August update of release planner for Customer Insights – Journeys
Not too long ago I did the release wave 2 post for Customer Insights – Journeys, and I thought that would be most of the things we were getting until March. This post shows how wrong I was, and I’ve never been more happy to be wrong! The release planner for Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys is a great way to keep up to date with what the Customer Insights team is doing and new stuff… Continue Reading...
The final death of Outbound
We’ve all known the time would come when Outbound was deprecated, but the exact date hasn’t been public, until now! June 30th 2025 is the last day Outbound will be in Customer Insights – Journeys! If you or your customers are still using Outbound, you have to move to real-time marketing before July 1st 2025. How should you do this, Microsoft has you covered in the transition overview…. Continue Reading Malin...
Master prompt engineer with Microsoft Designer
Prompt engineering is one of the must-have skills at this point, but let's start from scratch: what TF is prompt engineering? That is more or less the idea, however, it's difficult to learn how to prompt. It often relates to the way a system works (e.g. Power Automate, prompting won't use natural language per se, but more of a Power Automate logic-based prompting), but in the deep core is… Continue Reading Ana...
OOB: Model-driven app within D365 HR.
Release notes were shared a couple of days ago, and I'm beyond happy to share the following news with you: WE HAVE A RECRUITMENT PIECE BUILT IN POWER PLATFORM! Who is excited? I am! I'll share with you why this means a huge advancement towards a unified experience. For those who have worked with D365 HR, we know how painful it can be to have siloed systems, and sometimes the integrations with… Continue Reading Ana Inés...
Release wave 2 2024 – Customer Insights – Data
Release wave 2 2024 is out, let’s take a look at the features that’ll come until March 2025 for Customer Insights – Data. PP is Public Preview and GA is General Available. I’ve also written a post about the release wave for Customer Insights – Journeys. Accelerate time to insights with data in Delta Lake format PP August ’24 / GA October ’24 Do you or your customer have lots and…...
Release wave 2 2024 – Customer Insights – Journeys
It’s that time of the year again, release wave 2 2024 is out! There are several things that originally was in the wave 1 release, but been pushed to this release. A lot of cool things are coming, one of the biggest things is the new campaign feature with Copilot! PP is Public Preview and GA is General Available. I’ve also written a post about the new stuff in Customer Insights –… Continue Reading Malin...
Agent for HR joiners using Copilot Studio
Recruitment processes are one of the first activities that new HR hires need to get up to speed. Recruiters are hired to create a robust pipeline of candidates and to cover all vacancies across the organization. I was thinking about this scenario and my issues when hiring people: Which questions should I ask for an entry-level position? Which questions I should never ask? How do I… Continue Reading Ana Inés Urrutia’s...
D365 HR Benefits statements, why and how.
One of the cool features we have within Dynamics 365 Human Resources is the Benefits statement. According to Microsoft official documentation benefits statements are: How can you get into the extraction of the benefits statement? Just follow the steps below and you will get there. Log into the Dynamics 365 Human Resources. In the left pane open the hamburger menu and then the Human… Continue Reading Ana Inés Urrutia’s...
Working with AI Prompts
One of the things that makes me happy and boosts my mood – believe it or not – is to find innovative ways to do things and alternatives to the norm that can leverage work on so many levels. While navigating this scenario I discovered a piece of technology I love: AI prompts within Power Platform. My friend Daniel Laskewitz delivered a session at Dynamics Minds about the topic and I knew I had… Continue Reading Ana...
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Insights Certifications Retirement: What You Need to Know
You might have seen it already, Microsoft are retiring the mb-210 Dynamics 365 Sales, mb-220 Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys and mb-260 Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data certifications. They are coming out with the new certification Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Customer Experience Analyst Associate. Do I think this is a good idea – No. Is there anything we can do – also… Continue...
Power Platform AI Hub for HR
If you haven't started to use AI within Power Platform, this is the ideal blog for you. In this short, simple – but very insightful article – I will delve into the magic (or science) behind AI models, and just in case you do not feel inspired, with each model I'm sharing a process flow on when to use it 🙂 These process flows will give you a general understanding of when to add an AI component… Continue...
Secret weapon for HR! Dynamics 365, Copilot Studio & ServiceNow Hack!
This video shows a smart self-service solution for Microsoft Dynamics 365 HR, featuring a super-powered AI chatbot built with the dream team of Microsoft solutions: Dynamics 365 HR: Your central hub for all employee needs. Microsoft Copilot Studio: The AI whiz that bridges the gap between systems. ServiceNow: Your IT service management powerhouse. Here's the magic: Employees can… Continue Reading Ana Inés Urrutia’s...
Lists in emails in Customer Insights – Journeys
Customers have often asked me if they can’t list out different things in an email in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys. For example; < ul> Different insurances the contact has registered Names of contacts registered on an account Products a customer has bought Passes or sessions a contact has registered for in an event Events a contact has registered for the past 3… Continue Reading Malin Martnes’s...
MB-260 Identify capabilities and limitations for scheduled refreshes
In previous posts, we’ve gone through incremental updates for our data, data which is updated when there’s a change to them. Now let’s look at scheduled refreshes. Scheduled refreshes automatically update ingested data sources in unified customer profiles. The scheduled refresh is found under “Settings”, “System” and “Schedule” You can schedule automatic refreshes of all your...
Register for sessions on events in CI-Journeys
In the January release for Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys, we got the “Boost participation and simplify planning with session-based event registrations” feature. This can be a handy tool for many events, so let’s see how it’s set up and used. To start using session-level registrations in events, go to Settings -> Feature switches -> Event management and turn on the “Enable…...
AI Prompts with AI Builder
Yesterday I was hosting a webinar with Microsoft team about AI and HR. While demoing a great model-driven app one of my colleagues created (Denisa ), I made a beginner’s mistake, and that led to an error in the plan we had. Luckily we were able to recover fast, and even prove the point on why prompt engineering is a big deal. During the demo, I was using this app to retrieve information about… Continue Reading Ana Inés...
Add Power Apps to Dynamics 365 Human Resources.
I love this feature, and chances are that you have already seen it. However, let me share one of my favorite Dynamics 365 Human Resources tips. There are cases where D365HR fits short or the existing features do not accommodate your or your client’s needs. Maybe you don’t want to implement the whole project piece included in the ERP, so you could – for example – follow these steps to add a… Continue...
MB-260: Configure incremental refresh
You can configure the incremental refresh after you’ve transformed the data in Power Query, you can also do this by editing the source after you’ve finished. Maybe you’ve set it up ready, but after reading about incremental refresh, you realise how smart it is and you want to edit your data source refresh. Microsoft Power Query (MPQ) To be able to use incremental refresh with MPQ you… Continue Reading Malin...
Request to recruit
You want to pay attention to this post. It will become quite important for the future of Dynamics 365 Human Resources, and not a very far future. At the moment there are two recruitment experiences we can enable within Dynamics 365 Human Resources. Today we will work with HR Recruitment, you will notice that after enabling this HR experience in the parameters the Recruitment management module… Continue Reading Ana Inés...
MB-260: Identify data sources that support incremental updates
For a data source to be able to support incremental updates, it needs to be a structured, relational database and it needs: a primary key column that uniquely identifies records a date/time column that indicates when the data was last updated In Customer Insights – Data this is now: Some sources in Power Query like (not a complete list) Azure SQL Database SQL Database SAP… Continue Reading Malin Martnes’s Article on...
Summarize emails using GPT within Power Automate.
AI shouldn’t be necessary cutting edge and super complex technology. In this blog, I’m showing you how easy it can be to apply AI to your day-to-day life using Power Automate. Log into make.powerautomate and find the template section. Once in the template section, type GPT and select the option Summarize email with GPT. You will need to enable a couple of permissions and connect with… Continue Reading Ana Inés...
MB-260: Describe benefits of pre-unification data enrichment
You can do two types of enrichments on data sources: address enrichments and identity data from LiveRamp. The main benefit of pre-unification data enrichment is improved data quality. Enriching the data before the unification process makes it easier to get matches and ensure your data is of higher quality before you start unifying it. It can also reduce duplicated unified profiles as you’re… Continue Reading Malin...
MB-260: Describe the differences between individual consumer and business account profiles
Some people are customers not connected to a company only as individuals (B2C). While other people are customers through their employer (B2B). When Customer Insights -Data was first released only B2C scenarios were supported. This has since been expanded and now you have individual consumer or business account profiles. The individual consumer profiles capture and analyze data for the… Continue Reading Malin Martnes’s...
My own Copilot: Nova
After the Copilot series in Microsoft Reactor, I received some very kind messages about Nova. For those who haven’t seen the series, Nova is a Copilot I created to learn and be updated with the latest trends. Like many of you, I have a busy schedule and that means that I do not have as much time as I would like for research and investigation, while I dedicate time to it, sometimes in a rush… Continue Reading Ana Inés...
MB-260: Transform, cleanse, and load data by using Power Query
In this post, we’ll go through the three topics of the Microsoft Power Query: Select tables and columns Resolve data inconsistencies, unexpected or null values, and data quality issues Evaluate and transform column data types In my previous post (insert a link to MPQ post). I connected to GA and got an error message because I got null values back. This shows that you can’t set up… Continue Reading Malin...
MB 260: Describe real-time ingestion capabilities and limitations
In the post MB-260: Describe support for near real-time updates we go through what the real-time updates are, what the prerequisites are, what can be done and how. In this post, we’ll at the limitations of real-time ingestion of data. Near real-time updates give you the ability to see the latest interactions customers have with products or services within seconds. The interactions can be… Continue Reading Malin...
MB-260: Determine whether to use the managed data lake or an organization’s data lake
When you first set up Customer Insights – Data you have to select if you want to use the managed data lake or the your own organization’s data lake. Create storage for CI-D To determine whether to use the managed data lake or an organization’s data lake, we first need to know the difference between the two and what your company needs. For most companies, the managed data late will… Continue Reading Malin...
MB-260: Ingest and transform data using Power Query connectors
Let’s review how to use Microsoft Power Query(MPQ) as your data source. And how you can ingest and transform that data. This post will be an overview of the MPQ as we’ll go further in depth with the section “Transform, cleanse, and load data by using Power Query”. First, you go to data and add your data source, you then select Microsoft Power Query. Add Microsoft Power Query After… Continue Reading Malin...
MB-260: Attach to a Microsoft Dataverse data lake
To connect to a Dataverse data source you go to “Data” -> “Data sources” and select Microsoft Dataverse. Here you need to give the source a name and connect to your Dataverse server address (til is the URL of your Microsoft CRM system). Add Dataverse as a data source You then select the tables you want to sync to CI-D. I’ve added accounts and contacts and clicked save. Add table in… Continue...
MB-260: Determine which data sources to use
To determine which data source to use, you first need to consider where your data is stored. Depending on where your data is stored, you have different ways of connecting to the data. There are out-of-the-box direct connections with the following: Azure Data Lake Azure Synapse Analytics Microsoft Dataverse Azure Data Lake – Delta tables With other sources, you can use… Continue Reading Malin Martnes’s Article on...
Start here: Copilot
Since the launch of Copilot, we’ve been increasingly listening to logic and nonsense. This post tries to bring light to what on earth Copilot is. As you are aware there are plenty of resources, and we might feel a bit bombarded by the amount of information. Don’t be a total newbie! This blog breaks down the fundamentals so you can cruise through success. What is Copilot? In the context of… Continue Reading Ana Inés...
MB 260: Describe support for enrichment
As we learned from the first post, enrichment is when you connect to other data sources to get more information about your customer data. It’s adding data to your existing customer data. Let’s dig deeper into what enrichments are and how you can use them. To configure enrichments you start by using connections, which we’ll go through in a later post. When the connection is created, your… Continue Reading Malin...
MB-260: Describe support for near real-time updates
Doesn’t every company dream about having the latest interactions from customers at hand seconds after they happen? A full sync of all data from your systems to CI-D can take hours, but there’s a way for you to get these interactions updated near real-time. There are APIs for updating customer profiles in near real-time (seconds). When the full sync of your data is finished, the near… Continue Reading Malin...
Personnel actions for Manager self-service.
If you ever worked in a Dynamics 365 Human Resources implementation you know about this topic… There is no middle ground, you either like them or not like them. But the good thing is that you can go from hate to love quite quickly when it makes sense to use them for a business purpose. I’m playing mysterious. What am I talking about? Personnel bloody actions. Let’s start from the basics,… Continue Reading Ana...
Copilot for Low Code
Do you use Power Platform and want to level up the game? Join me in this session to review the basics of Copilot and AI components within Power Apps and Power Automate. Learn in one hour how to do cool stuff with the help of Generative AI 🙂 Continue Reading Ana Inés Urrutia’s Article on their blog Copilot for Low Code Do you use Power Platform and want to level up the game? Join me in this session to review the basics of Copilot...
Microsoft Copilot Studio 101
Do you want to learn a bit more about Microsoft Copilot Studio? Maybe even create your own? In this session we will dive into Microsoft Copilot Studio, I’ll walk you through how to create your own Copilot tailored to your specific needs without a single line of code. Let’s get into it. Continue Reading Ana Inés Urrutia’s Article on their blog Microsoft Copilot Studio 101 Do you want to learn a bit more about...
Microsoft Copilot 101
During the first month of the year, I was lucky to deliver a couple of sessions for Microsoft Reactor (Home | Microsoft Reactor) about Copilot, going from Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Copilot for Low code. In this episode, you will discover how Microsoft Copilot can become your indispensable productivity partner. Continue Reading Ana Inés Urrutia’s Article on their blog Microsoft Copilot 101 During the first month...
MB-260: Describe the first run experience (FRE) in D365 Customer Insights – Data
First run experience or FRE is when you have a single CSV file with your data that you want to add to the system. This is a quick way of starting your CI-D journey or testing with your own data, without connecting CI-D to any system. If you have a new system you will most likely have the FRE popup. If you don’t get this popup you can go to the home page and click “Add data” on the “Gets… Continue Reading...
Release wave 1 2024 Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data
For the first time, I’m doing a post on the release wave for both Customer Insights – Journeys and Customer Insights – Data! Read the post about CI-J Let’s look at the features Microsoft is working on for the next 9 months. Remember that these plans can change and things can be pushed, postponed or even removed by Microsoft. This post was accurate when it was published (25 January… Continue Reading Malin...
Release wave 1 2024 Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys
Not too long ago I wrote a post on what’s to come from December to March ’24, now the plans until September are out! For the first time, I’m now doing a post on the release wave for both CI-J and CI-D! Read the post about CI-D Let’s look at the features Microsoft is working on for the next 9 months. Remember that these plans can change and things can be pushed, postponed or even… Continue Reading Malin...
MB-260: Describe Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data components, including tables, relationships, enrichments, activities, measures, and segments
Components There are many components you need to know about in Customer Insights – Data (CI-D), these are what make your customer picture clear. Who is your customer, where do they work (if B2B), what have they bought, which emails have they read, which of your websites have they visited, and how much have they spent on you. Some of the most important components… Continue Reading Malin Martnes’s Article on their blog...
MB-260: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights (Data) Specialist
Speciality badge for the MB-260 certification As I’m waiting for the MB-220 Customer Insights Journey certification to change, I wanted to do a series on the MB-260 Customer Insights Data certification. I’ll update this post with links to each section. You should always start reading the study guide for the exam, you can find it here: Continue Reading Malin Martnes’s Article on their blog MB-260: Microsoft Dynamics...
D365 HR: Compare benefits plans
Deploying a new Dynamics environment means that our first stop is Feature Management. I was doing this earlier today and realized that some new features have been released and it was time to test them immediately. One of the features that has taken protagonism in the last couple of releases is Benefits Management, and today I can tell you that the efforts have paid off. I’m quite happy with… Continue Reading Ana Inés...
D365 HR + Excel = OOB Reports
One of the things HR teams always ask is: can I export it to Excel? The truth is that almost everything in Dynamics 365 Human Resources can be exported to Excel and sometimes even imported. But that is a conversation for another day. Speaking about extracting data from Dynamics, this blog will be about the out-of-the-box reports we can retrieve from existing information in our ERP/HRIS…. Continue Reading Ana Inés Urrutia’s...
Consent center in Real-time marketing
I’ve been getting a lot of questions from people about how the new consent center in real-time marketing works in Customer Insights – Journeys. In this post, I’ll try to explain how it’s set up and how you can use it as it is with the December ’23 release. If you’ve done the work and looking for how to move from outbound to real-time marketing – click here. To (need) consent or not…...
What’s coming in Customer Insights-Journeys in December-March?
At the time of the release of this post, we’re waiting on the December ’23 release for Customer Insights – Journeys, it’s hopefully right around the corner. Because there are so many features there I think will have a huge (positive, just to be clear) impact on users, I thought I would write something about some of them. I don’t think I can remember a period in the release plans where I’ve…...
Your own AI Prompt library
I was having a look at Power Apps Studio today and something caught my eye. It is under the AI Hub, and it’s called ‘Unlock the power of generative AI with GPT’. If we go through Microsoft documentation we can find out that Text generation model’s capability is a powerful tool in AI Builder. It enables you to quickly and easily build AI-powered applications that use text generated from your… Continue...
Send an email when a contact submits a form in Customer Insights – Journeys
A customer of mine is moving from outbound to real-time marketing and is creating new forms in RTM. In outbound they have had a Power Automate Flow created to send them a notification every time a new form submission comes in the system, so we wanted to copy that over to RTM, it shouldn’t be much of an issue, just copy and change the table that triggers it, right, riiiiight….? Well, it was an… Continue Reading Malin...
AI Builder for Image Description
I’m a fanatic about AI Builder or AI Models, or however it is called these days. Sometimes I lack the imagination or creativity to create ALT descriptions for my images. I thought trying the Describe your image AI Model was a good idea. So keep reading if you want to see the results. Log into make.powerapps and select AI Hub. From the three options on the top, select AI Models. After this page… Continue Reading Ana Inés...
BYOC: Microsoft Copilot Studio
There is someone who is SUPER hyped with all the Copilot stuff going on, and that person is ME. I won’t tell you what is going on with it, you can read it here: Announcing Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft 365 Blog, but I will tell you how to use it. Two things you need to know: Microsoft Copilot Studio was formerly Power Virtual Agents – yes, you need to edit ALL your decks – so in… Continue Reading Ana...