Solving Business Problems, Not Software Sudoku: Why I’m Pumped About Dynamics 365’s New Table Visual Designer

On June 24, 2024

Hey there, tech enthusiasts and business problem solvers! I’m about to take you on a journey that’s got me excited for the future of Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.

The Old Ways: A Trip Down Memory Lane

Let’s rewind a bit. Remember the “good old days” of building business applications? If you’ve been in the game as long as I have, you’ll recall the pain points:

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) Gymnastics: Hours spent crafting CREATE TABLE statements, where one typo meant starting over.
Dynamics 365 Configuration Marathon: Navigating endless menus to create tables one at a time, setting up relationships like a game of database Jenga.
The Integration Nightmare: Wrestling with SDKs and custom plugins to integrate external data.
Documentation Headaches: Creating separate ERD diagrams in Visio after all that work.

The New Frontier: ERD View and Copilot

Now, Microsoft has dropped a game-changer that’s about to make a lot of people very comfortable with something that used to be pretty daunting. And that’s a good thing!

Visual Data Modeling: It’s like going from assembly code to a high-level programming language. You can see your entire data model at a glance, relationships and all.
AI-Powered Schema Generation: Copilot is like having a senior database architect at your beck and call. Describe your model in plain English, and it generates the schema for you.
Intelligent Data Import: Copilot analyzes your Excel or SharePoint data and suggests appropriate structures and relationships.
Dynamic Relationship Management: Creating relationships between tables is now as simple as dragging a line. No more SQL JOIN statements!

Why This is a Big Deal

Visual Learning FTW: Not everyone thinks in code. This ERD view lets you see your data model like a map. It’s like going from written directions to Google Maps.
Copilot: Your AI Sidekick: Need sample data? Bam! Want to create a new column? Boom! It’s like coding with autocomplete on steroids.
From Excel to ERD in Seconds: Turn that monster Excel sheet into a proper database with drag-and-drop simplicity.
Rapid Prototyping: What used to take weeks can now be done in hours. Iterate quickly without the overhead of traditional database design.
Lowered Technical Barrier: A sales manager who understands the business process can now contribute directly to the data model design without needing to learn T-SQL.

Democratizing Software Development

Here’s why I’m really excited: it’s lowering the barrier to entry for creating powerful business apps. You don’t need to be a coding wizard to create a multi-table data model anymore. Got an idea? Describe it in plain English, and let Copilot do the heavy lifting.

This is huge for small businesses, startups, and anyone with a great idea but limited tech skills. It’s like we’re democratizing software development, and I am here for it!

The Future of Problem Solving

Imagine a world where anyone in your organization can turn their industry expertise into a working app. Your sales team could create a custom CRM tailored exactly to your business. Your HR folks could whip up an employee management system that fits like a glove.

Real-World Impact

Let me paint you a picture. In the past, if a client came to me wanting a custom solution in Dynamics 365, we’d be looking at weeks of requirements gathering, database design, and implementation. Now? We can sit down together, describe the system, and have a working data model in a single session. It’s not just faster – it’s a completely different way of working.

Embracing the Change

This new ERD view isn’t just an incremental improvement – it’s a quantum leap in how we approach data modeling in the Microsoft ecosystem. It’s democratizing a skill that used to require years of experience and technical knowledge.

Conclusion

This ERD view in Power Apps is more than just a cool feature. It’s a glimpse into a future where technology adapts to how we think, not the other way around. It’s about making powerful tools accessible to everyone, regardless of their coding skills.

So, my challenge to you? Go try it out. Play with it. See what you can create. Push its limits. See how it can transform your development process. Who knows? The next big app that revolutionizes your industry might be just a few drag-and-drops away.

Go forth and visually model that data! Your future self (and your clients) will thank you.

Announcement link: Work with complex data models in an ERD view assisted by Copilot – Microsoft Power Platform Blog

Dev.to – Tech Learning’s secret weapon

By Kody Wildfeuer

On April 3, 2020

In Cool Tools, Learning, Tech

I have long been a fan of tinkering with technology. The problem has been finding good resources that do not send you off a cliff or into a corner. Finding bad or not helpful tutorials can be a demotivating factor when learning about new technologies. I have found a resource that has helped me always find amazing resources no matter the technology.

Dev.to – Reddit for Developers

Dev.to is basically a social network that is focused only on different technologies. Hashtags separate different tracks. You can subscribe to these hashtags to find different content. These different content streams allow you to narrow down the different areas you are looking to dive into. New tutorials will show up on your feed similar to your reddit homepage showing you the latest stories from the different subreddits you subscribe to. You can also sort by the most upvoted posts for a technology – and this is where dev.to shines. This gives you the best content for a technology that is constantly updated and current. You can sort by different time periods like this week’s best posts, this month, and this year, and all time. Finding the best content on this site has allowed for a way better experience when trying to implement different technologies I am not used to – and it makes it less intimidating.

Get Started

I would create a profile and put your experience level for you currently – if you are new to development or if you are senior the site will filter your content for your level. This is awesome!

After you create a profile I would subscribe to a few hashtags for whatever grabs your interest. Then sort to find the best content and run through a few tutorials. You will be happy you did!

Here is a link below to this site along with my profile if you would like to see the content I have liked.

https://dev.to/

https://dev.to/kody

Go forth and code!

Life is a while loop

By Kody Wildfeuer

On April 3, 2020

In Learning, Motivation, Programming, Random Thoughts, Technology

Life is simply a while loop

What I mean by this is that you are running in a continuous loop that breaks when you run into a bug. That bug spits out an exception and error message. The bug could be getting in trouble in school. Getting fired from a job or crashing your car.

Solve for the errors

All we need to do in life is take these situations and error messages that break us out of our loop and add some conditionals within the loop to make sure a similar situation does not cause you to break out of your loop the next time.

If you break out of your loop – consider the conditional you have to add to make sure it doesn’t break you out of your loop the next time.

Build up conditionals

Build up conditional statements and your loop becomes more and more resilient to different situations.

Seek out loop exceptions for better error handling

Soon you will be interested in being challenged by a break out of your loop instead of being depressed or unmotivated by the breaks. You will revel in creating the next conditional statement that will meet this challenge next time.

Kody Wildfeuer's blog

Category: Learning