Tip #1232: Dynamics 365 v9 on iOS

If you try to use the Dynamics 365 mobile app on iOS and experience the app repeatedly returning to the login screen, there is a simple fix.

Log in to D365 in Safari.

Safari will prompt you with the question “would you like to increase the database size for (URL of your D365 environment)?”

Answer yes, and the app should work correctly for you.

Cover photo by unsplash-logoSergey Pesterev

Tip #1231: Activity Quick Create in Unified Interface

I’m testing Unified Interface and when I create an activity from the timeline control I don’t see the quick create form.

Reader question

One thing that can cause this to happen is if you don’t have the Appointment, Phone Call, and Task entities in your model driven app.

In other words, if you just have the Activities entity in your app, but don’t have the entities for the individual activity entities, users that create activities from the timeline control will get the full activity form, not the quick create form.

Cover photo by unsplash-logoEugene Zhyvchik

Tip #1230: Launch KB hyperlinks in a new window

We use Dynamics 365 Knowledge Base in USD (Unified Service Desk – t.j). We have links to PDF’s and images of schematics and detailed drawings in our KB articles. When users click the link they see the complex image or document in the KB article frame. How can we open the image or document full screen?

Reader question

If you have a link in your KB article, you can right mouse click on the link and select “open in a new window.” This will launch the link in a new window.

Tîpp Jäår $0.02 + tax

When Joel entered this tip, my first reaction was “Really, Joel? Run out of things to say?”. But then I remembered how popular tend to be our simplest tips about shortcuts or scrolling, and all other userly things. And you may have noticed that we stopped adding target="blank" to the links in our tips.

So where’s your promised $0.02, you may ask? Here you are, three more ways to open a hyperlink in a new tab (or window, depending on your browser settings):

  • Press middle button or clickable wheel (try pressing it, you never know!) on your mouse.
  • Ctrl + left mouse click
  • Ctrl + ENTER if you are using keyboard and the hyperlink is in focus

(Cover photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash)

Tip #1229: Use math to make your chart look good

It’s Friday afternoon and the management asked you to create a quick chart illustrating your team’s bug handling pipeline. Easy-peasy.

Step 1 – extract data from the Squash-A-Bug system

Status Count
New 4268
Under Review 1921
Planned 516
Completed 229

Step 2 – visualize it as a small dashboard:

image

That…. does not… look… good… (tried funnel – that’s even worse)

We appear to be choking under the flood of new bugs… It’s Friday, for crying out loud, can’t give bad news to the management!

(busily searches dusted brain corners for the high education leftovers)

Found!

Here’s your tip of the day:

If your numbers are disproportionally skewed, use the logarithmic scale. It brings the values “closer together”

Tîpp Jäår
logcheat

And the end result:

image

Ahhh, that’s much better. Take that, management!

Friday night, here I come!

Thank you, Dynamics 365 for the idea (pun intended), and Crissy Jarvis on Unsplash for the cover photo.

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.

image

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

image

  • 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

image

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

image

(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)