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Multiselect Option Set

The July update of Dynamics 365 introduces Multi select option sets. This feature can be used multiple options from a set. Most common examples of this requirement is customer interests, categories of a case, product categories. We have experience this kind of requirements in earlier projects and due to restrictions suggested sub-grids for such requirements or used two options or check boxes with complex logic to select multiple values. This new feature would be definitely value add to the customers. This feature is available in Salesforce as a standard functionality but it has many restrictions like displaying in a view or search function etc.

We will need to explore how this new feature works in Advanced find and searches, which of course is an extension to this feature. We will need to find how this field values are displayed in a view, report, how this behaves with BPF and business rules. 

First to begin with lets see how this field can be created.

Navigation>>Settings>>Customizations>>Customize the System>>Entities>>Fields>> New button and select Data Type = Multiselect Option Set and add options like a normal option set. Then add it on the form and publish...

Output: Semicolon separated values of selected options

Advanced Find : 
- When all the options above are selected the result is displayed when "Equals" operator is selected
- You can use "Contains Value" to check for one value

Views/Reports: 
- Can add multiselect column in the view
- values displayed as semicolon separated values in the above example the value "Motor cycle; Van; Mini Van; SUV"

Understanding Product Catalog in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (Dynamics CRM)

What is a Product Catalog?

Product catalog, as the name suggests its a catalog of the products with its unit and price information. The product catalog helps you create, manage and classify the products in the  D365.  The product catalog helps you

• Define hierarchy of product
• Define product family 
• Configure Product properties (size, color, other features)
• Group the product into bundles
• Define related products (Substitute, Cross Sell, Up sell)
• Define pricing and discounts
• Define units and unit group

In the later sections we will discuss the above defined features with an example. 

Product :  A product is either a physical inventory item (such as lumber or a nail), or a service (such as a haircut or tree pruning) that a company sells. In Dynamics 365, there is a separate entity for tracking Service (part of Field service model). But the product can be used to track and manage service too.  

You enter product information in Opportunity, Quote, Orders, Case, Entitlement and Sales Literature.

Example, A product could be a laptop, Mouse or a user license for the Operating system.

Product Family - 

Common Data Service and Dynamics 365

Common Data Service
The Common Data Service provides the known base schema that can be expanded with custom entities.  That means that regardless whether it's organization A or organization B, you can be confident that the same base entities will be in both those schemas, allowing not only internal applications be built, but as we look beyond that, where we build applications that work with the Common Data Service, we have a known set of data model that will always be there. Data doesn't have to be synchronized with the Common Data Service for all scenarios.  Many can still just use the connector.  So you have to evaluate each scenario to see what best fits the needs of the application.  The Common Data Service in the context of Dynamics 365 can be very helpful to support data storage of purpose-built applications that wouldn't need the data stored in Dynamics 365.  But that is something you'll have to consider as you build applications: Should the data be stored with other data in Dynamics 365 -- meaning it would be useful and is more enterprise-related data -- or is it something that's more tracking, or transitory data or data that would be better suited in the Common Data Service.  Both of those are options, and you'll have to evaluate them on each individual application case.

Dynamics 365 v9.0 July 2017 Update - Deprecated Features

Although the new update for Dynamics 365 comes with a tremendous changes and upgrade of the solution there are many features which are deprecated. Some features are deprecated because a better version of them have been introduced or some have been considered not used by the customers. For instance, Outlook Client is deprecated because in D365 Outlook App is introduced.

"Deprecated” means Microsoft will remove the feature or capability in a future release of Dynamics 365. The feature or capability will continue to work and is fully supported until it is officially removed in the future release.

Below are the list of items which are deprecated in the July 2017 version of the D365 update

• D365 for Outlook (Outlook client) is deprecated
• Service Scheduling in D365 is deprecated
• Dialogs are deprecated
• Usage of Parature knowledgebase as the Dynamics 365 knowledge management solution is deprecated
• Project Service Finder app is deprecated
• Contracts, Contract Line Items, and Contract Template entities are deprecated
• Standard SLAs are deprecated
• Relationship Roles are deprecated
• Mail Merge is deprecated
• Announcements are deprecated
• Ready-to-use BPFs are deprecated
• Some client APIs are deprecated
• EntityMetadata.IsInteractionCentricEnabled property is deprecated
• Silverlight (XAP) web resource is deprecated