PCF Component: Docx Templates in Canvas Apps
PCF Component: Docx Templates in Canvas Apps Have you ever wanted to fill in a Docx template within a Canvas App? Look no further! I’m excited to introduce a new PCF component that allows you to do just that. This component leverages the easy-template-x open-source library, making it a breeze to create and structure templates. How to Get Started: Installation: Begin by downloading and… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Installing .NET Tools on Air Gapped Systems
In today’s digital age, the vast majority of our tasks rely heavily on internet connectivity. However, there are scenarios, more common than one might think, where systems are intentionally kept offline for security or other reasons. These air-gapped or isolated systems, like Azure VMs in a restricted VNET, pose unique challenges, especially when it comes to software installation. One such… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Capture User’s Last Successful Login with Portal Web API
Hey Power Pages developers! Are you sitting there scratching your head wondering why the Authentication/LoginTrackingEanbled site setting isn’t working? Unfortunately it has been deprecated 😭😭😭😭. This saddened me a lot because I utilize the Last Successful Login date field on the Contact table for a lot of reporting and automation using Power Automate. In this article I will… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson (RAW)’s Article...
How to Create SharePoint Items with Power Automate Desktop
Overview Power Automate Desktop is a great way to automate many of your daily task so you can focus on real work. A prime example of this is getting data from one place to another, especially when those data sources do not have an API such as a legacy desktop application or a file. In this example I demonstrate several ways in which an Excel sheet containing fictitious customer data could be… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Power Apps Portal – Configure Azure AD Provider in Azure B2C
It is recommended that you no longer use Local Login authentication for Power Apps Portal but instead utilize Azure Active Directory B2C to provide this type of authentication. See Migrate identity providers to Azure AD B2C Configuring the B2C providers is fairly straightforward utilizing the new preview interface Configure the Azure Active Directory B2C provider. Make sure you navigate to the… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Issue Connecting Through Remote Desktop Gateway
While attempting to connect to a remote desktop though a Remote Desktop Gateway (RDG) the connection would ask for credentials but then just drop. After some searching I found the answer to the issue. First open open the regedit utility. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftTerminal Server Client If there is a DWORD key called RDGClientTransport set it’s value to 1. If that key is… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Model App Access Checker for Dataverse
Want to know which model applications your users have access to in Dataverse? Check out the app access checker that is available within the Power Platform admin center. Enter a users Id or email address and see the list of published apps in your environment and all the access, license and security information specific to that user. This can be a very useful tool in troubleshooting why a… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Power Automate Desktop Example – Downloading Image From Email To Network Drive
After watching the RPA (Robotic Process Automation) demo from Steve Winward Real-Life Use case using AI Builder Form Processing with Power Automate Desktop I have been looking for ways to utilize Power Automate Desktop Flows in order to make my life a little easier. Yesterday like every day I started clicking through the emails that I receive from my kids schools. I open each email, download… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Enable the Export to PDF Ribbon Button
Dataverse allows you to easily generate your Word Templates as PDF files. Last year they expanded the functionality beyone just the out of the box sales entities to all custom entities. In order to enable the functionality though you need to do some configuration. Below are the different methods in which you can turn the PDF generation on or off for entities. Note: Aftert updating these… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Enable the Export to PDF Button Ribbon Button
Dataverse allows you to easily generate your Word Templates as PDF files. Last year they expanded the functionality beyone just the out of the box sales entities to all custom entities. In order to enable the functionality though you need to do some configuration. Below are the different methods in which you can turn the PDF generation on or off for entities. Note: Aftert updating these… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Open Model Apps Url Using Unique Name
When generating links for records, lists or reports in a Dataverse environment it is important that they open the specific application they relate to so users have the best experience. To see more details about generating links for Dataverse click here. This image shows the message bar displayed within Dataverse when you open a link not directed to a specific application. Previously in order to… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Return Error in Power Automate When Using Try/Catch Scopes
When utilizing scopes within Power Automate to create a try/catch/finally statement it can be useful to provide additional details about any errors that occurred within the try block. The example below shows how to get the results of a try block after it has failed and return that information. To replicate this do the following: Add a Control – Scope action called ‘Try’Add another Control -… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Custom Process Action vs Custom API in Dataverse
I recently had the opportunity to utilize the new Custom API functionality within Dataverse. I had previously used Custom Process Actions and was a little confused as to the difference and why i would want to use the Custom API functionality. After digging through the documentation I finally discovered the major difference is this… The use case I was working on only returned data to the… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Calling Dataverse Web API in PowerShell using Client Credentials
Connecting to Dataverse using PowerShell can be very helpful for data migrations and use within Azure DevOps. Connecting to an instance in a non-interactive way can be tricky though. This article will provide you the links you need for creation and App registration and adding the app user to your environment. You can then utilize the script provided to call Web API requests including ones you… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Raspberry Pi Pinout Terminal Command
When i first started workign with the Raspberry Pi i found myself constantly searching for images of the pinout and then printing it. Finally I found there is a simple command within bash for all that information when you have the Pi OS installed. ????????? pinout Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson (RAW)’s Article on their blog Raspberry Pi Pinout Terminal Command When i first started workign with the Raspberry Pi i found myself...
.NET Core on Raspberry Pi – Access to the path is denied
After installing the .NET Core sdk on my Raspberry Pi I received the following error when attempting to create a new console application using the ‘dotnet new console’ command. pi@raspberrypi:~/IoT/FirstProject $ dotnet new consoleSystem.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path ‘/home/pi/.dotnet/5.0.203.toolpath.sentinel’ is denied. —> System.IO.IOException: Permission denied —… Continue Reading...
Error Connecting to Raspberry Pi in VS Code After Reset
While utilizing the Remote Development tools to connecto to a raspberry pi board using SSH I encountered the following error after doing a full OS reset on the pi board. The detailed error within the VS code console was the following. WARNING: POSSIBLE DNS SPOOFING DETECTED! @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ The ECDSA host key for raspberrypi.local has changed, and… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Team Member License Enforcement in GCC
If you have custom applications built on Dynamics/Dataverse within the US Government Community Cloud (GCC) and only have Team user license that were purchased after October 2018 your apps screen may soon like like the one above. These Team licenses were designed for access to very specific first party apps. Customer Service Team MemberSales Team MemberProject Resource Hub For a long time the… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Power Automate Custom Connectors – Import Postman v2 Collection
There are many tools you can utilize to develop Power Automate custom connectors including Postman and Swagger Inspector. I prefer to utilize Postman but recent updates to the product no longer make it possible to export to a v1 collection. This is unfortunate because the Power Automate custom connector site only allows upload of v1 collections. Luckily APIMATIC allows you to convert the… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Horizontally Scroll A Large Power Apps Gallery
So you have a lot of data to display but the screen in Power Apps isn’t large enough. My friend Ronald Sease recently showed me how to create a gallery in Power Apps that you can scroll horizontally. It’s a simple but powerful solution utilizing a horizontal container and a vertical gallery. Demo Instructions First add a Horizontal container to your screen. Set the LayoutOverflowX property… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Install/Configure Power Apps Mobile for U.S. Government and DoD User
For those working in the U.S. Government or DoD/Military space needing the Power Apps mobile application on your phone, an additional step of selecting a region must be taken before you attempt to sign-in. Microsoft has three separate regions listed below where U.S. Government information is stored, for additional information click here. < ul>US Government GCCUS Government CGG HighUS Government… Continue Reading Rick A....
WebApi – Execute Bound Function (RetrievePrincipalAccess) in PCF
I am current building PCF component that required me to determine if the user has specific rights to an entity before attempting to modify it. In order to do this I needed to figure out how to do an execute request for a Function bound to an Entity. The hardest part in doing all is really figuring out the parameters and parameterTypes you need to send with the request. This Microsoft article on… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
PowerApps Portal – Users Can See More Than Their Assigned Web Roles Allow
Anyone who has configured the PowerApps/Adx Portal before can tell you how complicated the security mechanisms can be to configure. It’s both easy to give users to much permission or not enough. Today we learned an important lesson regarding two fields on the Web Role entity. During testing of a new app a users told us that they could see the portal edit button as well as every web page in… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Rotational Image PCF Component for Canvas Apps
This image component allows you to rotate an image to any degree unlike the Canvas image component which only allows 90, 180, or 270 degrees. Having full rotation of the image can allow you to build things such a compass or custom gauges/indicators for your application. Installation/Usage InstructionsDownload Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson (RAW)’s Article on their blog Rotational Image PCF Component for Canvas Apps This image...
Launch A Canvas App In Model App From SiteMap
Canvas PowerApps provide a great amount of functionality with little or no code. Many examples demonstrate how to open a Canvas App within a Model App on a specific record and pass the context of that record. What if you don’t want to open a Canvas App for a specific record? Let’s say you want to create a menu functionality for user to allow them to open other Canvas apps, or maybe you… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Pass Custom Parameters To WebResource From UIC SiteMap in Dynamics
While working on creating a page to open a Canvas app full screen inside of a Model app I wanted to create a WebResource I could use over and over again. Most of the references I found showed the Canvas app name in the code which wouldn’t allow for code re-use. Instead I wanted to pass query string parameters to the WebResource so that it could get the name from the URL. The problem I ran… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Move from using Xrm.Page to formContex in UCI form based PowerApps WebResources
The usage of Xrm.Page is currently deprecated, still available due to it’s high usage, but still deprecated. When will it go away, we don’t really know yet. How then can we use it’s formContext replacement within a web resource. Well Microsoft recently added a the getContentWindow() function to the context which allows us to get the actual content of a web resource. By adding an onload… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Sparse Checkout with Git To Reduce Confusion
If you would like to make updates to the Xrm types or any others in the DefinitelyTyped project on github you can find that cloning all the types can be a real pain. This is because a typical git clone will bring down everything and having over 6 thousand directories in this project can make thigns a bit slow. Startign with Git version 2.25.0 a new feature was introduces called… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson (RAW)’s...
Multilingual Support For PCF Calendar Control
Multilingual support has been added to the Calendar component I recently shared. This works in both Canvas and Model apps. The following languages are now supported. English (default)GermanFrenchSpanishItalianDutchRussian Click Here to download the latest release of the component.Click Here to get the source code for this component. Check out these videos on how to get the control working in a… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Gotchas for PCF Code Components in Canvas Apps
PCF Code Components allow developers to create their own custom interfaces utilizing Typescript and/or React. To learn more about the PCF Component Framework check out this article. Building these controls has been great in Model app but only recently could we also start re-using them in our Canvas apps. If you want to learn more about how to add your PCF Code component to a Canvas App check… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
PowerApps Calendar Control
This calendar control was built off of React Big Calendar. The calendar can be used to display events with or without related resources. This control has been designed to work in both Canvas and Model apps. Because of the differences in those types of applications there are some differences in how you utilize them in each app. Canvas If you want to utilize resources in Canvas you will need to… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Bing Maps PCF Control
Bing Maps PCF Control Overview This PCF control allows you to display information for a view that contains latitude and longitude information within Bing Maps. The Info Box for each pushpin that is created on the map also gives you the ability to open the selected record. Additional Features Map will default to a bounding box defined by the location data being shown.Will work with dataset that… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Utilize Customized npm Package from GitHub Branch
Utilize Customized npm Package from GitHub Branch When working with npm libraries there are times you find bugs or want to add functionality to a library. You could just modify the files locally and run the application but this gets tricky when you go to deploy an application and it does an npm install which doesn’t include your changes. If the project is out there on GitHub there is a better… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Azure Maps PCF Control
Azure Maps PCF Control Overview This PCF control allows you to display information for a view that contains latitude and longitude information within Azure Maps. The Popup Box for each point that is created on the map also gives you the ability to open the selected record. Additional Features Utilizes a central configuration entity for authentication which means not having to update multiple… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Custom Grid/Subgrid Using Office-UI-Fabric DetailsList
Custom PCF Grid/Subgrid Using Office-UI-Fabric DetailsList Allows you to simulate the out of the box Grid and Subgrid controls using the Office-UI-Fabric DetailsList control. It was built to provide a springboard when you need a customizable grid experience. This component re-creates a mojority of the capabilities available out of the box in less than 300 lines of code and demonstrates the… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Use Dynamics WebAPI to get Record Count
Use Dynamics WebAPI to get Record Count When working in an environment where tools like XrmToolbox are not available or allowed getting a total record count can be a real pain sometimes. One way of doing it just using the browser involves using the Dynamics WebAPI. This came in handy last time we were doing a data load on our production system and wanted to see the status of how many records… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Use Dynamics WebAPI to get LogicalName or ObjectTypeCode for Entity
Use Dynamics WebAPI to get LogicalName or ObjectTypeCode for Entity If you need to get the LogicalName or ObjectTypeCode of an entity in your Dynamics environment you can utilize the WebAPI to get the metadata. If you have the LogicalName of the entity you can use this url.Format:<Dynamics… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson (RAW)’s Article on their blog Use Dynamics WebAPI to get LogicalName or ObjectTypeCode for Entity...
Convert Markdown Documents to PDF Using md-to-pdf
Convert Markdown Documents to PDF Using md-to-pdf Azure DevOps now has an option to link your Wiki to a repo. With this change I decided to start creating all my documentation in Markdown and then to supply my users with PDF output for things such as user guide. This allows me to source control my documents and still supply users with clean looking outputs. Here is how i went about doing this. <h2… Continue Reading Rick A....
PCF Color Picker
For anyone looking for a PCF Color Picker I just released one out on GitHub! It utilizes React and the Office UI Fabric controls.GitHub ProjectSolution File Note – Image above shows the color field twice so that you see that the field is being updated. Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson (RAW)’s Article on their blog PCF Color Picker For anyone looking for a PCF Color Picker I just released one out on GitHub! It utilizes React...
Dynamics BPF Javascript: NEW onPreStageChange Handler!
If you are utilizing the UCI interface there is a new JavaScript handler available for the Business Process Flows (BPF), onPreStageChange. Unlike the onStageChange handler onPreStageChange fires before the actual business process has been changed so that you can evaluate if you want the change to occur and prevent it if needed. With this new handler we can now get rid of many of the… Continue Reading Rick A....
Icon Resources for Dynamics
Below are resources that you can utilize within your Dynamics project for generating icons.Image IconsIcoMoonFont ImagerFlatIconsIcons8Microsoft Dynamics CRM Icon PackMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Icon Pack for 2017Metro Studio – Additional Info On How to Use from PowerObjectsReact IconsThese are icon libraries that can be utilized within a React PCF control.Office UI Fabric Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson (RAW)’s Article on...
Rollup Field Refresh on UCI Form
In the web client version of Dynamics when you hovered over a rollup field it would show a refresh icon to the right of the field. In the Unified Client Interface (UCI) version of Dynamics to recalculate the field you can click on the Calculator icon to the left of the field name and a Recalculate button will appear. Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson (RAW)’s Article on their blog Rollup Field Refresh on UCI Form In the web...
Custom Flow Connector For Parsing Address
While working on a demo of the Business Cards Scanner component for PowerApps I found that the component only returns the address as a single line and not as parsed address components (UPDATE: The Business Card Scanner does not split the address fields into the same level of detail as the Contact/Account entities). After looking around for flow connectors that could parse the data I only… Continue Reading Rick A. Wilson...
Update Business Process Flow Using Flow
When working through App In A Day Workshop I wanted to improve the Approval flow to move the Business Process Flow (BPF) Stage forward if the Device Order was Approved. I have utilized plugins and workflow previously to accomplish this type of action but never with Flow. After doing a quick search i found an article from Elaiza Benitez (Automatically update the stage of a Business Process… Continue Reading Rick...
Get Dynamics/CDS Base URL in Flow To Generate Links To Record
When sending emails or approvals in flow it can be helpful to also include a link to the record which is being referenced. In order to send those links though we need the environment URL of the Dynamics/CDS environment. This article shows an example of how to get the base URL for the environment and how to build a link based upon it. This will be demonstrated within a Flow created for the
PowerApps Naming Conventions and Coding Standards
When building canvas apps the naming conventions used by the objects can be very confusing once you have added a few screens. It is important to make sure you rename your components while working to allow for better readability and supportability of your application. Below are some common naming conventions which are available within the PowerApps canvas app coding standards and guidelines… Continue Reading Rick...
Turn on Teams/Skype Meeting Recording and Transcription for Entire Organization
<#.SYNOPSIS Turn on meeting recording and transcription for entire organization.PREREQUISITES Download the Skype for Business Online Connector Module – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39366.ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Teams cloud meeting recording – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/cloud-recording Manage Skype for Business Online with Office 365 PowerShell -… Continue Reading Rick...
Validate Solution Using the PowerApp Checker (Includes On-Premise Solution)
I recently saw the article on how to validate solutions using the PowerApps Solution Checker and wanted to share the link. The Checker will work for all on-line and on-premise solution starting with Dynamics 2011. When I have some more time I’ll write up an article on how to use this in DevOps.Automatically validate your solutions using the PowerApps checker PowerShell ModulePowerApps… Continue Reading Rick A....
Finding Largest Files on Drive Using Powershell
Recently a colleague of mine was having issues with low drive space on one of our servers. Because this is a clients system i am unable to copy over WinDirStat which is what i would usually use to determine what is eating up all the drive space. Instead I ended up using PowerShell to show me to top files which were eating up space. dir -path c: -rec -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | sort -desc… Continue Reading Rick A....