Posts

AI in Financial Reporting

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It has been a while since I posted, but I have been getting a lot of questions lately from clients and from my accounting students about the same topic:  Where does AI actually belong in the financial reporting process?  Everyone wants to know if they should be using it, and the honest answer is that it depends a lot on which part of the process you are talking about. I have been working with several clients on this over the last few months, plus I have an upcoming speaking session on AI in reporting, so I thought I would put some of these thoughts together here. For each point, I am also going to push back on myself a little, because I think that is a more useful way to think through this than just picking a side. Where AI is actually helping right now The clearest win I have seen is variance analysis. AI tools are good at scanning through a large number of GL lines and flagging the ones that look different from what history would predict. Think of a vendor payment that...
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Adding a new entity to Dual-write in Dynamics 365 Finance

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As Microsoft continues to grow, expand and improve Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply, one of the most powerful features released has been Dual-write.  Dual-write is an out-of-box infrastructure the provides near-real-time interaction between customer engagement apps and Finance and Supply Chain apps.  In summary, it is a tightly coupled, bidirectional integration between Finance and Supply Chain applications and Dataverse (formally known as Common Data Service).  Dual-write makes integration with Dynamics 365 Sales and other CE application very straight forward.  It also opens up the opportunities to use PowerApps, Power Portal and Power Virtual Agent with Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain apps by connecting through the Dataverse. There is already documentation from Microsoft as well as many blogs already available on setting up Dataverse.   Here are a few links:  Microsoft Documentation  Dynagile Consulting Sandeep Chaudhury ERP Coder Blog Instead...
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Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain and Power Platform

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As a solution architect working with Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain, I work with many different clients in many different businesses.  Over my career, I have worked with many different tools to meet client's specific business needs.  Many times this would include working with an ISV and other times it might include custom development.  As Microsoft continues to develop functionality and connectivity with the Power Platform, we are able to meet many client specific needs by using the Power Platform.  As a matter of fact, when I recently completed the MB-300 - Microsoft Dynamics 365 - Core Finance and Operations exam, I was surprised how many questions related to the Power Platform. In this post I will take a quick look at the components of the Power Platform, and in future posts I will dive into examples and tips and tricks of using these applications along with Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain. Power BI was the first application from the Power Platform an...
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Changes are coming...

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I will be the first to admit, I do not blog that much.  Unfortunately, work and life sometimes get in the way.  As we start 2021, I am going to make an effort to add more to this blog.  With this increased effort in blogging, I will also be increasing the topics that I will cover.  While I will still be covering Business Intelligence and Power BI, I will also be covering topics on Power Platform and Microsoft Dynamics 365. With this change, I am also going to move the blog to a new address www.danscorner.info .   This change will take place very soon.  Keep checking back for the new posts, and if you have some areas you would like me to cover, feel free to add a comment below.  
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Covid Dashboard - Article 6 - Creating a group for a slicer

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I will continue to build on my earlier posts about my  COVID19 Dashboard .    In this series, I have written a few different blog articles describing not only how I built it, but some things I learned in the process. The current list of topics include: Working with growing CSV files Using index and merge when transforming data Using time functions to calculate the daily change Reporting based on the population Working with maps, setting data types correctly Today I am going to look at a question one person asked me.  When they were using the dashboard, they wanted to be able to filter the global results by countries of similar size. After thinking about this for a while, I decided on the following approach.  There are probably different approaches that can be used, and that is one of the things I really like about Power BI.  In this case, I tried to take a very simple approach. Step 1 - I had to decide how I wanted to group the count...
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COVID 19 Dashboard – Article 5 – Working with maps

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I will continue to build on my earlier posts about my  COVID19 Dashboard .    In this series, I am writing a few different blog articles describing not only how I built it, but some things I learned in the process. The current list of planned topics include: Working with growing CSV files Using index and merge when transforming data Using time functions to calculate the daily change Reporting based on the population Working with maps, setting data types correctly Possibly more to come depending on how long this all goes…. PART 5 – Working with maps I will be the first to admit, I have not used the mapping features in Power BI very often.   I have used them for some simple demos, but being an accountant, I am more often interested in the numbers versus the visual location.   However, when analyzing a global pandemic, I felt a map visual or two might be important. So without going to any custom visuals, there are four map visualizations in Po...
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COVID 19 Dashboard – Article 4 – Reporting based on population

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I will continue to build on my earlier posts about my  COVID19 Dashboard .    In this series, I am writing a few different blog articles describing not only how I built it, but some things I learned in the process. The current list of planned topics include: Working with growing CSV files Using index and merge when transforming data Using time functions to calculate the daily change Reporting based on the population Working with maps, setting data types correctly Possibly more to come depending on how long this all goes…. PART 4 - Reporting based on population In looking at the data, I quickly realized simply looking at total numbers or even daily changes was only giving me a limited view of what was happening.     Were the large number of cases in New York simply because they have more people than most other states, or were they growing at a different rate.   Are New York citizens at a higher risk of acquiring the virus than California ...
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COVID 19 Dashboard - Article 3 - Adding some key measures - unique time functions

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I will continue to build on my earlier posts about my COVID19 Dashboard .   In this series, I am writing a few different blog articles describing not only how I built it, but some things I learned in the process. The current list of planned topics include: Working with growing CSV files Using index and merge when transforming data Using time functions to calculate the daily change Reporting based on the population Working with maps, setting data types correctly Possibly more to come depending on how long this all goes…. PART 3 – Adding some key measures In my earlier posts, I spent time explaining where I acquired the data and some key steps I took in transforming the data into the data model.   In this post, I will explain some of the DAX I used to create some of the key measures for the visualizations.   One of the first steps in design is to identify what questions you are trying to answer or the story you are trying to tell with your visualization...
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