Podcast appearances and mentions of george doubinski

Daryl and Scott interview Bram Colpaert, a good lazy developer based in Belgium, and chat about one of his tools, the Data Transporter.  Other topics: Queen's English and George Doubinski's accent Fellow listeners from The UP Podcast Star Trek, Lieutenant Commander Data and transporter beam Better Connection Management in XrmToolBox over Microsoft Tools Scott spends his free time diving into Dataverse GUID generation Daryl's magic trick to entertain aliens in Toy Story Editor of XrmToolCast, Linn Zaw Win The Simpsons episode about Homer repeatedly travels back in time with a toaster Made-up words Bram only works in the summer Dad Jokes Bram's Info and other links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bcolpaert https://github.com/bcolpaert https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/plugins/Colso.Xrm.DataTransporter https://linnzawwin.blogspot.com/p/data-transporter.html Got questions? Have your own tool you'd like to share? Have a suggestion for a future episode? Contact Daryl and Scott at cast@xrmtoolbox.com. Your hosts: Daryl LaBar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daryllabar/ | @ddlabar Scott Durow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdurow/ | @ScottDurow Editor: Linn Zaw Win: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linnzawwin/  | @LinnZawWin Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

FULL SHOW NOTES https://podcast.nz365guy.com/321 A brief introduction about Amey Holden and George Doubinski life, favourite food, what they do for fun and family. Talks about Amey and George's YouTube video series - how did it come about. Find out more about Citizen Can. How did Amey and George manage each episode and what are the tools they used to edit each show? How did Amey and George put all episodes all together? How did Amey and George decide on what to cover and where do they get those ideas? What feedback did Amey and George get from the audience? Resources Mentioned  Citizen Can 365 Training - https://www.youtube.com/c/365Training Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/nz365guy)

I have had my head down for a while working on the next version of RapidStartCRM. We also recently deployed RapidStartCRM for our own support operations. In the process, I came across a few items that I thought would be of interest to the users of our free app, and since they would also work for any Power App, including Dynamics 365, I thought I might discuss them. Next Version Before I get into this, I want to clarify what I mean by "Next Version" of RapidStartCRM. We have been developing this product since 2015 when we launched it a the Worldwide Partner Conference (Now called Inspire). Over the years we had made hundreds of updates and tweaks in direct response to users. We also refactored the solution a couple of years ago to run on the low cost Power Apps licenses in addition to Dynamics 365. Each update, with the exception of the refactoring, had progressively fewer changes as we honed in on our target customers' requirements. I am pleased to inform you that the next version will have the fewest tweaks yet... I mean it is damn near perfect already. So let's get back to our internal project. Forceworks Support We had been running our support operation on Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement for over 10 years. Several times I had contemplated moving it to RapidStartCRM, but as a certified partner my licenses were free, so I kept putting it on the back burner. Our support operation is not very complicated. Customers buy blocks of hours which we add to their bank, and we track our activities against those blocks. We also maintain a portal where customers can login and see their bank balance as well as review all activities. We had been using a third-party portal since before Microsoft even contemplated a portal product. The portal company had been purchased by another company for other assets of value to them and the portal product came with the package.  But portals was not a priority for them. I figured it was a matter of time before they shut it down. So the time had come to move. Dynamics 365 So, as I said I get Dynamics 365 licenses at no cost. So it might seem an obvious choice just to fire up a Power Apps Portal and connect it to our existing instance. and be done. However, as years have gone by now with us supporting customers on RapidStartCRM, many of whom had moved to it from Dynamics 365, I have come to not really like Microsoft's first-party apps very much. I truly feel they are unnecessarily complicated and bloated. And while my licenses may be free, any additional database capacity is not. Our instance, even though it was not doing all that much, was consuming the lion's share of our capacity. So I made the decision to "upgrade" our support operation off of Dynamics 365 and on to our own RapidStartCRM. Also, Power Apps Portals works the same on RapidStartCRM, so there was no reason to continue with the bloated beast. And, if for some reason I was no longer getting free licenses, my cost would be about $10 vs. $95 per user... a factor in many other customers' "upgrading". Migration We could have done this upgrade/migration in a day, but I took this opportunity to make some improvements to our process. Mainly around automation, nothing we could not have done before, but this was a good time, since we were opening things up. We started with the same RapidStartCRM solution as our customers get, and installed it from AppSource on a new environment the same way any customer would. We made use of the RapidStartCRM Accounts, Contacts and Cases. We created two custom Tables, one for Case Notes, to track time and activities, and one for Support Hours, to track the customers' purchases and banks. We also created several Cloud Flows with Power Automate... things like calculating hours and various customer notifications. In addition, we added some specific charts to the RapidStartCRM dashboards for quickly getting a view of things. We also tweaked the RapidStartCRM App to hide Opportunities and a couple of other items we were not using for this need. Lastly, we mapped and migrated all of our historical data to the new environment. I didn't even pause before I hit the "delete" button on our old bloated environment we had depended on for 10 years. Portals So I mentioned that Microsoft offers a Power Apps Portal. Again, for me it would cost nothing. Depending our your requirements, it might be a good solution for you. Unfortunately, like everything the Microsoft Business Applications group produces... it is more complicated than necessary. This is even more noticeable when your requirements are simple. Our requirement was to have a place customers could log into and see their account information, purchase history, case information and case notes. I wanted it to be clean, simple and easy to maintain. Not too complicated. Our Forceworks main website runs on WordPress, like so many other small to mid-sized businesses. So my preference was a WordPress based portal. My friend, and fellow MVP, George Doubinski had the answer. The AlexaCRM WordPress integration solution. Using Alexa, we are able to display any information we want from our RapidStartCRM environment on any WordPress posts or pages. For us, it was a better solution. AlexaCRM can do much more, I am aware of customers running full eCommerce portals with it! If you let George know that you heard about his solution from this post, he promised me he would sing you a short song of your choice. Power Automate Our previous environment had used classic workflows for everything, so this was a good time to move those to Power Automate Cloud Flows. However, I am not 100% sold on Power Automate... yet. Classic workflows still exist because Microsoft has not yet reached parity with Power Automate to be able to turn them off. The "Fullness of Time" does seem to be quite full indeed. But I decided to use Cloud Flows wherever possible. It seems that every time I look for a connector in their expansive list of hundreds, it either does not exist, or does not do what I need it to. This was the case for WordPress also. The connector exists... but is essentially useless. Once again, a fellow MVP to the rescue. Heidi Nuehauser is working with Nick Hance at Reenhanced, and they have a rock-solid Power Automate connector for WordPress that can be used with either Gravity Forms or Contact 7 forms on your WordPress site. If you use the code FORCEWORKS, you can try it out for a month for free. BTW, I did not actually need the Reenhanced connector for our Support site, but while I was under the hood, I decided to update all of the forms on our main Forceworks and RapidStartCRM websites. So now all forms submitted create a record in Dataverse automagically. Results Since our Support Portal is not public (unless you want to buy some hours), I added some screenshots below for your reference. If you would be interested in a similar solution, please contact Forceworks. Account Summary Page   Cases Page Case Details Page

In this episode of CRM Audio, George Doubinski and Joel Lindstrom discuss the business case for Dataverse for Teams. Who is it for and what does it mean for people who already have Dataverse and Dynamics 365? 

In today's podcast, Joel Lindstrom and George Doubinski talk about Dataverse, the new name of Common Data Service. Microsoft has also renamed some of the CDS components. Entities are now tables, Option Sets are now choices, and fields are not columns. These new names may be confusing for long time platform users, but they move the platform to be more consistent with other platforms and will help makers moving from SharePoint to Dataverse, as the naming is now consistent.

It's autumn in the the US, the leaves are falling, and we are back with another episode of CRM Audio. In today's episode, Joel Lindstrom, George Doubinski, and Shawn Tabor talk about George's new in-line code editor function for Power Automate--how does it work, why would you want to use it over plain expressions, and is it secure? We also get into Oakdale, the new light version of Common Data Service included in Microsoft Teams. After using it for several weeks, how does it compare with full CDS? Are there any performance differences? And what about storage capacity?

Microsoft released a public preview of Connection References, which store Power Automate (and some Power App) connections in solutions, and prompt for connection when the solution is moved to another environment. This is a big deal because currently connections are not moved with solutions, which means that Power Automate flows are not connected after the solution is moved, and editing flows in Production environments are tedious and cause problems with ALM processes. This change is also significant because it brings the value of solutions and ALM to non-CDS connected flows. Since Sharepoint, SQL, and custom connections can be automated using connnection references, deployment automation and CI/CD can now appply to connections other than CDS. Listen to today's podcast as George Doubinski, Joel Lindstrom, and Shawn Tabor discuss connection references. We also touch on environment variables and how these changes work with environment variables. And we celebrate Shawn "Hobbit" Tabor's 50th birthday!

This episode is brought to you by Inogic and their new Kanban Board for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. James Phillips recently wrote a blog post "Our commitment to customers to help ensure business continuity" where he detailed plans to delay mandatory end of support and deprecation deadlines to remove pressure from customers and partners during this stressful time. 2020 Wave 1 will still be released in April, but mandatory updates will be delayed until May or June. Team member license enforcement is delayed until September, and deprecation of classic UI is delayed until late autumn US. Joel Lindstrom, George Doubinski, and Shawn Tabor discuss these delays and what they mean to you, as well as the following topics: virtual MVP summit update Goodbye Outlook client (again) and parity with App for Outlook Remote assist and remote assit guides Backup and restore (as long as you don't use SalesForce) Component libraries PCF controls vs components Links: Salesforce discontinues data recovery services: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=000322731&type=1&mode=1&language=en_US Revamping the date picker: https://thepoweraddict.com/revamping-the-date-picker-control-v2/

This episode is brought to you by Maplytics by Inogic. Next week is User Group Summit 2019, and to help get ready we have Nick Doelman, Darly LaBar, Jonas Rapp, Jim Novak, and Sara Lagerquist join Joel Lindstrom and George Doubinski to talk about their sessions. Even if you aren't attending the conference, you will learn something from this episode, as each panelist shares some of the tips that they are going to present in their sessions. Sessions mentioned on this episode: Unit Testing for C# Dynamics 365 CE/CRM/CDS Developers (https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=566088) Monday, October 14 8:00 AM – 5:00 PMDEV07 - Creating a Plugin With Unit Tests From Scratch (https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583252) Thursday, October 17 9:30 AM – 10:30 AMDEV09 - Ask the Experts, CRM Developer Edition! (https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583254) Thursday, October 17 4:15 PM – 5:15 PMADM23 - Top 10 Free Tools for CRM Admins and Functional Consultants (https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583255) Friday, October 18 1:15 PM – 2:15 PMUI10 - Deep Dive into Model Driven Forms JS for Non Developers(https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583253) Friday, October 18 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM DEV03 - Developing XrmToolBox Tools https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=D365CEcrm&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583336 DEV08 - Working With Liquid Templates in Dynamics Portals https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=D365CEcrm&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583335 PP11 - Building Canvas Apps - Time to Jump on the Bandwagon https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583381   NAAP06 - 5 Steps to Create PowerApps for Any Device https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583382   EXCE03 - Let's Build an XrmToolBox Tool! https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583380   DEV07 - Creating a Plugin With Unit Tests From Scratch https://www.eventscribe.com/2019/summit-orlando/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=583252 ADM15 - Improve Your Dynamics 365 Data Quality With a PowerApp https://cdmcd.co/Rz6Z4   UI04 - Tips to Help Drive an Aggressive CRM Roadmap at Your Organization https://cdmcd.co/baqKJ Music: Ben Vollmer Song

Time for a CRM Audio episode with George Doubinski, Shawn Tabor, and Joel Lindstrom (brought to you by ClickLearn). In this week's episode we talk about the following topics: George's new Tesla Death of classic UI Wave 2 release schedule Getting ready for Power Platform 24 Dealing with information overload Upcoming conferences Differences between CDS connector and Current Environment connector  

This episode of CRM Audio is brought to you by Clicklearn. Today is classic CRM Audio, with George Doubinski, Shawn Tabor, and Joel Lindstrom Topics in today's episode: License driven development: https://brianilland.me/2019/06/23/licence-driven-development/ Power Platform 24 The value of CDS Considering user experience with PowerApps Resource scheduling Calendar control #askjoel CCPA DES Experience The weekly dispatch Have any topic suggestions? Send them to voice@crm.audio.

In this episode (brought to you by D365UG), Nick and Colin are joined by George Doubinski to discuss the Marketing Portal - did the Marketing Team go rogue? Show notes: MS Learn: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/get-started-dynamics-365-portals/ Updated April 19 release notes: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/business-applications-release-notes/april19/ Marketing Portal https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/marketing/developer/event-management-web-application Bad Masterclass https://crmtipoftheday.com/masterclass/ Portals Training UG Summit Amsterdam https://eu.usergroupsummit.com/conference-schedule/academy

In this episode (brought to you by D365UG), Nick and Colin are joined by George Doubinski to discuss the Marketing Portal - did the Marketing Team go rogue? Show notes: MS Learn: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/get-started-dynamics-365-portals/ Updated April 19 release notes: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/business-applications-release-notes/april19/ Marketing Portal https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customer-engagement/marketing/developer/event-management-web-application Bad Masterclass https://crmtipoftheday.com/masterclass/ Portals Training UG Summit Amsterdam https://eu.usergroupsummit.com/conference-schedule/academy

In today's episode (brought to you by Kingswaysoft), Shawn Tabor, George Doubinski, and Scott LeFante are at D365UG Summit in Phoenix. They discuss what we learned at D365 UG Summit. Topics discussed: Dynamics 365 AI What's new with Relationship Insights Extending Dynamics 365 AI What does democratization of AI mean? Hobbit's review of D365 mixed reality apps Azure Logic Apps are now part of Microsoft Business Applications Dynamics 365 system stability Update on BAD Masterclass This episode is a production of Dynamic Podcasts LLC. Subscribe to the  CRM Audio network of podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Some of you may know, that one of several things I am involved with, is an ISV Consulting Collaborative called Power ISV. Together with four other ISV-focused Business Applications MVPs, we are helping existing ISVs to modernize, new ISVs get started, and guiding ISVs on other platforms over to the Microsoft Cloud. We also want to reverse the adage, "Those that can't do, Teach", into "Those that are doing it, Teach". Imagine, if you will Looking around the Microsoft ISV space today, and specifically looking at AppSource, there seems to be a lack of imagination. It feels like the "inspiration" for many ISV solutions, is seeing existing ISV solutions, leading to either very similar ISV solutions being built, or ones with minimal advancement of an existing idea. Looking around AppSource you will see a lot of "copies" of similar things, and frankly most of those "things" are for solving simple problems. Don't get me wrong, we all appreciate a nicely built widget. But are those really going to get us to "empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more"? Achieving More How does one actually "achieve more" with technology? It is not simply being able to respond to emails twice as fast... a typing class solves that. Replacing paper processes with digital ones? Yeah, that would put you in position to achieve more. Being able to collaborate with my team or customers better? Sure, but are we not already burnt out on the whole collaboration "Kumbaya" theme. I think "Achieving More" was a great goal at the time it was stated, and probably tied nicely into the Office 365 push at the time, but now what? Building a Toolbox As I look at what Microsoft has been doing in recent years, particularly around the Azure and Business Applications space, they seem to have spent a great deal of effort creating new technologies. Like IoT, AI, ML, [Insert Acronym Here], etc. The palette of capabilities has grown fast. Some ISVs have embraced parts of this new palette, but many are either oblivious, or just... uninspired. I understand, that if you have your own technology, your focus is going to be on plugging that into the Microsoft machine. But where is the disruption? What is Disruption? Maybe you have built a disruptive technology externally, and your goal is simply to bring your disruptive force to a broader base by moving it to the Microsoft engine. I am waiting to see the disruption being borne out of the Microsoft platform. Microsoft has been disruptive in the way they are providing, and growing the tools, but I am looking for the Uber, and so is Microsoft. Microsoft won't build the next Uber, but they have built all of the tools necessary for an ISV to build it. Disruption is all around us. Home Depot disrupted the hardware industry, but that was not so much a technological disruption, as it was a scale and distribution disruption. Uber is probably one of the best known "Technology-driven" disruptions. An industry, that was over 100 years old, was turned upside-down... by an app. Can you make a Unicorn? From a pure technology only standpoint, it is hard to top Uber. Uber was not built on Microsoft technologies, but today, it could have been, and probably at a fraction of the time and cost that Uber has invested. When you break it down into its parts... it's a freaking mobile App! It incorporates a bunch of things we already know, GPS, Ratings, Matching, eCommerce, etc. All parts, and many more, that are available to any of us in Microsoft's Cloud portfolio. But it is not about the parts. It was about that day in the cab, when some guy thought: "This sucks ass". Inception to Disruption For any of us, several times a week, we engage with something that Sucks. Sure, maybe it is the way that Dynamics 365 deals with some thing, that inspires you to create a widget. That is not disruptive, that is convenience. Clearly, most of us will aspire to the convenience, and there is nothing wrong with that, you might even make a few bucks. But a few of you, have it within you to not only recognize an opportunity to truly disrupt, but see the actual path through the vast Microsoft toolbox "illuminated". Walk the Talk So the team at Power ISV, is going to attempt to "Practice what we Preach", and journey down the "Inception to Disruption" path, utilizing nothing but the Microsoft Cloud toolbox. I can't share the "idea" just yet as we are still wrapping our heads around it, but I can tell you the current experience Sucks. We will be chronicling every step of our journey, as we seek to create an "Inception to Disruption" roadmap. "What's Next" indeed! Shining the Spotlight You can learn more about Power ISV here, but in case you don't get to it, I wanted to highlight the MVPs who are part of the team. Myself of course, as well as Mark Smith, David Yack, Scott Durow and George Doubinski. Another thing we will be thoroughly testing, is the ability of a bunch of "know-it-alls" to work together as a team. That may prove the biggest hurdle.  

George Doubinski on the MVP Show Full Show Notes: https://www.nz365guy.com/35

There are a lot of opinions floating around the Dynamics 365 channel today. Talk to any partner and they will say things like "If it were up to me, I would do this or that... but don't tell anybody I said that". Seems to me, if we don't tell anybody what we think, we should not be entitled to complain about any results! "Microsoft wouldn't listen to me" This is the most common response I get, when I suggest to someone that they should share their opinions with Microsoft. Whispering to each other in the corners is not going to accomplish anything. If you have built a practice that is dependent on Microsoft, you have an obligation to yourself and your company to make yourself heard; and I have found that Microsoft is not just willing to listen, but is usually eager to hear! That does not mean that they will act on your particular suggestion, but as a Partner Led company, partner opinions are core to everything they need to accomplish. If they built some thing that no partner liked or agreed with, then no partner would sell it! In fact, Microsoft has significant motions in place to get this exact kind of Feedback, from the MVP Communities to Partner Advisory Councils, and more, including the Dynamics 365 Strategy Simulator. Pilot for a Day You know those flight simulators that they train pilots in, so Microsoft has a secret one, 24 levels below a non-descript building on campus. What if James Phillips were to say to you, "Okay smart guy, you take a turn in our "D365 Strategy Simulator". Umm... it is one thing to voice an opinion about some particular aspect that impacts your particular footprint, we could all do that pretty easily. But that is only navigating for your practice, at the end of the day, even if a course could be plotted that satisfied every partners' viewport, it would crash and burn. While Microsoft may be Partner-Led, partners are not the customers. So, let's try that again, but this time, don't solve for partners, solve for customers. The Invite So I get this email from Phillips, "Steve, we have identified you as an opinionated know-it-all, and wanted to invite you and some other opinionated know-it-alls, to spend a day in our Dynamics 365 Strategy Simulator. Be on campus this Friday at 5AM at bus stop #12452". So I arrive at exactly 5AM and there are already several other partners, that we all know very well. We all get on the bus, and the blindfolding process seems to take longer than it should, but we are eventually underway. After about 30 minutes the bus stops, and I can hear a big garage door closing. We are all led, still blindfolded, down a corridor and guided into an elevator, as the door closes, we are told we can remove our blindfolds. The elevator has only one button, and Phillips pushes it and we start to go down. The ride takes a full 3 minutes, but stops smoothly and the door opens to a cavernous room. In the middle of the room is a large capsule, with a door on the back of it, sitting on a bunch of metal arms and levers. I snuck a photo of it when Phillip's back was turned. Pre-Flight We are ushered into a small auditorium, and sent down two rows to sit, I am in the back row. The first problem is that I am sitting right behind James Crowter, and he's pretty tall so I have to crane my neck to see. I look to my right to see who is talking, when we are supposed be be quiet, of course... Joel Lindstrom. Anyway, on the stage stands Phillips, and right behind him from left to right are Marko, Param and some AX guy I don't know. Above their heads are three large monitors, side by side. Each monitor is displaying various data about a particular platform like pricing, structure, licensing, functionality, etc. From left to right the monitors are NAV, CRM and AX. As Phillips opens his mouth to speak, George Doubinski jumps up from his seat and says "I am the only real developer here... just saying" and sits back down. Phillips looks at him for a few seconds, and then continues, "Behind me you will see an overview of the items that you will be able to control in the simulator. Each of you will have full control over every aspect of these items". I hear Mark Smith say, just loud enough for everyone to hear: "Brilliant!". Then I notice that Marko is kind of tipping his head, and darting his eyes up, motioning towards the NAV monitor. Phillips catches this out of the corner of his eye, and turns to Marko, who smiles sheepishly and stops. Param rolls his eyes, but the AX guy didn't notice. I also see Alysa Taylor, over by the door, whispering to some guy I have not met before, his name tag says, "Hi, I'm Hayden". We will be taken, one at a time from here to the simulator, and Crowter goes first. He stands and passes Sarah Critchley, who I can see is laser focused on her phone, I lean forward to see what is so important, at a time like this, and see she is editing a new cat emoji. The Simulator About an hour passes, and Crowter re-enters the auditorium. I can't tell from his face, whether he passed or failed, and he is not letting on. Before I get a chance to lean in and ask him how it went, my name is called. "Right Now Mordue!" Ugh. Phillips leads me into the main room, and the door is opened on the back of the capsule, and a staircase unfolds. He motions for me to enter, apparently I was climbing the stairs too slowly, because he kinda pushed me over the last one, and then slammed the door shut. It is quite dark, just a red glow, enough where I can make out shapes. There's a chair in front of me that looks like Captain Kirk's Star Trek chair, and I circle around and sit in it. As I sit, a metal seat-belt comes out of the left side and crosses my stomach and clicks into the right side. I look at the armrests, and it looks like almost all of the padding has been scratched off, and even the metal underneath has what looks like claw marks. Suddenly, I am awash in bright light as three monitors fire to life, in the same orientation as the auditorium. Below each monitor are switches, levers and dials to adjust what is on them. Below the middle monitor is a small LED that says "Mission One: Solve for Enterprise". It flashes a few times and then says "Begin", I feel a slight jolt as the simulator comes to life. Mission One Hmm, Solve for Enterprise... not my area of expertise, but I'll take a shot, because it doesn't look like I can skip it. First, I reach to the left, under the NAV monitor. I am remembering Marko saying that NAV can be used for SMB, all the way up to Enterprise, but most of the NAV partners I know, are not focused on Enterprise. I don't know AX that well either, but understand it to be a more complex product aimed at enterprise. So I turn off all of the NAV capabilities, and on the right, I crank up all of the AX levers. In the middle, where the CRM label has been crossed through with a sharpie, and Customer Engagement has been hand written below, I also start turning up levers. Field Service: On, Project Service: On, anything marked "Insights": On. A new monitor lights up below, that I had not noticed before, it is not very tall, but it spans across and under all three of the big monitors, and flashes CDS before showing a whole bunch of other dials, and I see a new set of levers below it. I flip them all on. I sit for minute... thinking... looking at the glowing green button on the right armrest labeled "Start Simulation"... I press it. I hear laughing erupt outside of the capsule, apparently the crew has seen this configuration before, I fear that I won't do well, but hey, this is not my area of expertise. I have no doubt that Joel will crush my score on this one. The capsule rocks around for a bit and then stops, all monitors go dark, the LED says "Simulation Completed". It did not say "Mission Accomplished", so I have no idea what happened, but before I can even think further about it, the LED flashes, "Mission Two : Solve for SMB". Mission Two Now we're talking, SMB is my wheelhouse. The three big monitors light up again, the same as they started in the first simulation. The first thing I do, is turn everything on the right (AX) side off. When Microsoft says SMB, I assume they are really meaning upper small to middle sized companies, as nobody makes any money on the 5 seat deals, so that is the lens I am thinking about. I look at CRM, ugh, I mean Customer Engagement next, as that is what I know. First thing, turn off Field Service and Project Service. My goal is to solve for the meat of the SMB market, not the fringes, so I go ahead and turn off Customer Service for now also. This is going to focus on Sales, the door that 90% of SMBs enter from. Insights? Too complex for most SMBs, at least to start, so I push those levers down, but not all the way. Appsource? Yes, yes, that one goes full to the top, SMB would rather buy than build any day. Plus, some of the enterprise features I turned off, will be filled by SMB focused products from Appsource. As I make adjustments, new windows appear, based on the selections I have made, a new one pops up in the corner now, it is labeled Business Edition in a crossed through font with a question mark next to it. I know that regardless of that they end up calling it, this is the simplified UI, so I push all of those levers to the top. A box flashes at the bottom of the window, "Do you want to change the default price of $40/user?", I check "No". I lean back, feeling pretty good about this configuration, I let me head loll to the left, and I am facing the NAV monitor. Hmm, NAV, I am not an NAV partner, but something is telling me that is is important for this simulation. I look down to the LED and it is flashing: "Create a branch of this simulation?" I think about this. Many customers that I have encountered in the SMB space have been looking for just a sales solution. Is that because they are not interested in an end-to-end solution, or because I do not know enough to offer one? If I did, and I offered it, wouldn't that give me an even stronger competitive advantage? I decide to create a branch of what I started and find out. I look at the NAV monitor... it does not say Tenerife yet, but that just came out and the guy with the Sharpie hasn't got to it yet. I see a lot of items on the screen that I do not understand, and the levers look foreign also, but I do recognize a few. One says SaaS on the top and on-premise on the bottom. I place it to about 80% SaaS, because I know there will still be some customers who are ignorant to the cloud. I tweak a few other levers that I really don't understand, but I need to move them somewhere, as I am sure the defaults are not what I want. I notice another lever that says "re-factor platform?" Looking down at the LED, I see that I can create yet another branch of the simulation from here. I press it. When I select "re-factor platform" for my new branch, I notice some new grab handles on the windows. I had just talked to Crowter the other day, and he floated an idea by me as a CRM guy, for my opinion. Hoping he did not notice the "Create a Branch" option, I am going to steal it and see if can beat him in this simulation with his own idea... I'm not proud. I take the grab handle at the top of the NAV screen, and drag the entire screen over to the middle one, and drop it on top of the XRM box. What if NAV were actually a CRM App built on XRM? That would take care of any integration challenges. I know we have CDS, but would this not be easier. One UI, a platform within a platform instead of next to it... I'm liking this idea, thanks Crowter, ya sucker. A box appears, "Do you want to change the default price of "TBD?" Hmm, this is a good question. Knowing that in the App model, different users could use different things, and I already accepted the $40 price for Sales only, I decide that for this NAV App a good price would be $75/user. It does not give me an option to create a price for Sales and NAV, but that may not come up that often anyway. I press the button on the armrest to start all simulations. The capsule rocks back and forth for what seems like a long time, and then everything goes dark again, just the red glow. Nothing is happening. The seat belt slides back open, so I assume I'm done. I stand and turn towards the door and it opens, I squint from the light and I see Phillips waving me out. He leads me back to the auditorium, and as I enter I hear, "Right Now Lindstom!" Post Flight As my eyes adjust, I notice Crowter sitting in front of me. I lean in and say "James, did you see the branching option?", and he says "what branching option?". I lean back and smile. Several hours pass, and finally everyone has returned to the auditorium. The last one to return is Chris Cognetta, he is backing into the room, still turned towards the simulator, I think he is explaining to the simulator crew how simulators work. It's quiet now, but I can hear George grumbling about a lever in the simulator that was sticking, and obviously not well designed. Marko, Param and the AX guy are nowhere to be seen. Alysa is still whispering to "Hi, I'm Hayden", and pointing at some of us, although I can't tell who. Phillips clears his throat, and says "Thank you for your participation, the crew will re-blindfold you and return you to the bus stop". Before I can stop myself, I blurt out "Wait!! Who won?", Phillips shoots me a glance, pauses, and says, "Hopefully, we all did". Next steps for you As you can clearly see, Microsoft is extremely willing to take feedback from partners. The next time you see Phillips, Marko, Param, Alysa, "Hi I'm Hayden", or the AX guy. Tell them you want to crack at the Dynamics 365 Strategy Simulator. They will probably deny its existence, and I will probably get some serious heat from them for exposing it. But don't take no for an answer.

In today’s episode (sponsored by @maplytics by @inogic), hosts Britta Rekstad and Matthew C. Anderson continue their discussion (started in episode 14) about their favorite things in Dynamics for sales force automation in Dynamics. Discussed on the show Category search vs. relevance search use cases Wildcards in search (George Doubinski’s Wildcard Tip of the Day post) Search […] The post More Sales Force Automation in Dynamics 365 – Ep 20 appeared first on Implement This.

This episode is sponsored by Maplytics by Inogic. George Doubinski and David Yack are at Build 2018 in Seattle, Wa. On this episode they talk about what they have heard at Build: CDS and Microsoft Business Applications at Build Custom connectors Durable functions They also give an update on the BAD Developer Masterclass. Check out the updated agenda. This episode is a production of Dynamic Podcasts LLC. Subscribe to the  CRM Audio network of podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

This episode of CRM Audio is brought to you by Ingenius. On May 1, 2018, Microsoft announced the general availability of Model Driven Power Apps. As we covered earlier, the underlying "XRM" platform is now common data service, and application configuration that we think of as D365 Customer Engagement/CRM are now considered "Model Driven PowerApps." In the first half of this episode, Joel and Shawn discuss what Model Driven PowerApps are, how they are licensed, and what you need to know about them.  In the second half, George Doubinski and David Yack join the conversation and discuss what the move to MDPA really means, is this "the new Microsoft Access," and how CRM people can get ready for Model Driven PowerApps. Links discussed in this episode: Official announcement Scott Durow: Is CDS Really the New XRM? PowerApps Licensing Restricted entities requiring Dynamics 365 license This episode is a production of Dynamic Podcasts LLC. Subscribe to the  CRM Audio network of podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.  

This episode is sponsored by CRMUG/D365UG George Doubinski talks about his upcoming Business Application Developer Masterclass.  A rare opportunity to attend personal in-class training by yours truly, George Doubinski, founder of CRM Tip of the Day and CRM.Audio with the guest appearances by Scott Durow and David Yack. Who shall attend: For all you experienced Dynamics 365/CRM developers who want to take your skills to the next level. Read more about the class and learn how to register here.  

Episode 47 were Markus Erlandsson talks to George Doubinski about how to develop for Dynamics 365 and what is new. They are going all over the place and talks about everything from Fields Service via Customer Insights to Data Export and Editable Grids. Bio: George Doubinski is a 9th time CRM MVP specialising in all things … Continue reading Develop for Dynamics 365 with George Doubinski