A reference to Dynamics.Ax.ProcessAutomation is required to compile this module

Hello Everyone,

For our customer, we recently upgraded to version 10.0.40.

Version validation for business scenarios, integrations, and reporting went smoothly in the T-2 and PROD environments.

However, when attempting to upgrade the T-1 Development and Build environments, we encountered the following build error.

Issue :

The deployment of version 10.0.40 was successfully completed through LCS. However, when attempting to build the custom model, an error occurred: "A reference to Dynamics.Ax.ProcessAutomation, version = 0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null is required to compile this module."

Resolution :

When I checked our custom model for referenced models, I did not find the ProcessAutomation model.

After including the ProcessAutomation model, the build was successful.

Therefore, if you have not already referenced this model, you may encounter these issues.

Conclusion :

Include a reference to the ProcessAutomation model in your custom model to resolve the roadblock.

Mean while i was trying to explore what is Process Automation Framework and found below interesting information.

The process automation framework is a set of APIs that allows implement process automation processes.

Process automation is based on a system-critical batch job called poller that runs every minute and invokes various subsystems of the process automation framework.

Please read the below interesting blog written by Francisco Zanon on Process Automation.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/process-automation-framework-francisco-zanon/

Thanks for reading.

Happy Learning :)

Environment administrator for D365 F&O Production instance

Hello Everyone,

While provisioning D365 finance PROD instance in LCS, service accounts are recommended instead of named user accounts because of the following reasons.

• Environment cannot be able to access if the named user account is used as admin and user is not available.
• Some scenarios where only the Admin user can access an environment are:
  • First log-on after initial deployment to any environment – Only the admin user account can access the environment
  • First log-on to an environment after database movement – Only the admin user account is enabled
  • You will have to add the generic account to the LCS project as user in order to set it as environment admin
  • The Admin user is critical in some situations in the apps, such as when system batch jobs are run. These jobs must run with administrator privileges.

But in some cases, administrators realizes later after provisioning the environment with a named user.

Can change environment admin?

Yes, definitely you can change the environment admin user, but it may require a downtime. 

Impact : Causes downtime to the target finance and operations apps environment.

Prerequisites :

• You must be a project owner in the LCS project.
• The new administrator account must be a member of the same tenant that the environment belongs to.
• Plan for the downtime with appropriate approval in your organization.
• If you are going to change domain for the environment, you need to get new ISV license file(s) that references the new domain.

Update environment administrator :

For updating the environment administrator, please go through the steps explained in below.

1. In LCS, go to your project, and open your environment details page.
2. Select Maintain > Update environment admin.
3. In the dialog box that appears, select another Project Owner or Environment Admin user from your LCS project.
4. Select Save.

Please refer Microsoft docs LINK for more information.

Thank you 😊

Happy Learning.

D365 F&O Business performance analytics Tool

Hello Everyone,

Business performance analytics involves analyzing various data points and metrics to evaluate and measure the performance of a business. It helps organizations understand how well they are performing and identify areas for improvement. Currently the feature is in public preview. The details information is available in Microsoft Learn Link.

Here are the key points about business performance analytics:

1. Overview: Business performance analytics is the process of using data and analytics tools to measure, analyze, and optimize the performance of a business.
2. Purpose: The main objective of business performance analytics is to provide insights into the effectiveness of strategies, operations, and processes, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions for improvement and growth.
3. Configuration: Configuring business performance analytics involves setting up the Power platform, Azure AD tenant, Power apps users & D365 F&O to collect and analyze the relevant data.
4. Installation: The business performance analytics will be installed as a D365 app using Power Platform admin center.
5. Data Model: Creating a data model is crucial for business performance analytics. It involves defining the structure and organization of the data to be analyzed, aligning it with business goals and objectives. A business matrix is a roadmap for business data. Business data can be defined by value chains such as record to report or order to cash. The business matrix organizes, connects, and simplifies data. In this way, it helps users efficiently navigate and understand their data.
6. Security: The setup of security in the business performance analytics app is a critical step in ensuring the security of your organization's data. This article provides an overview of the setup process for role-based, dimension, and report security and explains how to add users to the app. This includes user authentication, access control mechanisms, data encryption, and compliance with relevant regulations.
7. Access: Business performance analytics app can be accessed several ways:
   • Power platform admin center
   • Power Platform maker portal
   • D365 Finance and operations
8. Reports: Business performance analytics generates reports that visualize key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics. These reports help business leaders and stakeholders make informed decisions based on data-driven insights. The following table describes the reports that are related to the record-to-report value chain in business performance analytics.
9. Create and edit Reports : Business performance analytics lets you create or customize reports that include the data fields that you're interested in. You can also change any visuals on the reports.
10. Benefits: Business performance analytics enables businesses to identify strengths and weaknesses, make data-driven decisions, optimize processes, improve performance, increase efficiency, and gain a competitive advantage.

Overall, business performance analytics is a powerful tool for businesses to assess their performance, identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions based on data-driven insights.

Thank you :)

Happy Learning !

Add or Remove fields to be available by default while using the Excel add-ins

Hello Folks,

Data management framework (formerly known as DIXF) is a powerful architecture in D365FO which supports for all integrations. Data entities which are part of DIXF is the only way (in most of the cases) to communicate with D365FO through an external system.

Recently I come across with a requirement where we need to have more default fields than the standard fields available when opened the entity data using excel add-ins. Using the excel add-in designer you can add but it may be difficult for end users to do this always and to find the required fields to add. In this post will take you through how to add or remove fields required to make defaults fields to use in the excel-addins.

In D365fo the data can be exported to excel using the “Export to excel” option which export the data for fields available in the grid, if required export more fields data you can add more fields in the grid using the personalization and insert columns.

But when you use the “Open in excel” option which uses the data entities available for the current form which can be used to manage the CRUD operations using the excel Add-in. This is a very good tool for business users to manage the data for their day to day operations. 

Coming to the main point of the topic if say customer wanted to add more fields or remove couple of fields by default when opened in excel.

For that you have to go to visual studio, open the data entity ( if the entity is standard, create extension). Go to fields field groups àAutoReport field group. Here you can see all the fields which are already showing on the excel. Now you can add or remove or change the order of the fields you want.

Once do the build, after the successful build, refresh your browser and run the excel add-in to see the expected changes.

Here I have taken the simple example of customer group standard entity, you can see the fields are already coming in excel.

Above screen shows the existing fields information, now will do modifications as follows. Here added three new fields as shown in below and you can see the results in excel after the successful build.

When the customer group opened in excel add-in, I see the change as follows. Here we see only one new field coming up in the excel sheet even though we have added three fields.

Don’t worry, there is a reason for not coming up all the fields.  There is a field property called “Access Modifier” on the entity field, by which we can restrict it. If its public then we can see the that field and if its private you cannot see the field. Out of three fields newly added, two are private and only one is public, that’s why in the new excel there is only one new fields shown.

In case, the restricted fields you wanted to enable for excel add-in for a standard entity, then you cannot change the property directly, in such case you can duplicate the entity and can make the property change to public to show it.

I hope its helpful, will come up with another interesting topic in the next post.

Thank you 😊