If you use API’s in Business Central, probably you found some limitations in methods, depending on API to API. Sometimes you can do more, sometime less. For example, with Accounts you can use only GET method (I still don’t understand why?), and so on…
You can find details about all of them here, but I prefer to have everything on one place as it will be easier to decide if I would use standard API or eventually I need to create the custom one. Because of that, I’ve made this matrix with all standard API’s and methods you can use with them:
Except these limitations, it would be nice to know that you have some other limits as well and they are important if you want to use API’s in some solutions. Even if those limits are high, they are still limits. For example, you can have maximum 600 requests per minute in production environment and 300 in sandbox. Complete list of limits is here.
And what is also important? If you are using those API’s through Power Platform (or Logic Apps) connectors, you should understand their actions and parameters. All details can be found here, but there is a table for better understanding:
It is important to mention that all that information are subject of change.
A few last months constantly I see misunderstanding what Business Central SaaS offering is. To be honest I thought it is all well known, but often it is not a case. Because of that, I’ve readjusted standard IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS chart and made it applicable to Business Central. I think this chart speaks for itself, but if someone needs additional info, you can send a question and I’ll add details.
Just to be clear, on the top level where we have Company Data, I think on using BC as a system through UI or API’s. That means you are master of your data. You need to be sure how you enter and post your documents. But if we talk about configuration of system, mostly it will be done by your partner, but again this is your decision (as customer) to find trusted partner to work with.
As this chart cannot offer completely picture, I’ve added one more. First one was all about technology, but the next one is about licensing and what is included in system.
*) One thing maybe not 100% clear from this chart is infrastructure subscription if you are using BC on Azure (IaaS model). If you want to use Business Central deployed on Azure infrastructure (no SaaS), you can use a few different models. First you (as customer) can have your own infrastructure (1 VM, 2 VM’2, or VM + Azure SQL). The second, you (as customer) can use partner infrastructure and in this case you can dedicated hardware or services to you (as if you use your own) or you can use shared resources (more cost effective). In this case, middle tier can be used for more clients, as well as Azure SQL database can be added to Azure Elastic Database Pool and to get better performances and better cost. You can find ideas how to make it here (and this is important especially if BC SaaS is not available in your country).And one more thing… if you are using model BC on Azure, cost for OS and SQL Server is included in HW Subscription.
I hope it is now far clearer, but again if you need any additional detail, just send a question.
In my previous post (video), you could learn how to create Dynamics 365 Sales Professional demo environment. If you are experienced with Dynamics CRM solutions you can recognize differences between this solution and enterprise version, but if you are newbie I would like to introduce you with all differences you can find there.
On the first place, we can split them to the two types of clients:
Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise – full sales capabilities
Dynamics 365 Sales Professional – core sales functions at a reduced rate for businesses with simpler sales force needs
But if you want more details and especially if you need to promise something to your client, you should have details. Let’s start with details. First list is list of all features Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise has, and Sales Professional has not:
Access via Portal or API
Non-employees only: Work Orders
Non-employees only: Opportunities
Entities (Create, Update, Delete)
Max 15 Custom Entities
Competitors
Embedded Intelligence
Forecasting
Product Families
Product Hierarchies
Product Relationships
Quick Campaigns
Sales Goals
Sales Hub
Sales Literature
Territories
Entities (Actions)
Business card scanning as add-on (10 users/month: pooled at tenant level)
Without custom system reports, charts, and dashboards
Additional Services and Software
Dynamics 365 Gamification (Player & Admin)
Microsoft Forms Pro
Microsoft PowerApps
Dynamics 365 Sales Insights
Max 10 ISV solutions
If your conclusion is that Sales Professional doesn’t have a lot of features it is not a true. Sales Professional has a pretty big number of very good features and it can cover probably the most of SMB company requests.
But let’s add some of advantages of Sales Professional. This list is maybe not so big, but quality of this list is more important than quantity:
Price: full price is 65$ and this is 30$ less then enterprise version
Attach license to Business Central; if you already have Business Central, you need to pay only 20$ for license. As you already have integration in Business Central with D365 Sales, it is a real benefit both a price and functionalities.
UI is better (mostly in configuration) as this is intended for SMB customers.
If you need core CRM functionalities and solution easy to implement, Sales Professional is the right solution for you, but if you need all CRM functionalities you should choose Sales Enterprise.
As I see Sales Professional as a great opportunity for small companies and especially for those who already use Business Central, I’ll be focused on this solutions with the following posts (probably mostly videos).
Here I am after a while. I’ve just started new video series about great new product Dynamics 365 Sales Professional. I’ll create probably dozens of different videos about functionalities and configuration, but in this first one I’ll start with how to create a trial environment.
If you didn’t already hear for this solution, just to know this is the great Microsoft CRM solution especially for small and midsize organizations and it is available as full SaaS solution.
Now, I hope you will enjoy in this first video, and I’ll notify you as soon as I publish the new one:
If you’ve already read my previous article about introduction in BC and Talent integration, then you probably expect the next part. I cannot put everything in one blogpost as it will be a huge one and it can be confused to track all details, so I decided to write it in parts. Today, I’ll write how to prepare Business Central and Talent and how to locate data/entities you will handle with.
As I’ve already mentioned in previous post, as we don’t need all HR capabilities in Business Central and we will use all of them in Talent, we will enter data directly to Talent and move to BC only data necessary for other areas in BC. We will move data to Employee table as this table will be used in other parts of BC.
As we will create new employees in Talent, we need to configure No. Series to be fit with Talent requirements. If you want automatic numbers, you need to be careful and to make it exactly the same as in Talent, but I’ll recommend to configure Employee number series as Manual Nos.; this will keep the same numbers in Business Central as we have in Talent and you will avoid all potential risks.
As connectors with Business Central, we will use API’s. Employee table, for example already exists as an API, but if you would like to connect something more, you will probably have to create custom API and custom connector.
What we can synchronize? As I said, minimum we need in BC is Employee table. And you need to find entity as a source in CDS (I’ll explain later). You can connect entities as following:
If you want to find all details about Workers data in Talent, the best is to use the following Worker entity relationship model. But the best is to integrate only what is really necessary… only what you will really use in Business Central.
As we need to locate Talent entities, you need to open list of CDS entities in PowerApps platform (you don’t need to do nothing in Talent environment and you can use it only if it will help you to better understand environment; for all integration purpose you will use CDS – PowerApp). When you open PowerApps web page, you need to choose environment created for Talent.
After that, you need to open Data and Find Entities. In Entities, you can easily find Worker entity as this is a place where we can find our information.
Opening this entity, you can address all necessary fields you want to use in integration. And how to do it, you will see in the following post.
When I think about new Business Central features, the first thing in my mind is openness for integrations. As a part of Dynamics 365 family, the main power of this solution is when it can work simultaneously with other. Because of that, I showed these capabilities in a few conferences. As I got lot of requirement to explain it in more details, I’ll write about good example of BC integrations with one other Dynamics 365 solution – with ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’.
‘Dynamics 365 Talent’ is a new Microsoft Dynamics HCM solution (new name ‘Dynamics 365 Human Resources‘). This solution was initially based on AX HRM, but now it is separated solution. As we can use it independently and this solution is really amazing HCM system, I think it can be interesting how we can integrate this solution with Business Central and make them as the powerful tool together… and with no code.
If you are thinking how to make it and how to make it with no code, the answer is using one of the Azure services – Logic Apps. As ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’ has entities on CDS and Logic Apps has connectors for CDS and for ‘Business Central’, only what we need to do is to map entities and fields in both systems and of course, to think abut business logic on the first place. Depends what is the primary reason for integration, we can choose some of the options:
integrate HRM core system with HR in Business Central
integrate Attract or Onboard apps in Talent with Business Central.
In second option, we will use HR module in Business Central and use only one or two parts from ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’. On the other side, in first option we will use core HR in ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’. In this text, I chose to explain the first option.
In this first text, I’ll just explain some basic concepts and you will find more details in the following texts with this topic.
Basic setup in Business Central
First, as we don’t need all HR capabilities in Business Central (we already have all of them in dedicated HR solution – ‘Dynamics 365 Talent’), we will move only data necessary for other areas in Business Central. In this example I’ll show how to move data to Employee table as this table can be used for example in a Payroll system or you can use this information in Fixed Assets card.
Locate information in Talent
Now when we have the basic configurations, we can continue with integration. First, we need to find where an employee’s data are saved in Talent. To find this we need to open list of CDS entities and we can do it using PowerApps platform.
When we have these basic information, we can continue with technical parts how to do it in a practice.
NAV TechDays 2019 has just finished a few days ago and I can
say this was amazing event and again the biggest one – with 1452 attendees. As
I promised the last year, I prepared session this time and made it together
with an MVP Renato Fajdiga. I hope to see you next year again.
In a meantime, all sessions from the first day are already published and I want to have all of them on the one place. As soon as we have sessions from the second day published, I’ll add them. There are all of them:
Opening Keynote
The road from C/AL to AL
Development Methodologies for the future
How to run faster in SaaS
Unlocking new integration potential for 365 BC with Azure Event Grid and Azure Integration
Give Business Central access to your data files
Control Add in development supercharged
Developing for Modern clients
Using Docker and the ContainerHelper to convert your C/AL solution to an AL solution
#MSDyn365BC new Era of Integration: Intelligent Edge, SmartLists, Azure Service Bus and more!
Recently Microsoft announced new rebranded BusinessApps icons. I wanted to show you all those new logos on one place. There are all 28 Microsoft BusinessApps icons… YES, we have 28 apps in Microsoft BusinessApps family. Few of the are still in a preview mode, but this is really amazing number of different apps.
In a month, BCUG/NAVUG Summit in Orlando will start. There will be dozens of amazing lectures and if you are NAV or Business Central user, this event is probably something you must attend, especially if you want to continue with improving your knowledge.
I like to come back to this event every year as this is probably only one opportunity where you can get directly feedback from thousands of Dynamics users.
This time, I would try to explain why you should attend this amazing event using video message and I hope you will like it 🙂
Directions Asia has just finished, and we will continue with
spring conference season in Dynamics. The next Directions will be in North
America in Las Vegas in period May 5-8 in Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa. Registration
is still available.
This year I want to show you about benefits of integration
with different Dynamics 365 solutions. Why? Generally, I think we have great
features in Business Central, but possibility to integrate this solution with
other solutions using Azure tools or using different UI are the amazing
possibilities. These options are why it is important to have Business Central
in Dynamics 365 family.
Because of these reasons, you can find my sessions in agenda. From today (April 12th, the full agenda is available):
‘Dynamics 365 for
Talent’ is a new Microsoft Dynamics HCM solution. This solution is available
independently or through Unified Operations plan. Because we can use it
independently, it is interesting if we can integrate this solution with Business
central. You will see how to integrate Talent with Business Central and very
important thing – without coding. And of course, you will see different
integration options based on different user scenarios.
Although on the first
sight, there is no so common things between Business Central model driven
PowerApps, it can be very useful if we could use it with Business Central. Generally,
model driven PowerApps is a tool for CRM development, but there are many
reasons why to use it with Business Central. If you want to know why, come to
this session to see why to do it and how to do it… and maybe even more. As we
expect more and more CRM and ERP solutions in simultaneously work, it can be
very interesting.
OK, I will not write more, but if you think these topics are
interesting for you, you are welcome on my sessions and see you in Las Vegas.
And of course, my sessions are not only reason to come on
Directions 😊. You will find great sessions there… you will
see details about Business Central Spring release ’19 as well as amazing
sessions by MVP’s and other experts.
