Customer relationships are at the heart of every successful organization. To deliver high quality customer experiences, you need to not only be collaborating internally within your organization but also engaging in effective customer conversations. As part of our goal to put people at the center of your experience in Dynamics 365, we are bringing a familiar experience to Dynamics 365’s Unified Interface: Profile cards.

Profile cards exist in Outlook and other Office apps today to help you collaborate with a person, whether they are your colleague or an external contact. They enable you to have their information at your fingertips wherever you are in the Office ecosystem. Starting today, this experience is rolling out for Dynamics 365 so you can take the same actions on your data in Common Data Service within Unified Interface.

View your contact’s information at a glance

Collaborate with your colleagues in Dynamics 365

For more information, see View the profile card for a contact or user.

Srihari Srinivasa
Senior Program Manager

The post Introducing Profile cards in Dynamics 365 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We are thrilled to announce that the much-awaited feature mobile offline for Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps (9.x online versions only) is now available for Public Preview. This feature is available on Dynamics 365 for phones and tablet app for iOS and Android users. Going forward, we will also enable this functionality for all model-driven apps.

Today, traveling workforce and frontline workers cannot work with their data in areas with no internet connectivity, thereby hampering their productivity. With the release of offline capabilities, users can now continue to work without hindrance in elevators, building basements, subway commute, etc.

How does mobile offline work?

Using mobile offline solution is easy. Once Dynamics 365 administrators set up mobile offline solution, users can start using it right away without having to do anything else. Administrators can set up offline solution in a few simple steps.

1. Select the data/entities that you want users to have access to in offline mode.
2. Create a mobile offline profile by adding a subset of entities selected above, corresponding filters for data download, and users who will have access to that data.
3. Select app modules and associate them with the profiles created above to ensure that right app modules and data are available to the users.

For more information, see the Mobile Offline Admin Guide.

Once the above set up is done, which should only take a few minutes, users can start to access their data on the device in offline mode without any hassle.

Offline data on the device is updated periodically in the background to ensure that you always have access to the latest data whenever you go offline. At any point, you can check the time and status of the latest data update on your device. While in offline mode, you can easily interact with your data using commands such as create, read, update, and delete. Once you are back online, any changes made in the offline mode are automatically synchronized with the server without any additional steps. Refer to the Mobile Offline User Guide for detailed information.

This is just the start and we are committed to continue working towards improving it. Based on your feedback so far, we have invested in delivering a high-quality feature that caters to your key business scenarios in offline mode. Some of the improvements underway are:

• Improved user experience: Offline metadata download which happens in the foreground today, will be moved to the background, allowing users to work seamlessly in online and offline mode
• Improved admin experience: Improvements to offline profile publishing experience to ensure that administrators can quickly create and publish offline profiles for their users

How do I start using it?

All the Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps (9.x online server versions) will automatically have access to mobile offline functionality. Before you can start using it:

1. Follow the detailed step-by-step instructions provided in the Mobile Offline Admin Guide to set up the offline solution for the Dynamics 365 mobile app users. Before users can access their data in offline mode, administrators need to select the app modules and the data within it which will be available to the users in offline mode.
2. Once the setup is done, download the latest version of the Dynamics 365 for phones and tablet app (13.19033.1 or higher) from the app store to start using the solution. For more details on the feature, refer to the Mobile Offline User Guide.

How can I provide feedback?

A huge thank you to all the customers who provided their valuable feedback to help improve the feature. We would love to hear your ideas and suggestions for any improvements in this feature. Please provide your feedback through the Dynamics 365 insider portal.

1. Sign up on the Dynamics 365 insider portal.
2. Once signed in, select the Insider Program and select Dynamics 365 Mobile Offline Preview.
3. Leave your comments on the feedback forum which is regularly monitored by us.

Kavishi Agarwal
Program Manager
PowerApps

The post Stay productive always with mobile offline for Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps (Public Preview) appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Applies to: Project Service Automation for Dynamics 365 

We’re pleased to announce the latest update for the Project Service Automation application for Dynamics 365. This release includes some important feature enhancements, improvements to quality, performance, and usability, and is based on your feedback and requests. 

This release is compatible with Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps version 9.x. To update to this release, visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 online, solutions page to install the update. For details, refer How to Install, Update a Preferred Solution.

Project Service Automation (V3.6.0.67)  

Features 

• Support for bulk adjustments of approved Time and Expense lines. 
• Allow price setup in any currency for labor prices within a single cost price list. 
• Allow price setup in any unit of time within a single price list (in sales or cost context). 
• Support for a currency agnostic Cost Price List defaulting for a global PSA practice. 
• Make Product price list optional on project based opportunities.

Bug fixes 

• Fixed: Respect system settings for using currency code vs. symbol on estimates tab. 
• Fixed: Expense “New” button displays the incorrect tooltip. 
• Fixed: Expense: Incorrect values in the Remaining Effort columns when editing schedule in specific scenarios related to adding a new task to the WBS. 
• Fixed: Resource utilization grid not respecting resource calendars correctly and calculating utilization incorrectly. 
• Fixed: When creating a requirement through generic team member, requirement details are not respecting the project calendar. 
• Fixed: Duration in the Microsoft Project desktop client when linked Microsoft Project Add-in, increases when refreshing the project from PSA. 
• Fixed: Unbilled Sales Actual marked as “ready to invoice” is not reversed when cancelled or recalled. 
• Fixed:  Time duration entry updated to support HH:mm -> HH.hh 

-Project Service Automation Team

The post Release Notes for Project Service Automation Update Release 6 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Applies to: Project Service Automation for Dynamics 365  

We’re pleased to announce the latest update for the Project Service Automation application for Dynamics 365. This release includes bug fixes. 

This release is compatible with Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps version 9.x. To update to this release, visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 online, solutions page to install the update. For details, refer How to Install, Update a Preferred Solution 

Project Service Automation (V2.4.11.0) 

Feature 

• Added new help menu items featuring links to documentation, the community and the idea portal.  

Bug Fixes  

• Fixed: Duration in the Microsoft Project desktop client when linked Microsoft Project Add-in, increases when refreshing the project from PSA.  

-Project Service Automation Team  

The post Release Notes for Project Service Automation Update Release 14, V2.4.11.0 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We are thrilled to announce that the Email-based sign-in experience for Dynamics 365 for phones and tablet app is now Generally Available for iOS users. Signing in using an email address has been a long standing ask from the customers and we are excited to deliver it to you.

What is it?

Dynamics 365 for phones and tablets (iOS) users will now be able to sign in to the app using their work email address with a single click. With this new sign-in experience, users will have access to all their apps in a single apps list. They will no longer need to sign out to switch between apps from multiple Dynamics 365 organizations.

You can still sign in using a web address, but we recommend using an email address for a faster and smoother experience. For more information, see: 

• Dynamics 365 (online), version 8.x: Sign in using your email address (for iOS users only).
• Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement apps version 9.x: Sign in using your email address (for iOS users only).

If you have any feedback or suggestions, please write to us at d365mobile_ebsi@microsoft.com.

Kavishi Agarwal
Program Manager
PowerApps

The post Email-based sign in for Dynamics 365 for phones and tablets (iOS) appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In April, we will release the next major update for Dynamics 365 for Marketing, but customers and partners who would like to get an early look at some of what’s coming can set up a preview instance already now! We released the initial public preview in February, and now we’ve expanded the preview to include even more upcoming features.

We’ve also added a several new production-ready, generally available features, and these too are automatically visible on updated preview instances.

IMPORTANT: updates to the February or March versions are not currently available for production instances because we are working to update the update system itself. Preview instances, however, can be updated all the way up to the latest preview version at any time. New production instances installed will include the newest production-ready features available at the time of installation.

How to get the preview

You can enable the preview on any trial, test, or sandbox instance starting now, but you shouldn’t enable it on production instances because some of the preview features may not be fully tested yet. When you enable the preview on an instance, you will also update that instance to the latest version and will therefore receive the latest generally available features together with the preview features.

For instructions on how to install and enable the preview on one of your test instances, see  Activate and use preview features for April 2019.

Updates are enabled for preview instances, so if you enabled the preview in February then you can update to the March preview version by using the standard update procedure.

Public preview features

This section describes all the preview features that we added in both February and March.

Preview: Provide personalized marketing page content

Personalized marketing pages show content that varies according to who opens the page. When a known contact visits the page, it can fetch values from that contact’s content record and show those values on the page—or use them to modify page layout or content. For example, you could greet the visitor by name, show the logo for a visitor’s company, or display the photo and contact details of the visitor’s personal sales contact.

The system uses cookies to identify known contacts. The required cookie is set the first time a contact submits a landing page, or when a contact visits a subscription center using a personalized link sent to them in email. Page personalization itself is based on JavaScript, so you have the full power of JavaScript available to you when designing your personalization features.

The feature uses field white lists and contact opt-in to help protect contacts’ data and privacy preferences.

More information: Activate and use preview features for April 2019

Preview: Bring your own CMS with expanded support for externally hosted forms

The current version of Dynamics 365 for Marketing already lets you create marketing forms that you can embed on your own, external website, but with a few limitations. We’re working towards removing these limitations to enable you to create fully functional marketing pages that can run on your own, external website or CMS system. The following elements of this functionality are now available as preview features:

• Enable prefill on embedded forms
• Run a subscription center as an embedded form
• Use external forms for inbound customer journeys
• Create customer journey triggers that react to external form visits and submissions

Additional features for integrating with external CMS systems are planned for the April release, so stay tuned!

Preview: In-app social posting to Twitter and Facebook

In April we’re planning to introduce social posting, which will enable you to schedule and post messages to a variety of popular social media channels right from Dynamics 365 for Marketing. You can preview this capability already now. In February, we previewed the ability to post to Twitter, and in March we are adding the ability to post to Facebook. We expect more social channels to be available in April.

More information: Activate and use preview features for April 2019

Preview: Track your marketing contacts quota and usage

Dynamics 365 for Marketing is priced, among other things, according to how may marketing contacts are stored on your tenant. Dynamics 365 for Marketing now lets you keep an eye on your marketing contacts by showing the total number you have purchased and the total number that are using. To see these values, go to Settings > Advanced settings > Other settings > Quota limits.

More information: Activate and use preview features for April 2019

Preview: Segmentation API

Developers and system integrators can now interact programmatically with segments in Dynamics 365 for Marketing. The segmentation API leverages the standard Dynamics 365 API for manipulating entities or messages.

More information: Basic Operations on Segments using Segmentation API

Generally available features added in March

In addition to the preview features, we’ve also released several production-ready features, which are generally available for all production instances installed since March 8, including instances that don’t have the preview enabled. These features are also available on preview instances updated after March 8.

The March release includes all the new production-ready features that were introduced in February, including instances that don’t have the preview enabled, plus all preview instances. For details about the February features, see our blog post for the February release.

We expect the improved update system to be up and working very soon, and we’ll let you know as soon as you can start updating your production instances to the latest version. Keep your eye on this blog for the latest Dynamics 365 for Marketing news and announcements.

Improved assist-edit for creating dynamic email content and field values

We’ve greatly improved the user experience for placing dynamic field values in your email messages with assist-edit. The feature was previously very compact, but a bit tricky to use—especially when traversing database relations. Now, we’ve implemented assist-edit as a two-step wizard that makes all dynamic values easier to place. It also makes relations much easier to identify and can now help you select fields from related entities.

As before, you can use assist-edit to display values in text elements, and can also place field expressions in some settings fields, such as the email subject, sender email address, image URLs, link URLs, and more—anywhere where you see the </> button.

More information: Use assist-edit to place dynamic field values

Improved inbox previews for email messages

The Dynamics 365 for Marketing inbox preview feature provides real-world inbox previews that show your email designs exactly as they will appear in a wide variety of target email clients and platforms. The feature was included in the initial release of Dynamics 365 for Marketing, but we’ve added several improvements to it for the March update, including:

• Improved authorization flow
  Your Marketing license includes a limited number of inbox previews. Once those are consumed, users who would like more inbox previews must integrate their own Litmus accounts. We’ve now improved the flow for integrating your own Litmus accounts.
• New preview clients
  We’ve added several new email clients to the list of available inbox previews.
• Recently used inbox previews
  The inbox preview page now shows up to 10 recently used previews in a section at the top of the list to make them easier to find.

More information: Use the advanced inbox preview feature

Improved segment designer makes data relationships easier to find and use

The segment designer in Dynamics 365 for Marketing enables you to set up detailed logical expressions for finding the contacts to include in each segment. You can even traverse across database tables to find contacts associated with a wide variety of related entities, such as event registrations, accounts, leads, and much more.

Previously, it could often be challenging to identify and navigate database relationships using the segment designer. But now we’ve replaced the long and cryptic relationship names with more intuitively understandable names. And we’ve streamlined the selection process for creating queries against related objects.

We’ve improved the experience for choosing values from lookup fields, so now you can view, search, and choose from among the available lookup values rather than remembering them or entering index values instead. (Lookup fields are actually just simple table relations, so the related table must be synced to the customer-insights database for the values to be available to the segment designer.) You can even specify multiple lookup values at once, together with an operator for combining them, such as:

• Is / is in: finds records that have any of the values specified
• Is not / is not in: finds records that don’t have any of the values specified

We’ve also made static segments easier to work with by making it possible to add or remove members while the segment is live. All changes go live immediately on save.

More information: Working with segments

The post Dynamics 365 for Marketing spring-release preview now updated with expanded features appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Introduction

Many companies provide the option for customers to receive appointment reminders whether that’s through email or text message. Not only does Microsoft support a wholistic approach to customer relationship management with Dynamics 365, it also provides the ability to manage these appointment reminders through Flow and its connection to Dynamics, which is an incredible asset to a business.

The following example details how create a Flow to send text appointment reminders to customers the day before as well as the hour before the appointment. The flow will execute once for every appointment created and will continue to run until the appointment has started.

Applies to: Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement, apps version 9.1.0 

In this blog, you’ll find the following:

• Requirements
• Build the Flow
  • Step 1: Select the trigger
  • Step 2: Gather all necessary case and customer information
  • Step 3: Sending an SMS text message
  • Step 4: Delay until the day of appointment
  • Step 5: Create a looping action as to not miss the time to send an appointment reminder
  • Step 6: Send an appointment reminder to the customer at a specified time before the appointment
• Taking it further

Requirements

1. A Flow subscription
2. A Dynamics 365 subscription with administrative authority
3. A third-party telecommunications subscription. This example specifically uses Telesign, however any third-party SMS provider can be used.

Build the Flow

Step 1: Select the trigger

Create a blank flow and use the Dynamics 365 trigger for when a record is created. The Organization Name field will be your organization name. The Entity Name field will be Appointments. An example of what this looks like is shown below:

As you can see, the title for this step is When a record is created. This name can be changed if you right-click the ellipsis button next to the title and select Rename. Any trigger or action can be renamed. Just be sure to do all renaming before you reference the trigger/action in a following trigger/action.

Step 2: Gather all necessary case and customer information

To gather customer contact information, you need to first get the case associated with the appointment. Obtain the case by adding a new step. Choose the action Get record for Dynamics 365.

Start by selecting the same organization from the previous step. For entity name, select Cases. The item identifier will be the case related to the Appointment from the first step. Since you are looking for content relating to a previous step, select the Add dynamic content button. In the Dynamic content tab, search for Regarding and select it. This option you just selected is the case regarding the appointment. The image below shows an example of what to put in the required fields:

As you can see in the image above, the Regarding field appears under a section titled Get record. This section titles in the dynamic content tab are the same as the titles given to the steps. Be sure to pay attention to this as you add dynamic content; most records have similar fields and you may select one that you did not intend if you are not careful.

Now that you have the case information, you’ll be able to get the customer information associated with that case. Add a new step and get another record as you did before.

When filling out the required fields, the organization name is the same. However, the entity name is now Contacts.  For the Item Identifier, add dynamic content and select the Customer related to the case record grabbed previously.

Step 3: Sending an SMS text message

You probably want to notify the customer that the appointment has been created. This can be accomplished by sending them a text message. Add a new step and choose the Send SMS Message action under TeleSign SMS. It will ask you to connect to your TeleSign account. Enter the appropriate credentials to login and proceed.

Once connected to your TeleSign account, fill in all the required fields. For the Phone number field, go to dynamic content and use the   associated with the customer record grabbed previously.

The Message Text field is customizable for your needs. Fill this section with whatever you would like. As example, I’ll demonstrate how to get the following:

Hello [CUSTOMER_FIRST_NAME]. Your appointment is scheduled on [START_TIME]. Thanks!

To get the customers first name, add dynamic content and add the First Name associated with the customer record grabbed previously.

Getting the start time is just as easy as getting the customer’s name, however it is a little trickier to format it in a simple, readable way. All times saved in Dynamics 365 are stored in Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). Storing times in this time zone makes life a lot easier when comparing values or making a product location invariant, but it does provide a small challenge when displaying these times.

To change the time zone, select the Expression tab when adding dynamic content. Scrolling down, you should see a section for date and time.

You should find an option titled ConvertFromUTC(). ConvertFromUTC() takes three inputs in the following order: timestamp, target time zone, and format (which is optional), all of which need to be separated by a comma. To get the timestamp, navigate back to dynamic content and scroll until you find Start Time associated with the appointment.

For time zone, select the time zone you are based in. Time zones should be encapsulated by single quotes like so: ‘Pacific Standard Time’

Format is optional, though in the interest of learning more about generating your own Flow, I will demonstrate how to set this input value. The input needs to look exactly as you want the date to appear when written out. However, instead of the actual date/time with numbers, you will use letter fillers. For example:

The following detail all the possible filler letters and what they represent:

1. dRepresents the day of the month as a number from 1 through 31.
2. dd Represents the day of the month as a number from 01 through 31.
3. ddd Represents the abbreviated name of the day (Mon, Tues, Wed, and so on.)
4. dddd Represents the full name of the day (Monday, Tuesday, and so on.)
5. h12-hour clock hour (for example, 4).
6. hh12-hour clock, with a leading 0 (for example, 06)
7. H24-hour clock hour (for example, 15)
8. HH24-hour clock hour, with a leading 0 (for example, 22)
9. mMinutes
10. mmMinutes with a leading zero
11. MMonth number (for example, 3)
12. MMMonth number with leading zero (for example, 04)
13. MMMAbbreviated Month Name (for example, Dec)
14. MMMMFull month name (for example, December)
15. sSeconds
16. ssSeconds with leading zero
17. tAbbreviated AM / PM (for example, A or P)
18. ttAM / PM (for example, AM or PM)
19. yYear with no leading zero (for example, 2015 would be 15)
20. yyYear with leading zero (for example, 2015 would be 015)
21. yyyYear (for example, 2015)
22. yyyyYear (for example, 2015)
23. KRepresents the time zone information of a date and time value (for example, +05:00)
24. zWith DateTime values, represents the signed offset of the local operating system’s time zone from

The result should look something like this:

convertFromUtc(triggerBody()?[‘scheduledstart’],’Pacific Standard Time’,’ddd, dd MMM yyy HH:mm’)

Step 4: Delay until the day of the appointment

It is inefficient to continually probe the system asking, “Hey is it the day of the appointment? Can I send out a text?” Additionally, Flow actions, such as checking to see if it a specific time or sending a text, are not instantaneous and need a small amount of time to execute. Therefore, it is better to delay the Flow until just before the first appointment reminder will be sent. To do this, select the Delay until action.

The required timestamp will equal the time just before you want to send out an appointment reminder. For example, if a customer has an appointment on the 25^th at 3pm and you want to send out a reminder one day before, you will delay the Flow until the 24^th at 2:59pm. The timestamp will equal the start time minus 24 hours and 1 minutes.

To get this timestamp, go to the Expression tab. You will need both addHours() and addMinutes(). These expressions take in three parameters: timestamp, amount of time to add (unit based on which expression you selected), and format (which is optional). Format in this case is unnecessary, so it is okay to ignore that parameter.

To subtract 24 hours and 1 minutes, you will need to use addMinutes, then addHours. The timestamp input for addHours will be a result of the addMinutes expression. The result will look like this:

addHours(addMinutes(triggerBody()?[‘scheduledstart’], -1),-24)

You can also subtract 1441 minutes if that’s easier to conceptualize. If you are subtracting 1441 minutes, the result will look like this:

addMinutes(triggerBody()?[‘scheduledstart’], -1441)

Once you input the timestamp, the delay action is good to go. Now you need to send the appointment reminders.

Step 5: Create a looping action as to not miss the time to send an appointment reminder

To send a reminder at a given time before the appointment, you need to check if the current time is equal to the time the reminder needs to be send out. For example, if the appointment is at 5:30 and you want to notify the customer 1 hour before the appointment, you need to check and see if the current time is equal to the appointment start time minus 1 hour.

Seems simple enough. However, executing Flow operations is not instantaneous. It cannot be guaranteed that the check will trigger at exactly the time intended, down to the millisecond. Therefore, you need to allow for some buffer. This can be accomplished in two ways. The first way is by creating a loop to continue executing the check multiple times in case it was missed on the first iteration, as demonstrated in this step. The second way will be discussed in the next step.

To create a loop, add the Do until action. On the left-hand side of the Do until action, add dynamic content, switch to the expression tab, and add  to get the current time.

For the condition statement in the middle, select the is greater than option. On the right-hand side, add dynamic content and select the start time.

Everything inside this Do until block will continue to execute until the current time is greater than the start time of the appointment. In other words, it will continue to execute until the appointment has started. The Do until action is now done and you’re ready for the next step.

Step 6: Send an appointment reminder to the customer at a specified time before the appointment

You only want to send an appointment reminder if the current time is equal to the time you want to send a reminder. To do this check, add a Condition action. This condition action should be inside the Do until block (shown below).

The current time and start time are both stored in the UTC time zone with day, month, year, hour (on a 24-hour clock), second, and millisecond. As stated in the previous step, it is not guaranteed that the check to see if the current time is equal to time you want to send a reminder will execute at the exact time required, down to the millisecond. The looping action is one way to ensure the check happens at the precise time intended. You should also truncate the current and reminder times to get rid of the milliseconds. This furthers the reliability and ensures that when the check happens, the values are the same and the Flow will send an appointment reminder.

To truncate the timestamps, you’ll need to format them. Luckily, there are many expressions provided by Flow that allow you to format time. If you refer to Step 3, there’s more detailed information about how to generate a format input. I used the following format:

‘ddd, dd MMM yyy HH:mm’

In addition to format, you also need to do some math to calculate the time you want to send out a reminder. When doing the check for 1 day before the appointment, you just need to see if the current time plus 1 day is equal to the start time of the appointment. To do this use the addDays expression.

On the left-hand side of the Condition action, use the expression addDays, which has three inputs: timestamp, number of days to add, and format. The timestamp will be the current time (utcNow()). The number of days to add will be 1, and the format will be the one I selected and show above. It will look like this.

addDays(utcNow(), 1, ‘ddd, dd MMM yyy HH:mm’)

In the middle of the Condition action, select is equal to. On the right-hand side of the Condition action, use the formatted date and time. Follow the same procedure that you did in Step 3 when formatting the time. The result will look like this:

formatDateTime(triggerBody()?[‘scheduledstart’], ‘ddd, dd MMM yyy HH:mm’)

After you’ve truncated the value, send an SMS message the same way as described in Step 3. This message is the appointment reminder. It will go inside the Yes block of the condition action only if yes, the current time is equal to the time you want to send a reminder. Your reminder message is customizable to your needs. Refer to  on how to add dynamic content to your message.

Now that the first reminder is sent, you may want to send another reminder slightly closer to the day of the appointment. As stated before, constantly having the Flow probe the system checking to see if it’s time to send the next reminder is not efficient and could cause a lot of issues if there are a lot of appointment reminders going out around the same time. To address this issue, you should follow the same procedure as before when sending the one-day reminder and delay the Flow until just before the next appointment reminder should be sent out.

The result of sending appointment reminders for one day and one hour before the appointment should look something like this with the following inputs:

Send reminder for 1 day before appointment statement:

addDays(utcNow(), 1, ‘ddd, dd MMM yyy HH:mm’)

is equal to

formatDateTime(triggerBody()?[‘scheduledstart’], ‘ddd, dd MMM yyy HH:mm’)

Delay until about 1 hour before:

addHours(addMinutes(triggerBody()?[‘scheduledstart’],59),23)

Send reminder for 1 hour before appointment statement:

addHours(utcNow(),1,’ddd, dd MMM yyy HH:mm’)

is equal to

formatDateTime(triggerBody()?[‘scheduledstart’],’ddd, dd MMM yyy HH:mm’)

Delay until start:

addHours(triggerBody()?[‘scheduledstart’],1)

Now you’re set! The customers will receive an appointment reminder the day before and the hour before the appointment!

Taking it further

This is a great start to sending appointment reminders to a customer. In this blog we looked at a method of sending appointment reminders when an appointment is created. One can also extend this Flow by handling the cases of when an appointment is updated, rescheduled, or cancelled.

Perhaps instead of starting a Flow only when an appointment is created, you could start a Flow when an appointment is created or updated. You could do a check to see if the status of the appointment is updated or cancelled and based on the result you will notify the customer the status. Or you could have a separate flow for when an appointment has been updated and cancel the Flow currently executing because it no longer has valid information. Accomplishing these actions and handling these cases requires a more in-depth knowledge of Microsoft Flow. Look at the Microsoft Flow  .

Thanks for sticking with me and reading this blog post. Cheers!

– Hannah Olliges

The post A Microsoft Flow for sending appointment reminders to customers via text for appointments created in Dynamics 365 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Applies to: Project Service Automation for Dynamics 365

We’re pleased to announce the latest update for the Project Service Automation application for Dynamics 365. This release includes improvements to quality, performance, and usability, and is based on your feedback and requests. 

This release is compatible with Dynamics 365 9.x. To update to this release, visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 online, solutions page to install the update. For details, refer How to Install, Update a Preferred Solution.

Project Service Automation (V3.5.0.40)  

Features 

• Re-introduced support Microsoft Project Desktop add-in for versions 3.4 and above.   Link to add-in, http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/download/details.aspx?id=57956. 

Bug fixes 

• Fixed: All Project Invoice views did not include the created date time of the Invoice 
• Fixed: Contract Confirmation does not inform the user of any associated transactional impacts to actuals 
• Fixed: Tool tip text of “Ready to invoice” and “Not ready to invoice” are reversed 
• Fixed: Message to be shown when create invoice fails because there are no transactions available should be more explicit 
• Fixed: ‘Null reference exception’ when updating quantity on Quote Line Detail\Contract Line Detail
• Fixed: ‘Ready To Invoice’ Actuals are not revaluated during revaluation on project contract confirmation. 
• Fixed: Unable to create task in WBS with end date field on ghost row 
• Fixed: Unexpected result when doing upgrade “manually” related to mismatch in db version and app version 
• Fixed: Expense category defaulting is overwriting saved values on load/refresh of expense form 
• Fixed: Unable to “Recalculate” invoices when there are Product Lines 
• Fixed: Duplicated error message when submitting expenses 
• Fixed: Remove space from the name of subgrid – “Expense Estimate”  
• Fixed: Import split action button on time entry grid not displaying options for import 

-Project Service Automation Team

The post Release Notes for Project Service Automation Update Release 5 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Applies to: Field Service version 8.5.0.345 on Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement version 9.x  

Visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 solutions page to install the update. For details, refer to how to install or update a preferred solution. 

Please visit Field Service Docs for all Field Service updates and related content. 

Field Service enhancements (v8.5.0.345) 

Enhancements 

• Enabled ability to define work location at the Agreement Booking Setup and Quote Booking Setup level, ensuring that work orders generated from Agreements can be defined to occur On Site, at a Facility, or Location Agnostic. 
• Improved time control used on the Work Order, Requirement, Agreement, and Field Service Settings that allows users to enter a specific time-only value. 

Bug Fixes 

• Fixed: HasUserPrivilege and HasTeamPrivilege should always execute using SYSTEM user context. 
• Fixed: Case’s Convert to Workorder ribbon button is not visible in UCI client. 
• Fixed: Multiple update events to Work Order though totals are unchanged. 
• Fixed: Script Error on Work Order form when the Incident Type is removed from the form. 

Connected Field Service enhancements 

Enhancements  

• On incoming IoT Alerts, if the alert doesn’t have an existing associated IoTDevice, a new IoTDevice will be created based on the Device ID attribute on the alert or the deviceid payload in the Alert Data. This ensures that most IoTAlerts are mapped to an IoTDevice. 
• In the Active IoT Alerts view, parent alerts show a visual indicator in the first column, so that parent alerts can now be easily distinguished from associated child alerts.  

Bug Fixes 

• Fixed: Welcome dialog in the Connected Field Services dashboard points to incorrect URL for the deployment app displaying a blank page. 

Jason Cohen, Eamon O’Brien, & Girish Raja 

Program Managers 

Dynamics 365 Engineering 

The post Release Notes for Field Service Version 8.5.0.345  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Applies to: Field Service version 7.5.7.87 on Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement version 9.x  

Visit the Admin Center for Dynamics 365 solutions page to install the update. For details, refer to how to install or update a preferred solution. 

Please visit Field Service Docs for all Field Service updates and related content. 

Field Service enhancements (v7.5.7.87) 

Bug Fixes 

• Fixed: Linked Work Order sub-grid does not allow searching existing work orders when user clicks on + command. 
• Fixed: Transfer Inventory: Changes to transfer quantities occur without user intervention, creating incorrect records. 
• Fixed: Multiple update events to Work Order though totals are unchanged. 
• Fixed: Msdyn_error not truncated to 4000 characters in msdyn_upgraderun. 
• Fixed: PopulateSkills method needs null checks. 

Jason Cohen 

Program Manager 

Dynamics 365 Engineering 

The post Release Notes for Field Service Version 7.5.7.87  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.