Author: Andrew Ly (Page 9 of 11)

Microsoft Business Applications MVP, based out of Adelaide Australia.

Connected Field Services – May Dynamics 365 ADELAIDE User Group

May 18, 2017 / Andrew Ly

Hi There

Imagine you run a café and one of your coffee machines is about to fail, but you have no idea. You get a call from your supplier who monitors the machines and informs you that not only is the machine at risk of imminent failure, but has been performing below-par for a few days. They offer to service the machine and you’re able to schedule a service call on the spot, within a 2 hour window of your choosing. A day before, you receive an SMS reminding you of the service call. On the day, you receive another SMS when the technician is on their way. On arrival, the technician has all the details and spare parts they need, performs the service quickly and even has time to demonstrate optimal configuration of the machine to prolong its life. You electronically sign off the work, and receive an invoice via email by COB that day.

This story describes Connected Field Services; a world where IoT sensors, cloud, big data, predictive analytics, CRM and mobile come together to create amazing customer experiences.

Please join us at the May Dynamics 365 User Group where Mark Giles from Empired will demo connected field services. And he’ll even test is relationship with the ‘demo gods’ by showing something live.

Please click here to register and we hope to see you there.

MB2-715 customer engagement Online Deployment study tips by 365lyf (Andrew Ly)

May 18, 2017 / Andrew Ly

Today’s blog is about preparation tips for the MB2-715 customer engagement Online Deployment certification exam. I wanted to share my thoughts and study preparation tips with you as I know at this time many of you are looking to attain your MCSA or MCSE:BA Dynamics 365 badge for which this exam is a mandatory requirement.

I provide this information with no warranties of course, and nothing within this blog post will contain questions or answers so as to not violate our NDA with Microsoft.

So here we go..

How to Use Dynamics Optionset Labels within PowerBI

May 14, 2017 / Andrew Ly

One of the current limitations of using PowerBI with Dynamics 365, is that it will not automatically map your OptionSet values with labels. For example if you have defined OptionSet values for Gender as 1 = Male, 2 = Female within PowerBI visualisations this would appear as 1 and 2 rather than Male and Female. Thankfully Gap Consulting have created a nice XrmToolBox plugin called the “PowerBI Option-Set Assistant” to work around this limitation.

Studying for the MB2-716 Exam (Dynamics 365 Customization and Configuration)

April 20, 2017 / Andrew Ly

Hi all,

I recently passed my MB2-716 Dynamics 365 Customization and Configuration exam, and thought I would share my study notes in the hope this would be helpful for you. This post will focus on the Microsoft Learning along with the key differences you should note if you have already taken the previous MB2-712 (Dynamics CRM 2016 Customization and Configuration) exam. I will provide some links to Microsoft learning resources, but will not provide specific questions or answers as per NDA, just some of my learnings throughout the process.

D365 User Group – April 26th – CRM Portals

April 20, 2017 / Andrew Ly

Hi All

Digital engagement is facilitated by integrating your online presence with your back-end systems. This is sometimes only achieved through building complex and costly integrations and API’s. But what if your website or portal was natively integrated with Dynamics 365? What if the hard work was done for you?

Well, that’s what Dynamics 365 Portals is – an integrated portal platform that plugs directly into Dynamics 365 to facilitate digital engagement with your customers, partners, suppliers and even employees.

This month’s User Group will provide an introduction to Dynamics 365 Portals, and show you just how easy it is to get started quickly on this incredibly versatile platform.

Please register via the following link: https://www.meetup.com/AdeD365UG/events/238074474/

We hope to see you there!

Embed PowerBI Reports into Microsoft Portal

April 4, 2017 / Andrew Ly

Microsoft make it incredibly easy to create and share content, including content from PowerBI onto other platforms. PowerBI is a powerful business analytics service that comes with a host of features to present data and visualisations to all your stakeholders, both inside your network and in this case outside your network. Today we will be looking at the Publish to Web feature within PowerBI.

How to Embed 3D Models within Dynamics 365

March 24, 2017 / Andrew Ly

A couple of weeks ago I posted a video blog on how you can embed 3D Models directly within Dynamics 365. Today I will walk you through exactly how to achieve this within your environment complete with source code and steps.

[Dynamics 365 UG March 23 Thurs] – Common Mistakes to Avoid when Implementing Dynamics Projects

March 15, 2017 / Andrew Ly

Hi All

Registration is now open for the second Dynamics 365/CRM User Group for the year, this month will be on Common Mistakes to Avoid when Implementing Dynamics Projects jointly presented by Jeremy O’Donohue and Andrew Ly of SMS Management & Technology.

Ever wonder why your project is not progressing as well as it should be? Or why user adoption of your new solution is less than extraordinary? Are we stuck in a traditional devops mindset when it comes to building CRM solutions? We’ll explore these questions and more in the March Dynamics 365 user group, with lessons learnt and some Microsoft best-practices for implementing Dynamics projects.

Be quick though, seats filling fast. Please register your attendance here.

New ClickDimensions Feature “Posting to Facebook Page”

March 10, 2017 / Andrew Ly

ClickDimensions recently introduced a new feature to their Marketing Automation suite, the ability to create posts on your Facebook Page. Today I will walk you through how simple it is to schedule and create Facebook Posts directly from Dynamics 365 using ClickDimensions.

[Video] My thoughts on Virtual Reality and Dynamics 365 with Demo

March 8, 2017 / Andrew Ly

Today I explore the Dynamics 365 for Windows on a Virtual Reality headset. Using my HTC Vive, I give my thoughts on the possibilities presented by recent innovations such as Hololens and where I think it may be useful from a Customer Service perspective.