The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Platform Enhancement Discussion

PowerApps Portals provide low-code tools to build responsive websites that connect an organization with external customers or partners. It provides the ability to create a new portal which can be accessed by internal users, anonymous external users or by authenticating external users with LinkedIn, local logins, Microsoft accounts and other identity providers.

Microsoft has revealed pricing approach to access the PowerApps Portals with tiers for external users & new PowerApps per app and per user plans for internal users.
 

Recently, Microsoft has announced the introduction of PowerApps Portals as part of PowerApps Portfolio and made it available for Public Preview. In this context, it is important to understand the definition of PowerApps Portals and its benefits relative to Dynamics 365 Portals.

PowerApps Portals Simply Defined…

PowerApps Portals is the successor of Dynamics 365 Portals created for offering external customer-facing experience to organizations without requiring deep technical expertise to do so. As aforementioned it’s a part of PowerApps portfolio wherein PowerApps users can easily provision a portal instance from the same maker portal experience which they used to build apps using the PowerApps low-code/no-code solution.

With PowerApps, customers and partners were able to deliver low-code apps to their employees across the organization but were restricted to extend the accessibility to external users. But, thanks to PowerApps Portals using which they can now build low-code, responsive websites which allow external users to interact with the data stored in the Common Data Service (CDS). Since Common Data Service is the underlying data platform for both Dynamics 365 and PowerApps, it allows organizations to deploy a PowerApps Portal to compliment an existing D365 instance or simply create a standalone offering on top of it.

Here is the detailed list of differences between Dynamics 365 Portals and PowerApps Portals. 

Most SMBs kickoff their financial transactions by incorporating entry-level accounting software such as QuickBooks. But as they grow in time, this entry-level accounting software seems to be inefficient particularly having scalability issues. Moreover, QuickBooks can’t handle workloads associated with in-depth revenue-recognition programs, complex inventory management or even complicated subscription billing. On the other hand, advanced accounting solutions like Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and NetSuite remains costlier to use. Thus, MTC’s Gravity Accounting Software assumes significance.

MTC’s Gravity Software, an ultra-efficient accounting app can work in SMBs favor as an upgrade from QuickBooks. MTC’s Gravity goal is to bridge the mid-market gap between lower end products like QuickBooks and expensive enterprise applications like Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and NetSuite. As companies grow, they need sophistication than their entry-level solutions can offer, such as more features and security along with that they don’t want the complexity (or high cost) of a larger accounting solution. In this case, MTC’s Gravity fills such gap perfectly by providing a robust solution with affordable pricing and high-level features.

Maybe you’re a business advisor seeking a capable, multifaceted accounting solution to recommend to clients. Perhaps you’re an independent accountant looking for a way to sell more advanced services to customers. Or maybe you’re a QuickBooks ProAdvisor working with a string of franchises that wants to look for a more robust accounting solution than QuickBooks can provide.

If so, you may wish to partner with MTC’S GRAVITY Accounting Solution, a cloud-based accounting solution for small and mid-sized businesses. As a partner, you can explain to others how MTC MTC’s Gravity’s ultra-efficient accounting app can work in their favor as an upgrade from QuickBooks. While QuickBooks has long been the accounting go-to for small businesses, many are finding that it falls short once their business begins to grow and they need better security and functionality.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 has powerful reporting features using which reports can be generated easily. But, the most important thing is to schedule the delivery of these reports to respective recipients for which there is no solution readily available. However, by using MS Flow and custom solution this requirement can be achieved.

Below are the detailed steps how MTC solution experts have gone about to achieve this.

Installing and configuring Report Scheduler

Use link to download Report Scheduler Solution -
https://github.com/bguidinger/Xrm.ReportScheduler/releases

So far, we have witnessed how Super Grid has been phenomenal in helping CRM Users to carry out their day to day job activities with the ease of editing and adding records in no time. The excel like editing capability of Super Grid was extended to Forms and Dashboards too much to the satisfaction of hundreds of MTC customers and partners. The roaring success has encouraged MTC to extend the Super Grid functionality on Activities and Notes which are more often than not used by CRM Users. That means a user can now edit/add activities such as Phone Call, Task, Email, Appointment and Notes on the fly thereby saving tons of his/her time and energy. For an organization, this means optimal resource utilization, increased productivity and profitability.

Customer Self-Service Portal is used to provide any type of data to your customers including product and service information, videos describing how to use products, and answers to frequently asked questions. Customer Self-Service Portal delivers an additional support to organizations to meet their customers to quickly answer their questions with the device of their choice. Using Customer Self-Service Portal we can restrict customer access to knowledge articles based on content access levels. With a self-service portal, customers receive the support they desire, access to discussion forums that build customer loyalty, access to their support entitlement data, and the ability to provide organizations with feedback through polls, ratings, and comments.

Default Features In Customer Self-Service Portal:

• Feedback
• Knowledge Base
• Forums
• Support
• Case Management

MTC has built a new add-on named “Description Template” to help CRM Users build a collection of description templates beforehand and populate them wherever needed on CRM entity records for speeding up their jobs. Currently, Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM doesn’t have such a functionality to make CRM users more productive and efficient. Although the application sounds simple, yet it has a powerful impact in terms of adding value to resource productivity.

The back end configuration is simple where users can start adding text to description box and save them as templates. Also, it is from here that users must configure the application on target entities and give the logical name of the record field on which the description template must be populated. Once the configuration settings are done, user needs to do one last activity to start using the functionality which is to add a web resource to select the desired descried
description template on the record field.

Below is the detailed explanation on how Description Template works for your Dynamics 365/CRM.

Multi-File Uploader to SharePoint is another Multi-File Uploader add-on series from MTC. Multi-File Uploader is built by MTC with an intent to make life easy for CRM Users who are required to upload multiple files of varying sizes to SharePoint from within their CRM instance. It is important to note that the standard CRM functionality has an upload limit of 50MB and recommends users to upload files directly to SharePoint beyond 50 MB. This has a crippling effect on the CRM users who would like to have a trace of their upload to SharePoint back in CRM. Also, a user cannot upload multiple files at one go, instead he must select each file at a time to upload them. This is seriously time consuming and very unproductive. This is where MTC’s Multi-File Uploader to SharePoint assumes its significance.

The good thing about Multi-File Uploader is that it is pre-configured by default on all entities that support document