Power BI Template Apps - Power BI with Dataverse (D365) Part-2

 In my earlier blog I had written about connecting with PowerBI and Dataverse (D365) using the CDS or Dataverse connector. You can also use the Power BI template Apps that Microsoft has provided to see your Sales or Service data in PowerBI.com

As always there are pre-requisites for using the Apps. They are - 1. You need to have a Power BI - Pro license for all users who want to consume the app and also 2. Admin access to install the App and connect to D365.

So now that we have the requisite license and access let us install the template app. There are 3 D365 - Power BI template apps. They are shown below with demo data

1. Sales Analytics. https://tinyurl.com/88g43r2m

Sales Analytics Power BI App

2. Process Analytics: https://tinyurl.com/5ybgdqze

Process Analytics App

(I am not a fan of the background bluish color but that can be removed using PBI desktop as I have mentioned below)

3. Customer Service Analytics: https://tinyurl.com/3a2v2pmg

For this demo I was unable to get the demo data loaded in the app or connect the app to D365. This is from the Appstore -

Customer Service Analytics Power BI

I will write about the Sales Analytics App below -

1. Install - Go to https://tinyurl.com/88g43r2m  and click on Get it now (or in PowerBI.com go to Get Data and search for Sales Analytics app)

2. Once the app is installed you will see the App in PowerBI.com You will be able to see the App with demo data. You can also connect the App to your specific D365 / Dataverse instance. Once connected the D365 instance data will load into PowerBI.com

You get the below different reports in Sales Analytics App. 

3. You can than analyze the data in PowerBI or you can import the dashboard into D365. (I will write more about this in my later blogs)

4. The OOTB app does not have any custom tables and you will need to customize the App. This is now possible by downloading the Power BI report and importing the PBIX file into Power BI desktop.  Use the link below for downloading the Sales Analytics or Process Analytics Power BI report PBIX file.     

        https://tinyurl.com/1royw6my

5. Now you can add the custom tables and columns to the Power BI reports and create your own App.

I believe that the template apps are a very good starting point to use Power BI with Dataverse. Let me know if you have any questions or any other ideas of using Power BI with Dataverse / D365. 

Thanks for reading

@mihircrm / 365withoutcode

Whats New in April 19' update - Omni Channel Engagement Hub

This blog is part-1 of a series of blog on what I find is new and interesting in the April-19 update of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement.
Microsoft has provided a list of updated and new features in the April 2019 update release notes. I had written earlier about the Sales AI capabilities in Dynamics 365. This blog focus is on Customer Service and specifically the very new upcoming feature called Omni Channel Engagement Hub.

As the medium of social network is increasing, customers are demanding to communicate, connect and get response from organizations on any channel and from any device / location / time. This has challenged organizations big and small leading to a new breed of apps that help connecting with customers on non-traditional channels.

The challenge here is to integrate the new communication channels with existing Enterprise systems of engagement.

Microsoft has taken cognizance of this phenomenon and has introduced the Omni Channel Engagement Hub, which is a cloud based service to enable organizations to instantly connect and engage with their customers via channels like Live Chat and SMS. And there is an Dynamics 365 app, which helps Customer Service Agents to respond and engage with customers using those channels.

Agents can utilize the omni-channel Engagement Hub via Dynamics 365 online using the Unified Interface or by using Unified Service Desk (USD)

USD has the integration to the existing telephony system for Call Center operations. As the channels are new and not limited to just phone calls, it will now become a Contact Center operation.

There is built in dashboard for Supervisors to track and monitor the contact center productivity KPI's, Additionally Supervisors can consult and assist customer service agents in issue resolution.

With the April-19 release organization will be able to create their own chat bots which will be part of the Customer Service Virtual Agents using Microsoft Bot Framework.

The Omni Channel Hub integrates with D365 Customer Service Virtual Agent (Chat Bots). CS Virtual Agent will allow routing incoming chat requests to Virtual Agents (Chat Bots) in case of peak loads. If there is a necessity for escalation the discussion can be routed to a human agent with all prior details about the chat with customer.

Virtual Agent (Chat Bot)

So to give you a better idea for above - Consider a scenario
A bank is using Dynamics 365 Customer Service with the Omni Channel Engagement Hub and Virtual Agents (Chat Bots) it has created.
If a customer wants any information they can search the knowledge base as self service.
If they need further help they will be able to have a chat with the customer service virtual agent - the Chat Bot. Chat bot will use the data from Knowledge Articles created from similar cases to provide the information needed. If additional help is needed the discussion can be routed to a human agents queue giving the customer a seamless experience.

Routing of Chat 

I hope you are as excited as I am to get my hands on creating chat bots in Dynamics 365 without any code and transforming the customer experience. This is currently scheduled to be available in preview @ April 19'. We may just need to wait till it is out of preview and general available. Till than keep reading.

Mihir Shah
365WithoutCode

Increase Sales with Dynamics 365 AI for Sales - Part-1

This is part-1 of my blog series on AI with Dynamics 365. In my earlier blog I discussed about the need for systems of intelligence and how Microsoft has introduced a suite of AI apps with Dynamics 365. This blog is on Dynamics 365 AI for Sales.

Enterprise clients want a healthy sales pipeline with motivated sales force. It is vital to provide all necessary tools for the sales person, to be able to focus on the right leads and opportunities and close sales faster to deliver on sales targets. Dynamics 365 AI for Sales aims to do just that –

·       Help increase Sales – Business management

·       Analyze sales team performance – Team management

·       Get insights on Customer interaction – Call Intelligence

Dynamics 365 AI for Sales

Why use Dynamics 365 AI for Sales? – Large enterprises gets 1000’s of leads and opportunities from different channels and sources. They are all collected, cleansed and fed into a sales management system like Dynamics 365. The plethora of leads and opportunities can become overwhelming for a sales person, and it becomes difficult for the Sales team to focus their efforts on the important lead or opportunity and build the right customer relationship. 

Predictive Modelling - using Azure ML

Dynamics AI for Sales removes the manual guess work out of the Sales persons hand. It analyses the data within Dynamics 365 and Office 365 (exchange). It than uses Azure machine learning to creates a predictive model that scores and categorizes the leads and opportunities and identifies trends on a real time basis.
This provides indicators for the Sales team to identify the right lead and opportunity to meet their Sales goals.

Identifying trends

With the right information on the Opportunity or Lead such as the score, grade & trend is improving or declining – the Sales person and team can than work on it and get it to close faster. This will help increase the Lead qualification and Opportunity close rate and improving the overall business.

Initial observations –

1.       Dynamics 365 AI for Sales only works with data from Dynamics 365. So if you need to integrate data from multiple systems outside Dynamics 365 it may not be feasible.
2.        Requires a separate license and it is a different app. Users may not want to log into to multiple App. Though the data is also shown in Dynamics 365 – like the Lead / Opportunity scoring, grading and trends. But the AI app has some cool visualizations for management.
3.       It currently only collects data from the OOTB Sales entities – Leads, Opportunities, Goals etc. If you are using custom entities than they will not be used for the predictive modelling. Also if you are not using OOTB entities like Goals the app may not be that useful.
4.       The models cannot be customized as provided by AML. 

      Considering this is still in preview & version 1.0, I would expect it to only improve over time. My thoughts are, this is a good way of proving how you can integrate Dynamics 365, Office 365 & Azure ML and make an AI app to help the organization do more.

To achieve the above is not an easy task and needs understanding of the organization sales business process and Dynamics 365 Sales integration. Systems of intelligence cannot be built overnight and needs the underlying data from systems of engagement and systems of records. 

I hope this gives you a brief idea of the upcoming capabilities of Dynamics 365 AI for Sales. In my next blog I will write more about the implementation of Dynamics 365 AI for Sales. Keep reading.

Mihir Shah

365WithoutCode

Dynamics 365 AI - Systems of Intelligence

Microsoft has introduced a suite of AI apps with Dynamics 365. This blog talks about Apps for AI as the new systems of intelligence.

Enterprise journey to intelligence -

The earlier enterprise applications were called Systems of Records - This were the Operations , Accounting / finance and HR applications used to record sales transactions, do accounting and process payroll. This formed the traditional ERP business apps.
As the Customer became recognized as King (or Queen for that matter) new Systems of Engagement were created for acquiring, winning and keeping the customer with the business, the CRM apps of Marketing, Sales and Customer Service.
Now that we have had both the Systems of records and Systems of Engagement the need was to combine the data that was collected and gain intellectual insights. Additionally technology has enabled us to train machines (develop algorithms) to recognize patterns in the data, learn and predict possible future outcomes and take actions from the insights thus evolving into AI.  Now we have what is called the Systems of Intelligence in the form of Machine Learning and AI.

Apps in Dynamics 365 -

There are mainly 3 types of applications (or apps) that you can purchase with Dynamics 365 - Business apps, AI apps & Mixed Reality apps. 
The business apps consists of -
1. Customer Engagement - The traditional CRM - Sales / Customer Service and Marketing suite
2. Finance & Operations - ERP suite
3. Retail - Point of Sale solution
4. Talent - HR solution

Dynamics 365 AI

Now Microsoft has added intelligence & made it more interesting by bringing in the Dynamics 365 AI apps
1. AI for Sales
2. AI for Customer Service insights
3. AI for Marketing Insights
The Apps for AI are built to be integrated with the Sales, Marketing and Customer Service apps. They add intelligence to the data collected, stored and processed within the business apps. Integrate the Apps with other Microsoft solutions - Office 365, Power Apps and Power BI... and the possibilities for transforming your business with intelligence becomes very real.

Design for AI -
Looking back when we were designing and developing the Systems of Records the focus was on management & exception reporting to get a 360 view of business. With Systems of Engagement the focus changed to 360 view of the Customer.
Today as you are building new applications for the future - remember to incorporate and design for AI. The Systems of Intelligence will be those that -
1. provide actionable insights
2. are cognitive and self learning
3. reinforce human intelligence

I am assured that the new Dynamics 365 AI apps are the beginning of the Systems of Intelligence and the road ahead is as exciting as it is challenging.

I will write more as I get my hands dirty with the Dynamics 365 apps for AI. Thanks for reading.

Mihir Shah
365WithoutCode

Integrating Teams with Dynamics 365 - Part-II

This is the 2nd part of my blog on Teams and Dynamics 365. In Part-1, I discussed about Teams and Office 365 apps. This blog will show how to integrate Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement with Teams.

Teams is integrated with Office 365 Apps. Creating a team also creates a SharePoint team site and also an Office 365 group for the team, which can be accessed from Outlook. As discussed in my earlier blog, Team consists of Channels and all communications and collaboration is done within the Channel. You can add a tab to the channel to show records from other Apps like Dynamics 365 and GitHub.

Teams will be useful for users to form groups to discuss, collaborate, share and do meetings together. It helps the team members to have one go to location for all messaging, documents, notes, design and meetings.

For example I have created a Team called Big Deal Opportunity. Within the team is the Bids and proposal Channel. I want to link my channel with the Dynamics Account - Bob the Builder so I have all the up to date info about the Account and Opportunity in  one place where the team is working together for bidding and proposal development.

1. On the channel select the '+' sign to add a Tab. Search for Dynamics and select Dynamics 365 - preview (Note - The Dynamics 365 integration is in preview and needs to be enabled in Dynamics 365 > Settings > Preview tab)

Add an App to Team

2. Select Org and Entity - If you have multiple environments it will ask you to select the Dynamics Org and also the Unified Interface App.

Select Org and App

Note -
1. Only Dynamics 365 v9 and above will work for Team integration
2. Only Unified Interface Apps will work. Not Web Client.

3. Select Entity and Record - The last step is to select the entity (Account) and the record.

Select entity and record

Once you are done a new tab will be added to the Team channel and it show the record in the Tab itself.

Account Tab in Teams

As you can see now the team can get all the info from the Dynamics 365 Account record (or any other record) on to the Team Tab.

Another good integration for Teams, is with One Note. I added a One Note Tab  on the Channel, which the Team can view and work on as they collaborate.

One Note Tab in Teams

I hope the above help you to integrate Teams with Dynamics 365. Thanks for reading.

Mihir Shah
@mihircrm
365WithoutCode

Dynamics 365 & Enterprise Design Thinking - Delivering Dynamics 365 Part-1

This is part-1 of a multi series blog about Delivering Dynamics 365 online (CRM) in the Enterprise. Microsoft Dynamics is now the business application platform of choice for Enterprises who are doing Digital Transformation projects. Dynamics 365 in conjunction with Azure and Office 365 is a strategy tool that Enterprise can depend, build upon and deliver long term business growth models with confidence. 
At IBM, Enterprise Design Thinking is helping project teams to deliver better experiences at scale. I will discuss its use in conjunction with Agile and how it helps in Dynamics 365 project implementations.

Enterprise Design Thinking @ IBM

1. Why Enterprise Design Thinking  - Dynamics 365 is a multi-faceted platform that can, in enterprises, be used for Sales / Customer Service / Marketing / Custom business process / Portals... When selecting the optimum business application where Dynamics 365 will be most useful, it is critical to identify the right problem to solve. There are 2 steps to be followed for the success of an Enterprise project.

• Step-1 Doing the right project. - There can be multiple strategy / tactical options for an Enterprise to select from when planning for Digital Transformation. Due to budget, time and resource constraints (the eternal project constraints) management has to select the right strategy option / program for the organization. Enterprise design thinking is an approach to identify the strategic goals that will deliver the best outcomes for the user and customer.
• Step-2 Doing the project right - Once the right project / program is selected and the goals / hills are identified, the design and delivery of the project (doing it right) is where Agile project implementation really makes a difference.

Enterprise Design Thinking helps in identifying the problem to solve focusing on user outcomes. So every major project (where feasible) should begin with Enterprise Design Thinking approach to define the project hills (goals).

2. How does it work for Dynamics 365? - Enterprise Design Thinking is based on set of principles - Some of the key concepts are 

1. Focus on user outcomes - This is to enable the future users of Dynamics 365 to make a substantial difference in how they do their current work for their customers. The challenges faced by the users are highlighted and a future outcome is envisioned. The 'aha' moment in delighting the customer is defined as Hills (goals).
2. Team work -  People from different areas come together as a team to collaborate. They work together, develop mutual respect, trust and ideate. In Dynamics 365 we have multiple teams working together like - Dev, QA, business users, BA's, integration... They need to be guided with the same goal. The hills identified become the guiding star that everyone looks upto as a team when working on the project. There are many tools / artificats in Design Thinking process that help the team to collaborate, think and reflect together. 
3. Relentlessly reinvent - This is the iterative cycle of improvement. As we design and deliver solutions for better user outcomes, the process of feedback can help improve and provide an even better solution.  It is also key to consider everything as a prototype and deliver solutions faster in an iterative manner. Dynamics 365 / Power Apps helps to design and present prototype to business users in a short time so that they can get a quick view of the proposed solution. Any feedback can be incorporated in the early design stage.

In an Enterprise Dynamics 365 project we worked on, the team first went through the Enterprise Design Thinking process, where we collaborate, ideate and identify the hills (aha moment). One of the hills identified, was chosen as a goal for the first phase of the project. That became our guiding north star which we used to stay on track and help deliver the project using agile methodology.

Agile and Enterprise Design Thinking have lot of similarities and when used in conjunction they help business in envisioning, designing and consistently delivering better solutions. 

Do let me know about your experience with Design Thinking. In my next blog (part-2) I will write about the agile implementation process for delivering Dynamics 365. Thank you for reading.

Mihir Shah

Approvals for Dynamics 365 using Microsoft Flow

One of the business requirement which I have encountered is to provide an ability to approve or reject a request (for example lead or Opportunity) in an email without having to open Dynamics 365.

This is now possible using Approvals in Microsoft Flow. Below is an example.

Business scenario – When a lead is created in Dynamics 365, send an Approval email to user/s. Provide some details of the lead in the email. Once the user approves or rejects the lead, capture the response with the comments in Dynamics 365.

   

        I have setup the following environments –

a.       Dynamics 365

b.       Microsoft Flow

c.       Outlook online - Office 365

     Create a new Approval flow with Dynamics 365. In this example an approval email is sent when a Lead is created. I have connected to the demo org and selected the Lead entity.

Flow trigger - When a lead is created

Next step is to create the Approval.  The approval sends an email to the approver with a link to the record and some details info. The approver can review the email, approve or reject the record from within the email and add comments to it.

Approval email config

When a Lead is created in Dynamics 365 the approval is triggered and it sends an email to the person/s who need to approve. The email is shown below. The email is from Microsoft. I am not sure if this can be modified. The body of the email is as configured and shown below

email body

The approver can select Approve or Reject from within the email and also add comments.

The next step is to set a condition for updating the response into Dynamics 365. I have added the condition below. I have also added 2 custom fields to the Lead entity to store the response in the Lead record.

Conditional action

If approved I want the Lead record to be updated with the response and comments.

Update lead

I can also add a condition if the Approver rejects to update the lead with the response and comments.

Here is the end result with the Lead entity record updated in Dynamics 365.

Lead record updated

Microsoft has provided ability to track the run history and performance of the flow with Power BI analytics.

Run performance

This is a simple way to perform Approvals in Dynamics 365 using Microsoft Flow. I hope this helps you to try the Approvals and let me know your experience with it. 

What's new in Dynamics 365 Spring 2018 - Sales

Microsoft has released the latest version of Dynamics 365 applications for Spring 2018. This blog talks about what’s new in the Sales application. 

OOTB there are 2 apps for Sales process in Dynamics 365 – Sales app on the old web client interface and Sales Hub app on the new Unified interface. Sales applications has the following new features –

1. Unified Interface – With Spring 2018 release all the core sales business process entities are on the Sales Hub - new unified interface framework. This includes – Account / Contact / Lead / Opportunity / Competitors / Quote / Invoice / Product / Goals / Sales Literature…

The following apps and integrations are also on the Unified Interface framework

a.       Dynamics 365 App for Outlook

b.       Linked-In Sales Navigator integration

c.       Gamification

It may be important to note that there are some known issues with the new Unified interface framework. You can get more details in this link - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/admin/readme-9#sales-hub-and-customer-service-hub-apps-

Below is an example of the Opportunity form in the Sales Hub app on unified Interface with custom control added to the Probability and Budget amount fields.

Opportunity - Unified Interface form with custom controls

      2. Embedded intelligence – The Sales apps have embedded intelligence capability which enables the Sales person to focus on Sales by providing the necessary actions. 

      The embedded intelligence -

a.       Collects, manages and analyzes the diverse data and communication during the entire sales process

b.       Automatically captures activities and suggests relevant actions to the Sales person

The components of embedded intelligence in the Sales app include – Relationship assistant, auto capture and email engagement. In my demo environment the intelligence configuration was still in the Settings > preview tab as shown below.

Intelligence configuration

The embedded intelligence functionality scans and analyzes the data in Dynamics 365 and Microsoft exchange and generates insights. The insights are shows in the form of Action cards to the user at an appropriate time as configured in the system. There are 10 base cards that can be enabled with the Relationship assistant as shown below - 

Base action cards

In addition to the Base cards there are additional enhanced cards the can be enabled and configured. 

Enhanced Cards

3. Enhanced integration with Linked In Sales Navigator – Linked In Sales Navigator is a online monthly service provided by LinkedIn / Microsoft.

If you have a Team or Enterprise license for Linked In Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365 license you can integrate them to work together. Integration is through a managed solution provided by LinkedIn / Microsoft in the Apps marketplace. 

You can get a free trial from here - https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/dynamics-365/linkedin.0cb76fe0-d453-4edb-a68c-65fb9119493a?tab=Overview

Sales Navigator

The enhanced integration enables the Sales person to seamlessly work between Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365 and enables the following –

·       Allows users to search and lookup people LinkedIn profile, photo and work history from within Dynamics 365 using a widget in the form

·       Find new leads directly in Dynamics with Lead Recommendations

·       Get Account & Lead Updates including news mentions and job changes when viewing accounts in Dynamics

·       Send InMail, messages, and customized connection requests from within Dynamics

4. Sales / Relationship Insights – This is a new feature (in preview) introduced in Spring 2018 release. This feature can be enabled from within Dynamics 365. 

Relationship Insights

This leverages the data integration within Dynamics 365, Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange and Artificial Intelligence capability to derive insights to help the Sales person to better prioritize customers, leads and opportunities and improve their relationship health. (I will be writing another blog to detail this soon)

I hope this gets you started to try out the new features in Dynamics 365 – Spring 2018 release for Sales. Please do let me know your questions and experience with the new capabilities. 

Thanks for reading.

Mihir Shah

365WithoutCode

What’s new in Dynamics 365 v9.0 – Part-1 User Experience enhancements

Microsoft has recently announced the release of Dynamics 365 v9.0. This blog focusses on the new enhancements to Dynamics 365 (D365) Customer Engagement applications including – Sales / Customer Service / Field Service / Project Service Automation.  This is a major release from Microsoft and also it was much awaited. I had the opportunity to be part of the preview program and got to test out some of the new functionalities and enhancements.

The Part-1 of this blog is on enhancements to the User Experience.

New form design for v9.0

       D365 v9 has vastly improved user experience with a new form design, tabs and consistent spacing. One of the pet peeve of many clients was the amount of white space on forms. This version aims to reduce / eliminates the white space as shown above and detailed below.

a.      The forms are now divided into containers for content display. There is a border along each container

b.      The spacing of sections and fields is standardized and the fonts on the form are standardized

c.      There are horizontal tabs and buttons, making it easier for a touch enabled experience

d.      The empty sections have a default message for the user

e.      The colors of the sub-grid can be customized (example - Recent Cases). 

Add color to Sub-grid on a form

f.   There is a new system wide setting for text wrap that Admin can enable or disable.

Text wrapping feature

g.    There are now 3 standard themes to select from – Customization > Themes

New themes

h.      Search – Advanced find now has the “Does not equal” operator. For example - I want to find all contacts which are not in the State of NY.

"Not-In" operator

Let me know your feedback on the new user experience enhancement. In my next part of this blog, I will write about the other enhancements in v9. Thanks for reading.

Mihir Shah