Tip #1228: Control default destination for you Dynamics 365 URL

In some environments with Dynamics 365 v9, when you go to the URL for your Dynamics 365 URL you get the classic default app, while in others you get the Unified Interface app selector.

To control this behavior, go to the Power Platform Admin Center , select Environments and select the desired environment.

Click the settings gear and select Behavior.

Set Open in classic mode to off if you want the URL to go to the Unified Interface app menu.

Thanks Shidin Kuruvath Haridas for the great tip. Got any tips? Send them to jar@crmtipoftheday.com.

(Cover photo by Matthew Smith on Unsplash)

Tip #1227: Use CDS instead of Dynamics 365 connector in Flow

People have been reporting that Dynamics 365 triggers in Flow are not consistent. Sometimes they fire twice, sometimes not at all, sometimes they fire after a manual test run. There are some other weird side-effects I did not even look into. Why? Because of one of them quick tips.

Where possible, use Common Data Service connector instead of Dynamics 365 one.

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There is literally not much to add. Yes, CDS connector does have some functionality yet to be completed, hence “where possible” disclaimer.

Send your questions and comments either below or to @crmtipoftheday on Twitter.

(Cover photo by rawpixel on Unsplash)

Tip #1226: Avoid Model-Driven Failure

When deploying model-driven apps, there are multiple potential points of failure that can affect users’ ability to access part or all of the app. The following is a non-exhaustive list of some of the more common areas to check if the user can’t see the app or access certain parts of it:

  • User is missing model-driven app privilege in security role
  • User’s security role is not granted access to the app
  • User’s security role or licence doesn’t give them access to some entities or records in the app.
  • User’s role doesn’t have access to forms in the app
  • User’s role doesn’t have access to dashboards in the app
  • User’s role doesn’t have access to business process flows in the app

Lesson learned: building an app is (fairly) easy but due diligence must be taken to ensure that the user’s of the app have appropriate privileges at multiple levels of components.

(Cover photo by Firdaus Roslan on Unsplash)

Tip #1225: Run OnDemand Workflow in Unified Interface Apps

I did give some consideration to continuing the torture steady stream of Dynamics 365 Portals tips but we have a backlog of good tips sent to us by the community so let’s see what’s in the tipping jar first.

Today’s tip is from Shailesh Wath and you too can send your tip to jar@crmtipoftheday.com. (t.j – I think some of us stumbled over this one way or another but credit is where credit due. We also replaced some of the references to the classic admin experience with the modern equivalent – if you go new, go new all the way).

After clients are upgraded to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement version 9, users are unable to use classic functionality to run OnDemand Workflows which was a showstopper since it was a routine task and much needed functionality. To fix that:

  • Make sure Microsoft Flow license is enabled

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  • Enable setting to show Microsoft Flow on the forms and in the sitemap
    • Open Power platform admin center (https://aka.ms/ppac)
    • Select Environments
    • Click … (horizontal one, ugh), select Settings
    • Select Behavior
    • Make sure Show Microsoft Flow on forms and in the site map is selected

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After that, all OnDemand Workflow for an entity will be under Flow > Run Workflow

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(Cover photo by Hannes Egler on Unsplash)

PS. And we are not done yet with the portal tips, stay tuned!

Tip #1224: Prebuild your embedded canvas app

You want to embed a canvas app in a model driven app, but you want to start with one that you have already built, not create one from the embedded canvas app control.

Go to powerapps.com and click the (…) by the app you wish to embed. Click Details, then find and copy the App ID.

On the D365/model-driven app form, add the embedded canvas app control where desired and click the configure property button. Paste the App ID copied in step 1.

Click “Customize” to launch your canvas app in PowerApps Studio. This will add the ModelDrivenFormIntegration component to your existing canvas app. Don’t forget to enable the embedded canvas app experimental control.

(Cover photo by Squared.one on Unsplash)

Tip #1223: Resetting AI for sales

I recently was getting an error when I would try to configure predictive opportunity scoring or Talking Points in Dynamics 365.

If you don’t mind losing your existing predictive scoring model data, the following solution fixed it for me:

  1. Delete the following solutions:PredictiveOpportunityScoring_upgrade, PredictiveLeadScoring_upgrade, SICommon_Upgrade, RelationshipAnalytics_Upgrade.
  2. Manually delete PredictiveOpportunityScoring solution
  3. Manually delete PredictiveLeadScoring solution
  4. If above 3 steps succeed then (and only then) Upgrade to latest Sales AI package. Go to the Dynamics 365 Admin Center application tab and install the Sales AI package in your instance.

Once you reinstall the solution your AI for sales functionality should work.

(Cover photo by Franck V. on Unsplash)

 

Tip #1222: View is not available error in App for Outlook

Update: this can also be caused by system views being deactivated. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4338690/the-view-is-not-available-error-message-appears-when-opening-an-email

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You open Dynamics 365 App for Outlook and you see an error in the Outlook app pane saying “View is not available. Contact your administrator.”

This part of the pane is a form in the contact or lead entity called the “App for Outlook Contact/Lead Quick View Form.”

this subgrid displays views for related activities, opportunities, and cases. If your role does not include view permission for one of these entities, you may see this error.

So if your users don’t have access to cases, you can remove the case subgrid from this form. I found this to be a bit finicky–select the case grid and click remove. In my testing the case grid frame still displayed on the form, but after saving and closing, the grid was gone.

(Cover photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash )

Tip #1221: Need entity permission for dynamics lookup filters

Entity lists in Dynamics 365 Portals include a cool Metadata Filter feature that creates a faceted search over the content of your list. You can filter using text, ranges of values, lookups, optionsets, and even custom FetchXML filter.

When you filter by a lookup, you can use a list of static values in your filter, or you can create a Dynamic Lookup Set that would use a view.

Let’s say I have an entity list displaying contacts and I would like to filter them by the currency (yes, I always filter by the money-related matters, that’s how you separate acquaintances from friends). So this is what Dynamic Lookup Set looks like:

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That was easy, right? Let’s see the filter in action.

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What the heck? I swear I added солкуобай just this morning! And I can see currencies for individual contacts in the list?!

Turns out, regardless whether your entity list uses them or not, entity permissions still apply to the dynamic lookups. After adding Global Read permission on currencies for everyone, the filter is up and running.

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Here you go, my солкуобай is there, safe and sound.

(Cover photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash)

Tip #1220: Accessibility in portals

Have you ever tried navigating your portal without a mouse? Or switched the monitor off (yes, all of them) and try to figure out where you are using nothing but a screen reader? If you have successfully done that, my hat is off to you. It’s called accessibility.

Those of you working on the projects for the governments and, to a lesser extent, large enterprises, are probably familiar with the item on a tender checklist.

Good news is that the out-of-the-box start portals (Custom portal, Community portal, Partner portal, Customer portal, Employee self-service portal) are accessible. What does it mean and how do you measure it? There are standards, of course, and there are reports on how portals (and Dynamics 365 product line up in general) are compliant with those.

You can retrieve specific Dynamics 365 Portals conformance reports by searching for “Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement” at Microsoft Accessibility Conformance Reports. These reports cover the following standards:

  • EN 301 549 – the European standard that sets out accessibility requirements for information and communication technology procured by the public sector.
  • Section 508. Under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, US Government agencies must give employees with disabilities and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.
  • WCAG. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published and maintained by W3C.

Of course, these reports cover only out-of-the-box portals. When you customize and extend any of those, you should ensure that the portal remains accessible after any customization or changes.

(Cover photo by Yomex Owo on Unsplash)

Tip #1219: Root and content pages will make you unemployed

You crafted a new page in your beloved portal. It’s a work of art. Apple will hire you as a chief designer when they see the page. You change Publishing State from Draft to Published and… Nothing. You wait 5 seconds, F5, still nothing. Ctrl-F5. Nope. Sign in as admin, navigate to /_services/about, Clear Cache, sign out. Refresh. Not there. Sign in into admin center, restart the portal. Still bupkis. Turn the portal off then turn it back on. Slowly it comes back to life. Page? Nowhere to be seen. Somebody please put me out of this misery.

Now that you’ve missed that job opportunity, let’s take a look at what’s going on.

When you create a web page, at least two records get created: an information (or root) page and a content page (information page has Is Root property set to Yes).

Content page is pretty much a copy of the information page but now it has its own life. When you modify properties on the information page, they are not in sync with the content page except for a Partial URL and Page Template properties. The rest of the properties , including Publishing State are independent.

Guess which page is rendered when you access the portal? Yep, the content one. Now you see what happened?

SNAGHTML1a76c9b

Lesson: always modify the properties of the content page not the information (root) one.

Why all these pain? Parlez-vous francais, anyone? That’s right, multi-lingual stuff. That’s why I said “at least 2 records”. In fact it will be number of languages + 1. Your content pages will be in different languages, with different content, published at different times, if at all. So that you can have fun. Like this:

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(Cover photo by Mohit Tomar on Unsplash)