How to work with custom help panes and guided tasks?

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Paresh Sharma

You can configure a custom in-product help experience in Dynamics 365 that is tailored to your organization. Use custom help panes to provide table, form, and language-specific help and guidance that includes rich text, content links, images, and video links.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement provides you with two options when it comes to help features. However, you can enable and use one of the feature at a time. These features are:
  1. Custom help for customizable entities (read more)
  2. Custom help panes


The following section focuses on how you can use Custom Help Pane and Guided Tasks.

Prerequisites

Enable Custom Help Pane

If you are using custom help panes and guided tasks, you would need to enable the feature in each environment, for example Dev, Test, Prod, etc. This has to be done once per environment.
To enable custom help panes for your environment, perform the following tasks:

  • Log into Power Platform admin center
  • Select relevant environment and click Settings
  • Click Product > Features
  • Under Help features, Enable Custom Help Panes
  • Click Save


Note: You can enable one feature at a time. So as a result the Custom help for customizable entities is disabled.

Privileges

There are two out-of-the-box roles available in Dynamics 365:

  1. Help Page Author
    To author help pane, you need global create, read, write, delete, append, and append to privileges on Help Page table. This is available in “Help Page Author” role.
     

  1. Help Page Consumer

To view help panes in an app, users need read privilege on the Help Page table. This is available in “Help Page Consumer” role.

Note: When you author help, please note that each help pane is unique for the following contexts:

  • Application
  • Table
  • Form
  • Language

Tools

In the following example we will edit custom help pane for Case.
Once the prerequisites steps are completed, as a help author, perform the following steps:

  1. Click Help on the navbar. This will open the help pane.
  2. Click on ellipses and click Edit.

  1. Use the following tools to edit the help pane:
    1. Numbered List
    2. Bulleted List
    3. Link
    4. Balloon
    5. Coach Mark
    6. Image
    7. Video

Free-form text

  • Text can be placed anywhere within the help pane.
  • Enter free-form text before, in, or after sections.
  • Text supports bold, italic, underline, and strikeout font formats. Cut, copy, and paste can be used as well as multilevel undo.

Bullets and numbered lists

  • Selecting the bullet or number icon toggles the current line to become bulleted or numbered.
  • If you have selected multiple lines in a list, each line becomes bulleted or numbered.
  • Tabbing and indenting sub numbers align within the list.

Sections

  • A section is a collapsible text box. A section can be either open or collapsed by default.
  • You can put links or free-form text in it.
  • Use a section to group similar items.

Video and static images

  • You can insert videos and static images into your help pane.
  • Videos and images are links to content on the internet. Custom help panes do not store the video and image files in your help pane.
  • When the help pane is opened, custom help panes bring the content in from the link to display it. You can use a link to a Microsoft Stream video if you want to reference corporate private content.

Note: Custom help panes support the following video sources: Microsoft Stream, YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo.

Links

  • Links can be to websites and open in the same window (the default) or open in a separate window.

Note: The ability to link to an existing help page is not yet enabled.

Balloons and coach marks

  • Balloons and coach marks can be used to point to specific UI elements.
  • A balloon can have text in it.

Move help content via solution

  • Each time you create a new help pane, the system creates a Help Page record in Dynamics 365.
    This can be moved to a different instance.
  • You can move help pages by creating a solution and adding the help pages as components to the solution.
  • To add a help page to a solution, open the solution and click ‘Add Existing’ and select ‘Help Pages’ from the drop down.
  • This will open the “Select Solution Components” window, from which you can select the help pages you want to include in your solution.

Video Resource

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How to work with Global Custom Help URL & Table Help URL?

Posted on December 29, 2022 by Paresh Sharma

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement provides you with two options when it comes to help features. However you can enable and use one of the feature at a time. These features are:

  1. Custom help for customizable entities
  2. Custom help panes (read more)

 

The following section focuses on how you can use Global Help URL along with Table Help URL for custom help in Dynamics 365.

 

Default Setting

When an environment is provisioned, global help URL or custom help panes and guided task feature is not enabled, i.e. When you open a form and click on the help icon in nav bar, it takes you to Microsoft Learn documentation.

Enable Help Feature

Perform the following steps:

  • Log into Power Platform admin center
  • Select relevant environment and click Settings
  • Click Product > Features
  • Under Help features, enable custom help for customizable entities

 

Custom Help for Customizable Entities

If this option is enabled:

  • Enable Custom Help Panes option will be disabled.
  • You would need to provide a Global custom help URL. This will be the default URL when you click on the help icon in nav bar (if entity specific help URL is not provided).

Note: In this example I have used my website to be set as default global URL for demonstration, you can use your organization specific URL.

 

 

Result

In the following example, we have provided my website URL i.e., 365proz as global custom help URL.

Now, when we open any table form (say Case form) and click on Help, it will open the global URL that we have set.

 

Table Level Help URL

With the table help URL, we can configure different URL for different tables, by editing the properties on table level. In the following example we have provided URL specific to one of my blog page that describes Case Creation.

Note: In this example I have used my blog to be set as table level URL for demonstration, you can use your organization specific URL.

 

Result

Open a Case record and click on the help icon, you will notice that it opens specific blog page, as we specified for Case table.

 

Note: If you have not setup table specific for other entities, then the global URL will open when you click on help icon.

 

Video Resource

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How to add sample data in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement?

Posted on December 29, 2022 by Paresh Sharma

To install sample data in Dynamics 365, perform the following steps:

Classic Environment

If you are using classic environment:

  1. Go to Advanced Settings
  2. Click Data Management
  3. Click Sample Data
  4. In the pop up window, click Install Sample Data

Note: To remove sample data, follow the same steps and in pop-up window, click Remove Sample Data.

Power Platform

If you are using power platform admin center:

  1. Select your environment
  2. Click Settings
  3. Click Sample Data under Data Management
  4. In the pop up window, click Install Sample Data

Note: To remove sample data, follow the same steps and in pop-up window, click Remove Sample Data.

Import Jobs Created

The following import jobs are created:

Import Name Status Reason Successes Partial Failures Errors Total Processed
Sample Data Subject Completed

6

0

0

6
Sample Data Task Completed

14

0

20

34
Sample Data Goal Completed

4

0

0

4
Sample Data Article Completed

4

0

0

4
Sample Data Incident Resolution Completed

0

9

0

9
Sample Data Product Price Level Completed

0

0

13

13
Sample Data KnowledgeArticle Completed

11

0

0

11
Sample Data Email Completed

0

0

9

9
Sample Data Category Completed

6

0

0

6
Sample Data Account Completed

10

0

0

10
Sample Data Campaign Completed

8

0

0

8
Sample Data Case Completed

33

0

0

33
Sample Data Contact Completed

13

0

0

13
Sample Data Dynamic Property Completed

19

0

33

52
Sample Data Dynamic Property Option Set Item Completed

0

0

28

28
Sample Data Lead Completed

10

0

0

10
Sample Data Opportunity Completed

10

0

0

10
Sample Data Phone Call Completed

10

0

25

35
Sample Data UoMSchedule Completed

1

0

0

1
Sample Data UoM Completed

1

0

0

1
Sample Data Product Completed

19

0

0

19
Sample Data Product Association Completed

29

0

0

29
Sample Data Product Substitute Completed

30

0

0

30
Sample Data Price Level Completed

2

0

0

2

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How to create flow from a template?

Posted on July 3, 2021 by Paresh Sharma

Go to your https://portal.office.com and login with your credentials.

Search for Power Automate and open the page.

Make sure you are in the right environment, for example as shown below which is my demo environment.

Click Templates from the navigation.

Search for the desired template, for example here we are looking for “Click a button to email a note”.

Click the template. Provide necessary credentials for the connector and click Create flow.

Check the details of the flow created. Then click Run.

When prompted, provide the parameters and click Run flow.

Check your inbox to see the email.

Posted in Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Automate, Power Platform | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on How to create flow from a template?

D365 – Plug-in Deploying and Testing

Posted on October 25, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

In the previous blog “D365 – Pug-in Writing Code” we saw how we can write the Plug-in code. Now let us see how we can deploy and test the Plug-in.

Note: The .NET Framework used in this case was 4.7.1.

Sign the Assembly

The cloud platform only allows signed assemblies as that makes it more secure.

  • Right-click the project > Properties.
  • Click Signing.

  • Select Sign the assembly.
  • Select <new> in Choose a strong name key file.

  • Specify Key file name.
  • Optionally provide the password or uncheck Protect my key file with a password field.
  • Keep the default Signature Algorithm and click Ok.

Build the Project

  • Right -click the Project and click Build. This will create the assembly file.
  • To locate the assembly file again right-click the Project file and click Open Folder in File Explorer
  • Click bin > Debug
  • The DLL file will be available. We need to Register this DLL file into CRM

Register Plug-in

In the blog “D365 – Create Plugin Template”, we had discussed how we can install the tool “Microsoft.CrmSdk.XrmTooling.PluginRegistrationTool”.

We will now use this tool to Register the assembly we just built.

  • Browse to the tool: …\packages\Microsoft.CrmSdk.XrmTooling.PluginRegistrationTool.9.1.0.20\tools
  • Run the “PluginRegistration.exe” tool.

  • Create a new connection to the CRM environment. Provide your credentials and Login.

  • The Plugin Registration tools will show you a list of registered plug-in, which is taken care by the platform.
  • Click Register New Assembly.

  • Specify the location of the DLL in Step 1 and click Register Selected Plugins.

  • You will notice that the plugin is now registered.

  • Now we would need to register a step. Right-click on the plugin and click Register New Step.
  • Specify the following fields:
    • Message = Create
    • Primary Entity = contact
    • Event Pipeline Stage of Execution = PreOperation

  • Click Register New Step.

Test Result

  • Create a New contact, specify First Name and Last Name and Save.
  • Check the result in Personal Notes which is automatically populated.

Code Used

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;

using System.ServiceModel;

namespace Tech_Quantum

{

public class HelloWorld : IPlugin

{

public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)

{

// Obtain the tracing service

ITracingService tracingService =

(ITracingService)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(ITracingService));

// Obtain the execution context from the service provider.

IPluginExecutionContext context = (IPluginExecutionContext)

serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));

// The InputParameters collection contains all the data passed in the message request.

if (context.InputParameters.Contains(“Target”) &&

context.InputParameters[“Target”] is Entity)

{

// Obtain the target entity from the input parameters.

Entity entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters[“Target”];

// Obtain the organization service reference which you will need for

// web service calls.

IOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory =

(IOrganizationServiceFactory)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IOrganizationServiceFactory));

IOrganizationService service = serviceFactory.CreateOrganizationService(context.UserId);

try

{

// Plug-in business logic goes here.

//To read from attribute values

string firstName = entity.Attributes[“firstname”].ToString();

string lasttName = entity.Attributes[“lastname”].ToString();

//To assign data to attribute

entity.Attributes.Add(“description”, “Hello World” + firstName + lasttName);

}

catch (FaultException<OrganizationServiceFault> ex)

{

throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException(“An error occurred in FollowUpPlugin.”, ex);

}

//catch (Exception ex)

//{

// tracingService.Trace(“FollowUpPlugin: {0}”, ex.ToString());

//throw;

//}

}

}

}

}

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D365 – Pug-in Writing Code

Posted on October 24, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

So in our last blog “D365 – Create Plugin Template” we saw, how we can create a plug-in template in visual studio.

Now let us see how we can move forward and write plug-in code.

So, the idea is that when create a new Contact, the plug-in should fill the Personal Notes field automatically

When we create a Contact record and provide details (such as first name , last name, etc.):

  1. These details are captured by the ServiceProvider.
  2. The ServiceProvider has got the Context.
  3. In the Context we have InputParameters.
  4. InputParameters has got Target.
  5. We are extracting Target as an Entity.

So here the Entity is generic class, which means that it can be any Entity such as Contact, Account, Task, Case, etc.

You can access the attributes through this Entity. So add the following code in the Plug-in template code (try/catch section) and use the Contact attribute’s logical name.

  • To read from attribute values:
    • string firstName = entity.Attributes[“firstname”].ToString();
    • string lastName = entity.Attributes[“lastname”].ToString();
  • To assign data to attribute:
    • entity.Attributes.Add(“description”, “Hello World” + firstName + lastName);

Tip: You can get the logical name from the solution. If you want to save clicks you can use the following extension for chrome Level up for Dynamics 365/PowerApps.

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Development, Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

D365 – Create Plugin Template

Posted on October 23, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

How to develop a Plugin?

  • You need to have Visual Studio Community Edition: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/free-developer-offers/
  • Create a Class Library project for C#.
  • Download required assemblies using NuGet Package Manager.
  • Add a reference to Microsoft.Xrm.SDK.dll. This assembly is available in SDK.
  • You can implement IPlugin Interface from referenced assembly.

Create a Project

  • Open visual Studio (2019 used in this example)
  • Create a new “Class Library (.NET Framework) project

  • Configure and create your new project.

  • A simple class library is created and you will notice that there is no main method, which means that you cannot directly run the code and it has to be called from other applications.
  • The following this are done:
    • Rename the Class library to “HelloWorld” and also renamed the file.

    • To install the assemblies, click Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Package for Solution.

    • Browse and search for Dynamics 365 Plugin and install the following assemblies (select the Project and click Install):
      • Microsoft.CrmSdk.XrmTooling.PluginRegistrationTool
      • Microsoft.CrmSdk.CoreAssemblies

    • This installation will create some folders in your project, which you can check by right clicking on the solution and Open Folder in File Location.

    • Right click on References > Add Reference > Browse to the package location and add “Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.dll”

    • Also check if “System.ServiceModel” assembly reference is added as well.

  • Specify the following namespace:
    • using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;
    • using System.ServiceModel;

For Iplugin Interface add the Menthod

  • You can access the Iplugin interface as:

  • Paste this in your project. Which will look something like this:
using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;

using System.ServiceModel;

namespace Tech_Quantum

{

public class HelloWorld : IPlugin

{

public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)

{

// Obtain the tracing service

ITracingService tracingService =

(ITracingService)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(ITracingService));

// Obtain the execution context from the service provider.

IPluginExecutionContext context = (IPluginExecutionContext)

serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));

// The InputParameters collection contains all the data passed in the message request.

if (context.InputParameters.Contains(“Target”) &&

context.InputParameters[“Target”] is Entity)

{

// Obtain the target entity from the input parameters.

Entity entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters[“Target”];

// Obtain the organization service reference which you will need for

// web service calls.

IOrganizationServiceFactory serviceFactory =

(IOrganizationServiceFactory)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IOrganizationServiceFactory));

IOrganizationService service = serviceFactory.CreateOrganizationService(context.UserId);

try

{

// Plug-in business logic goes here.

}

catch (FaultException<OrganizationServiceFault> ex)

{

throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException(“An error occurred in FollowUpPlugin.”, ex);

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

tracingService.Trace(“FollowUpPlugin: {0}”, ex.ToString());

throw;

}

}

}

}

}

Now your plugin template is ready.

Check the next post “D365 – Pug-in Writing Code” where we will move forward with writing the Plug-in.

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Development, Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on D365 – Create Plugin Template

D365 – Understanding Plug-in Pipeline

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

What is a Plugin?

  • Plug-in is a class library or set of classes. And when you compile a set of classes you get something called DLL file or Assembly file. This assembly file has some custom code and we register these assemblies in some server side event.
  • You can run plug-in code on common events such as Create, Update, Delete, Assign, etc . Of specific record type. In dynamics terminology event and message are same thing.
  • For example: On entering revenue field of a Contact, you would like to perform some tax related calculation automatically. So here the event is “On Update” and the entity “Contact”. This means the trigger is on update of a Contact record, where we can register the event.

What happens on server?

Scenario:

  • Let us say the client creates a contact record.
  • The information goes to the Main Event (say Create event) on the server. This even creates a record and pushes the data into the database.
  • A response will be sent back from the database through the main event back to the Client where the page will be reloaded / refreshed. Now you will see the contact record as saved contact.
  • Now again the Client updates the Revenue details on that contact.
  • The information goes to the Main Event (which is now Update event).
  • The platform takes care of the data and response comes back to the Client where the page is reloaded / refreshed.

So every time a client changes something, there is a round trip happening. In this case there is no custom code involved. Also, you cannot modify the main event and is handled by the platform.

The system, however, gives to the ability to write custom code before the Main Event and after the Main Event.

Let us say you want to run a custom code before the Contact record is created. You can write your custom code as class library, upload it to the server and register before the Main Event (i.e. Contact Create).

Similarly if you want to run your custom code after the creation of the Contact record, you can register after the Main Event.

Remember, the main event does not change. But you can have Pre validation stage and Pre Operation stage before the main event and Post operation stage after the main event.

So if you want to make changes to the data before it is inserted or updated in the database, you can use the Pre-Validation and Pre-Operation stage. If you want to perform changes to the data after the record is inserted or updated in the database and before it reaches to the Client, you can use the Post-Operation stage.

This is called as plugin pipeline.

Posted in Business Central, D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Development, Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on D365 – Understanding Plug-in Pipeline

D365 – Web Services

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

Dynamics 365 offers two web services:
  1. Discovery Web Service
    Retrieve List of Instances or Organization for given Credentials
  2. Organization Web Service
    Connect to each Instance or Organization and perform all basic CRUD and advanced message operations

Each of this service is available in two formats:

  1. SOAP
    For server side coding
  2. REST (Web-API)
    For client side coding

To find the endpoint for Web Services in D365, click Settings > Customizations > Developer Resources.

Posted in D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), D365 Development, Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

D365 – Architecture Overview

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Paresh Sharma

Following is an overview of D265 CRM architecture.

Understanding the architecture is important to understand the entire ecosystem of development tools here.

  • So the first dotted line separates the client side components from the server side components.
  • Wherever you see the gear icon, those components are customizable. So you can write some custom code where you see the gear icons and these components are available on client side as well as on the server side.
  • Every D365 CRM instance has Metadata database and Data database. We don’t need to do much with it as the platform takes care of these databases.
  • Also, you cannot directly access or make changes to the database with any code.

What Custom Code can you Write?

You can broadly categorize the custom components into following types:

  • Server Side
  • Client Side

How does Custom Code access CRM data?

Custom code cannot access data directly from D365 CRM database.

It can access data though API (Webservices) only. The connection between webservices and database is taken care by the platform.

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