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Showing posts from April, 2017

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

I finally took a close look at Power BI

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I have been working in the Business Intelligence space for the past several years.  During this time, I have watched the rise of Microsoft Power BI from a distance.  They were a competitor, so while I kept an eye on them, but I did not really spend that much time in the tool.  I knew the software I was selling and supporting must be better.  We have been around longer and we actually sell our software.  You can get started with Power BI for free or upgrade to Power BI Pro for only $9.99 a month.  How good can it be at that price point? Well with some recent employment changes, I have now had more time to actually dig deeper into Power BI, and while it is far from perfect, I have to admit I am beginning to understand what all of hype is about.  Power BI is a serious player in the Business Intelligence space. Probably one of the best features of Power BI is the community.  There are a lot of people using it and because of this there are a lot of blogs, posts and videos availabl

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog.  I have been working with data in one form or another for over 25 years.  The data has taken on my forms, from audit work papers, ledger sheets and inventory cards to SQL databases, Excel spreadsheets, on-line information and much more.  Understanding this data often brought many challenges and that is what led me to start working with different Business Intelligence solutions.  When I first started I didn't even know what Business Intelligence was.  I just needed some reports.  I used tools like Excel or Crystal Reports or other report writers, but I quickly learned the data needed more than just a report.  Fast forward to today and Business Intelligence solutions seem to be everywhere.   The industry is changing very quickly and there is a lot of information available.  I do a lot of research and work for clients, so I have decided to keep that information in a central location.  That is why I have created this blog.  Stay tuned for more information and