?Recording Content using Microsoft Stream!
Mar11

?Recording Content using Microsoft Stream!

I recently had a client ask about creating video content that provided a “Tik-Tok” like experience. After some digging, I came across the new recording functionality available in Microsoft Stream! Instead of writing a blog, I decided to create a quick video using Stream on how to use Stream! #Inception! Continue Reading MxEmDarcy’s Article on their blog ?Recording Content using Microsoft Stream! I recently had a...

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?Power Virtual Agents: Boost Conversational Coverage with Azure OpenAI.
Mar07

?Power Virtual Agents: Boost Conversational Coverage with Azure OpenAI.

The future is here! Microsoft announced yesterday their latest functionality that utilises Conversational AI technology to help get things done faster! We can now feed a website to Power Virtual Agents to scrape data from the site and surface up answers to questions, super fast. It’s currently in preview mode, so cannot be used with production bots, but it’s a great idea to get your hands… Continue Reading...

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Power Pages: Display the contact that submitted a form.

I’ve been playing around with Power Pages for a while now and always got stuck on one simple thing – how on earth do I see who submitted a form on my portal? After a few hours of playing around with settings, it finally dawned on me and I decided to share my findings with you! Authenticated users have a contact record in Dataverse. In my example, I have a portal that allows my logged in… Continue Reading...

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? Setting up the CoE Starter Kit Part Three: Using the Setup Wizard.

If you’ve completed steps one and two, then you’re ready for the fun part. Thankfully our friends at Power CAT have made setting up the key components of Core a breeze with their handy new setup wizard. The wizard is still in preview, so you may experience the odd bump or two (and I will detail the issues I came across in this post) but the team are very responsive and for the most part… Continue Reading...

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? Setting up the CoE Starter Kit Part Two: Get your Environment Ready!

Next up, we need to find the right home for the CoE Starter Kit. There are a few simple rules we need to follow to ensure we provide the most optimal environment for the toolkit. Environment Requirements With support for the Teams version of the CoE no longer being supported or improved upon, I highly recommend installing the Production version of the toolkit. It’s considered best… Continue Reading MxEmDarcy’s...

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? Setting up the CoE Starter Kit Part One: Get your Service User Ready!

One of the biggest barriers to getting started with Governance for the Power Platform is gaining visibility over what your landscape currently looks like. Luckily, we have the Center of Excellence Starter Kit (affectionately known as the CoE starter kit ) that contains a suite of tools to help Power Platform admins govern efficiently and effectively. Some have found the CoE Starter Kit… Continue Reading MxEmDarcy’s Article...

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How to Create an M365 Developer Tenant for Power Platform.
Jul08

How to Create an M365 Developer Tenant for Power Platform.

Which option do I CHOOSE?! I was recently trying to get a friend of mine set up with an environment she could learn Power Platform from but she does not have a Work or School account tied to Microsoft. I went digging and decided to try the M365 E5 Developer Subscription (try saying that three times quickly!) Before sending her the link to figure it out, I decided to see how easy it was…. Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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Power Automate: Send Rocketbook scans to OneDrive folders dynamically.
May13

Power Automate: Send Rocketbook scans to OneDrive folders dynamically.

Lift off! Automatically send documents to the right folder! I’ve recently gone back to using Rocketbook to help keep track of my notes, especially now that I am back in Pre-Sales and working with multiple clients on a regular basis. For those of you not familiar with Rocketbook, it’s a pretty simple but smart product: A reusable notebook that you scan with an app on your phone to… Continue Reading...

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Power Apps: Adding the Component Library to a Solution
Nov17

Power Apps: Adding the Component Library to a Solution

I am brand new to the world of Canvas Apps. As soon as I started building headers and menus and other things, I began to wonder if there was a way to create a repository of reusable components. After a little searching, I discovered Component Libraries! More recently, I also discovered they can be built into solutions and used across multiple environments. Let’s take a look! Disclaimer:… Continue Reading...

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Let’s Talk: What is the Common Data Service?
Sep30

Let’s Talk: What is the Common Data Service?

Majestic! Over the last year, you may have heard more than one mention of the “CDS” or the Common Data Service and wondered what was so special about it. What is this mythical beast and why is everyone fawning over it? In this blog I’ll go over the key areas of are some of the backbone of the Power Platform. At the core of every platform and system is data. How that data is modelled,… Continue Reading...

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Randomising Topics with Power Virtual Agent ?
Sep03

Randomising Topics with Power Virtual Agent ?

Random Bot Chat! Recently, I spent some time with the wonderful Matt Collins-Jones who helped me build a randomiser for my Beer Bot! We built a Flow that would pop back an image of a random beer! However, we can take this one step further and have the bot spit out a topic at random. I used MCJ’s original flow and built a topic randomiser on top! Let’s take a closer look. Note – be sure… Continue Reading...

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Account Based Marketing – Building Simple Reports ?
Aug26

Account Based Marketing – Building Simple Reports ?

Rolling up can be frustrating! Recently I was asked by a client if there was a way to view all Email Activities from Contacts that belonged to an Account. Initially, I thought “No problem – that’s a simple Advanced Find” however when I started diving into things, I very quickly ran into some problems. In this blog we’ll look at the solution I came up with and how to implement it! A quick… Continue...

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Generate simple pre-built emails with Power Virtual Agent ?
Jul09

Generate simple pre-built emails with Power Virtual Agent ?

Power Virtual Agent is having a spectacular moment right now with so many different applications from a Beer Bot to a Support Bot. I have recently been building a bot that helps my team locate the correct resource based on a series of questions. However, sometimes my team might need to email in specific information in a set format. I wanted to automate the process and make things as smooth… Continue Reading...

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PSA: We’ve moved to Twitch.tv!
Jul09

PSA: We’ve moved to Twitch.tv!

PSA: TattooedCRMGirl has moved to Twitch and you can catch all our #PowerPlatform shenanigans over on twitch.tv/TattooedCRMGirl With the unfortunate news of Mixer.com closing, we have moved all our live stream goodness to Twitch. Be sure to follow along to be notified of Live Chat and Implementation streams! Hope to see you live soon! Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s Article on their blog PSA: We’ve moved to Twitch.tv!...

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Building a Beer Bot using Power Virtual Agent ?.
Jun19

Building a Beer Bot using Power Virtual Agent ?.

OH YEAH! Note: You can check out a live version of the Beer Bot here! Have you ever had one of those mindless moments at the off licence, where you stand and stare at the endless selection of beers on offer – IPAs, Porters, Pale Ales, Pilsners, Lagers, Stouts, Red Ales… It can be overwhelming and difficult to decide what to go for. Well not anymore, PVA has the perfect solution for… Continue Reading...

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Getting Started with Power Virtual Agents.
Jun18

Getting Started with Power Virtual Agents.

The Robot Invasion is Coming! When I was a little girl, I remember my dad excitedly explaining the internet to me. He talked about how one day we’d be able to talk to people instantly who were across the world, how there would be robots to talk to and how we’d even be able to do all our shopping through the computer! I thought he had lost it a little bit, but the excitement in his eyes was… Continue Reading...

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Productivity tools for living with Attention Deficit Disorder
May22

Productivity tools for living with Attention Deficit Disorder

Attention Deficit Disorder is described as a range of behavourial disorders from a low attention span to being forgetful and a variety of other behaviours in between. As an adult with ADD, maintaining a level of productivity throughout the day can be challenging. Case in point, I’ve already been distracted by my email, shopping, cat gifs, a text message and music while writing this first… Continue Reading...

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Budgeting and the Campaign Entity.
May05

Budgeting and the Campaign Entity.

In my previous post, I gave an overview of why I think the Campaign entity in Dynamics 365 is a really practical and versatile entity to use when keeping track of your marketing efforts. One way in which I recommend using the campaign entity is to track your spend vs. your revenue coming in and avoid being in the same position as Mr. Exotic pictured above. In this post, I’ll go through… Continue Reading...

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Getting the most of the Campaign entity in Dynamics 365
Apr28

Getting the most of the Campaign entity in Dynamics 365

When working on any marketing project with a client, I am most always posed with the following question: “How do I find out what my return on investment is for a given marketing effort?”. The end goal of every marketing campaign is usually the same – to generate leads and realise revenue. To understand what our ROI is for a particular campaign or set of marketing assets, we need a central… Continue Reading...

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Using Microsoft To-Do to maximize productivity.
Mar31

Using Microsoft To-Do to maximize productivity.

By now, you’ve likely seen at least seven different posts on social media on how to work from home effectively. While technically this post can be lumped in with those, today I want to take a deep dive into a tool that has been invaluable for keeping me focused and on track – good ol’ Microsoft To-Do. Let’s take it from the top and go through all that To-Do has to offer! Import from… Continue Reading...

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How to Convert your In Person Event to an Online Event.
Mar25

How to Convert your In Person Event to an Online Event.

The internet is hard sometimes. As we work together to combat the global pandemic that we are all facing, in person events are being cancelled left and right. But this does not mean that we need to cancel our gatherings entirely, we just need to think outside the box a little! In this post I will discuss how to convert your in person meetup to an online event! Side note: I have… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s Article...

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Marketing an Event as a Non-Marketer – Here's what I learned!
Mar24

Marketing an Event as a Non-Marketer – Here's what I learned!

The Event of the Decade – because of great marketing? Maybe! It’s been almost a month now since one of the greatest community events ever – Scottish Summit 2020 – and you might say I’m having some withdrawals! I’ve been reflecting on the event as a whole, including the marketing efforts we put in during the lead up. I will admit, while I work in the digital marketing space, I’ve never...

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Unified Interface Controls – The Star Rating ⭐
Mar13

Unified Interface Controls – The Star Rating ⭐

Today we’re going to take a look at another number based control, but possibly my favourite of all the UI controls – the star rating . If you’re not already familiar with how to add a control to a field on a form, I recommend reviewing my previous blog post. Using the Star Rating – The Facts: Must be used with a whole, number field.Must specify a number of stars to display,… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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Unified Interface Controls – The Arc Knob
Mar12

Unified Interface Controls – The Arc Knob

World Domination with UI Controls! Yet another lovely number control for us to play with! The Arc Knob is similar to the radial knob in look and feel but is better for conveying a sense of status or value. If you’re not already familiar with how to add a control to a field on a form, I recommend reviewing my previous blog post. < div class=”wp-block-image”> < figcaption>Don’t you wish your credit score...

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Unified Interface Controls – The Number Input
Feb11

Unified Interface Controls – The Number Input

More Buttons! Let’s look at another numerical control – The Number Input. The Number Input again creates another interactive layer to the form, allowing the user to easily increase and decrease a numerical field by clicking on a + or – button. Our use case is to be able to easily track the number of toys belonging to a cat/contact . Meet Lewis: Meet Lewis! As we can see, Lewis… Continue Reading...

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Unified Interface Controls – The Radial Knob
Feb10

Unified Interface Controls – The Radial Knob

Let’s press some BUTTONS! Continuing along our series of the Unified Interface controls, today we are going to implement another number based control – the Radial Knob. Weeeeee – circles! The Radial knob is a control that adds an extra layer of interactivity to our forms. It will again allow the user a great visual representation of a min/max value of a field. If you’re not already… Continue Reading...

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Unified Interface Controls – The Linear Slider
Feb08

Unified Interface Controls – The Linear Slider

Who doesn’t? In this new blog post series, I will be breaking down the various new out of the box controls that comes with your new shiny upgrade to Unified Interface! In a previous post, I covered how to implement the calendar control, and explained a little bit about what a control is. If you’re not familiar with Unified Interface, it’s worth taking a look through before continuing… Continue Reading...

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#PowerUpPhilly – A Recap
Feb06

#PowerUpPhilly – A Recap

What a day! What an incredible event to kick off 2020! If you weren’t able to attend the event, don’t worry! Many of the speakers have uploaded their slide decks and/or have content available to view online! Let’s take a look at some of these sessions! Breaking Down the Controls – Emma D’Arcy My session covered breaking down the Custom Controls as part of the Unified Interface… Continue Reading...

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I took MB-200 and you can too!
Jan12

I took MB-200 and you can too!

Footage of me the night before my exam I finally did it! I finally took the MB-200 exam, despite initially booking to take the exam six months ago. In this post I’ll share what the MB-200 exam is, why you should take it, some resources that helped me and some tips for taking the actual exam itself. What is the MB-200 exam? This exam will cover the core subjects of Dynamics 365 and the… Continue Reading...

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Introducing: Azure Boards!
Jan10

Introducing: Azure Boards!

Earlier this week, we kicked off #TheDunderMifflinProject by starting out from the very beginning – Requirements gathering. In order to keep track of all the fun features we want to implement at Dunder Mifflin, Scranton, we decided that we would investigate the use of Azure Boards. Full disclosure – I have never really been involved in any implementations as part of a team before. Any… Continue Reading...

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Introducing Mixer for the Power Platform!
Jan02

Introducing Mixer for the Power Platform!

Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on a new medium for sharing content with the Power Platform community. As of Monday January 6th, I will be live streaming an entire implementation process from start to finish over multiple weeks! Mixer is an online streaming service provided by Microsoft. It allows viewers to watch and interact with streamers in real time. The platform is more… Continue Reading...

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How Google Chrome Profiles Saved My Sanity (And Time!)
Dec21

How Google Chrome Profiles Saved My Sanity (And Time!)

Me. Before I was told about Profiles. Over the last few weeks, I have been actively involved in various projects that required access to multiple environments. For some of you reading this, that will sound like your day to day life and what I’m about to blog about may be standard stuff, however my role often sees me access only one environment during the course of my day. Earlier this… Continue Reading...

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Live Chat Episode 3: The Role of the Pre-Sales Consultant.
Dec21

Live Chat Episode 3: The Role of the Pre-Sales Consultant.

On this episode, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with two highly acclaimed individuals within our community – Lisa Crosbie, Biz Apps MVP and Ben Vollmer, Field Service Director at the Mothership! In our session we covered what exactly is involved in the day to day role of a Pre-Sales Consultant. We talked about why Pre-Sales is so important and what skillset is required to be… Continue Reading...

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How to send ClickDimensions emails with data from ANY record!
Dec02

How to send ClickDimensions emails with data from ANY record!

So now that we’ve looked at how to send ClickDimensions emails using Flow, our next step is to send an email containing data from any record in Dynamics! They said it couldn’t be done, but I’m here to prove them wrong! We’re going to be taking a look at this process and how to automate it using magic i.e – Microsoft Flow In today’s example, our scenario is going to be sending an email…...

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Microsoft Flow: The Relate  Records Action Demystified!
Oct30

Microsoft Flow: The Relate Records Action Demystified!

Last week, I finally managed to get my hands on the illusive Relate Record Action to update my “Send ClickDimensions Emails within a Flow” post. However, I found that while the action appeared simple from the outset, actually implementing it was a little more difficult than I had originally expected, especially as I am not that much of a developer. I learned a lot from this simple action… Continue Reading...

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Live Chat Episode 2: Career Development within Dynamics!
Oct24

Live Chat Episode 2: Career Development within Dynamics!

This week we rounded up some of the best in the community to talk about career development within the ever expanding Power Platform world.We talked about where we all got our start, what the traditional roles are in the industry, what turning points we had in our careers and what advice we would give to others looking to grow. An excellent chat session with Jim Novak, Mary Thompson, Lee… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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How I use ClickDimensions to Manage my Live Chat Events!
Oct11

How I use ClickDimensions to Manage my Live Chat Events!

As a Pre-Sales Consultant for ClickDimensions, I believe it’s important for me to have hands on, real world experience with the product I advocate for. To do this, I decided to use the ClickDimensions platform to register and send out emails on my latest Live Chat event. The scenario looks like this: Use ClickDimensions Social Posting to encourage people to register for my eventUse a… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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How to send ClickDimensions Emails using Microsoft Flow
Oct10

How to send ClickDimensions Emails using Microsoft Flow

In this blog post, we will explore how to send ClickDimensions emails via Microsoft flow. Because ClickDimensions is native to Dynamics: Customer Engagement, we can utilize the Common Data Service actions and triggers to send ClickDimensions Emails. To start, we’ll need to determine what triggers the sending of the email. In later blog posts we’ll explore this in more detail. Once… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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Live Summit Chat!
Oct04

Live Summit Chat!

This week I had the pleasure of hosting an impromptu chat with Summit Veterans to bring you top tips on how to get the most out of your wild User Group Summit Week! We talked about everything Summit from what to wear all the way to what swag to watch out for! Tune in for top tips for new attendees and veterans alike! Live Chat with Great People! Our panelists on the call we… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s Article on...

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How to Stay Motivated!
Sep02

How to Stay Motivated!

This post is brought to you by motivational Shia LaBeouf One of the things I often struggle with is keeping up with the desire to learn. I am a self-confessed professional procrastinator. Working at an ISV means I’m not in the Dynamics product as a whole, day in and day out. I’m often solely focused on the ClickDimensions product and occasionally it can be a struggle to maintain my… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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How to add Emojis to your Microsoft To-Do lists!
Aug23

How to add Emojis to your Microsoft To-Do lists!

I was yesterday years old when I learned that I could add emojis to my Microsoft To-Do lists! I’m not sure about everyone else, but something about those colourful little icons beside my lists just fill me with satisfaction and joy. In this short but oh so sweet and colourful blog, I’ll share what I’ve learned on how to add emojis to your lists! So many blogs to write, so little… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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Creating a Twitter To Read List with Microsoft Flow and To-Do!
Aug22

Creating a Twitter To Read List with Microsoft Flow and To-Do!

If you’re like me, I enjoy a quick (or not so quick!) scroll through my twitter feed at random points during the day – sometimes before bed (a habit I need to break, I know), while at lunch or even while waiting for the kettle to finish boiling in the office break room. During these scrolls, I always come across a tweet or seven from people sharing content that I have an interest in. I… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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Marketing Lists vs Views
Aug21

Marketing Lists vs Views

Yesterday while I was driving home from CRMUG in Chattanooga, TN, I was listening to the CRM MVP Podcast Episode 58 hosted by the fantastic Forms Pro guru Megan Walker. In this episode (which I highly recommend giving a listen to!) Megan talks about her top 10 favourite things about Forms Pro. I found this episode to be super interesting, especially when Megan talks about the different… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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Implementing The Calendar Control in Unified Interface.
Aug01

Implementing The Calendar Control in Unified Interface.

When should I send that Summer BBQ invite email? With the addition of Unified Interface to the Dynamics 365 comes some new features including the new Calendar Control. The Calendar Control allows you to view a set of records on a calendar, making it really easy to see any records that rely on a date field. In today’s example, I’ll walk you through how to set up the calendar control… Continue Reading TattooedCRMGirl’s...

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Dynamics 101: The Core Records – Leads, Contacts and Accounts
Jul09

Dynamics 101: The Core Records – Leads, Contacts and Accounts

At its most basic level, Dynamics Customer Engagement is a tool that allows you to maintain a virtual Rolodex – it’s a central location where you can easily look up an Account, see all the Contacts related to that Account and if there are any potential Leads related. You get a complete picture of your relationship with an organization or person. To get the most out of Dynamics CE, we need… Continue Reading...

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MBAS Hack4Good Hackathon: What I learned and why I’d do it again.

Build cool things – help others! First things first – I know a lot of my recent posts have been about events I have attended and I promise we’ll get back to the good stuff of Dynamics: CE soon, but I wanted to share my experiences in the hopes that it will inspire others to attend more community events like these! They have been instrumental in my learning journey. Last weekend I decided… Continue Reading...

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ClickDimensions Releases Unified Interface Update

With the release of Dynamics 9.0 came Microsoft’s new Unified Interface, bringing a fresh new look and feel to the Customer Engagement product. Before we take a look at the new ClickDimensions interface, let’s explore what Unified Interface is and why Microsoft chose to implement this new look. So what is Unified Interface? Well Microsoft wanted the customer experience to look and feel… Continue Reading...

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My first weekend D365 event and why you should attend one!

This weekend I had both the pleasure of attending and the absolute honour of speaking at a D365 Saturday event in my favourite European city – Amsterdam! As with all community events, it was attended by some of the best and the brightest in the Dynamics community with talks ranging from the inspirational to full on functionality demos. Every event I attend always teaches me something new, but… Continue Reading...

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The Many Faces of Dynamics CE

Are you completely new to Dynamics and have no clue where to start? Perhaps you’ve started a new job that uses Dynamics 365 to manage their Customer Relationships or you’re wondering what all the fuss is about? Do all these conversations about Entities and Modules and Relationships and Records have you as confused as this little fella: Well I have the blog series for you! For the purposes of… Continue Reading...

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