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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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 complaint I heard: Too much PowerPoint.  Many of the sessions did everything in slides with no live demos or examples.  There are many reasons presenters take this approach, but as a frequent speaker myself, I have found you need to have action.  PowerPoint is for the attendees to refer to later.  However, if that is the only complaint, then I believe the event was a success.  Personally, I am in the Dynamics 365 Finance area.  I did hear grumblings about Dynamics GP, but since I don’t work in that area anymore, I can’t speak about what might have happened.

It was a good event for me as well.  I had two presentations and they both had over 50 attendees.  The audience was very interactive, with many great questions and ideas.  This always makes it easier as a presenter if the audience is engaged.  This engagement was truly a demonstration of the interest in the Power Platform around Dynamics 365 Finance.  I believe this area is still new for a lot of companies.  They have heard about it and probably have seen demos, but the hardest part is figuring out where to start.  I try to give some ideas and examples in my sessions.  If you were not able to attend or if you did attend but haven’t been able to get my slides.  Here are links to both decks:

Using Power Apps, Teams and Dynamics 365 Finance

Using Power Automate with Dynamics 365 Finance

Next year Summit will be in Charlotte NC and I can’t wait.  Not only do I expect a great event, but this is the home of NASCAR.  Be sure to get registered early, and I look forward to seeing everyone.

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