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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Copilot in Power BI Desktop

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We have been hearing a lot about Artificial Intelligence recently, and Microsoft is investing very heavily in brining AI to many of the solutions we use on a regular basis.  In many solutions the AI solution is known at Copilot.  

Copilot in Power BI Desktop is currently available in preview for you to start testing.  After playing with it a little, I would have to say it is a nice tool, but I will caution you that you need to be careful.  It is simply going to give you some suggestions on creating new measures, but if you do not understand DAX, you may not select the correct version.

So how do you get started?  

1. First you need to be on a current release of Power BI Desktop (at least after May 2923)

2. The feature is still in Preview, so it is necessary to enable the preview feature.  File - Options and Settings - Options and enable Quick measure suggestions
















3.  To use Copilot, you select to add a Quick Measure (this can be selected on the Modeling ribbon or by right click when your cursor is in the data model area)

4. In the Quick Measure window, there is a new tab for Suggestion with Copilot











5. In the box simply type in a description of the measure you need to create.  What you type will depend on your data model.  Suggestions can include many different functions including math functions, text functions, optional filters and much more.  To get more detail on the options available check the documentation from Microsoft

Some items to keep in mind

Natural language needs to understand your data model.  For example, if the data for sales uses the word Amount instead of Sales, you need to make sure to use amount in your suggestion.

Be sure to review the DAX that is created.  Copilot will often return multiple suggestions, so you still need to understand DAX.  For example, I did a simple example of "total sales amount last year".  Copilot gave me two different suggestions.  They look very similar, but they use different date fields, so the results might be different.  It is critical that I understand the code that is being written.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that Copilot does not name your new measure.  It is simply named "Measure", so make sure you rename it when you add it to your data model.







Overall this is an exciting new feature, that will hopefully save a lot of time in creating different measures and typing the required code.  Of course, this is still in preview, so things might change, and I assume it will only get better.


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