Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Monthly Update-May 2022

Quick Links: Featured News | Updates and Releases | Product Updates | Training Corner | Useful Links

Featured News

Dynamics 365 & Microsoft Teams | Context IQ set of Collaboration & Communication capabilities

See the latest Context IQ set of capabilities leveraged in Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Dynamics 365 Sales allowing you to have context of the customer conveniently within your Teams Chat, Channel, Meeting, Calls interface reduces the need to switch between apps during the conversation, empowering the user to be more engaged with the customer and increasing the likelihood the customer relationship management (CRM) record receives timely updates.

We’re excited about the cross-organization collaboration features with Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams, including:

Customer support swarming in Dynamics 365 Customer Service

• Bringing together the right talent to effectively resolve complex cases with customer support swarming.
• Using smart rules, customer support swarming suggests skills and invites the best relevant experts to resolve an agent’s issue.
• When joining the swarm, relevant skills are displayed identifying the expertise of each swarm participant.
• Powered by Teams, customer service agents and subject matter experts can swarm cases in the applications they’re accustomed to using, including Customer Service workspace and Teams.
• Preview available in Dynamics 365 Customer Service in April.

Teams chat embedded within Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service

• This capability allows you to use Dynamics 365 data as an organizing layer for your Teams collaboration activity and link chats to Dynamics 365 records, such as sales opportunities and service cases, for convenient access for all participants.
• With Embedded Teams Chat leverage:
  • Rule-based suggestions and AI suggestions contacts for Teams-based collaboration.
• With Teams Calls leverage:
  • AI-generated conversation summary with Conversation Intelligence.
• Preview available in Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service in April.

Unified Teams meetings experience for Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service users

• This capability allows you to create and join Teams meetings from Dynamics 365 and be able to view and edit records within the context of the Teams meetings interface.
• Additionally, Conversational Intelligence capabilities will be integrated into the Teams meeting experience providing sellers with AI-guided suggestions that improve customer engagement
• Preview available in Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service in April.

Share and update Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service records within Teams

• Sellers and agents can easily share, reference, and edit Dynamics 365 records in the context of Teams chats and channels, eliminating the need to switch context or applications to get work done.
• Other participants of the conversation can see the summary details and choose to view or edit the record right from within Teams or Dynamics 365, whatever their preference.
• Users will also be able to select posts within Teams and quickly add to Dynamics 365 as an activity update to a specific record.
• Preview available in Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service in April.

To learn more, visit the documentation: Teams Integration.

Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event – Watch the event on demand

• Catch all the latest advancements across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform 2022 RW1 being unveiled, including:
  • More collaborative content creation, improved authoring efficiency, and advanced personalization using Dynamics 365 Marketing.
  • Ambient and actionable business data, a single workspace in Sales Hub, and AI-guided live feedback with Dynamics 365 Sales.
  • Simplified setup with guided, task-based experiences and inbox enhancements for rapid issue resolution using Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
  • Subscription billing and intelligent automation around invoicing, ledger settlements, and year-end close services in Dynamics 365 Finance.

Sign-in and Watch the event on demand here

Microsoft Build is coming – May 24-26, 2022

Come together at Microsoft Build May 24–26 2022, to explore the latest innovations in code and application development—and to gain insights from peers and experts from around the world.
Register now

• Check out this page for more details.

Deprecations and Service Retirement

November 2022 

Dataverse OData v2.0 Service removal

• We plan to remove the Dataverse OData v2.0 Organization Data Service on November 11, 2022.
• This announcement does not involve the deprecated Organization Service SOAP endpoint.
• At this time, no date has been announced for the removal of the SOAP endpoint.
• The Organization Data Service was deprecated with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement v8.0 in favor of the Web API, an OData v4.0 service.
• Today, less than .06% of requests to Dataverse use this endpoint. Removing this endpoint will enable Dataverse to improve overall performance.
• Any code that uses the Organization Data Service should be migrated to use the Web API before that time.
• More information: OData v2.0 Service removal date announcement

Data export Service

• Data Export Service (DES) is deprecated.
• Data Export Service will continue to work and will be fully supported until it reaches end-of-support and end-of-life a year from this announcement date, in November 2022.
• This notice is to allow you sufficient time to plan and onboard to Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse which is a successor to Data Export Service.
• The Playbook will guide them through the initialization, planning, and adoption phases.
• For more details, check out this page on Power Apps blog.

Important upcoming changes – supporting articles

Important upcoming changes and deprecations in canvas apps
Important upcoming changes and deprecations in Power Apps Portals
Important changes (deprecations) coming in Power Apps and Power Automate

Release Waves and Service Updates

Understanding Release Wave Updates

• Release Wave Plan for visibility on what’s coming.
• Release Wave schedule  for visibility on deployment timelines  for Power Apps, Dynamics 365 CE Apps and Industry Clouds.
  • Wave 1 Period:   April – September
  • Wave 2 Period:  October to March.
• Release Wave Opt-in to early access update.
  • Understand the opt-in process to early updates for Dynamics 365 environment and how to opt-in to early access updates.
• General Availability deployment
  • After a release cycle has been made "generally available" to users, environments are typically automatically turned on.
    This is so users can receive ongoing mandatory updates which will enable the early access features and general available features of the release.

Tips to Stay Informed on Updates notifications

• Stay Informed on important service updates and other major updates changes with Message Center notifications through Email preferences for Dynamics and PowerApps using Microsoft 365 Admin center  
• or Manage email notifications to admins using PowerShell

Microsoft Dataverse – Service Update

Dataverse Service Updates are typically deployed every week and reflect the environment update information.
Microsoft Dataverse - Service Update 22051 Release Notes for Dataverse 9.2.0

Click here to see the Latest Version Availability for your Dataverse

Microsoft Dynamics 365 On-Premises – Release and Service Updates

For the latest Service Updates for Dynamics 365 on-premise release version 9.0 and 9.1 visit Service Updates
Latest On-Premises Update | March 2022 release

• Dynamics CRM 9.1 On-Premises
  • Service Update 1.9 (9.1.9.8) – March 2022
• Dynamics CRM 9.0 On-Premises
  • Service Update 0.37 – March 2022

Product Updates

Monitor all your Dataflow refreshes with a Power BI dashboard

• We are pleased to announce an enhanced way to monitor your dataflow refresh history.
• You can now use the managed Dataverse tables to report over your dataflow refresh history.
• To access these tables, we suggest you use Dataverse connector in Power BI to set up your dashboard.

What is new?

• As of today, we provide you two new managed Dataverse table with details about refreshes of your dataflows in your environment. We populate the tables with new data automatically after each refresh.
• DataflowRefreshHistory – Contains the overall dataflow refresh history data
• EntityRefreshHistory – Contains data of all entities involved in the refreshes

To get you started we have set up a step-by-step guide to deploy a template which will give you insights right away.
Go to this docs page and get started with a more data driven monitoring experience.

Announcing Public Preview of a new Power Apps application on Windows

• We are announcing the release of Power Apps (Preview) for Windows.
• The Power Apps (preview) application is available in the Microsoft Store and to install the app, it is just as easy as installing any other Windows app.
• Check always out the documentation.
• With the new Power Apps (preview) application, you will be able to run apps in offline within a brand new application fully integrated within the Windows OS and supporting the native Dataverse connector and native device capabilities like barcode scanner or Camera controls.
• Benefits:
  • Find all of your canvas and model-driven apps in one place
  • Make offline-capable apps
  • Use device capabilities in your apps
  • Manage Power Apps (preview) with Intune

Learn more on this page on Power Apps blog.

Announcing Public Preview of wrap for Power Apps

We are announcing the wrap public preview – enabling you to create mobile apps with Power Apps – is now open.
Power Apps is now officially a Mobile Application Development Platform (MADP/MXDP) stuffed with great new capabilities:

• Low-code mobile app creation – we build the app for you!
• Seamless end-to-end branding from home screen icon to app UX
• Embed multiple Canvas apps into a single mobile app
• Distribute your app natively to meet end users where they are
• Enterprise governance with Intune for individual Canvas apps

Learn more on how makers can use this capability on this page on Power Apps blog.

Announcing the AAD User Virtual Table – Find and add any AAD user to your records.

• We are announcing support for an Azure Active Directory – AAD  User virtual table for Dataverse.
• The AAD User table makes it easy to retrieve any user in your organization’s Azure Active Directory – not just users who have a Dataverse license assigned to them.  You can also retrieve details like job title, email, phone number and more.
• The new AAD user table is available automatically with no additional configuration required.
• AAD User is different from the User table in Dataverse. The User table only displays users who have a Dataverse license assigned to them. AAD User will show anyone in the AAD User address book.  Note that the AAD User table is read only.

Check out the introductory video here.

Learn more on how admin can use this capability on this page on Power Apps blog.

Announcing General Availability (GA) for In-app notifications in Model-driven apps

• We are happy to announce that the in-app notifications feature has reached General Availability (GA). 
• This builds on the public preview announced July 2021 in Announcing public preview for in-app notifications.
• In-app notifications enable a user to receive a notification while they are working within the web or mobile model-driven app. 
• Notifications can be sent from Power Automate, app logic or web service calls allowing flexibility in where notifications are triggered.
• Model-driven apps can be enabled in-app notifications within the modern app designer.  Open the settings dialog and toggle “In-app notifications” feature to Yes under “Features”.  Depending on your release, it may still be under “Upcoming” with a preview tag while the update is rolling out.

Learn more on how admin can use this capability on this page on Power Apps blog.

Announcing New Data Sources for the Virtual Connection Provider

• We are adding Excel and SharePoint to the virtual connection providers for virtual tables.
• You may have used the SQL virtual connection provider during its public preview, based on popular requests, we have enabled the same functionality for two of the largest external data sources for Power Apps..

What are Virtual Tables?

• Virtual tables connect to existing data outside of Dataverse allowing Power Apps and the Power Platform to treat it like local data.
• If you have a list that stores all of your product data in SharePoint, a virtual table lets you access that data within an app and also provide relationships between Dataverse tables and the SharePoint lists.
• You can even use your custom Power Apps code to make changes directly in the source, just by using the APIs that Dataverse provides.

Virtual Table Components

• Virtual tables require connectors and connection references in order to authenticate to the data source and allow Dataverse to speak to the connection.
• If you are building a virtual table manually, you need to build plug-ins to allow the Dataverse and source APIs to communicate, set up a connector, set up a connection reference, register a service principle with Azure to allow authentication, and then finally build the table.

Why are Virtual Connector Providers important?

• Virtual Connector Providers make the process of creating virtual tables easier. If you use a Virtual Connector Provider, Dataverse does some of the work for you. You will no longer need to:
  • Create Plug-ins for APIs
  • Create Service Principles
  • Search for which tables or lists are compatible in your data source

Learn more how to use this capability on this page on Power Apps blog.

Power Apps Portals – What’s New

Portals Runtime Release Notification—9.4.4.x - April 21, 2022

• Highlights
  • Availability of Hebrew and Arabic language support for portal website
  • Authenticated users can upload / modify image in profile page
  • Maker can configure image column on basic and advanced form
  • Improved Security of OOB Profile Page

Configure the rich text editor control on portals

• Configure Power Apps portals to add the rich text editor control to a basic form and then add the basic form to a web page. Portal users will be able interact with the rich text editor control to format text on the form.

Configure column permissions

• In portals, table permissions are used to apply security to individual Dataverse table records. You can add column permissions to individual table columns. Column permissions are an optional configuration that you associate with web roles.

Configure Dataverse search in portals (preview)

• Dataverse search delivers fast and comprehensive search results sorted by relevance in portals. Dataverse search is the same search service used in model-driven apps and other Microsoft Power Platform services built on Microsoft Dataverse.

Configure a choices column on portals

• Makers can design basic forms and advanced forms to include choices columns defined in Microsoft Dataverse. This feature provides the ability for portal users to select multiple options while submitting data, and display views that include choices columns through lists.

Overview of portals as progressive web apps

• You can enable your functional portal as a progressive web app (PWA), with native app–like look and feel, by using Power Apps portals Studio.
• With this feature, Power Apps portals now supports using progressive web app technology to provide multiplatform support to create an app that will work on all platforms (Android, iOS, Windows, and Chromebooks) and form factors (mobile, desktop, and tablet).

Power Automate – Product Updates

Introducing the new Power Automate pane in  Power Apps

• We are making it even easier to add and work with Power Automate flows in your canvas apps without ever leaving the studio!
• The new Power Automate pane brings the ability to add flows to the left-pane, in the same way you add other resources like data and media to your canvas app.
• When you click the Power Automate button, a new pane appears allowing you to see flows already included in in your app or add existing flows.
• You can also create new flows; selecting “Create new flow” now opens a new experience where you can choose from Power Apps based flow templates or start from blank.

Check out this page for more details.

Power Automate for desktop – April 2022 update

• We are happy to announce that the April 2022 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.19) has been released!
• You can download the latest release here.
• New features and updates have been added and include:
  • Cloud or Region picker is now supported in the console
  • New action ‘Hover mouse over UI element in window’
  • Support of physical keyboard interaction in ‘Populate text field on web page’ action
  • Improved recorder performance

Check out the full list and details on the Power Automate blog page.

Learning and Training Corner

Power Apps portal | Security - Power BI embedded with RLS

• Just as the Power apps Portal is the tool of choice to quickly extend your Dataverse deployment to the public in the form of a website, Power BI is the tool of choice to render elegant data-driven visualizations.  The beauty of the Power Platform lies in its ability to seamlessly blend the two.
• With Power BI embedded, one can contextually serve Power BI components to users, pass automatic filters by using a filter parameter, and enable row-level security capabilities to allow an organization to truly secure data visible to users and only display what they are meant to see.

Check out this page and learn through a scenario.

Power apps Portal | Security - How to configure table permissions with Connections

• In Power Apps portal: Security 101, we laid out a snapshot view of how portal security works.
• Authenticated portal users are technically Dataverse contacts, and their table permissions to view data will depend on their contact's relationship to the records they are attempting to view.
• The beauty of the portal is that you can repurpose the relationships and objects that you already have in Dataverse... but what if your tables are using Connections to relate the records to Contacts, instead of a direct relationship?

Check out this page to find response to the solutioning

What happened to the alphabet bar?! How to add the jump bar back after 2022 Wave 1

Since the 2022 release wave 1 update, the Power Apps read-only grid control is now the default grid for read-only scenarios, which applies to both grids in view pages and subgrids within forms. While we do get the nifty infinite scroll, sleek spacing, resizable/reorderable columns, and improved accessibility…
the alphabet jump bar is gone. To get the jump bar back, you will need to revert back to the previous grid experience.

Check out this page to find response to the solutioning.