Power Virtual Agents – OTP
You can configure user authentication in your Power Virtual Agent bot to restrict access to resources using using Azure AD or OAuth2. A simpler approach for user authentication is to create an OTP, one-time password, send it to the user […] The post Power Virtual Agents – OTP appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog Power Virtual Agents OTP – Joe Gill You can configure user...
Power Platform Self-Service Analytics
From the Power Platform admin center, you use the Data Export option to export the details on your Power Apps and Power Automate Flows to an Azure Data Lake. Once Data Export is configured the data is exported daily along […] The post Power Platform Self-Service Analytics appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog Power Platform Self-Service Analytics From the Power Platform admin center,...
Timeline Control – Sort Order
The Timeline Control is a highly customizable control for displaying activities relating to a record on a model-driven app form. You can configure which types of activities you want to be visible on the timeline and display activities from related […] The post Timeline Control – Sort Order appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog Timeline Control – Sort Order – Joe...
Synapse – SQL User
The most secure method for protecting your data in Synapse is through the use of Azure AD. To query data stored in the data lake through a Synapse Serverless endpoint, the AD account must possess the necessary permissions for both […] The post Synapse – SQL User appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog Synapse – SQL User – Joe Gill The most secure method for protecting...
Synapse – SQL Admin
It looks like the rights of the SQL Admin user in the database created by Synapse Link for Database have recently been changed. Prior to 2023, the SQL Admin user account has able to query all the external tables created by Synapse Link for Dataverse. Now if you query a Dataverse external table using the […] The post Synapse – SQL Admin appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog...
Synapse Link for Dataverse Security
Once you have configured Synapse Link for Dataverse you are likely to want to give your data consumers access to read the Dataverse data from Synapse. This post covers how to provide users and service principals access to read your data using an Azure AD group. Synapse supports both SQL and Azure AD authentication however […] The post Synapse Link for Dataverse Security appeared first on Joe… Continue Reading Joe...
Power Fx -Power Virtual Agents
Power Fx the low code macro language of the Power Platform is starting to become an omnipresent feature across the Power Platform family. The Nov 2022 Preview release of Power Virtual Agents includes the ability to use Power Fx in the authoring canvas. The addition of Power Fx greatly enhances the ability to add capabilities […] The post Power Fx -Power Virtual Agents appeared first on Joe… Continue Reading Joe...
Synapse Link for Dataverse – Append-Only
By default Synapse for Dataverse exports records as in-place updates so if the record already exists it gets updated and if not it gets created. This can be configured so that record changes are appended as new records rather than updated. This can be done from the advanced options under Manage tables by selecting show […] The post Synapse Link for Dataverse – Append-Only appeared first on Joe… Continue Reading Joe...
Power Fx Formula Columns in Dataverse
The preview of Power Fx formula columns in Dataverse has just been announced. Up until now, I ignored formula columns as they were only available in Dataverse for Teams. So I wanted to check out a little bugbear of mine with calculated fields and how they handle nulls. Strictly speaking, calculated fields handle nulls correctly […] The post Power Fx Formula Columns in Dataverse appeared first… Continue Reading Joe...
Synapse Link for Dataverse – Metadata
I previously wrote a couple of blog posts (post1 and post2) suggesting two different ways to access your Dataverse metadata in Synapse. Both of these techniques are now redundant as Microsoft announced in May 2022 that the Dataverse metadata is now available directly in Synapse. Your Synapse serverless pool now contains additional external tables with […] The post Synapse Link for Dataverse –… Continue Reading Joe...
Power Automate Desktop – PDF Table
I previously did a post that demonstrated how you can use Power Automate Desktop to extract text from a PDF. At the time you were not able to extract tables from a PDF. In Feb 2022 Microsoft announced that they added that capability to PAD so I thought I might give it a quick whirl. […] The post Power Automate Desktop – PDF Table appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog Extract...
Dataverse Anonymization
Many organizations require that personal data in non-production Dataverse environments is anonymized. This may be company policy or a legal requirement such as GDPR which governs the collection and processing of personal information in the European Union. Here is a quick tip on how to use the Bulk Data Updater for XrmToolBox to anonymize Dataverse […] The post Dataverse Anonymization appeared… Continue Reading Joe...
Dataverse Metadata in Synapse
When you configure Synapse Link for Dataverse it exports your Dataverse data into a Synapse data lake as CSV files. A database with external tables is created automatically in the Serverless SQL pool providing access to the data in the CSV files. You can then connect to the serverless SQL pool and use SQL to […] The post Dataverse Metadata in Synapse appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their...
Synapse Link – Dataverse Option Sets
On November 23 Microsft announced that DES (Data Export Services) will be deprecated and will reach end of life in November 2020. Microsoft is recommending that customers use Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse instead. DES has been around for a number of years and generally works well pushing Dataverse data to SQL Azure or to […] The post Synapse Link – Dataverse Option Sets appeared first on
Custom Pages – Multiple Screens
The introduction of custom pages within model-driven apps is the start of the long-awaited convergence of model-driven apps and canvas apps. Adding a custom page to your model-driven app gives you complete control over how the user interface looks and behaves. Coupled with the ability to connect to multiple data sources you can now create […] The post Custom Pages – Multiple Screens appeared… Continue Reading Joe...
Power Apps Automated Testing with Playwright
Playwright is an open-source web testing library developed by Microsoft that can be used for testing modern web apps. You can use Playwright to create test scripts for your Power Apps and use these to run automated tests. Some of the benefits of using Playwright are it supports the three major browser engines Chromium, WebKit […] The post Power Apps Automated Testing with Playwright… Continue Reading Joe Gill’s...
Power Automate Desktop – Document Automation
At Ignite this year Microsoft announced that anybody running Windows 10 can now use Power Automate Desktop for free. Power Automate Desktop empowers users to automate repetitive tasks they run on their Windows desktops. In this post I wanted to demonstrate some of its extensive capabilities by using Power Automate Desktop for Document Automation extracting […] The post Power Automate Desktop –… Continue Reading Joe...
Identity Reader – AI Builder
On Friday Microsoft announced the addition of the ID Reader model to AI Builder. I thought I might give it a quick go and I must admit I was pretty impressed. It is incredible some of the AI capabilities in the Power Platform that you can leverage without any coding skills. This prebuilt model allows […] The post Identity Reader – AI Builder appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their...
MB-600 – Solution Architect – Supportability
I recently did the Microsoft MB-600 exam which is the final exam to qualify as Dynamics 365 + Power Platform Solution Architect Expert which is a bit of a mouthful. I think the title reflects the fact that being a Solution Architect is transitioning from being based on Dynamics 365 to the Power Platform. I […] The post MB-600 – Solution Architect – Supportability appeared first on Joe… Continue Reading Joe...
Power Platform Requests – Base Request Capacity
Something that is causing a lot of confusion in the Power Platform community at the moment is trying to figure out the impact of request limits. Particularly for organizations with “legacy” Dynamic CRM instances that load data from back end systems into Dataverse on a regular basis. Many of these integration processes were built long […] The post Power Platform Requests – Base Request Capacity… Continue...
Power Automate Desktop – UI Flow
In a recent blog post I showed how you can use the Form Processing capabilities in AI Builder to extract the details of invoices received as email attachments. In this post, I am going to expand on this and take this invoice information and use a UI Flow to submit the invoice details to a […] The post Power Automate Desktop – UI Flow appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog Power...
AI Builder – Form Processing Layouts
Microsoft introduced a small but important change to AI Builder last week. Prior to this, a form processing model could only be trained to extract data from documents with the same layout. This was somewhat cumbersome when dealing with documents such as invoices where the layout varies from supplier to supplier. What is Form Processing? […] The post AI Builder – Form Processing Layouts… Continue Reading Joe...
Power Automate & Cognito Forms
Cognito Forms is one of the many platforms available for creating online forms. Cognito Forms is the only one I know of that has a Power Platform connector. I thought I might give it a whirl to see if I could create a form to capture data and use Power Automate to get the data […] The post Power Automate & Cognito Forms appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog Power Automate |...
Connection References – First Look
Microsoft announced yesterday that an eagerly awaited improvement has been added to the Power Platform. The introduction of Connection References will simply the deployment of solutions across environments (details here). Prior to this when Power Automate Flows were moved across environments in a solution each flow had to edited and connections recreated. Here is a […] The post Connection… Continue Reading Joe Gill’s...
Power Automate – Determine which CDS event triggered a Flow
Using the Common Data Service (Current Environment) connector you can create Power Automate flows that get triggered by an event on a CDS entity. When you create the flow you choose a condition or set of conditions that trigger the flow. Sometimes you need to vary what the flow does based on the CDS trigger […] The post Power Automate – Determine which CDS event triggered a Flow appeared first… Continue Reading Joe...
Power Platform – 2020 Wave 2 Highlights
The Power Platform 2020 Release Wave 2 Plan was published today and here are some of the highlights that caught my eye. Power Automate Desktop Microsoft recently purchased the RPA product WinAutomation and added it to Power Automate to improve their desktop automation capabilities. WinAutomation is a well established fully functional RPA product and its […] The post Power Platform – 2020 Wave… Continue Reading Joe...
Power Virtual Agents – Solutions
In the last week support for solutions has been added to Power Virtual Agents finally giving it ALM capabilities. Here is a quick post on how to add chatbots to a solution, how to modify deployed chatbot topics, and the impact of importing new versions of a solution. From the Power Apps Portal, you now […] The post Power Virtual Agents – Solutions appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on...
Service Bus Queues & Power Automate
The announcement at Build 2020 that there is finally a Service Bus Explorer in the Azure Portal prompted me to write a post about using a Service Bus Queue with Power Automate. What are Message Queues? Messages queues are used to build scalable integration between platforms where a sender application puts messages on a queue […] The post Service Bus Queues & Power Automate appeared first on
RPA – Power Automate UI Flows
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is when the the mouse clicks and keystrokes carried out by a user to complete a task are replicated by a software process. It is typically used to perform time consuming tasks on legacy platforms where integration is not possible or expensive. RPA tools help organisations accelerate their digital transformation projects without […] The post RPA – Power… Continue Reading Joe...
Team Member Non-Conformant Report
Hopefully by now you are aware that Microsoft will be enforcing the usage of Dynamics 365 team member licences this year details here. There is a report you can access that helps determine if you have any non conformant team members licences. You need to go to Power Platform admin centre https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/ and from the […] The post Team Member Non-Conformant Report… Continue Reading Joe Gill’s...
Power Automate & Watson
The beauty of low code platforms is not just that you can build applications quickly but also you easily integrate platforms without any significant technical skills. In this post I am going to show how you can configure a Watson Assistant chat bot to call a Power Automate Flow. I did a post a while […] The post Power Automate & Watson appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog...
Power Platform Irish Tour Waterford 26 Feb 2020
Last night I did a talk to the Water Tech Meetup on the Power Platform and the low code revolution. This was very well attended which I hope was down to me rather than the free pizza and beer. It was in a very nice venue called Boxworks which is a cool shared office space. […] The post Power Platform Irish Tour Waterford 26 Feb 2020 appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their blog Power...
Top 10 – Power Platform 2020 Release Plan
The Power Platform 2020 Release Plan was published here today. I had a read through the details and picked out the ten improvements that caught my eye. There are not in any particular order of preference. 1. The Save button is back. In model-driven apps the save button will now always be visible on the form edit toolbar. I remember the kerfuffle when auto save was introduced. I guess… Continue Reading admin’s Article on...
Proactive Slot Filling in Power Virtual Agents
Up until recently a Power Virtual Agents chatbot would ask a user a series of questions to complete a task. The response of each question would be stored in a variable until all the questions were completed. Asking a user multiple questions to complete a simple task made the conversation slightly cumbersome and unnatural. Support for entities and slot filling has improved the… Continue Reading admin’s Article on their blog...
Watson Assistant ChatBot
I was recently demonstrating Power Virtual Agent to somebody who was suitably impressed with how easy it was to create a chat bot without any technical skills. Unfortunately when I explained that Power Virtual Agent costs $1,000 per month for 2,000 sessions they were suitably unimpressed. They asked me if I could suggest an alternative. So I decided to take a look IBM’s Watson Assistant to see… Continue Reading...
Canvas App Nav Bar Component
I wanted to get more familiar with building Canvas Apps in Power Apps so I though I would try and create a Wizard type app, that guides a user through a series of input screens. My intention was to use it in Dynamics 365 instead of the deprecated Dialogs. As part of this exercise I wanted to create some reusable components that I could use in my Wizards screens. This seemed a sensible… Continue Reading admin’s Article on...
Bot
The post Bot appeared first on Joe Gill. Continue Reading admin’s Article on their blog Bot – Joe Gill No Description Blog Syndicated with admin’s...
Fine Tune your Virtual Agent Bot
The Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent analytics dashboard gives great insight in how well your bot is working. Among other figures it gives you are details on the number of sessions that were escalated i.e customers that engaged with your bot but their query could not be answered and so were directed to the escalation topic. While this is useful information it does not give you any… Continue Reading admin’s Article on their blog...
CDS Non-interactive accounts now need licences
The October release of the Power Platform covering Dynamics 365 sees the introduction of API call limits based on a user’s licence type. For example a PowerApps per user licence will allow a user to make 5,000 API calls in a given 24 hour period. An important point for developers in the required API limit changes, which can be found here, is that the fact that going forward that… Continue Reading admin’s Article on...
Hand off a Virtual Agent Bot to a Omnichannel Chat
I could not find any information on how to to hand off a Virtual Agent Bot to a live agent so I thought I would have a go at doing this. I previously did a post how to deploy a virtual agent bot to a CDS Portal here. I am going to modify this bot to allow the user to transition the conversation to a human agent. The results are not as seamless as I would have liked however I think this is… Continue Reading admin’s Article...
PowerApps Portal & Virtual Agent Bot
Its getting easier and easier to build compelling digital transformation solutions using the Power Platform and Dynamics 365. Here is a quick post to show how you can deploy a Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent Bot to a PowerApps Portal. Both Virtual Agent and the PowerApps Portals are low/no code solutions that allows Bots and Portals to be created using using point and click customization. … Continue Reading admin’s Article on...
Track Issues in Logic Apps/Flow using Correlation Id
Previously I have written some blog post, like this one, showing how easy it is to create API endpoints in Flow and Logic Apps. This involves creating a workflow that gets triggered by an Http Request with a Json payload. There are asynchronous “fire and forget” API calls and the calling process receives a 202 response code to indicate the workflow has been triggered. When the workflow… Continue Reading admin’s Article on...
Build a Bot with Virtual Agent, Flow and CDS
This post demonstrates how easy it is to build a Bot using Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent for Customer Service. The Bot will call Flow to return data from CDS and display it to the user. Virtual Agent is part of Microsoft’s push to democratize AI and it allows Bots to be created using a Flow like designer without any code. Virtual Agent is incredibly easy to use and you create Topics… Continue Reading admin’s Article on their...
Flow – Http Request – Split On Collection
A use case I like with to use with Flow and Logic Apps is to create a workflow triggered by a Http Request that acts as an API endpoint. In a previous post I explained how to do it and how to configure Flow to the validate the Json payload. In that post the Json request was just a simple contact object with a few data fields that we inserted into Dynamics 365. Did know you can also… Continue Reading admin’s Article on...
Flow to Email PDF from Dynamics 365 using the Word Online Connector
One of the never ending challenges of using Dynamics 365 was how to generate and email PDF’s using data from Dynamics. While Word templates went some way towards solving the problem they have not been improved for a number of years. So generating PDF’s usually requires third party tools. With the release of the new Word Online (Business) connector for Flow and Logic Apps it looks like we… Continue Reading...
How to install the Data Gateway
I wrote a post a little while ago about how to use Flow to synch Dynamics 365 record changes to an on prem database using the Data Gateway. In this post I wanted to show how easy it is to install the Data Gateway. The data gateway acts a bridge between your on-premise data sources and your cloud services such as PowerBI, PowerApps, Flow and Logic Apps. You install the Data Gateway on an… Continue Reading Joe Gill’s...
Logic Apps 429 Failure calling Dynamics 365
While doing some testing recently with Logic Apps I had some workflows fail with a status code of 429 when calling Dynamics 365 actions. A 429 status code indicates that the number of API calls to Dynamics 365 in one minute has been exceeded. This post explains how you can configure the concurrency setting of a Logic Apps workflow to avoid this problem. Logic Apps is a superb cloud… Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on...
Flow to Synch Dynamics 365 with an On Premise Database
Up until recently synchronizing data in in the cloud with an on premise database was a major challenge which typically involved writing code. With the Digital Transformation revolution and the availability of a range of integration offerings in Azure this is no longer the case. Here is a sample Microsoft Flow which demonstrate how the creation of a contact record in Dynamics triggers the… Continue Reading admin’s Article...
External Access to Dynamics 365 Using Azure AD
An option for providing users outside your organization with access to your instance to Dynamics 365 is to use Azure AD (Active Directory) . You add them as guest users in Azure AD, assign them a Dynamics licence and give them a security role in the instance of Dynamics they need to access to. It’s as easy as that just follow the steps below. For this to work you need an Azure… Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article...
Json Schema Validation in Logic Apps and Flow
slugYou can create Logic Apps and Flow workflows that trigger on receipt of a Http request and optionally receive a Json payload. This technique can be used as an integration pattern in a B2B enviroment. You can design your Json scheme specifically for your partners so that is is easy to use and understand. This provides your integation partners with an API that abtracts the… Continue Reading Joe Gill’s Article on their...