Category: Technology

To me the best feature that I have seen in the latest release for Dynamics 365 is subtle but a game changer.

The change is related to how quick find has worked in the past. Let me give you some background.

How things have always worked in Dynamics with Quick Find search.

Searching and filtering in Dynamics can be complicated.

One of the complications relates to the Quick Find capabilities.

So, say you are on a view and you would like to quickly find something. (See what I did there? 😎) You see the handy dandy search box so you type in what you want to search on and click enter. You see a few results but they do not fit the criteria of the view you are currently on.

Confusing right? Yes, this has always been confusing for users and honestly myself when I first started learning the system. It is a gotcha of the system and it needs to be explained to be understood.

Let me explain what happened in this scenario.

Whenever the user uses the Quick Find search it ALWAYS uses the generic global search.

It has not taken into consideration any view filters.

This has led to many situations where users get way too many results that they do not need and then they have to look through the returned records of the search.

This can be a huge waste of time and make the user frustrated.

Trust me – they have told me how frustrating this can be and I have looked far and wide for a solution in Dynamics. Sadly, there has been no easy ways to change Quick Find behavior without changing it for all users.

Behold – we have a solution in this latest release for Dynamics.

The Quick Find search now respects the view!

Let me walk you through the change.

Now – whatever view a user is on – the quick find WILL respect those filters. This is amazing. This is the behavior that everyone has always assumed was happening when they were searching. Less confusion and frustration for users. I love it.

What does this mean going forward?

More Accurate Searching.

Users will have more accurate Quick Find searching capabilities to narrow down the data to see what they are actually looking for without getting results that are not relevant.

Also – this makes separate apps more effective because you can curate the views that are specific to that role for the user to search on using Quick Find. Before this change apps didn’t make the most sense due to Quick Find not respecting the views given to the user – so they would see search results that have nothing to do with what they need. To me this makes breaking out functionality to apps the way to go due to this change.

In conclusion – this change is small in scope but massive in impact to end users.

They will love this platform even more with amazing enhancements like these. Keep them coming Microsoft!

Go forth with Dynamics!

How to get your computer setup for Dynamics 365 Development

By Kody Wildfeuer

On April 6, 2020

In Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Technology

Every time I start a new job or get a new machine at work I need to go through a ritual of setting up the tools that I will need for my job doing development work with Dynamics 365. Below are the tasks that I consider essential for anyone tasked with working with the product.

Dynamics SDK

The dynamics 365 SDK (Software Development Tools) will be needed to register plugins and custom code onto the platform. To get these resources use the following link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customerengagement/on-premises/developer/download-tools-nuget

XRM Toolbox

Next up is a tool that can be thought of as an app store for development tasks and tools that can make your life easier.

https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/

Visual Studio

For the most part if you are working in the Microsoft ecosystem this tool will be needed in general but I will put it here because this is where you will want to be doing your plugin development.

SSDT/SSIS

You will use this for data loading and integrations into and out of Dynamics. SSIS is a standard tool in the Microsoft ecosystem and is very powerful for loading massive amounts of data into and out of the system.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssdt/download-sql-server-data-tools-ssdt?view=sql-server-ver15

Kingswaysoft

To integrate the SSIS tool with Dynamics you will need a connector. My favorite is Kinsgwaysoft – which is a custom connector that allows for easy interaction with Dynamics 365 in terms of data integrations. You will need a license to schedule jobs but for local development everything works! This tool is amazing and I cannot recommend it enough.

https://www.kingswaysoft.com/products/ssis-integration-toolkit-for-microsoft-dynamics-crm

Node.js

Node will be used as a framework for building PCF Controls within Dynamics. Long story short – you will need Node before you can start using the PCF control framework that you will install below. I would download the LTS version on the left side of the screen.

https://nodejs.org/en/

PCF Control

PCF Controls are basically plugins to interact and display data within the system using web development front end skills with javascript.

https://aka.ms/PowerAppsCLI

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/developer/component-framework/create-custom-controls-using-pcf

Visual Studio Code

Some of the tools and tutorials will be focused around using Visual Studio code as the primary way to interact and develop PCF Controls. It is good to have this tool due to its convenience and ease-of-use as well.

https://code.visualstudio.com/

Dynamics 365 Trial Instance

Sometimes you will need to try stuff out on your own but you will not want to pollute your company’s Dynamics 365 instance with your work. What you will want to do is set up a Trial instance of Dynamics 365 to do this discovery work. It will expire after a period of time but it will allow you to have an isolated place where you can do whatever you need to do within dynamics without causing a mess in your organization’s instance.

Here is a blog post on steps on how to get started: https://arunpotti.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/how-to-setup-dynamics-365-30-days-online-trial-version/

There you have it – all of the tools that you will need to get started working on Dynamics 365. This might seem overwhelming but I assure you will get the hang of all of these tools and they will come in very handy.

Go forth!

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.

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