https://alexanderdevelopment.net/tag/process-automation/Recent content in process-automation on Alexander DevelopmentHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usMon, 12 Mar 2018 15:00:00 +0000https://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/2016/09/19/updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows/Mon, 19 Sep 2016 21:07:07 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/09/19/updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows/About three years ago I released an open source Dynamics CRM solution for scheduling and executing recurring workflows. My solution would execute a FetchXML query to return a set of records and then start a workflow for each of those records without requiring any external processes or tools. This is a generalized approach to solving a class of problems that includes the following scenarios:https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2014/01/16/working-with-key-value-pair-data-inside-microsoft-dynamics-crm-workflows-part-2/Thu, 16 Jan 2014 18:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2014/01/16/working-with-key-value-pair-data-inside-microsoft-dynamics-crm-workflows-part-2/In my last post I discussed how key-value pair data can be used to store configuration-related items in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and I also showed a design for an entity to store key-value pair data. In today’s post I will show how to retrieve and consume the data inside a workflow using a custom workflow activity.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2014/01/14/working-with-key-value-pair-data-inside-microsoft-dynamics-crm-workflows/Tue, 14 Jan 2014 18:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2014/01/14/working-with-key-value-pair-data-inside-microsoft-dynamics-crm-workflows/Dynamics CRM workflows are a great way to enable business processes, and with the real-time capabilities introduced in CRM 2013 they can replace plug-ins in many scenarios. One significant drawback that workflows do have, though, is they lack the ability to easily retrieve and work with data from inside Dynamics CRM that is not related to their primary entities.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/07/24/data-snapshot-framework-for-dynamics-crm/Wed, 24 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/07/24/data-snapshot-framework-for-dynamics-crm/Although Dynamics CRM offers several different ways to report on data stored in the system, there is no out-of-the-box mechanism for reporting on how data changes over time. That is to say, while you can easily report on how many active accounts are owned by a particular sales rep today, you can’t report on how the number of active account compares to last week, last month or even just yesterday.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/06/03/creating-a-dynamic-dialog-launcher-menu-for-dynamics-crm-fetchxml-style-2/Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/06/03/creating-a-dynamic-dialog-launcher-menu-for-dynamics-crm-fetchxml-style-2/Last month I wrote a post about how to create a web resource dialog “launcher” that you can embed in a CRM form (both classic and updated modes) with JavaScript and an OData query. In today’s post, I will show how to do the same thing using a FetchXML query. There are four changes you need to make to the web resource from the previous post.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/05/19/scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows-with-fetchxml/Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/05/19/scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows-with-fetchxml/In today’s post I will show how to set up a recurring process in Dynamics CRM that executes a FetchXML query to return a set of records and then starts a workflow for each of those records without requiring any external processes or tools. This is a generalized approach to solving a class of problems that includes the following scenarios:https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/05/17/creating-a-dynamic-dialog-launcher-menu-for-dynamics-crm/Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/05/17/creating-a-dynamic-dialog-launcher-menu-for-dynamics-crm/I love Dynamics CRM dialogs. In fact, I think they are one of the best features of CRM 2011. What I don’t like about dialogs is how the user has to run them when working with a entity record. On a “classic” mode form, the user has to go to the ribbon, click start dialog and then find the dialog in a list.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/04/21/sending-sms-messages-and-making-robocalls-from-dynamics-crm/Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2013/04/21/sending-sms-messages-and-making-robocalls-from-dynamics-crm/In this post I will show how to send SMS messages and make automated phone calls from Dynamics CRM using Tropo, a cloud voice and SMS messaging API. Tropo is not the only player in this space, but I think it has the best set of features, and it’s completely free to use in development.