA): The term RMA is commonly used in inventory management parlance related to inventory returns. You issue an RMA so that your customer can return a bad or unwanted piece of equipment to you. Usually, it’s the technician who is returning it on the customer’s behalf, because it’s the technician in the field who has probably assessed that the equipment is faulty in some way. You have three options for returns: Return to the warehouse, return to the vendor (supplier), or change the equipment ownership. When you return an item to the warehouse, it usually means that the part is still good and you can use it elsewhere later on for a different customer. If you return an item to the vendor, doing so involves a return-to-vendor (RTV) order. In the RMA approval process, more than one part can be added to a single RMA. You may also need to issue a credit memo to your customer for the return. Return to vendor (RTV) order: RTVs are used to track inventory items that you have returned to a vendor. Use RTV substatuses to track the status of the individual parts of the RTV. The schedule board is an exciting functionality that can be used in several areas within the Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement application. In other words, the schedule board is a global feature of Customer Engagement. Even though scheduling is an essential feature of Field Service applications, you can also use it in the Sales module. For example, you can schedule opportunities as part of the Sales module, not just work orders as part of the Field Service module. Living the dream of efficient field service: The work order lifecycle In Dynamics 365 for Field Service, the work order completes a lifecycle. The work order lifecycle consists of several sequential steps (some of which are optional), including these: Work order creation: Work orders can be created in several ways, including being keyed into the system manually (from scratch), generated automatically from an agreement, or converted from a case. Schedule (booking): The work order then needs to be added to the schedule (in other words, booked). You can do this manually on the schedule board from the list of unscheduled work orders, directly on the work order using the Add Bookings button, or by using the schedule assistant (a tool that uses a complex query to match a technician to a work order based on a variety of factors, such as distance and skill set). Dispatch: A technician is dispatched to the customer site. Approval: Approval is a status change. A manager reviews and then approves the work order if she is satisfied that everything looks in order — changing its status from “unapproved” to “approved”. Billing: Customers are invoiced for completed work orders. Return: Returns are optional, based on the discretion of the technician, who assesses whether any parts need to be returned. RMA and RTV functionality is available. Inventory adjustment: Inventory adjustment transactions may sometimes be necessary to account for parts used on the service call. Credit memo: You may need to issue a credit memo to a customer to give credit for a part, listed on an invoice, that was paid for but later returned because it was eventually determined that it wasn’t needed. Configuring administrative settings for Dynamics 365 for Field Service To view the Field Service menu items related to the configuration (settings), follow these steps: On the black navigation bar at the top of the screen, click the down arrow to the right of the name of the module you’re in. The Tile Selector pull-down menu appears. Click the Field Service tile. The Field Service tile is the blue tile to the right of the orange Marketing tile. The menu items and menu item headings change to reflect the choices most closely related to the Field Service module. Under the Settings menu heading, click Administration. The Administration menu item is the blue box that has the Gear icon inside it. Dozens of settings related to configuring the Field Service module appear, each with an icon, a title, and a short description of which features that setting controls. One setting has the Gear icon and the title Field Service Settings. Clicking this icon opens even more settings related to Field Service. Keep in mind that all these icons are related to the Field Service module, not just the one labeled Field Service Settings. As you can see, the Field Service module has lots of different settings; some of these are optional, but many are required, and many optional settings are still likely to be appropriate for your organization. Setting up the Field Service module requires expertise and careful analysis. You’ll be wise to set up a sandbox (test) instance to try out some of these settings during the design phase of your implementation. Consult with your authorized Dynamics 365 solution provider about configuring Dynamics 365 for Field Service to ensure that you’re provided with a detailed project plan. Also, when the solution provider prepares a design document, be sure that you read it carefully and provide feedback about it, before the setup is performed in your production Dynamics 365 instance.

Article / Updated 12-29-2018

Microsoft PowerApps is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering hosted in the Microsoft cloud on the Azure platform. Because most license plans for Office 365 and for Dynamics 365 include licenses for PowerApps, you’re likely already running PowerApps if you have Dynamics 365. PowerApps are a solid avenue for getting the most out of your Dynamics 365 subscription. Read on to find out how to add an option set, integrate data from other platforms, and modify app settings to get more out of PowerApps. Adding an Option set to PowerApps Generalized descriptions of all available options in the PowerApps universe are all well and good, but it wouldn't hurt to walk through one particular PowerApps variant. For example, if you’re building apps for your organization’s marketing department to use to control the marketing materials they deliver to prospects — and these materials can be either case studies, brochures, or white papers — you might want to create a picklist that you can use throughout your application to categorize marketing materials. When users are prompted to tag the marketing material that they have uploaded to SharePoint using the app, they’re presented with a drop-down list box giving them these choices: Brochure Case Study White Paper To create a new Option set (picklist) in PowerApps for the example just described, follow these steps: Go to the PowerApps website. In the upper right corner of the web page, click the Sign In link. Provide your user ID and password credentials that you use to sign in to Dynamics 365 and/or Office 365, and then click Next. Your browser is directed to an introductory web page. In the navigation pane on the left side of the web page, click the Data button. The list of data sources/methods expands. Click Option Sets. The Picklists (in other words, Option Sets) window is displayed to the right of the navigation menu. If you have previously created picklists, they appear in a list on this page. Click New Picklist, found in the upper right corner of the web page. The New Picklist dialog box appears. Fill out the Name and Display Name fields. The name is one that you give to the object you’re creating for your own purpose of managing that option set, whereas the display name is what the user of your app sees as a label for this field when running your app. Typically, the display name is a more user-friendly descriptive name, but both names can be the same. The name cannot contain spaces. Note that the Description field is optional. A red asterisk following a field name label indicates that the field is required. Click the Next button. A new screen appears, displaying a blank list of items to be included in the picklist you just created. The name of your picklist appears above the list of items. The first item in the list says NewItem because the system doesn’t yet know what you want to call it. Click NewItem, under the Items Name heading, to edit the name of the item. A rectangular text box appears. Mouse over NewItem and then type CaseStudy in the Name column, Case Study in the Display Name column, and A write-up of a successful customer experience in the Description column. Alternatively, you can leave the Description field blank. (The Description column is optional.) Click the Add Item button in the upper right corner of the web page. A new line appears above the CaseStudy item you just entered. Create two more lines — one for brochure and one for white paper — to complete the example. Click the Save button in the lower right corner of the web page. The picklist becomes available to you when creating apps in PowerApps. Adding a data connection to PowerApps Connections to an ever-expanding selection of services are available and easy to add within PowerApps. Here’s a list of some of the well-known and widely used websites that you can find connections available for in PowerApps: LinkedIn com OneDrive for Business Trello Twitter Vimeo Gmail GoToMeeting WordPress YouTube Workday HCM To create a new app and add a connection to Google Gmail (for example) in PowerApps, follow these steps: Go to the PowerApps website. In upper right corner of the web page, click the Sign In link. On the new screen that appears, enter the user ID and password credentials you use to sign in to Dynamics 365 and/or Office 365, and then click Next. Your browser is directed to an introductory web page. In the navigation pane on the left side of the web page, click the Apps button. The apps you have created previously are displayed. If you have not already created any apps, you see a No Apps Found message. Click the Create an App button, located on the left side of the menu bar. You may see a purple Create an App button located under the No Apps Found message in the middle of the page. Whichever button you click, a new web page or web page tab (depending on how your browser settings are configured) launches, displaying shortcuts for creating a new app. Here are your options: Start with Data Start with a Blank Canvas Start with a Template Choose the Start with a Blank Canvas option. Use Phone Layout if you’re programming your app for a smartphone. A new web page tab launches, and a Welcome dialog box appears that says “Welcome to PowerApps Studio,” prompting you to either create a form, create a gallery, or take an interactive tour. Click the gray Skip button. You’re now in PowerApps Studio in a blank app, ready to start creating the app. Choose File from the File menu in the upper left corner of the screen. The black navigation pane appears on the left side of the screen. Click Connections in the black navigation pane. On the menu bar above the list of connections, click New Connection. A list of available connections displays. You can sort this list by clicking the Name column heading — the first column of the list. Type the word Gmail in the Search text box, located above the column headings, toward the right side of the web page. The list of available connections is automatically filtered based on your search criteria. The connector for Gmail should now be visible in the list of connections. Click the + sign or click anywhere on the Gmail Connector row. A dialog box appears that provides a brief description of what you can do with the connector (in this case, send or receive an email message to a Gmail account). The dialog box prompts you to create the connection. Click the Create button. A dialog box appears, prompting you to sign in to a Google Gmail account. Select an existing account that is recognized by your browser (and thus will be listed), or select Use Another Account. If you have chosen Use Another Account, enter the email address you want to use and then click Next. Another dialog box prompts you for a password. Again, if you have chosen Use Another Account, enter your password and then click Next. A dialog box appears, warning you that this action will allow Microsoft PowerApps and Flows to read, send, delete, and manage your email. Click the blue Allow button. You have now added Gmail as a connection that can be used in any apps you build in PowerApps or in any workflow you create in Microsoft Flow. Making your PowerApp your own with App Settings PowerApps provides easy point-and-click configuration to design your app to your liking. For example, many aspects of your app can be easily configured from the App Settings screen with a simple click of the mouse. These settings are among the ones you can configure from the App Settings screen: App Name: Enter a short and distinctive name for the app you’re creating; make sure the name isn’t already used for another app. Background Color: Click the colored square to change the color. Icons: Use the slider bar on the right to see more preloaded icon choices, or load your own icon by clicking the Browse button; PNG, JPG, and JPEG file formats are accepted; the recommended image size for icons for PowerApps is 245 x 245 pixels. Description: Be sure to enter a description that lets users know what your app can do. Screen Orientation: Your choice is Landscape or Portrait. Screen Size: Your choices are 16:9 (Default), 3:2 (Surface Pro 3), 16:10 (Widescreen), 4:3 (iPad), or Custom; if you choose Custom, you must enter a width and height. On the App Settings screen, the options for Lock Aspect Ratio (which maintains the height and width in the same proportion) and Lock Orientation (which maintains the same screen orientation even if the tablet or smartphone is rotated) are defaulted to On. You might think it would be nice to let users rotate your app or resize it any which way they prefer, but both options can easily distort your app’s display and render it useless. So, unless you truly know what you’re doing and can successfully test your app in different aspect ratios and portrait and landscape positions, it’s safer to leave these setting turned on, to simply lock both the aspect ratio and the orientation to ensure that your app displays correctly.

Article / Updated 12-28-2018

Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations allows you to extend the navigation pane in D365O; the navigation pane has menus that can take you anywhere in the application. To extend the navigation pane in D365O and access the Modules menu, follow these steps: Click the Black Square icon with three white horizontal lines in the top left corner of the web page. The navigation pane extends out from the left side of the web page. Choose Modules in the navigation pane. The list of modules is displayed below. Click any module, such as Budgeting, Fixed Assets, or Inventory Management. The full module menu structure for that module extends immediately to the right of the navigation pane. You’re then able to navigate anywhere in the module by selecting the appropriate menu items from that module’s menu choices. The module’s menu includes setup screens pertaining to that module, in addition to screens for master record maintenance, reports, inquiries, and entering and posting transactions. For example, to describe how to navigate to the Item Charge Groups window, you could describe each click this way: Click the Black Square icon with three white horizontal lines in the top left corner of the web page to extend the navigation pane. Choose Modules from the (extended) navigation pane. Choose Inventory Management from the submenu that appears. Choose Setup from the next submenu. Choose Charges from the next submenu. Choose Item Charge Groups from the final submenu. Alternatively, rather than list all those separate steps, you can simply write, from the Modules menu, “choose Inventory Management → Setup → Charges → Item Charge Groups.”

Article / Updated 12-28-2018

One of the best aspects of D365O, or Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, from a user perspective is that you can modify screen layouts without doing any computer programming — you can do this yourself without having to contact your IT department or system administrator. Your personalized D365O screen layouts affect how data appears on the screen for you. Now, if you’ve personalized your screen in a neat way and you want other users to also have the nifty new layout, you can export your personalized page by creating a personalization file. The personalization file can be imported by another user, thereby giving that person the screen layout you created. You can even add new fields (create user-defined fields, in essence) without computer programming or IT involvement. Your Dynamics 365 system administrator has to grant you permissions to personalize your forms (screens). You need a separate, higher-level permission to allow you to add custom fields, which may not be so easy, given that most system administrators tightly control who gets to add custom fields. Adding custom (user-defined) fields is a big deal. You can easily imagine how that situation can get out of hand. If everybody is adding their own fields to the database via the user interface in a willy-nilly manner with no centralized coordination, you can end up with fields that are only haphazardly updated and that are missing from key reports. Even the more basic type of screen personalizations (ones that don’t involve adding custom fields) can get out of hand; if every user has a different screen layout, it can cause confusion or outright chaos. Fortunately, D365O provides a way for the Dynamics 365 system administrator to centrally control personalization. D365O has a Personalization page with the following tabs: Apply: Personalization files can be imported and then applied to multiple users by selecting a role and the users who are assigned to that role. Also, an existing personalization can be applied to multiple users. Clear: Personalizations can be cleared (removed) for one or more users and from a page or a workspace. Manage per User: Here’s where the administrator can control who is allowed to create personalizations, either for specific pages or as a global system setting for that user. The administrator can also see which pages the users have personalized and then enable or disable those personalizations. System: In this clean-up utility area, the administrator can delete all personalization and start over if it gotten a little out of hand. Another option is to disable all personalizations rather than delete them. In this way, the administrator can easily enable them again later. Deleting a personalization in the System area of the Personalization page is permanent. You should export any personalizations that you may want to reuse later. You have no way to recover a deleted personalization, other than to import a saved personalization file. These personalization files are generated for you by the system in XML format during export. A personalization that a user makes to modify the appearance of a user interface form (page) — such as moving fields around, adding existing available fields, changing field labels, or hiding fields — is an explicit personalization. An explicit personalization is made by putting the form (page) into Interactive Personalization mode. For example, the Vendor Maintenance window can be personalized to add the Federal Tax ID field to the General section; doing so makes that field more visible to the user and easier to access quickly. For example, perhaps this field in your system gets lost in the confusion of having so many fields and the accounts payable manager insists that the field be considered when creating or editing a vendor record. To add the field in this example, follow these steps: Choose Modules →   Accounts Payable →   Vendors →   All Vendors from the Finance and Operations navigation pane. The Vendor List page appears, displaying all vendors. Click any vendor ID in the Vendor Account column (the first data column in the list). The Vendor Maintenance window opens (by default) to the General section of the vendor master data record (row) you clicked. Click the General section heading to toggle that section, first hiding and then showing the fields in that section. The General section collapses, hiding the fields in that section. When you click General again, the section expands, displaying the fields, such as Vendor Account, Name, Search Name, and Group. Right-click anywhere in the General section. The Form drop-down menu appears, displaying choices such as Form Information, Collapse All, and Expand All. Select Personalize: General from the drop-down menu. If you don’t see this choice on the drop-down menu, right-click directly on the word General or on other sections of the screen in the General section. The Personalize: General pop-up menu appears. The color of the General section changes to indicate that you’re now in Personalization mode. You can change the name of the section by overwriting the text in the text box under the word Personalize; as you type, you see the section name change on the screen. On the Personalize: General pop-up menu, you also have choices to hide the section, skip it when you tab through it, disallow editing, and add a field. Choose Add a Field from the Personalize pop-up menu. The list of existing available fields you can add to the page appears on the right side of the web page. This list of fields can be sorted by any column by clicking the column header. To add one or more fields to be inserted on the form, simply click the check box in the far left column next to the field(s) of your choice. Click Table (the column heading for the rightmost column in the list of fields), and then select Sort A to Z. The list of fields is sorted by the Table column. You can see that you can insert fields from tables that are related to the vendor table, in addition to fields in the vendor table itself. Press Page Down on the keyboard, or use the scroll wheel or slider bar to scroll down the list. The fields in the Vendor table are toward the bottom of the list. Look for the field labeled Federal Tax ID. (This is an important field that it would be nice to see in the General section of the form.) Select the check box for Federal Tax ID. You’re now ready to insert the Federal Tax ID into the General section. Click the Insert button. The field you selected is visible on the form, and the screen changes back to the normal color to indicate that you’re no longer in Personalization mode. You can add fields using the Personalize pop-up menu, but moving a field to a better position onscreen involves using the Personalization toolbar. To display the Personalization toolbar, choose the Personalize This Form option at the bottom of the Personalization menu. To move, for example, the Federal Tax ID field you just added, follow these steps: Right-click the Vendor Maintenance window's General section. The Form drop-down menu appears. You have choices, for example, to see form information, collapse all, or expand all. Select Personalize: General. The Personalize: General pop-up menu appears. The color of the General section changes to indicate that you’re now in Personalization mode. Choose Personalize This Form from the Personalize: General pop-up menu. The Personalize toolbar appears. Click the Move button. (the second button from the left on the Personalization toolbar.) The screen is now in Move mode. Click the label of the field you want to move. In this example, click the Federal Tax ID field. The field becomes surrounded by a gray dashed line to indicate that it’s ready for repositioning Click to select the Federal Tax ID field, and then, while holding down the left mouse button, drag-and-drop the field to another position in that section of the form. The screen automatically adjusts to fit the field, automatically shuffling other fields around in the process. You can always move the field again, as many times as you need to, to position it where you want. Click the Close button on the Personalization Toolbar. The field is moved, and your personalization changes are saved. You can export the personalization from the Manage button menu, to ensure that you have a backup copy of your personalization. The Personalization toolbar has nine buttons you can use to help modify the screen in various ways. When you hover the cursor over each button, a balloon Help message pops up to remind you of the function of each button. From left to right, the nine buttons on the Personalization toolbar are described in this list: Select: Clicking the Select button activates Select mode. When in Select mode, clicking an element onscreen brings up the Properties window for that element, allowing you to change the field label, hide it, include it in the FastTab summary, skip it in the tab sequence, or lock it so that it cannot be edited. You’re unable to hide a required field (and for good reason), so sometimes that option isn’t available; in fact, the properties you can change may differ, depending on the element you have selected. Move: Clicking the Move button activates Move mode. Now whenever you click a screen element, such as a field, a dashed gray line appears around the element, indicating that it’s now ready to move. Click it, and then drag-and-drop the element to another location. You cannot precisely position the field; instead, the screen adapts to wherever you drop the element and readjusts itself to fit it in with other elements. Hide/Show: Clicking the Hide/Show button gets you to Hide/Show mode, which, as its name suggests, lets you choose whether to hide or show an element onscreen. In Hide/Show mode, hidden fields appear in a different color, to distinguish them from visible fields. Simply click the label of any field to toggle it between Hidden and Shown (Regular). When you click the Close button, the hidden fields disappear from the screen. Summary: Clicking the Summary button activates Set Summary mode. In Set Summary mode, summary fields appear in a different color to distinguish them from nonsummary fields. Simply click the label of any field to toggle it between Summary and Non-summary (Regular). When you click the Close button, the summary fields start appearing in the FastTab summary. Skip: The Skip function is for making a field skip the tab sequence. If your organization doesn’t make use of a particular field, you can save the user’s time by skipping that field in the tab sequence, so when the user tabs to the next field, they don’t have to keep pressing tab This tool works like the Show/Hide and Summary tools. You click the label of the field to set the field as skipped; the color changes to indicate that it’s no longer to be included in the tab sequence. Edit: The default here is for Editing to be enabled, but you can toggle it off to lock an element. This tool works like the Show/Hide, Summary, and Skip tools. You click the label of the field to set the field as locked; the color changes to indicate that it’s no longer allowed to be edited. After clicking the Close button, and later going back into that screen, you notice that the field is grayed out (disabled for editing); any data in that field is visible, but you cannot make changes. Insert/Add: This tool allows you to add fields. Click the Insert/Add (+) button, and then click a section of the screen. Doing so opens a list of fields that you can add; the list pops up on the right side of the screen. Manage: Clicking the Manage button causes a drop-down menu to appear with these choices: Clear removes (deletes) your personalization from the page section you’re personalizing. This acts as a reset button, in essence — if you have messed up the personalization beyond salvaging, use this. Import allows you to load a personalization file that you or someone else has previously exported. This is a way to share a personalization that another user has created. Export allows you to save your personalization to a file. Personalization files are in XML format and are downloaded to your Download folder on export. Close: Click the Close button to exit the Personalization toolbar, thereby saving your personalization changes. Reload the page to see all your changes take effect; you may need to close the window and then navigate back to it later to see your personalization take effect.

Article / Updated 12-28-2018

A good way to get a feel for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations and understand just how deep the feature sets go in D365O is to skim a list of the advanced capabilities in various modules. You should expect any ERP module to have the same basic features at a minimum, so in that sense all ERP applications are the same: If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. For example, in any Accounts Receivable module, you should be able to create customers and enter credit memos; in any Accounts Payable module, you should be able to create vendors and enter vendor invoices; as another example, any decent ERP system will allow you to create multiple addresses per customer or per vendor. Truth to tell, any ERP system will have all the same basic common ERP modules, such as General Ledger, Budgeting, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Inventory Control. What makes D365O stand out from the pack is that it offers advanced features in its common modules as well as special modules that not all ERP systems have. To see what this means, all you need to do is check out some of these uncommon (in other words, more advanced) modules, as well as some of the advanced capabilities found in D365O’s common modules. This list describes the advanced D365O modules: Warehouse Management: Less advanced ERP systems have no separate module for warehouse management, but, rather, the warehouse location entity is simply one facet of the Inventory Control module; furthermore, the complexity level of the warehouse entity is overly simplified in many ERP systems, whereas in D365O the warehouse management features include the concepts of zones, zone groups, container packing policies, and dock management profiles. Many companies, if they require software to manage their warehouse operations, run a completely separate software application for the Warehouse Management function. The problem with running a separate warehouse system is that you need to write and maintain custom integration programs between your Inventory Control module, Purchasing module, and Sales Order module in the base ERP package. The D365O module for warehouse management is fully integrated with the other D365O modules, so no integration programs need be developed — which is a major advantage and cost savings. Unplanned disconnects between an external warehouse management system and the core ERP are all too common, and time-consuming troubleshooting of broken integrations is often an ongoing disruption to otherwise efficient operations. Questionnaire: A separate module for questionnaires isn’t typically included in most ERP applications. However, the questionnaire is an important way for organizations to evaluate employee job performance as part of a human resources (HR) function. Questionnaires can also be used for customer satisfaction surveys and to solicit feedback from customers for a variety of purposes. Bear in mind that if your organization uses Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement, a new module called Voice of the Customer also has survey functionality, so you may want to use it as well (or instead). Product Information Management: Product information management (PIM) is a way to centralize information about your products so that all parts of the supply chain can speak the same language and have real-time access to changes in product descriptions, product images and diagrams, product specifications (specs), categorization of products, part numbers, and other attributes and identifiers related to the products your organization makes, distributes, and sells. In recent years, stand-alone systems have sprung up that allow you to funnel information from your ERP system and other sources, such as suppliers’ websites, into a centralized product information management hub. Of course, extensive custom integration programs are needed to accomplish this task, whereas with the D365O Product Information Management module, your PIM is embedded into your ERP system — a great advantage for your company because the product information is available in the Sales, Purchasing, and Inventory Control modules of the ERP with no need for custom integration programming. D365O includes features to implement Kanban manufacturing. These features appear in the Production Control module and the Warehouse Management module. Kanban is a visual method for controlling production invented by Taiichi Ohno of Toyota, considered the father of lean manufacturing and the just-in-time (JIT) inventory replenishment method. The idea behind lean manufacturing is to make only as much product as you need based on the amount of product that has been pulled from the shelf by customers (known as pull manufacturing), rather than making product based on a forecast of what you hope the customers will buy (known as push manufacturing). In this way, you avoid making too much or not enough product because of inaccurate forecasts. However, to make JIT work, you need to respond quickly to fluctuations in inventory. D365O can help your organization adopt a Kanban manufacturing strategy. The following listing of advanced features in D365O is meant to give you an overall feel for the depth of the D365O feature set. The Microsoft Docs website provides a great deal of useful documentation regarding these features. Also confer with your authorized Dynamics 365 solution provider to learn more about how any of these advanced features can be implemented for your organization. Here are some of the advanced features in the General Ledger module: Consolidation of subsidiaries into a consolidated organizational entity Forecasting of cash flow and currency requirements Up to ten dimensional segments on a single account (Financial dimensions allow you to slice and dice your data for analysis and reporting purposes) Automated allocation based on default templates defining percentages by dimension Importing of currency exchange rates for exchange rate providers (no need to manually key in the exchange rates) Settlement and revaluation of currency amounts Compatible with the OpenXML format for electronic reporting for compliance with localization requirements of foreign governments Mass financial period close, which can save you time by closing more than one financial period at a time Posting restrictions by user group (helps with separation of duties) And here are some of the advanced features in the Fixed Assets module: Cross-company depreciation runs Depreciation calculation using background processing Advanced features in the Accounts Payable module include Positive pay (an automated fraud detection tool specifically designed to deter check fraud) Mobile invoice approval Royalty management and broker contracts A vendor collaboration invoicing workspace (lets vendors see the status of their own invoices using an online portal) Advanced features in the Accounts Receivable module include Electronic signature certificates Trade agreement journals contracts you set up with your customers to specify pricing arrangements Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) direct debits Customer pools for collections Customer aging snapshots, which allow you to quickly view the accounts receivable aging of a customer without having to re-run the aging routine Automation of nonsufficient funds (NSF) charges Advanced features in the Cash and Bank Management module include Letters of guarantee Bank facility agreements (the terms and conditions a bank has agreed to extend to you for loans) Advanced features in the Inventory Management module include Consignment inventory Commodity pricing Forecast models Product safety compliance (essentially help with tracking and reporting on restricted products and reported products such as creating product safety data sheets) Warehouse load utilization reporting Attribute-based pricing models Advanced features in the Sales and Marketing (Sales Order) module include Rebate agreements and rebate program types Customer category hierarchy Prospects, leads, and opportunities Sales agreements Shipment specifications Shipping deviations (A handy way of viewing the differences between your actual ship dates and confirmed ship dates) Advanced features in the Procurement and Sourcing (Purchase Order) module include Purchase requisitions expenditure review Intercompany order price discrepancies (A clean-up tool to help you synchronize prices and discounts for intercompany sales orders and purchase orders) Legal entity-specific business rules and thresholds for fixed asset determination (Essentially this allows you to set different dollar thresholds in different companies for when the system will consider a purchase to be worthy of capitalizing it as a fixed asset.)

Article / Updated 12-28-2018

Microsoft has sought to make navigation within Business Central as easy and intuitive as possible. One of the most frustrating experiences of working with software applications is not knowing how (or not being able to remember how) to get to a certain screen. You have to keep fishing through a hierarchy of menus, searching deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, only to come up empty-handed. At last, in desperation, you resort to reading the documentation you find on Google or another search engine, but that documentation forces you to complete a long series of steps to get to the screen, and then you still have the frustrating experience trying to navigate from the steps listed in the documentation to the actual menu items in the application, which don’t always agree because the documentation may be somewhat out-of-date or pertain to a slightly different version of the software. Microsoft makes it a little easier to find help with Dynamics 365. Searching for screens and reports in Dynamics 365 Business Central In Business Central, Microsoft has devised a better way to find any screen in the application, in the form of a global menu search available for the application: the Search for Page or Report feature. This search doesn’t look for individual records (such as a particular vendor or customer) but rather for links to screens (such as the Vendor or Customer Card Maintenance screen). The Search for Page or Report feature is accessed by clicking the Magnifying Glass icon, found on the right side of the top black navigation bar. (This navigation bar is also referred to as the address bar.) Using the Search for Page or Report feature, you can find your way around Business Central without having to memorize where menu items are located within a cascading maze of menus. The bonus plan here is that this same feature can be used to find both screens and built-in reports; by the way, many reports are more often printed to the screen, rather than on hard copy (paper), and can therefore, in essence, be thought of as screens as well). The Escape (Esc) key on the keyboard is important in Business Central because some of the screens don’t display Exit or Close command buttons. Instead, use the Esc key to close a window and go back to the previous screen. Alternatively, to close the window, you can click the X icon (for eXit), located at the far right end, on top of a window (if one is available). Typically, screens in Business Central don’t have command buttons labeled Save, Close, or Save & Close (as you might see in Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement), but don’t worry: Conveniently, your changes are saved on or before exiting, without your having to click a Save button. As an example of navigation by means of the Search for Page or Report feature, see the images below. In this example, you search for the Vendor Maintenance screen. Keep in mind that navigating to the vendor card is easy enough by simply using the menu navigation; however, for many screens that are harder to find, you can locate them by using the Search for Page or Report feature. To navigate to the Vendor Maintenance screen using the Search for Page or Report feature, follow these steps: Click the Magnifying Glass icon on the address bar. The Magnifying Glass icon on the address bar (the black navigation bar at the top of the web page) launches the Search for Page or Report feature. The Search for Page or Report dialog box displays. Enter a page or report name. (For this example, type vendor.) The search will include items that begin with the search text you enter. With each letter you type into the search box, the list of page and report links below it changes to reflect the change in search criteria. In the Name column, you see the name of the page or report. In the Department column, you see the navigation path for that page or report (where it’s located within the hierarchy of menus). Click the Lists button to filter the search results to show only list-related links — in other words, links to open lists of records. Besides filtering on the pages and reports that are related to lists, you have the choice to filter by Reports and Analysis, Archive, Administrative, Tasks, and more. The choices for filtering change to reflect the types of items that have shown up in the search results. For example, if you were looking for a report, you would click Reports and Analysis to narrow the search results to display only links to reports. Click the Vendors link at the top of the search results. The Vendors List window appears. Note the three small buttons located above the list to the right. You can use them to toggle the list between viewing the vendors as text or as tall icons (tall tiles) or wide icons (wide tiles). One tab (or ribbon, as it’s sometimes called) is labeled Navigation; clicking the Navigation ribbon reveals navigation shortcuts related to the type of record you’re viewing — in this case, vendors. (The ribbon is also referred to as a FastTab.) The Magnifying Glass icon located to the far right above the list of vendors allows you to filter the list of vendors (vendor tiles) displayed; as you type in the search box, the vendors are instantly filtered by each letter as you key them in; filtering is based on vendor name. The asterisk (*) may be used as a wildcard character. Click any Vendor icon (tile) to open the Vendor Card (Maintenance Window) for that vendor. The vendor card displays. Navigating by menu in Dynamics 365 Business Central Navigating by menu in Business Central is straightforward. You’ll find a Navigation area near the top of the screen located directly under the black navigation (address) bar, with top-level menu choices for each module of the application as well as a self-service menu and a settings menu. When you click a top-level menu choice, a second level of menu choices related to what you clicked appears immediately below in a row of choices. Clicking one of the second-level choices opens a screen, which is usually in List view. For example, this image shows that if you choose Finance →   Chart of Accounts from the module's main menu/navigation area, the chart of accounts is displayed in a list. When the list appears, you see a command bar in the Actions area with command buttons (a button you click that opens another window or performs a command) and pull-down menus (a button you click that causes yet another little menu to drop down from the button, giving you more selections). The buttons that have pull-down menus can be identified by the down arrow immediately to the right of the menu item name. If you take another look at the image above, you can see that the + New Button has no down arrow to the right of it. Clicking the New button opens the G/L Account Card window. On the other hand, the Process button does have a down arrow to the right of it. When you click the Process button, no command is issued right away, but instead a pull-down menu appears, giving you more menu choices. When you click a menu choice on the pull-down menu, the command is issued. The commands on the command bar pertain to the list of records you’re viewing, and specifically to a particular record or records you have selected in the list. To add a new G/L Account card to Business Central, the navigation is shown here: Finance →   Chart of Accounts →   New The G/L Account Card window displays. Notice that more menus appear at the top of the window; in fact, menu ribbons are located at the top of most windows. In this example, the Home tab and Report tab that you see along the top of the menu can be clicked to cause the menu ribbon to display another set of related buttons (menu choices). The buttons found on a ribbon are further organized into menu groups. Note in the image above that the Balance menu group has two buttons: the G/L Account Balance button and the G/L Balance button. When you hover the mouse over any one of these buttons, a pop-up Help balloon appears, to describe what the button is meant to be used for. Feeling at home in your Dynamics 365 Business Central Role Center The home page when you sign in to Business Central is called a Role Center. The Role Center concept was introduced as part of a user-centric design philosophy embraced by the Microsoft design team as a core principle in moving Dynamics NAV to the cloud as a SaaS offering and rebranding it as Dynamics 365 Business Central. A user-centric design means, among other things, that the menus, buttons, and information that are displayed when you sign in reflects what is important to you, not just a standard menu structure that everybody, regardless of their job title, has to live with. Rather than struggle to learn how to navigate a maze of menus, you’re presented with only the menu items, quick-access command buttons, actions, and links that take you to the functions and features that matter most to you. Your Role Center page may appear different from those of other users, depending on your role in your organization. Your user profile in Business Central determines your Role Center home page. Default profiles can be specified for each user group. Every user who has the same profile starts out with the same Role Center. A great feature is the ability to customize any Role Center to fit the specific needs of any individual user; this means that your home page can be completely unique, tailored to your precise preferences. The Business Central user interface can be customized by way of personalization and configuration. As a user, you can tailor your own home page (an example of customization through personalization); as a Business Central system administrator, you can set up and modify Role Centers (an example of customization through configuration). The Role Center provides yet another important way to navigate throughout Business Central. In fact, if your Role Center is tailored just right, it pretty much takes care of all your navigation needs, because all the links you use daily are at your fingertips. Role Centers may include many different types of elements, such as the ones described in this list: Standard (top-line) menus: These menus, which are organized mainly by module or functional area, are directly under the address bar (the black navigation bar at the top). Actions: Actions are, in essence, command buttons — a link you click that executes an action. Actions that normally appear in menu navigation ribbons (tabs) across the top of various windows can also be displayed on the Role Center. In other words, you can take menu items (actions) from anywhere in Business Central and have a shortcut link to that menu item on a Role Center page. Insights: Insights are prebuilt queries that refresh every ten minutes; they find interesting facts within your organization’s data and display them as headlines, similar to a news feed. Your system administrator must install the Essential Business Insights Extension for Business Central before Insights can be displayed on your Role Center home page. Cues with drill-down: Cues are tiles that show a number, such as the number of unposted (pending) sales invoices. You can then click the tile to drill down into the details. For example, you can drill down to display a list of unposted sales invoices. Power BI visualizations: Graphs and reports developed using Power BI (Microsoft’s report writing tool). Download and install Power BI Desktop if you want to create your own Power BI reports. Business Central comes with the following prebuilt Role Centers, which you can use as is or tailored to your organization’s precise requirements by your system administrator or Dynamics 365 solution provider: Default Business Manager Accountant Order Processor Relationship Manager Team Member Project Manager Administrator Personalizing your Role Center is as easy as clicking the Gear icon, which brings the screen into Edit mode. However, your system administrator may want to control the level of Role Center customization, so that person may limit access to the Designer feature. Creating a new Role Center or modifying an existing Role Center requires some fairly advanced technical knowledge. Please confer with your Dynamics 365 system administrator or authorized Dynamics 365 solution provider for more details. The quickest way to navigate back to your Role Center home page is to click your company name in the upper left corner of the screen. Alternatively, you can click the Magnifying Glass icon on the address bar (the black navigation bar at the top of the web page), which launches the Search for Page or Report feature. Type home in the search box, and then click the Home link when it appears in the search results. To navigate to a previous window in Business Central, you can use the Go Back arrow (the left-pointing arrow) as you would in any typical web application; browsing back is yet another way to navigate in Business Central.

Article / Updated 12-28-2018

Dynamics 365 for Marketing is a seriously robust marketing application, and in order to configure it to optimally, your Dynamics 365 administrator or authorized solution provider will need to adjust several Advanced settings. Even if you’re not the one configuring the Advanced settings, it may be helpful to check out the Advanced Settings options. Often, someone is unsure about how flexible an application is because he’s unaware of where the switches and levers that control the behavior of the software are located within the software’s maze of menus. Navigating to the Advanced settings in Dynamics 365 for Marketing isn’t all that intuitive for many users, but there’s a handy way to get there from the Marketing Site Map menu. To navigate to the Advanced settings in Dynamics 365 for Marketing, follow these steps: Click the Site Map button. The Site Map pull-out menu appears. Click the ellipse (…) button — the one with three consecutive dots. A small pop-up menu appears immediately to the right. Choose Settings from the pop-up menu. A check mark appears next to the item after it has been selected. When you click Settings, the Site Map menu to the left of the screen changes to show the Marketing Settings heading. Under the Marketing Settings heading, click Advanced Settings. The Advanced Settings menu page appears. Some of the highlights in the Advanced Settings for Marketing include the ones in this list that describe what you can do: LinkedIn Lead Gen: Generate leads directly from LinkedIn. Import Data: Import leads, accounts, contacts, opportunities, and more from an Excel or CSV file. Default Marketing Settings: Set the default contact on your marketing emails as well as the default time zone when you create a new customer journey, among other defaults. Fiscal Year: Specify the starting and ending months of your organization’s fiscal year. (Note that you must have a System Administrator security role or the equivalent in order to change the fiscal year settings.) Dynamics 365 for Marketing is a super-robust, end-to-end marketing solution. You should confer with your authorized Dynamics 365 solution provider to learn more about the many available options and capabilities.