RPA with Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain

-
Image
Are you looking for ways to automate some of your routine accounting functions, like reconciling sub ledgers to the general ledger?   Microsoft has recently created some examples using Power Automate Desktop (think of it like Task Recording on steroids). It can not only automate steps through Dynamics 365, but it can also automate Excel and other applications. In one example from Microsoft they automate the AR to GL reconciliation: Automatic running of the AR aging and the customer/ledger reconciliation reports. Power Automate then extracts data from both reports in Excel and compares the balances. Power Automate then posts a Team message letting you know the subledger is in balance. Power Automate saves the reports with the date in the file name, so there is backup. Microsoft Directions & Example   I working with the example, I needed to make a couple of adjustments to the sample flow that was provided but I was able to get it to work. Here is a video of the flow running in
Post a Comment

AP Automation in Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain

-

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 invoice information and a copy of the invoice into D365.


The solution does require some initial setup, so it knows how you receive invoices.  Currently they can come from Office 365 Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint or Outlook.com.  You can also setup the rules for specific legal entities, vendors, items and procurement categories.  The documentation provided by Microsoft will help you go through the setup.


Here is a link so a short demo of the solution.


Since this solution is in Public Preview, I would expect we will see some continued enhancements prior the general release.  Also there has been no announcement on the pricing for the solution at this time. Hopefully this information will be released soon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creating a date table with a fiscal year in your Power BI data model

-
Image
There are many different articles available on Time Intelligence in Power BI.   Many new users to Power BI do not really understand the importance of having a date table in their data model.   I have spoken on this topic on many different occasions and continue to receive a lot of questions about the topic.   In this article I am going to try and cover a few tips on how to work with dates in your Power BI model. Many new users simply use the Auto Date & Time function of Power BI.   This function automatically creates a hidden date table for each field in the model with a date or date/time data type.   This function is enabled by default and it allows for slicing by Year, Quarter, Month and Day.   The problem with Auto Date and Time is that it only works with a standard calendar (Jan to Dec).   It requires a datetime column in the fact table.   It does not work with multiple fact tables and it does not support time intelligence calculations (YTD, MTD, etc.).   So there must be
Read more

Using Full Page Apps in Dynamics 365 Finance

-
Image
Have you ever wanted to put a website or a model-driven Power App in one of your existing Dynamics 365 Finance workspaces or forms?  You might already know you can create a new workspace with a website, but did you know you can add the website to an existing workspace? Here is an example of the Vendor invoice entry workspace with the Invoice Capture Power App embedded. Prior to using this feature, you need to turn on "Saved views support for workspaces" in feature management. Once this feature is enabled you can follow the following steps to add the Invoice Capture app or any model-driven Power App or website to an existing workspace. Open the vendor invoice entry workspace From Options - choose Personalize this page From personalize menu - select the 3 dots - and then Add an app Once that is selected (the screen goes gray) - click on the section header where you want to add the app (in my example I put it in Links) On the Add an app menu - choose Website Give it a name (my e
Read more

Showing the last 12 months based on a date slicer

-
Image
When working with financial and sales data, clients often ask for charts showing the last 12 months of data.  This is actually very simple using relative date filtering. In addition, they might ask to compare to the same month last year.  With a simple DAX calculation (SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR) it is possible to add this measure. Here is the formula: Same Month Last Year = CALCULATE(Sum(Sales[SalesAmount]),SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR('Date'[Datekey])) For many users this is all they need.  The chart will update each month and they will always be able to see the last 12 months.   However, this chart will not work with date slicers.   If the client adds a date slicer to the page and selects just one month, the chart will be limited to one month. The reason the chart is limited to one month is because the date dimension relates to the sales fact table and it filters the data for the selected month. However, this is not what
Read more