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Showing posts from September, 2017

RPA with Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain

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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
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Making the important numbers stand out

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With so much information available today, many people are simply overwhelmed by the data.  This is important for us to remember when we are designing reports and visualizations.  We need to help our users understand the story we are telling and one way to do this is to draw their attention to the important information. The eyes go directly to change and difference, so conditional formatting is a great way to make data stand out.  However conditional formatting in Power BI can produce some pretty ugly results.  In this article, I am going to show some tips to help use conditional formatting to focus on key numbers of the report. I will start with a simple matrix report that shows the monthly and yearly sales growth by brand.  In this case we only have 10 brands, but you will notice nothing really jumps out to you.  As a consumer of this report you must read through each row. So let’s go to the format tab on the visualization pane and turn on conditional formatting. 
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A recap of Power BI World Tour - New York

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I am just returning from presenting at the Power BI World Tour in New York.  This was a great event with around 150 attendees from many different companies.  Some were experienced with Power BI and many were just getting started. Microsoft presented a roadmap session on Power BI and showed some of the new and upcoming features.  I was excited to see Bookmarks.  This feature will allow for improved navigation through reports and really help with storytelling.  There were also other sessions on licensing, Enterprise governance, PowerApps, Flow and Azure Data Warehouse.  In addition, many partners and consultants presented sessions covering everything from basic DAX to developing a Business Intelligence Roadmap.   Of course there was also time to meet other users and a lot of learning took place at breaks and meals. I was lucky to assist in moderating one of the closing sessions, Use What You Learned.  Many in the session were new to Power BI, but it was obvious they were v
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