Business Process Flow – Assign Security Role Missing

Problem:

I’ve created a custom business process flow for Incidents. However, I’m unable to assign Security role to this custom business process flow as ‘Assign Security Role’ button is missing, while ‘Edit Security Role’ button is available, but it lacks the functionality of assigning.

Solution:

After spending some time, I realize that in the Security Role a new tab has been introduced named as ‘Business Process Flow’. Under this tab, you will find the same functionality as per the ‘Assign Security Role’ button.

Because, of this new customization and configuration behavior, make sure to include following items as part of the Solution for the deployment on different environments:-

• Newly created ‘Business Process Flow’
• Relevant ‘Security Role’ and
• a new Entity get created similar to the name of newly created ‘Business Process Flow’

Upgrade to Dynamics 365 – Global Search Stop Working!

Problem:

Recently, I did an upgrade from Dynamics CRM 2015 (On-Premises) to Dynamics 365 (On-Premises). After the upgrade, I faced a terrible challenge that Global Search stop working and bombarding with the the exception ‘Query Builder Error – The specified field does not exist in Dynamics 365’.

Solution:

• Go to Dynamics 365 Organization – Settings – Administration – System Settings – General Tab – Scroll down till you find ‘select entities for categorize search’ and click on ‘Select’ button.

• Note down all the entities which are appearing in the ‘Selected Entities’ section. Then, remove all the entities from the list except Account and click OK.
• Now, go to Settings – Customizations – Customize the System – Entities – Account – Views – double click on ‘Quick Find View’ type.
• Remove all the columns which are from other entities in this view. Keep only the columns of Account in this view.
• Click on ‘Save and Close’ and ‘Publish All Customization’.
• Now, bring the above solution for all the entities where you want the global search should work.

 

Business Process Flow doesn’t display

Problem:

I’ve created a custom business process flow for Incidents. However, the business process flow does not display/show when I look at the Incident through the Customer Service app. However, if I look at the Incident in the “Dynamics 365 – custom” app I can see the business process flow on the same record.

Solution:

After spending some time, I realize that I need to make an association of newly created Business Process Flow to the Customer Service App.

• Go to Dynamics 365 Organization Customization (Settings – Customizations – Customize the System).
• Select Apps and double click ‘Customer Service’.

• Select Business Process Flows on the design panel

• Ensure that your newly created Business Process Flow is marked as selected.
• Click Save and then Publish.

Viola!!

Microsoft Garage Mouse without Borders

Today’s post is not directly related to the Dynamics 365, but it is more relevant to the life of a Consultant.

As a consultant, you notice this thing that there are mostly two independent machines available on your desktop because of some reason. May be, one machine belongs to your parent company while another is given by the client. Because, of this you need two keyboards and mouses on your desktop, which are occupying extra space and you always need to switch from one keyboard/mouse to another keyboard/mouse.

One solution maybe doing remote desktop with lousy user experience. While, another solution is Microsoft Garage Mouse without Borders.

What is Microsoft Garage Mouse without Borders?

In layman terms, it allows you to control up to four computers from a single mouse and keyboard. Not only this, it will also copy text or drag and drop files across computers.

• Download Microsoft Garage Mouse without Borders
• Install on the machines which you want to control with single mouse and keyboard.
• Once the installation is finished, you need to do configuration:

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Roadmap

On the other day, I was having a conversation with Ben Fissioli and he shared this great website Microsoft Dynamics 365 Roadmap.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Roadmap is divided into three major sections (feature list):

• Previously Released
• In Development
• What’s New

All this information can be more filtered based on different applications:

• Dynamics 365 for Sales
  • Portal
• Dynamics 365 for Customer Service
  • Unified Service Desk
• Dynamics 365 for Field Service
• Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation
• Dynamics 365 for Operations
• Dynamics 365 for Financials

At this website, I feel information about following applications are missing: (not 100% sure, but unable to find anything about them)

• Gamification
• Voice of Customer

Nice to Have: If ‘What’s New’ section is directly linked with Dynamics 365 Ideas, it will help Dynamics 365 enthusiast to take part in Dynamics 365 Ideas more interactively and passionately.

Dynamics 365 – Unified Service Desk

Author: Zohaib Uddin Khan

Let’s discuss about the Unified Service Desk, What is Unified Service Desk or USD?

Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides a configuration-based framework for quickly building agent applications for call centers. You can aggregate customer information from different areas in Microsoft Dynamics 365 into a single desktop and get a 360° view of customer interactions.

It has two components to be installed, one component to be installed in your Organization another is the Client Application.

1. Browse to Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics 365.

2. As I mentioned earlier, USD has two components, so we’ll download:-

• Dynamics365-USD-2.2.0.755-PackageDeployer.exe (Compulsory)
• Dynamics365-USD-2.2.1.806-amd64.exe (Optional. Since, my development machine is 64 bit, so I chosed this one.)

or

• Dynamics365-USD-2.2.1.806-i386.exe (Optional)

3. Once, download finished, double click the ‘Dynamics365-USD-2.2.0.755-PackageDeployer.exe’.

4. Enter the necessary information of your organization. Keep remember the user should have ‘System Administrator’ role.

5. As a new comer to Unified Service Desk, I recommend you choose ‘Unified Service Desk – Microsoft Dynamics 365 Web Client’ because in this option, sample configuration data is included. While, if you’re installing on UAT/Production environment, then ‘Unified Service Desk – New Environment’ option is your choice.

6. Couple of clicks on Next button and Unified Service Desk is installed in your organization. In case, if it throws an exception while installation, then click on the ‘View Log File’ in the installation screen. (Installation will take 15-25 mins approximately)

7. Go to your CRM Organization, Settings -> Solutions -> Verify that following solutions are installed:

8. Now, let’s start installing the Client application. Double click on the ‘Dynamics365-USD-2.2.1.806-amd64.exe’ or ‘Dynamics365-USD-2.2.1.806-i386.exe’.

9. Couple of clicks on Next button and Unified Service Desk Client Application is installed on your computer.

10. Go to your desktop and double click on the Couple of clicks on Next button and Unified Service Desk Client Application is installed on your computer.

 

 

Dynamics 365: Voice of Customer – Survey Clone not working

Author: Zohaib Uddin Khan

Problem: I created a new Survey named as ‘Peshawar Zalmi’, then I published this survey. Later, I changed the Survey name to ‘Peshawar 2 Zalmi’. Now, when I clicked on the ‘Clone’ button, nothing is happening (new copy of ‘Peshawar 2 Zalmi’ is not created. I waited for 30 mins, but no luck!)

Root Cause: Before clicking on the ‘Clone’ button, Survey Name and Survey stored xxxxxxxxx.xml in Notes should be SAME. Thanks to Elowy Groot for sharing this information.

Solution: Change the Survey name as mentioned in the Notes. In our case named back as ‘Peshawar Zalmi’ and click on the ‘Clone’ button. And, copy of the requested survey is available in the ‘Active Survey’ list. Viola!!

 

 

Dynamics 365 Sitemap Designer

Author: Zohaib Uddin Khan

Let’s discuss about the new feature ‘Sitemap Designer’ introduced in the Dynamics 365. The Site Map Designer is a visual way to create/update your sitemap either default sitemap or sitemap of your Dynamics 365 App.

Prerequisites: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1

• Go to https://portal.office.com/and click on the ‘Dynamics 365’ tile.

• You can see all the Apps associated with the your ‘Dynamics 365’ organization. Click on the ‘Sales’ tile:

• If you look at the ‘URL’, you can notice that there is a new query string parameter as ‘appid’ and this ‘appid’ will play a major role. Based on this value, you can see different App (with associated Sitemap) and definitely less entities (but still remember through Advance Find you can).

• Let’s remove the query string parameter ‘appid’ from the URL and hit on enter. You can notice, sitemap start showing you all the stuff. At this point, it is rendering the default Sitemap.

• Now, go to Settings > Customization > Customize the System. Click on ‘Client Extension’ and you can notice there are more than one sitemap exists. Number of sitemaps are equal to the number of Apps your Dynamics 365 organization has plus 1 (this 1 is the default sitemap).

• Double click on the ‘Sales App Site Map’ and you can see the Sitemap Designer Canvas.

• Let’s create a new Area, group and Subarea by making a clone of ‘Sales’ tile. Select ‘Sales’ tile and click on the ‘Clone’ button.

• I have done the following after that:
  • Rename ‘Sales-Copy’ to ‘Custom’.
  • Drag ‘Custom’ tile after the ‘Training’ tile.
  • Select ‘Sales’ group, not the ‘Sales’ tile and click on ‘Delete’ button.
  • Select ‘Marketing’ group and click on ‘Delete’ button.
  • Select ‘Goals’ group and click on ‘Delete’ button.

• Now, click on ‘Save’ button and you can notice on the Top Right it is available as ‘Draft’. Then, click on ‘Publish’ button.

• Go back to your ‘Sales’ App in your Dynamics 365 organization and new Area/Group/Subarea is visible. Viola!!

Install Dynamics 365 Portals

Author: Zohaib Uddin Khan

First thing first, we have Dynamics 365 Portals which are more or less giving the same functionality as available in ADX Portal (of course with some workarounds). The way product team pitch the Dynamics 365 portals, it seem like they brought all the capabilities of ADX portal as part of Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1. So, if you’re using Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 or later, then you don’t need to try ADX Portal. At the time of writing this blog, I’m unable to find any solution to install Dynamics 365 portal for on premises environments. Even, unable to find any thing in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Roadmap.

Step by Step Guide to Install Dynamics 365 Portal:

Prerequisites: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1

1. Go to https://portal.office.com/ and click on the ‘Admin’ tile. (Keep remember to login with Office 365 Administrator account)
2. Click on ‘Admin Center’ and select ‘Dynamics 365’.
3. Select the instance (organization) for which you want to install ‘Dynamics 365 Portal’ and click on the ‘Edit’ button, next to Solutions.
4. Select ‘Custom Portal’ from the list and click on the ‘Install’ button.
5. Click on ‘Install’ button in the pop-up.
6. Once, it get completed, Status changed to ‘Installed’. (It will take 5-10 mins to get completed, so stay patient!)
7. Now, if you go to your Dynamics 365 CRM Organization, then you can verify all the Managed solution for the Custom portal get installed.
8. Again, go back to https://portal.office.com, select ‘Admin Center’ and ‘Dynamics 365’ and click on ‘Application’ tab.
9. On the ‘Configure your Portal’, enter the necessary information. At this stage, two important points to be noted:
   • Portal Audience: Customer
   • Portal Binding: Custom Portal
10. Click on ‘Accept’ to give permission for Dynamics 365 Portal.
11. After ‘Accept’, you will navigate to ‘Portal Details’. As per message, it will take 10-15 mins and your ‘Custom Portal’ will be ready!
12. Once, its ready the page will start looking as:
13. Now, if you click on the ‘Base Portal URL’, it will open in new window and your Dynamics 365 Custom Portal is ready for Branding.

Chrome Extension for Dynamics 365

Author: Zohaib Uddin Khan

Credit: For this tip & trick, thanks to Richard Powell

So, there is another hack of Dynamics 365 (CRM) for Chrome lovers. While, doing development or testing of Dynamics 365, we need to find the security role of login user, enter data into disabled fields, show hidden fields, etc. In order to get this done quickly, follow the steps and Viola!

• Browse to Sonoma Partners’ Dynamics CRM DevTools extension.
• Click on Add to Chrome.

• Once, added to your Chrome, browse your Dynamics 365 organization.
• Click on F12, and select ‘CRM DevTools’

• Now, you can play with vast options available by this extension.