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AP Automation in Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain

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As a solution architect, prospects and clients often ask me for ways to improve their Accounts Payable process.  They receive hundreds of invoices every month, and it can take considerable amount of time to enter all of the detail as well as attaching the invoice for reference during the approval process.  This is an area where we have often needed to bring in an ISV solution, but that could cause other issues.  Microsoft has been doing considerable work around automation for AP and they recently released a public preview of their Invoice Capture solution. I have had the opportunity to set this up in one of my test environments so I could get an idea of what they have to offer.  As we would expect, the Invoice Capture solution is built on the Power Platform.  It uses a model driven Power App along with Power Automate Flows to integrate with Dynamics 365 Finance.  However, since it is a solution, they have done much of the work for you, including creating the standard flows to load the
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Big news from Microsoft on paginated reports

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To follow up on my earlier posting about using the right tool for the right job, I had to share the latest announcement from Microsoft.  On November 14, 2022, Microsoft announced support for paginated reports in Power BI Pro.   Yes, this now means without acquiring a premium license or premium workspace, you will be able to create paginated reports.  No longer will you just have a scrolling table or matrix that you have to export to Excel, you will be able to create more traditional operational reports as well as document-like reports. I am excited to see how everyone puts this new functionality to work.  I have a lot of ideas on how I will use this with my clients, especially with some of their common ERP (Dynamics 365) report requests.
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Recap of Dynamics Communities Summit 2022

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  It has been about a week and a half since I returned from Summit.   This was at least my tenth Summit.   At this point I have lost track, but I certainly remember when there were only a couple hundred people.   A lot has changed in the past couple years.   They are not back to where they were in 2019, but this was a huge improvement over last year in Houston.   With over 600 sessions, there was a lot of content to choose from for the attendees.   Of course, this is both good and bad because which sessions do you attend?   You can’t be everywhere.   Also, there were issues with the event app and seating in many of the rooms, but they tried to address these as the event went on and have promised to learn from their mistakes.   It is an new staff since their last large event, and everyone is still trying to remember how to put on large events like this.   My firm had several clients attend the event, and they were overall happy with the content of the event.   Probably the number one co
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What should I use, a hammer or screwdriver???

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  Lately, I have been working with several of our team members and clients regarding various reporting needs.   Since I do a lot of work with Power BI, they will bring me in because they believe Power BI is the correct answer.   In most cases, when they think Power BI, they are considering either the free version or Power BI Pro.   In other words, they are looking for a visualization to replace their report.   In many cases, this is possible, but other times there are struggles and issues.   It made me think about the toolbox I have in my garage.   I am not a handyman by any means, but I do have a few of your typical tools including a couple hammers and few screwdrivers so I can take care of various household projects, like hanging a picture, putting together furniture, building all the toys my wife is buying for our granddaughter, etc.   These household projects remind me a lot the various report requests I see from our clients.   Sometimes the report is as simple as hanging a pic
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Smart Narratives - a quick and easy way to get your message across

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 I was recently working with a client on Power BI visualizations.  We were talking about various visualization techniques as well as the options for Power BI visuals.  As I was going through the different options, I touched on Smart Narrative.  The client had never seen or tried this visualization, so if made me wonder, how many other were not aware of this visualization option and how to use it. The Smart Narrative visualization became generally available in June, 2021.  The purpose of the Smart Narrative visualization is to help quickly summarize visuals and reports by providing relevant out-of-the-box insights that are customizable.  As the name applies, the visual adds narratives to the reports to address key takeaways and point out trends.   Initially, I was not too excited about this visualization, because I often feel a picture is worth a thousand words, so I would rather look at the chart or visualization and draw my own takeaways and trends.  However, I have learned in working
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Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain with Power Automate - Part 3 - Adding a new vendor workflow

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I recently presented a session on using Power Automate with Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain.  The session was very well received, so I wanted to post some videos and details to help users better understand the examples I covered in the session. In the following video I will walk through using Power Automate with Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain to manage a workflow around adding a new vendor. Business scenario  – To on board a new vendor, the organization requires a new vendor request be submitted, an internal review process is used, including sending an email to the vendor with the required tax documents (W9) and instructions. Components used in the scenario  – Dynamics 365 Finance virtual entities, Power Automate, Microsoft Forms, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Teams and Outlook Synopsis  – By using an Automated cloud flow in Power Automate the system can automatically manage this business process.    Power Automate will listen for new vendor request form to be submitted.
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Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain with Power Automate - Part 2 - Adding a new customer

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I recently presented a session on using Power Automate with Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain.  The session was very well received, so I wanted to post some videos and details to help users better understand the examples I covered in the session. In the following video I will walk through using Power Automate with Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain to manage a workflow around adding a new customer. Business scenario  – The sales team adds new customers to Dynamics 365 Finance, but the company wants a business workflow in place, so the credit team can review the account and set the credit limit before any activity takes place on the new customer. Components used in the scenario  – Dynamics 365 Finance virtual entities, Power Automate and Microsoft Teams and/or Outlook Synopsis  – By using an Automated cloud flow in Power Automate the system can automatically manage this business process.    Power Automate will listen for new rows (customers) being added to the Customers V3 data
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