Common Data Service for Apps – Business Rules (Server-Side Logic) – Part 6

With Spring 2018 release, Microsoft introduced several types of server-side logic including Business Process Flows, Workflows, Calculated & Rollup Fields and Business Rules which do not require any coding. Part 5 of this series covers Calculated & Rollup Fields. In this blog we will explore Business Rules.

Business Rules: Declarative logic comprises of conditions and actions for data accuracy and consistency across applications. Business Rules provide a nice graphical UI for defining these rules and actions that will be executed synchronously when a record is created/updated. These rules are created at entity level in common data services, hence you do not need to write separate logic for individual apps (canvas & model driven apps)

You can perform below actions using business rules:

• Set field values
• Clear field values
• Set field requirement levels
• Show or hide fields
• Enable or disable fields
• Validate data and show error messages
• Create business recommendations based on business intelligence

With Model Driven apps, all above actions are available. But with Canvas apps, below actions are not available.

• Show or hide fields
• Enable or disable fields
• Create business recommendations based on business intelligence

Demo:

We will explore “Expiration Date” field of Company Product entity created in Part 2 of series. We will create new field “Is Expired” which will be Two-Options field with values Yes/No. Using business rule we will set value and show/hide “Is Expired” field if “Expiration Date” field contains value.

• Login into PowerApp web portal
• Go to Data->Entities, select Company Product entity. Select Fields tab and click on + Add Field

• Give a name to field “Is Expired”, choose Two-Options as data type and click on Done

• Once created new field “Is Expired” will appear in list of Fields. Click on Save Entity
• Select Business Rules tab now, Click on Add Business Rule which will open Dynamics 365 business rule designer.

• By default, new rule will have one condition. Give a name to your Business Rule. Click on Condition to set condition properties. In my case it would be “Expiration Date” contains data

• Click on Apply. You can also add more rules to your condition by clicking on + New in condition properties.

• You will observe as you will be adding conditions or actions to your business rule, text representation of same will added to Business Rules Text View

• You can also add more conditions or actions from Components tab on right or + Add button in top menu options.

• Every condition will have success () and failure () paths. Actions connected to success path will trigger when condition is true. Similarly, actions connected to failure path will trigger when condition is false.

• Let’s add action to our business rule. Drag and Drop Set Field Action from components and connect it with condition success. Give a name to your action, set action properties as “Is Expired as Yes”. Click on Apply

• Similarly drag and drop one more Set Field Action and this time connect it with condition failure. Give a name to your action and set action properties as “Is Expired as No” this time. Click on Apply
• We want to show Is Expired field only if it is set to Yes. Drag and Drop Set Visibility Action and connection with Action which sets “Is Expired” to Yes. Give a name to action and set properties as “Is Expired” visible as Yes. Click on Apply

• Click on Validate on top right to make sure everything is ok. Click on Save once validated. Once saved Click on Activate.
• Add “Is Expired” field on Company Product form and set default Visibility as No. Refer Add & Modify forms section in Part 3 of series on how to add fields on form in model driven app.
• Run your app. Open company product record with or without Expiration Date

Part 5