Dynamics

How to integrate Business Central with Dynamics 365 Talent – part 2 (configure BC & Talent)

atotovic Business Central, Dynamics 365, HRM, Power Platform , , , , , , , , , ,

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:

Business CentralTalent / CDSBC API
EmployeeWorker …employee
Alternative AddressWorker Addresscustom
QualificationSkill Typecustom
…… 

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.

How to integrate Business Central with Dynamics 365 Talent – part 1 (Introduction)

atotovic Azure, Business Central, Dynamics 365 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Sessions from NAV TechDays – day 1

atotovic Business Central, Conference, Dynamics 365, Power Platform , , , , , , , , , , ,

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!

Why Attend BCUG/NAVUG Summit 2019 in Orlando

atotovic Business Central, Conference, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics NAV , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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 🙂

My Sessions on Directions North America 2019

atotovic Business Central, Conference, Dynamics 365 , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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):

How and Why You Should Combine Dynamics 365 for Talent with D365 Business Central (May 7 2019, 8:00am, Room: Veranda B)

‘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.

Using Model-Driven PowerApps with Business Central (May 5 2019, 3:15pm, Room: Red Rock A)

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.

Business Central – Spring & Fall ’19 Release

atotovic Business Central, Dynamics 365 , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In my previous post, I’ve introduced you with the news from Directions ASIA and Business Central spring release. As I said in this previous post, there are a lot of improvements. Some of them are on this slide, and as very important improvements in performance, reliability and scalability, we can find that now we have

  • 50% faster Role Center load time
  • 40% faster in Lead to Cash scenarios
  • 2x improvement in RapidStart

Of course, there are a lot of other improvements. I’ve recently had a session about this topic in eXtreme 365, but this time I’ll not write about them, because you can find all of them in the following:

In total, there are more than 100 enhancements and some of them are extremely usable.

But what is also interesting? We got some hints what will be in Fall ’19 release. And as I mentioned yesterday, the first things – there will not be Windows Client and C/SIDE anymore; only Modern Client (web) and AL with VS Code. But in on-prem, you will get full BC code as an app and you can change this code as you used to work with that in old Development Environment. Not exactly the same, but you can do it. But even if you can do it, this is not recommendation as we heard that in one moment in the future we will continue with extensions only even on on-prem. Nobody can say when exactly, but this is a future. Because of that, start with extensions immediately.

Of course, team will continue to improve proficiency, to reduce ISV friction, enhance migration tools, to improve service fundamentals… and now we can see plans for CDS in 2020 and further.

What is not so good information (especially for countries without MS official localization) is that team announce that we can expect expanding localizations after October release, not before that ☹. But on the other side, team will invest in really cool things in this period.


And on the end, Directions NA will come in May and we will see if we have stil something new regarding all these topics.