Dynamics 365 - Disable Export To Excel

Today , I am going to show you  how to disable the export the excel and report

DEMO

 1. Originally , user still can see the Export To Excel Option

2. Go To Setting > Security > Security role > Select a security role > under Business Management Tab remove the option highlighted below

3. Refresh the form, the option will not available anymore.

This is working with Report too.

 I hope this will help you to save some time and Happy CRM-ing.

Dynamics 365 - How to turn off the disturbing error message

Have you experience an error pop up and without any useful details provided when you open up the Dynamics 365 ?

After many times of debug, you've found out it is nothing to do with your customization and configuration.

Can we turn off this disturbing error message?

- Yes, we are able to do that.

Solution

Kindly proceed to your personal option > Under Privacy Tab > Click on "Never send an error report to Microsoft about Microsoft Dynamics 365".

I hope this will help you to save some time and get away from disturbing error message and Happy CRM-ing.

Dynamics 365 - Editable GirdView and Things you should know

A Long awaited feature finally released in Dynamics 365. It is Editable Gridview.

Today, i am going to show you how to enable and configure the Editable Gridview and the things you should know.

How to Enable Editable GridView

1. Go to customization.

2. Select your entity.

3. Under the tab "Control".

4. Click on "Add Control".

Result

Can we configure rule on Editable GridView?

1. Let's create a business rule

Result 

Form

Editable Grid

Everything is working perfectly. Hurrah.

Now let's us add more conditions into Business Rule

Result

Form

Editable Grid

Hmm... something went wrong. It is not working anymore.

Root Caused

- because the newly added condition is no exist in view.

Solution

- include the field inside the view.

Conclusion

- any fields that is using inside a business rule or JavaScript, we should include them inside the view.

Additional

Besides business rule, we also can apply the JavaScript inside the editable grid-view.

The behavior of JavaScript will be the same as Business Rule.

I hope this will help you to understand more about the new Editable Gridview feature in Dynamics 365 and Happy CRM-ing.

Dynamics 365 - Workflow within a Business Process Flow

With Dynamics 365, You can now call on-demand workflows from inside a business process flow. But lets us take a look the differences between Dynamics 365 and before Dynamics 365.

Before Dynamics 365 

- we can trigger the workflow when Business Process Flow (BPF) is switched or Stage is changed.

With Dynamics 365 

- You can even manipulate more function using BPF designer.

- The workflows within the BPF are divided into two categories.

1. Stage Workflow

- Run within a stage.
- Can be triggered when Stage Entry and Stage Exit.

2. Global Workflow

- Can be triggered when Process Reactivated, Process Applied, Process Abandoned and Process Completed.

DEMO

1. Drag the workflow into the stage.

2. Under the Stage, select the workflow component. After that select the trigger point as Stage Entry.

3. Create a Workflow.

• Update opportunity description.
• Workflow must set as on demand workflow. Else you will not able to see the workflow in BPF Designer.
• In this demo, we will remove the trigger point from the workflow, so that we can understand more how is the workflow get trigger.

     

4. Repeat the Step 1 to Step 4, but remember to change the trigger point to Stage Exit. Final result as below.

5. Now let's create an opportunity. As the result shown as below , the description was updated as " Stage Entry".

6. Let's move to next stage.As the result shown as below , the description was updated as " Stage Exit".

  

7. Drag the workflow into the Global Workflow and Remove all the Stage workflow.

 

8. Create 4 workflows by repeating the Step 2 to Step 3. Final Result as below.

 

9. Now let's create an opportunity As the result shown as below , the description was updated as " Process Applied".

10 . Let's remove the description and switch the process to another BPF, and switch back, The description is not get updated.

11. Now let's finish the BPF. As the result shown as below , the description was updated as " Process Completed".

12 . Now let's reactivate the BPF. As the result shown as below , the description was updated as " Process Reactivated".

13. Now let's abandon the BPF. As the result shown as below , the description was updated as " Process Abandoned".

Now you should know, how the workflow get trigger when using the trigger point within BPF.

I hope this will help you to understand more about the new workflow feature within BPF in Dynamics 365 and Happy CRM-ing.

Dynamics 365 - Hit error when trying move to previous stage

Every few months, we received such requirement  "management decided to remove one of the stage" again. But after delete the stage, an error pop up  when users were trying to move to previous stage.

Why is this happening ?

DEMO

In this demo,  the BPF has 4 stages ( Qualify,Develop, Propose and Close) and Management decided to delete the stage "Develop".

1. Delete the Stage "Develop" from BPF.
2. Current Stage is "Propose".

3. Everything seems fine. But where the time user is trying to move to previous stage, they hit an error and without much useful information provided.

Root Caused

The traversedPath is not correct. it seems that when we deleted the stage, the CRM system will not update the traversedPath.

Solution

1. Access the BPF record via advanced Find 
2. delete the invalid stage you deleted previously.
3. Save It.

Tada (firework) User is able to move to previous stage after the Traversed Path is corrected.

Programtically using code

1. First grab all the BPF records.
2. Split the traversed path into single string into an array.
3. Loop Through the string, and pass into the below query.
4. if the result is 0.
5. remove the stageid from Traversed Path and update it.

     private int CheckisstageExist(string stageid)

        {         

            var fetchxml = "<fetch version='1.0' output-format='xml-platform' mapping='logical'              distinct='false'>"+

                              "<entity name='processstage'>"+

                                "<attribute name='processstageid' />"+

                                "<attribute name='stagename' />"+

                                "<attribute name='stagename' />   "+     

                                "<filter type='and'>"+

                                  "<condition attribute='processstageid' operator='not-null' />"+

                                  "<condition attribute='processstageid' operator='eq' value = '"+stageid+"'  />" +

                                "</filter>  "+

                              "</entity>" +

                            "</fetch>";

            EntityCollection result = m_service.RetrieveMultiple(new FetchExpression(fetchxml));

            return result.Entities.Count;

            

        }

I hope this will help you to save some time and Happy CRM-ing.

Dynamics 365 - Business Process Flow and Things to take note before you upgrade into Dynamics 365.

In 2 months ago, my company decided to upgrade the Dynamics CRM 2016 into Dynamics 365 and there is something different about Dynamics 365 Business Process Flows and here are what you need to know so that you don't get trouble when it is your turn.

Before VS Now

Before

Previously when a BPF was started, all the information regarding the BPF was stored within the record itself.

1. ProcessId

•    ID of BPF

2. StageId

•    The ID of the BPF that was active.

3. TravesedPath

•     A comma separated string listing the GUIDs of curret path (StageId) of steps taken through the  BPF. 

Now

With Dynamics 365, the Business Process Flows (BPFs) are now created as Entity and stored as entity records. Instance details are no longer held as fields on the associated record.

1. Active Stage Id                
   - The ID of the BPF step that is active.
2. Activate Stage Started On
   - The Date Time that the current step was started on.
3. State & Status                  
   - Each BPF Instance has its own state that allows finishing and   abandoning before other BPF are run.
4. Process
   - The ID of the BPF.

BPFs Privilege

In Previous Version of CRM,  you have controlled which roles could access your BPF by clicking "Enable Security Role".

With Dynamics 365 , it has more flexibility to deal with security role.

Workflow within Business Process Flow

With Dynamics 365, you now able to attached workflow within Business Process Flow.

Parallel Business Process Flows

As parallel business feature is introduced in Dynamics 365,  users are allowed to work in same record with different Business Process Flows (BPFs) at the same time and the good news is switching BPFs no longer overwrites the previous active step , meaning that when you switch back to a precious started BPF and it will stay where you left them.

DEMO 

Now we created a record using User 1. As from the below picture, the BPF is using Opportunity Sale Process.

 Now opened the record as another user. The record shown as Opportunity Sales Process also.

Now we switched the process into Opportunity Sales Process 2 using another User.

The user who switched the process see Opportunity Sales Process 2

But, how about the User 1? The answer is Opportunity Sales Process.

oh.. By the way you can identify the BPF through here

Things to ask yourself and discuss with management before upgrade into Dynamics 365.

Is your company ready for this?

• please discuss with your management regarding this changes especially the parallel BPF feature.

No, my company does not want parallel BPF feature, are we able to turn off this feature?

• The answer is "No" !!!

is there any alternative ways to manipulate the parallel behavior ?

• The answer is "Yes" , but not a perfect solution at this moment.

Alternative Solution 

1. Create a plugin, under pre-validate stage, loop through the user, and run the context of user and switch the process programatically

• but what if your company has thousand of users ? which causing extremely slowness on performance as well as time consuming.
• Not recommended.

2. Create a plugin or workflow activity, trigger when user switch the process and check is there any other BPFs is running? if yes , delete them. But...

• you are no longer have the ability to switch to previous started BPF with correct stage. meaning it always go back to first stage.

3. Make sure your user abandon the process before switching to another process. When another user open the record and seeing the abandoned process, they should switch to the newly started active BPF.

• more clicks and most likely user will not take this solution into account.

Maybe there are more workarounds, but at the mean time my team and I only can think of these solutions . 

I hope this will help you to understand more about the new BPF feature in Dynamics 365 and Happy CRM-ing.