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Showing posts from August, 2018

I Built My First Finance Agent in a Couple of Weeks

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The first article in my Finance Agent series Over the last couple of weeks, I've been experimenting with Microsoft Copilot Studio, Dynamics 365 ERP MCP, and Power Automate to see what was really possible inside Dynamics 365 Finance. What started as a demo scenario quickly turned into something much more interesting. The original goal was simple. I wanted to help credit and collections teams respond to credit holds more efficiently. As I continued building and testing, I started discovering that agents could fundamentally change how people interact with ERP systems. And honestly, I don't think we're anywhere close to seeing the full potential yet. Quick Video  The Problem I Wanted to Solve If you've spent time working with Credit & Collections in Dynamics 365 Finance, you've probably seen this scenario before. A sales order gets placed on credit hold. The sales team starts asking questions. The credit team may not even know the hold exists until someone ...

An easy way to create backgrounds for Power BI

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Trying to make your Power BI reports look nice can sometimes be a struggle.  Do you put a box around a visual?  What about shading in the background?  Maybe you want a header or some lines to break up the page.  Well you can certainly create boxes, lines and shading all within Power BI, but they become objects that people might click on and they are hard to line up and keep from moving, so there must be a better way. One feature in Power BI is the support for background images. When I first saw this option, I thought it was more for putting a watermark behind the report. However once I did some research and played with it, I discovered that I could really use it to create a great page layout. Now first thing to keep in mind, I am an accountant and not a graphic designer, so I need an easy way to create.the.backgrounds. That is where another Power product comes in. No not PowerApps, but PowerPoint. Wait, PowerPoint is for creating slide shows, not gra...

USERELATIONSHIP in DAX

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A common problem many users face it the fact that there are multiple date fields in their tables, and when they want to use a date dimension, Power BI only allows for on active relationship between the two tables. For example, I have a dimension table from my leasing software that included information on each lease including the commencement date of the lease and the expiration date of the lease.   In Power BI when I use a separate date dimension (which I always recommend for many different reasons), I can only link the dimension table to date table with one active relationship.    See screen shot below. Since most of my visualizations will be based on the Commencement Date, I will make that the active relationship.   However, I would like to create a visualization showing my leases by expiration date.   In order to do this, I have a couple options. 1.        I could create a second date dimension table in my...

Join Your Power BI Peers at the 2018 Power BI World Tour

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The Power BI World Tour is back for 2018! I am excited to be participating again this year. Join your local SMEs, MVPs, and peers at these value packed two-day events in eight cities between August and November. Registration is open – secure your seat today! Whether you are local to the area, traveling from near or faraway, the Power BI World Tour will provide exclusive learning and networking opportunities. Don't miss the opportunity to get involved in one or more of these amazing event locations: Melbourne | Sydney | Charlotte | Copenhagen | Seattle | Dubai | Montreal | Dallas Boost your expertise and company operations for years to come. Each location will feature a General Session presentation by Microsoft and 24+ breakout sessions across 3 learning tracks designed for the Power BI Analyst, Developer/IT Administrator, and New Professional. One attendee last year raved, “the different speakers provided great and varied content. [I] loved the di...