Data Mesh Implementation in A Multi-Cloud Architecture
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel This blog is inspired by Zhamak Dehghani’s article — ‘Data Mesh Principles and Logical Architecture’. If you are new to Data Mesh, please read her article as a precursor to this blog. Zhamak, in her article provides a technology-agnostic, high-level, logical architecture model for Data Mesh and its underpinning principles. This blog tries to move the… Continue Reading Man S Chawla’s Article on...
Power Platform CoE Starter Kit — First Glance
Power Platform CoE Starter Kit — First Glance Microsoft have recently unveiled the Power Platform Center of Excellence (CoE) starter kit to aid the process of managing the lifecycle of a Microsoft Power Platform estate. A team of us joined forces to see how we could implement this in our larger projects. In the words of Microsoft “it is a Starter kit not a finishing kit”. It is… Continue Reading Mark Cunningham’s Article...
The Application Sandbox
Microsoft Power Apps — Enabling Citizen Developers to Get Building Photo by Joshua Aragon The shifting business landscape is often seen as frenetic and less predictable than it once was. Business leaders everywhere are now faced with the reality that one must not just innovate, but instead innovate with the kind of speed and accuracy that ten years ago, would have stretched even the most… Continue Reading Ryan Clarke’s...
Announcing the CDS Data Migrator
Make data movement challenges a thing of the past Figure 1: CDS Data Migrator in XRM Toolbox What is the CDS Data Migrator? We are pleased to announce the public availability of the CDS Data Migrator. The CDS Data Migrator tool is a plugin for XRMToolBox which provides an easy-to-use UI to manage data migration operations between Dataverse environments. Using Capgemini’s Data Migration Engine,… Continue Reading Sahjan...
Create a Powerful Search Experience with Azure Cognitive Search
Is your applications search really good enough? Explore how Azure Cognitive Search can empower it!Continue reading on Capgemini Microsoft Blog » Continue Reading Logan Talbot’s Article on their blog Create a Powerful Search Experience with Azure Cognitive Search Let’s be honest, what does your application’s current search functionality really do? Is it just a “.contains”? Maybe some paging? To me, this...
We Can All Be Data Analysts
Photo by Adeolu Eletu The Digital Workplace team at Capgemini Invent are doing a series covering each element of the Microsoft Power Platform in greater detail. With each edition we will be focusing on how the platform can transform the shape of your organisation and individuals’ ways of working. We will also showcase the benefits, not just cost or time, but how employees experience work,… Continue Reading Arnaud Carras’s...
Is RPA Dead?
Introducing the Microsoft Power Platform — You may already have it! Photo by Erik Mclean The Digital Workplace team at Capgemini Invent are doing a series covering each element of the Power Platform in greater detail. With each edition we will be focusing on how the platform can transform the shape of your organisation and individuals’ ways of working. We will also showcase the… Continue Reading Josh McDonald’s Article on...
Field Service Incident Types — A Time Saver!
Field Service Incident Types — A Time Saver! Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng Let’s be honest, nobody wants to repeatedly fill in the same fields on a form or follow the same steps again and again when it can all be automated. So that is exactly where Field Service Incident Types come into play. What are Incident types? We can think of Incident Types as a template which contains a bunch… Continue Reading Bal Bangard’s...
Dynamics 365 — Opening Modal Dialogues on a Subgrid
Dynamics 365 — Opening Modal Dialogues on a Subgrid Photo by Iewek Gnos Microsoft added the ability to open records in Modal Dialogues through the use of JavaScript as part of Dynamics 365 Release Wave 1 for 2020. I’ve created a script that you can apply to any Editable Subgrid (it must be an Editable Grid) and it will open records in a modal dialogue when clicked. You can use a… Continue Reading Mike Andrews’s Article on...
Machine Learning for Non-Specialists — Part 1
Machine Learning for Non-Specialists — Part 1 Photo by Possessed Photography Introduction Put simply, Machine Learning is a process of using a code (an algorithm, also called a Model) to train on existing data to produce another code (a Trained Model) that can make predictions on new incoming data. Confusing? Don’t worry! This blog post is to debunk the concept of Machine Learning for… Continue Reading Man S Chawla’s...
Self-Taught Route into a Career in Software Engineering
Photo by C D-X For several years now, software engineering has been and remains one of the most popular career aspirations for people around the world. While the traditional route of entry for many, into this field has primarily been through a university degree or formalised instructor-led courses, effective alternatives such as the “self-taught” route do exist. As I have personally… Continue Reading David Robertson’s...
Creating a Legacy Data Archive in Azure
Photo by Ula Kuźma Capgemini recently completed a customer project, which was an excellent example of using Azure Resources to create solutions quickly and cost effectively for business problems. Background Our customer had 2 legacy Oracle ERP Applications (HCM/ELM) containing many years of important/sensitive historic data. The customer had moved away from these on-premise legacy applications… Continue Reading Simon...
Azure API Management: Configuring the JWT Validation Policy Correctly
Photo by Daria Nepriakhina Introduction Azure API management provides a scalable API management platform that can be used for securing and publishing APIs. APIs published in Azure API Management can be secured using OAuth 2.0 authorisation with Azure AD. The key steps defined in the instructions for securing the APIs published in APIM are: 1. Setup 2 app registrations in Azure AD for the… Continue Reading Kenneth...
New Service Scheduling Experience in Dynamics 365
Photo by Zan Over the past few months we witnessed significant improvements to Dynamics 365 along with loads of new features being built on top of the unified interface. Service scheduling is one of those areas which changed significantly but what are these changes and how do these changes benefit us? What are our options? Let’s review the latest from Microsoft released during the October… Continue Reading Roy Behounek’s...
Azure Resource Manager Templates: An Automated Delivery Review
Photo by Noah Implementation Overview ARM templates have become quite commonplace now and are generally regarded as essential to deliver Azure components; and an essential developer/DevOps skill-set. In my previous project, we used ARM templates quite extensively and built up a lot of linked, interdependent architecture that required a fully automated approach. I am going to review the good,… Continue Reading Dan...
Using Blazor in Your Existing ASP.Net Core MVC Applications
Photo by Halacious During lock-down; whilst working from home, I had the opportunity to investigate Server Side Blazor; Microsoft’s new SPA framework that allows developers to use C# instead of JavaScript to build interactive web UIs. I was very impressed with its component-based approach and simplicity, especially if you are already an experienced C# developer. My main concern was the… Continue Reading Simon Goodwin’s...
Huge Microsoft Certification Changes! No More 2-Year Certifications..
No more 2-year certifications? What will happen to my current certifications? What are yearly renewals? All these questions answered.Continue reading on Capgemini Microsoft Team Blog » Continue Reading Logan Talbot’s Article on their blog Huge Microsoft Certification Changes! No More 2-Year Certifications.. On December 15th 2020, Microsoft announced new changes to the process of renewing certifications and the length of time...
Power Automate — Getting to Grips with Action Request Limits
Power Automate — Getting to Grips with Action Request Limits Photo by Ludovic Charlet Power Automate has evolved hugely over the past couple of years and with that so have the limits and thresholds in place. It’s more important than ever to understand what they are and how to build flows in a way that don’t exceed the limits. There are many different limits to be aware of in Power… Continue Reading Mark Ashley’s Article on...
Power Notify: The Modern Way to Notify Power App Users
On almost every Power Apps project I’ve been involved in, there has been a requirement to notify system users, with emails usually being the solution. Personally, I think emails are outdated as there are more modern technologies and methods available, which is where Power Notify comes in. What’s the problem? In the world of enterprise Power Apps projects, we tend to build complex systems… Continue Reading Tom Ashworth’s...
Project Oakdale — Initial Impressions
Project Oakdale — Initial Impressions OAKdale As you may have heard Project Oakdale entered public preview recently. Excited for this release, we’ve started exploring the potential to move some of our existing Power Apps over, which are used for things like our new joiner’s process and to communicate out events of interest. These apps currently store data in other sources, such as… Continue Reading Luke Phillips’s Article...
.NET Developers.. Power Platform is your Friend!
Photo by Cláudio Luiz Castro “Before software can be reusable, it first has to be usable” — Ralph Johnson Until recently, I hadn’t had much exposure to the Microsoft Power Platform. Coming from a .NET background, I must confess I had viewed Power Apps specifically as a product that doesn’t lend itself to good software engineering principles. However! A recent stint working on a… Continue Reading ekhor’s Article on their...
Introduction to SpecFlow for Power Apps
Make Power Apps testing simple, easy and reliable.Photo by Joshua NewtonStart with the Why?Let’s start with a question and be honest with ourselves, how many projects have you worked on and not performed any form of acceptance testing / UI testing for a Power Apps project? My guess is quite a few.The most likely reasons you do not perform UI testing, could be the lack of automation… Continue Reading Mark Cunningham’s...
Nulls are Evil
..and so are exceptions!Photo by Martino PietropoliNow that I have piqued your interest, it falls to me to explain why I feel that way — especially as there’s a 50:50 chance that you disagree, perhaps even strongly. One thing that I am sure we can agree on is, in programming, there is no avoiding Nulls or exceptions; things go wrong, servers may be down, data may simply not exist, the… Continue Reading Jay Barden’s Article...
Access Tokens for Dynamics 365 using Microsoft Authentication Library
Photo by Henning Kesselhut In this post, we will learn how to Acquire Access Token for the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM) Web API Access Token to perform different operations in dynamics using Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) in .NET. Architectural Overview CreateFromResourceUrlAsync method in AuthenticationParameters Class in Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory name… Continue Reading Vishnu...
Data Migration Engine for Power Apps
Photo by Miguel Andrade Last year the Capgemini Microsoft team released, as NuGet packages, a number of DevOps accelerators and tools that allow us to deliver high-quality Power Platform and Dynamics 365 projects. Currently we have 19 packages, with a combined total of nearly 40,000 downloads for one of these packages (Capgemini.Xrm.DataMigration.Engine). We have now made this package Open… Continue Reading Mark...
Capgemini Speed-Coffee Power App
Photo by Nathan Dumlao Speed-Coffee is a new app, built solely on the Microsoft Power Platform, that aims to connect users to another member of their team for a 10–15 minute coffee-break chat. Naturally, remote working has made it more challenging to maintain human interaction, which is how the idea for Speed-Coffee was born. Aiming to reduce the effects of pro-longed periods without human… Continue Reading Hayley...
Revision Guide for MB-600: Microsoft Dynamics 365 + Power Platform Solution Architect
Photo by Surface Exam Overview “Passing MB-600 validates the skills and knowledge to lead successful implementations and focus on how solutions address the broader business and technical needs of organisations. A Solution Architect has functional and technical knowledge of the Power Platform model-driven apps in Dynamics 365, such as Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Field Service,… Continue Reading Kieran...
Custom Web Portals and Dynamics 365 (CE)
Implementing Dynamics 365 with a Custom Web Portal Photo by Zach Woolf Overview I recently worked on the implementation of a new solution for a Public Sector Client in Utilities sector. This solution leveraged the following components: Custom, interactive, simple, responsive & modern self-service Web Portal using Azure Web ApplicationDynamics 365 for Case ManagementSharePoint 365 for Document… Continue Reading Simon...
A Guide to Hosting a Static Website in Azure
Photo by Georgie Cobbs Up until now I’d never considered Azure for hosting a simple website. I’ve previously setup and hosted several websites whether it be independently hosted, or through use of other platforms, WordPress, Squarespace etc. However, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that everything needed to host a static website in Azure for my purposes was almost free! If it wasn’t… Continue Reading Luke Phillips’s...
Custom Connectors in Power Platform
Photo by Fré Sonneveld Background I recently worked on a project where I was requested to build an integration with an API, and the custom connectors was a great help to achieve it. Before the release of power platform and custom connectors, to integrate with an external service, we must usually build the integration using plugin or custom workflow activity in order to connect to the API, which… Continue Reading Felix Davy...
The Future of .NET from Microsoft Build 2020
.NET 5, .NET Core, Blazor Web Assembly, .NET MAUI, Project TyeContinue reading on Capgemini Microsoft Team Blog » Continue Reading Logan Talbot’s Article on their blog The Future of .NET from Microsoft Build 2020 With Microsoft Build 2020 conference just finished (19 to 21 May), a lot of .NET features and highlights were shown which continue to confirm that the .NET platform has a very strong and stable future ahead....
Featured Tooling for Every Developer from Microsoft Build 2020
Github (Sponsors/ Mobile App), CodeSpaces, Windows Terminal, WSL, Code Conversations & MoreContinue reading on Capgemini Microsoft Team Blog » Continue Reading Logan Talbot’s Article on their blog Featured Tooling for Every Developer from Microsoft Build 2020 With Microsoft Build 2020 conference just finished (19 to 21 May), a lot of interesting tools have been featured which would benefit any type of software developer....
Dynamics 365 F&O Data Templates — What Are They?
Dynamics 365 F&O Data Templates — What Are They? Photo by NASA There have been some substantial improvements in the latest cloud hosted version of Microsoft’s flagship ERP system — Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (D365 FSCM). For this post, I’m going to focus on successive improvements made to the Data Management Framework (DMF) which have led to the introduction… Continue Reading Ajay Odedra’s...
Setup Release Pipeline using PowerApps Deploy Package task in DevOps
Setup Release Pipeline using Power Apps Deploy Package task in DevOps Photo by Quinten de Graaf In this post, we will learn how to setup a release pipeline in Azure DevOps using OOB Microsoft Power Apps Deploy Package task, available in Power Apps BuildTool, assuming that build pipeline has configured properly to create a package and published to the artifacts. For details about how to create… Continue Reading Vishnu...
Utilising the Application Ribbons in Model-Driven Apps (Power Platform)
Utilising the Application Ribbons in Model-Driven App (Power Platform) Photo by Samuel Austin In this post, I’d like to highlight the Application Ribbons component within Power Platform’s Model Driven Apps. They aren’t new, but in a recent feature I developed, customising this component was the ideal solution. Ribbons If you aren’t already familiar with the Ribbons within the Model-Driven… Continue Reading Tom Ashworth’s...
Adding Logging without cluttering existing code
Adding logging without cluttering existing code During software development, it is often required to add logging capability to specific objects. However, in order to support the future maintainability of the solution you may want to keep this logging functionality separate from the existing code. This post presents an approach which we have successfully deployed in the past to decorate… Continue Reading Aidan...
Power Automate — Create Child Flows using Power Apps Trigger
Power Automate — Create Child Flows using Power Apps Trigger Power Automate is a powerful business application that allows the user to create and automate flows across multiple applications and services. People are building flows in Power Automate that need lots of steps, however, if you try to put all these actions into a single flow, it can be difficult to navigate and maintain… Continue Reading Satya Kar’s Article on...
Gathering Effective Requirements
Photo by Nik MacMillan Effective requirements are a crucial part of creating an accurate product. They are the difference between instilling confidence in your client and causing frustration. Yet far too often, rushed discovery phases, result in limited and under detailed requirements. How can you build from 1 to 10 if you only know 3, 4 and 7? Why Discovery is Crucial to A Successful Product The… Continue Reading Kieran...
Automating your cloud deployments using Pulumi & Azure Pipelines
Automating your Cloud Deployments using Pulumi & Azure Pipelines In the previous post, we saw how to use Pulumi and C# to define and deploy cloud resources to Azure. In this post, we will learn how easy it is to setup a continuous integration and deployment pipeline in Azure DevOps to deploy a Pulumi stack. The code for my cloud stack is available on GitHub, and we will use Azure Pipelines to… Continue Reading Vignesh...
Dynamics 365 TypeScript Development Setup for the Average Joe .NET Developer
Dynamics 365 TypeScript Development Setup for the Average Joe .NET Developer Photo by Christopher Robin Ebbinghaus on Unsplash “You’re building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it.” — Marijn Haverbeke Recently we were faced with the prospect of migrating a client’s Dynamics 365 estate to support the Unified Client Interface (UCI). Recognising the opportunity… Continue Reading ekhor’s Article on their...
Continuous Integration for Power Apps — the Development Hub
Continuous Integration for Power Apps — the Development Hub The Development Hub is an open-source Power Apps app which simplifies the continuous integration process for teams working with Power Apps. This blog post should hopefully offer some insight as to why it exists and how it could help you to deliver Power Apps solutions at scale. Power Apps development strategies Scaling up… Continue Reading Max Ewing’s Article on...
Power Apps Export and Import Utility and ModelDrivenFormIntegration
Credit: James Oleinik Background I worked on a project where I was requested to build a Canvas App that trigger Flow on the click of a button. The Flow uses the custom connector to authenticate and interact with an external API, so I had to combine the Flow with the custom connector in order to implement the solution. ModelDrivenFormIntegration Limitations The Canvas Apps needs to be embedded… Continue Reading Felix Davy...
Infrastructure As C# Code
If you have been deploying code to Azure or any other cloud vendor, chances are you are provisioning resources using PowerShell scripts, ARM templates, CloudFormation, Terraform or a combination of these popular options. While IaC has grown both in popularity and practice in the past few years, often when using one of these products you are required to define the infrastructure in a JSON… Continue Reading Vignesh...
If you love Fluent API’s and write Integration tests with C#, read on…
Background Over the last few months I have been spending more and more time wondering why testing (particularly Integration / End to End) always seems to be a challenge on large scale projects and it has taken me on quite a journey to discover some of the common patterns, misconceptions and behaviours associated with this discipline. During the process I have learned that there are very few… Continue Reading Mark...
My Apprenticeship Experience
The first week of February 2020 was National Apprenticeship Week, a chance for all apprentices to come together as a community to celebrate movement away from the traditional university route. In this post, although late, I’d like to share my apprenticeship experience from first thoughts to the present day. Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash Who am I? Good question. I am both a software… Continue Reading Tom Ashworth’s...
The Power of Documentation
“Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation.” — Satya NadellaContinue reading on Capgemini Microsoft Team » Continue Reading Sahjan Soomro’s Article on their blog The Power of Documentation “Our industry does not respect tradition – it only respects innovation.” – Satya Nadella As developers, some of us may roll our eyes at...