https://alexanderdevelopment.net/tag/dynamics-365/Recent content in dynamics-365 on Alexander DevelopmentHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usThu, 05 Jul 2018 17:28:47 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/07/05/building-a-custom-dynamics-365-data-interface-with-openfaas/Thu, 05 Jul 2018 17:28:47 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/07/05/building-a-custom-dynamics-365-data-interface-with-openfaas/Over the past several months, I’ve been doing a lot of work with OpenFaaS in my spare time, and in today’s post I will show how you can use it to easily build and deploy a custom web service interface for data in a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement online tenant.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/05/28/using-dynamics-365-virtual-entities-to-show-data-from-an-external-organization/Mon, 28 May 2018 12:55:09 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/05/28/using-dynamics-365-virtual-entities-to-show-data-from-an-external-organization/I was recently asked to be a guest on the third-anniversary episode of the CRM Audio podcast. While I was there George Doubinski challenged me to create a plugin in one Dynamics 365 organization to retrieve records from another Dynamics 365 organization so they could be displayed as virtual entities. I was promised adulation on Dynamics CRM Tip of the Day and fame beyond my wildest dreams, so naturally I accepted.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/05/19/an-azure-ad-oauth2-helper-microservice/Sat, 19 May 2018 16:45:38 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/05/19/an-azure-ad-oauth2-helper-microservice/One of the biggest trends in systems architecture these days is the use of “serverless” functions like Azure Functions, Amazon Lambda and OpenFaas. Because these functions are stateless, if you want to use a purely serverless approach to work with resources secured using Azure Active Directory like Dynamics 365 online, a new token will have to be requested every time a function executes.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/03/17/setting-values-in-a-dynamics-365-ce-quick-create-form-from-the-main-form/Sat, 17 Mar 2018 21:39:19 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/03/17/setting-values-in-a-dynamics-365-ce-quick-create-form-from-the-main-form/Earlier this week I was asked to populate a field in a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement quick create form with a value from a field on the main form. Unfortunately, the main form would not be saved at the time the quick create form was opened, so the value couldn’t be read from the database.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/03/12/updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows-2/Mon, 12 Mar 2018 15:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/03/12/updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows-2/I’ve released an updated version of my recurring workflow scheduler for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. This solution targets Dynamics 365 version 9, so it should work in all current Dynamics 365 online organizations. You can download version 1.3 of my solution from here: https://github.com/lucasalexander/AlexanderDevelopment.ProcessRunner/releases/tag/v1.3. For more information on the use of this tool, take a look at the original blog posts:https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/02/08/disable-enable-dynamics-365-ce-users-with-ssis-kingswaysoft/Thu, 08 Feb 2018 19:01:01 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/02/08/disable-enable-dynamics-365-ce-users-with-ssis-kingswaysoft/Recently I was asked to set up a process to automatically disable or re-enable Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement users depending on some external data. This ended up being ridiculously easy to do with SSIS and KingswaySoft’s Dynamics 365 Integration Toolkit. Let me show you how it works. In Dynamics 365 CE, you can disable or enable a user record just by setting the value of its “isdisabled” attribute to true or false, so both my disable user data flow and re-enable user data flow do roughly the same thing.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/02/08/building-a-simple-service-relay-for-dynamics-365-ce-with-rabbitmq-and-python-part-4/Thu, 08 Feb 2018 04:00:42 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/02/08/building-a-simple-service-relay-for-dynamics-365-ce-with-rabbitmq-and-python-part-4/This is the final post in my series about building a service relay for Dynamics 365 CE with RabbitMQ and Python. In my previous post in this series, I showed the Python code to make the service relay work. In today’s post, I will show how you can use Azure Functions to make a consumer service proxy using C# so client applications don’t have to access to your RabbitMQ broker directly, and I will also discuss some general thoughts on security and scalability for this service relay architecture.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/02/05/building-a-simple-service-relay-for-dynamics-365-ce-with-rabbitmq-and-python-part-3/Mon, 05 Feb 2018 17:57:29 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/02/05/building-a-simple-service-relay-for-dynamics-365-ce-with-rabbitmq-and-python-part-3/In my last post in this series, I walked through the prerequisites for building a simple service relay for Dynamics 365 CE with RabbitMQ and Python. In today’s post I will show the Python code to make the service relay work. As I described in the first post in this series, this approach relies on a consumer process and a queue listener process that can both access a RabbitMQ message broker.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/02/02/building-a-simple-service-relay-for-dynamics-365-ce-with-rabbitmq-and-python-part-2/Fri, 02 Feb 2018 03:24:51 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/02/02/building-a-simple-service-relay-for-dynamics-365-ce-with-rabbitmq-and-python-part-2/In my last post in this series, I outlined an approach for building a simple service relay with RabbitMQ and Python to easily expose an on-premises Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement organization to external consumers. In this post I will walk through the prerequisites for building this out. I’m assuming you have access to a Dynamics 365 CE organization, so I’m going to skip the setup for that and focus on just RabbitMQ and Python today.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/31/relaying-external-queries-to-on-premise-dynamics-365-ce-orgs-with-rabbitmq-and-python/Wed, 31 Jan 2018 01:01:10 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/31/relaying-external-queries-to-on-premise-dynamics-365-ce-orgs-with-rabbitmq-and-python/Integrating with external systems is a common requirement in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement projects, but when the project involves an on-premises instance of Dynamics 365, routing requests from external systems through your firewall can present an additional challenge. Over the course of the next few posts, I will show you can easily build a simple service relay with RabbitMQ and Python to handle inbound requests from external data interface consumers.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/16/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-4/Tue, 16 Jan 2018 23:12:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/16/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-4/I’ve released an updated version of my popular Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover utility that was built with .Net 4.7 to address the new requirement to use TLS 1.2 (or better) for connections to Dynamics 365 online instances as described in this entry on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 team blog: https://blogs.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/15/connecting-to-an-on-premise-dynamics-365-org-from-python/Mon, 15 Jan 2018 14:58:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/15/connecting-to-an-on-premise-dynamics-365-org-from-python/I’ve previously showed how to access online and IFD instances of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement from Python code. Because that sample code authenticated to the Web API using OAuth, it won’t work with on-premises instances. Recently I’ve been doing some work with Python and an on-premises Dynamics 365 organization, so I thought I’d share a sample that shows how to authenticate to the Web API using NTLM.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/08/using-proxy-connections-with-the-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover/Mon, 08 Jan 2018 15:16:49 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/08/using-proxy-connections-with-the-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover/I was recently asked to add a feature to my Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover to enable connections through a proxy server. Because the tool is a .Net application, proxy server connections can be configured directly in the AlexanderDevelopmentConfigDataMover.exe.config file. For example, if you want to use the default Internet Explorer proxy settings, just add the following values inside the element:https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/12/28/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-3/Thu, 28 Dec 2017 17:53:33 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/12/28/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-3/Several months ago I discussed an approach for passing notifications from local applications to the Dynamics 365 web client through a message listener process that runs on an end user’s PC and shared some sample code for how to implement it. Recently I used this approach to establish communication between Dynamics 365 web resources and a fingerprint reader attached to a local PC.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/11/28/creating-many-to-many-associations-with-the-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover/Tue, 28 Nov 2017 20:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/11/28/creating-many-to-many-associations-with-the-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover/I’ve released an updated version of my popular Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover utility that includes the ability to create many-to-many associations in the target system. This upgrade is fully compatible with existing job files. To create a many-to-many job step in the GUI, select the new “many to many” step type and input a FetchXML query for the relationship entity (relationship entity name on the many-to-many relationship form) that includes the GUID fields for each entity.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/09/12/running-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-jobs-in-vsts-builds/Tue, 12 Sep 2017 12:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/09/12/running-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-jobs-in-vsts-builds/In today’s post I will show how to use my Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover utility for synchronizing configuration data between CRM orgs as part of a Visual Studio Team Services build. Download the latest version of the Configuration Data Mover utility’s CLI tool from my repository on GitHub here: https://github.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/09/11/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-2/Mon, 11 Sep 2017 17:17:17 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/09/11/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-2/I’ve released an updated version of my popular Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover utility that includes the following features: Path to source and target JSON data files can now be absolute or relative to current working directory. This is particularly useful for running the CLI tool in an automated fashion. Location of job configuration file can be passed to CLI tool as absolution or relative path.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/08/09/running-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-jobs-in-azure-functions/Wed, 09 Aug 2017 19:13:58 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/08/09/running-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-jobs-in-azure-functions/My Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover utility allows you to run synchronization jobs from an interactive GUI tool or the command line, but the actual data synchronization logic is contained in a separate AlexanderDevelopment.ConfigDataMover.Lib.dll file that can be included in other applications. In today’s post I will show how you can set up an Azure Function to execute a Configuration Data Mover job file to sync data between two Dynamics 365 organizations.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/21/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-2/Fri, 21 Jul 2017 12:30:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/21/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-2/In part one of this series, I discussed an approach for passing notifications from local applications to the Dynamics 365 web client through a message listener process that runs on an end user’s PC. Today I will show the code I used to build the message listener and the code to consume notifications in Dynamics 365.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/19/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-1/Wed, 19 Jul 2017 23:16:41 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/19/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-1/One problem that comes up from time to time on Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement projects is how to receive notifications from an application running on a user’s local PC. Although the Unified Service Desk (USD) interface supports a variety of ways for Dynamics 365 to interact with local applications, the out-of-the-box web interface does not.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/12/updated-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-to-support-new-online-regions/Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:17:30 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/12/updated-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-to-support-new-online-regions/About two weeks ago a commenter mentioned that my Configuration Data Mover wasn’t working with UK Dynamics 365 online organizations that had been created since the change to the orgname.crm11.dynamics.com URL structure. I’ve released a new version with an updated SDK reference that has resolved the issue. If you are using an older version of the data mover and you are working with online orgs in a new region, you may want to go ahead and upgrade to the latest version here.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/10/automatically-executing-http-post-requests-in-dynamics-365-iframes-part-2/Mon, 10 Jul 2017 21:48:55 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/10/automatically-executing-http-post-requests-in-dynamics-365-iframes-part-2/Several months ago, I wrote a post that showed how to automatically display the results of an HTTP POST request inside a Dynamics 365 iframe. I was working on a project last week where I was tried to use that approach, but I ran into some problems, so today I will present an updated approach.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/06/23/another-approach-to-complex-dynamics-365-text-interfaces-using-kingswaysoft-and-xslt/Fri, 23 Jun 2017 17:30:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/06/23/another-approach-to-complex-dynamics-365-text-interfaces-using-kingswaysoft-and-xslt/Last week I posted an approach for generating complex text files from Dynamics 365 with KingswaySoft and XSLT that uses a custom script component to apply an XSL transformation to an XML document generated with the the SSIS XML merge component from the KingswaySoft SSIS productivity pack. After I shared that post, Daniel Cai at KingswaySoft told me the premium derived column component in the SSIS productivity pack can also be used to apply the XSL transformation.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/06/15/generating-complex-text-files-with-kingswaysoft-and-xslt/Thu, 15 Jun 2017 12:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/06/15/generating-complex-text-files-with-kingswaysoft-and-xslt/Recently I needed to build an SSIS package that would generate a delimited text file with multiple sets of related (but different entity) Dynamics 365 records combined in a single grouping. Each record would be on a separate row (with different formats for each record type), and each grouping of related records would have its own header and trailer rows.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/06/13/real-time-dynamics-365-data-integrations-with-ssis-kingswaysoft/Tue, 13 Jun 2017 12:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/06/13/real-time-dynamics-365-data-integrations-with-ssis-kingswaysoft/I’m a big fan of KingswaySoft’s Dynamics 365 SSIS integration toolkit for moving data between Dynamics 365 and other systems. Because the integrations are run in SSIS packages, there’s a lot of power and flexibility, and you can use SQL Server Agent to orchestrate your integration jobs. This is great for scheduled jobs, but what do you do if you need to trigger a job based on activity in Dynamics 365?https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/03/22/updated-version-of-dynamics-365-crm-deployment-wizard/Wed, 22 Mar 2017 20:15:15 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/03/22/updated-version-of-dynamics-365-crm-deployment-wizard/I’ve released an updated version of my Dynamics CRM Deployment Wizard that supports Dynamics 365. The Deployment Wizard is designed to automate your solution deployments much like the SDK’s Dynamics CRM Package Deployer, but while the SDK tool requires you to build a deployment package using Visual Studio, my Deployment Wizard tool only requires you to create a simple JSON manifest file.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/03/17/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-1/Fri, 17 Mar 2017 21:33:47 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/03/17/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-1/I’ve released an updated version of my popular CRM Configuration Data Mover utility that includes the following features: Steps can now be set as create-only, update-only or create+update. You can browse to data files using a standard file open dialog window. This upgrade is fully compatible with existing job files.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/27/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v2-0-1-2/Mon, 27 Feb 2017 22:35:20 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/27/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v2-0-1-2/I’ve released an updated version of my popular CRM Configuration Data Mover utility that fixes a small annoyance in the previous version where you could open multiple instances of the set connection, about and check for upgrade windows. This upgrade is fully compatible with existing job files. ####Getting the Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Moverhttps://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/23/working-with-dynamics-365-lookup-data-in-powerapps/Thu, 23 Feb 2017 23:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/23/working-with-dynamics-365-lookup-data-in-powerapps/One of the main problems I have with PowerApps at present is that it doesn’t nicely support Dynamics 365 lookup fields out of the box. Today I will show how I’ve worked around its limitations to make Dynamics 365 lookup fields easily viewable and editable in PowerApps. For today’s demonstration, I’ve created two custom entities in a Dynamics 365 online environment:https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/19/dynamics-365-and-python-integration-using-the-web-api-part-2/Sun, 19 Feb 2017 21:15:02 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/19/dynamics-365-and-python-integration-using-the-web-api-part-2/Last week I wrote a post that showed how to update Dynamics 365 data from a Node.js application using the Web API. Today I will share equivalent Python code. This code builds on my Dynamics 365 and Python integration using the Web API post from last year, so if you haven’t read that yet, please take a look before you proceed.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/16/dynamics-365-and-node-js-integration-using-the-web-api-part-2/Thu, 16 Feb 2017 17:05:52 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/16/dynamics-365-and-node-js-integration-using-the-web-api-part-2/Last year I wrote a post that showed how to retrieve data from a Dynamics 365 Online organization in a Node.js application using the Web API. Today I will share sample code that shows how to update data from a Node.js application using the Web API. ####Updating a single property To update a single property on a record in Dynamics 365, you can make a PUT request to the Web API.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/05/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-0/Sun, 05 Feb 2017 04:31:37 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/05/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-0/I’ve released an updated version of my popular CRM Configuration Data Mover utility. This version now supports Dynamics 365 and has an updated GUI built with Windows Presentation Foundation that replaces the previous Windows Forms GUI. Jobs that were created with earlier versions of the tool will work with this version, but you will have to update your CRM connection parameters to specify the authorization type - Active Directory, IFD or Office 365.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/12/10/executing-dynamics-365-workflows-from-microsoft-flow/Sat, 10 Dec 2016 19:34:51 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/12/10/executing-dynamics-365-workflows-from-microsoft-flow/The only Dynamics 365 actions that Microsoft Flow offers right now are “create a new record” and “list records,” but with just a bit of additional effort it’s possible to access all the capabilities of the Web API. Today I will show how to create a Microsoft Flow that queries a set of accounts and executes a workflow for each one.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/30/scheduling-dynamics-365-workflows-with-azure-functions-and-csharp/Wed, 30 Nov 2016 02:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/30/scheduling-dynamics-365-workflows-with-azure-functions-and-csharp/Over the past few days, I’ve shared two approaches for scheduling Dynamics 365 workflows using Azure Functions and the Dynamics 365 Web API. One uses Node.js, and the other uses Python. Because most Dynamics CRM developers are probably more familiar with C# than Node.js or Python, I also created an equivalent C# version.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/29/scheduling-dynamics-365-workflows-with-azure-functions-and-python/Tue, 29 Nov 2016 12:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/29/scheduling-dynamics-365-workflows-with-azure-functions-and-python/Last week I shared a solution for Scheduling Dynamics 365 workflows with Azure Functions and Node.js. In this post, I will show how to achieve equivalent functionality using Python. The actual Python code is simpler than my Node.js example, but the Azure Functions configuration is much more complicated. First, here’s the Python script I am using.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/27/dynamics-365-and-python-integration-using-the-web-api/Sun, 27 Nov 2016 15:12:31 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/27/dynamics-365-and-python-integration-using-the-web-api/A few days back I wrote a post that showed an easy way to set up Dynamics 365 and Node.js integration using the Web API. Here is Python code that demonstrates equivalent functionality to query contacts and display their information: import requests import json #set these values to retrieve the oauth token crmorg = 'https://CRMORG.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/25/scheduling-dynamics-365-workflows-with-azure-functions/Fri, 25 Nov 2016 17:00:03 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/25/scheduling-dynamics-365-workflows-with-azure-functions/Earlier this week I showed an easy way to integrate a Node.js application with Dynamics 365 using the Web API. Building on that example, I have created a scheduled workflow runner using Node.js and Azure Functions. Here’s how I did it. First, I created a workflow in Dynamics 365 that creates a note on an account record.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/23/dynamics-365-and-node-js-integration-using-the-web-api/Wed, 23 Nov 2016 16:17:09 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/11/23/dynamics-365-and-node-js-integration-using-the-web-api/I wrote a blog post in early 2015 that showed how to access the Dynamics CRM organization data service from a Node.js application. Today I will show an easy way to retrieve data from a Dynamics 365 Online organization in a Node.js application using the Web API. Unlike the CRM organization service, the Dynamics 365 Web API does not allow you to authenticate directly with a user name and password.