Adding External Accountant to Your Business Central

17/12/2020 atotovic Business Central accountant, BC, Business Central, CSP, D365 Business Central, D365BC, external, License, Licensing, SaaS, user

If you use Business Central online, I’m sure that you need to connect your external accountant or your reseller partner to your tenant without buying new license. This is something you have included in your license. Never mind how many user you bought or if you have Essential or Premium users, you can invite up to 3 external users (External Accountants). These 3 licenses have the same use rights as your standard license except access to the user setup and admin tasks. What these users can do in your system, depends on you. But just to remind you… I’m talking about external accountant, not about internal accountant. This is important to remember as this license is not for internal stuff.

But let’s focus how you can add them. First open Users page and run Invite External Accountant.

When you run this action, new welcome page will appear. You should read it and if you agree, click I Accept (otherwise you need to stop and you cannot add user 🙂 ).

Click Next and fill in minimum mandatory fields. These fields are your external accountant contact details: Email, First and Last name. You will see there is a welcome message your accountant will get as email. You can change it or type in your language.

When you finish with details, just click Next and wait a little while. How long? It depends on many things, but it is usually a few seconds up to minute until system invite your accountant. When system finish, you will get a message that person you added was successfully invited. Close the page and enjoy.

You accountant will get an email message with text you entered in invitation as well as URL where he/she needs to log in. And yes, when you finish with adding accountant as user, do not forget to add user permission sets you want. And if you check license for this user, you will see: Dynamics 365 Business Central External Accountant.

OK, everything I described is related if everything is OK, but what if you have some trouble. I have two common issues you can often meet in a practice. Both of them will be met on the first step when you run invitation action.

First you can have an issue with licensing. Event if these 3 users are free of charge, they are not automatically added to tenant. CSP partner have to do it and if partner forget it, you will get an error message No External Accountant license available. Contact your administrator.

In this case only what you can o is to contact your CSP and to require adding these 3 licenses to your tenant. When these licenses are added, they will appear in your Admin Portal.

Now we have another case when you are not a global administrator or a user administrator in you AAD. In this case you can give yourself proper rights or you can ask administrator to do this task.

Business Central OnPrem vs Azure vs SaaS

06/07/202007/07/2020 atotovic Azure, Business Central, Dynamics 365, SaaS Azure, chart, customer, D365, D365BC, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, IaaS, Infrastructure, Licensing, NAV, OnPrem, SaaS, Technology

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.

How to create trial environment for D365 Sales Professional

05/05/202005/05/2020 Marko Totovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Power Platform, SaaS CRM, D365, D365 Sales, D365 Sales Professional, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, SaaS, Sales Professional, Small Business, SMB

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:

Run D365 Business Central for the first time

15/03/2018 atotovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics NAV Business Central, D365, Directions, Directions ASIA, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, dynamics 365 Business Central, NAV, SaaS, UX

When you run your Dynamics 365 Business Central for the first time, you will see new refreshed Web Client. Well, I think we will get some more small features soon (but just small polishing). Anyway, everything is easy for navigate and everything is exactly where you expect to be. And everything works very smoothly. I think the first what we can see are the messages in the left part of screen, with the most important information (the first will be “Good afternoon…”, but after that information).

Now we have a main menu on the top of the screen. Depends what we choose, we will get submenu just below the first row. Again, depends of the number of commands, we will get just one or more rows.

But we also have a lot of the most important actions on the right side of the page. Then we can see information and tiles in the activities and there are ordered noticeable. If you click on ‘See more’ or on some tile, you will open additional information (the same thing s with the large message on the left top part of screen).

We can also find “Product videos” and “Get started” links. On “Product videos”, you can find a few interesting videos about product, but more interesting is “Get started”. OK, we can find some educated videos again, but we have something more interesting – Role Centers link. With this, we can Explore different business roles features.

If you run it, you will get new window where you can choose all available role centers as an option and see what features are covered with each of them as the main menu structure (for each of them, you will see small tooltips with the basic information). And even more, if you click on Continue, you can change your role center; and again you don’t need to make logout/login, because system will change your role center automatically.

Of course, you can change your role center using ‘My Settings’, but guess… you will run the same page as I already showed. Really good user experience.

Then, when you run some page, from menu… for example customer, you can choose if you want to unpin the top menu… just to get little more space. Of course, you can chose the view type and so. But everything is so modern and provides really good experience.

OK, this is just beginning. This is still not even the first impression. But I don’t like to write so big texts. I’ll continue soon with more details.

D365 Tenerife is Dynamics 365 Business Central

13/03/201813/03/2018 atotovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics NAV Business Central, D365, D365 Business Central, D365BC, Directions, Directions ASIA, Dynamics, Dynamics 365 tenerife, Microsoft, NAV, SaaS

I didn’t plan to write this article before keynote on Directions ASIA, but two days before it, it is announced – new SaaS solution, previously known as code name Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’ is named as Dynamics 365 Business Central. This news is published today by Alysa Taylor (General Manager, Business Apps & Strategy) here in blog.

Dynamics 365 Business Central (it is interesting that only this solution hasn’t ‘for’ in its name) will be available in first 14 countries from April 2nd and it will continue one of the most successful customer base with more than 160.000 customers. This solution also has new refreshed Web Client and many other interesting features.

If you want to find more information, you can run official D365BC page, where you can find new licensing model and new prices as well.

We will have two different packages of features with different price range:

I will try not to copy already published blog and wait on another news in next two days. And just not to forget, Dynamics 365 Business Central has new logo:

The future of NAV – a small wrap up

10/10/2017 atotovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV App, BE, CDS, D365, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 tenerife, EE, Extensions, Marketing, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV 2018, NAV Tenerife, NAV2017, NAV2018R2, SaaS, Sales, VS Code

These days we got a lot of messages about the future of our product – Dynamics NAV. Now I’m seating in a plane and traveling to Nashville on NAVUG Summit and finally have found some time to make a small wrap up with all important things. I think now, after two Directions in North America and EMEA, picture is clearer.

Roadmap

The first thing I want to mention is roadmap of Dynamics NAV. I think it is absolutely clear that in this moment we have Dynamics NAV 2017 as ‘on prem’ and ‘on cloud ready’ solution, but as SaaS, we have Dynamics 365 for Financial and Operations Business Edition, generally based on Dynamics NAV. But this is just in this moment, because Marko Perisic announced in Madrid last week that we will have published Dynamics NAV 2018 at December 1^st. This announced is mostly based on partners feedback and this is absolutely this what partners wanted. For now, SaaS solution will stay the same, with the same name and in the same countries (US, Canada and UK). But with this new NAV version, partners will get new solution and the most important, with this new NAV version they can start to use Visual Studio Code for Extensions v2. This is important because partners now can start immediately with new model of development and to be ready for the spring and new solution.

At the spring 2018, we will finally get already announced new product – Dynamics 365 “Tenerife”, but only as cloud SaaS solution. As on-prem solution, we will get Dynamics NAV 2018 R2, but with the same code base as Dynamics 365 “Tenerife”. In this moment I don’t know a reason why we will still have the same product with the different names ‘on cloud’ and ‘on prem’. But very soon, we will continue with only one name – currently code name Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’. System will have new modern web interface, sandbox and lot of new features (more about it in another post).

And ant the spring, we will get Dynamics 365 for Sales App with less features (ex Business Edition) and Dynamics 365 for Marketing as preview. Both of these products was presented on Directions and they really look nice and rich.

New Package – New Opportunities

As I said, I don’t want to write about all new features in the future release, but what with the whole package. The main idea is to stop to implement ERP and/or CRM; but to continue to implement full business solution. This is what clients need; they don’t care what part of system it is, the just need to solve their problems and their requirements. And as the new business solution, we will have Dynamics 365 as business solution who cover most of the potential client’s needs. That means we will not sell e.g. ERP, but solution. In this solution we will see what real requirements client has and implement adequate Apps with adequate level of features. Price will depend of this, but we will don’t know prices, because of lot of changes. By my opinion, very important is that now we can combine Apps from ex Business Edition and ex Enterprise Edition. With this we will have more agility in implementation process. And of course, all of this will be integrated with Common Data Service. And even better, we can use CDS for our integrations. We can use not only Dynamics 365 Apps, but also PowerApps, Flow, Office 365, Power BI, 3th party Apps… as the same business environment.

Conclusion

The final message is by my opinion very clear and very positive. For both partners and customers. Don’t afraid, Microsoft will not stop with this amazing product. Rebranding is not canceling. But with new name, we will get still the same powerful product, but with the great new opportunities as well.

I can write probably more, but I think this is more than enough as the first wrap up after two Directions. Future of our product is a clear.

D365 for Talent new Apps: Attract and Onboard

29/09/2017 atotovic Dynamics 365, HRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV AI, App, Attract, D365, D365 for Talent, Dynamics, HCM, HRM, Ignite, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Onboard, SaaS, Talent

Microsoft recently announced new Dynamics 365 member for Human Capital Management – Dynamics 365 for Talent. I’ve already wrote about this new solution in my previous posts. On Directions NA in Orlando, we’ve seen that this SaaS App will still have an important role in new Dynamics 365 package. But now on Microsoft Ignite conference we got some new announcements related with this SaaS App.

We already knew that Talent will be integrated with LinkedIn, but now we know how. It will work using new Dynamics 365 AI solutions. This is not the first time we gave AI in Dynamics products, but this one will be really good. Based on this solution, we will have new SaaS Apps for Talent expanding:

Dynamics 365 for Talent: Attract
Dynamics 365 for Talent: Onboard

Both of them are designed for different phases of recruiting and hiring process.

The first, Attract is designed to help users to assess candidates and receive their insights and find the right candidates. With this App, as its name suggests, they can attract the right and the most qualified candidates more efficiently.

Onboard, as the name says, will make new employee onboarding process more easy, with different help in getting new hires, setting up in onboarding processes and preparing trainings for teams.

As we heard, these two SaaS Apps will be available through Dynamics 365 for Talent later this year.

New NAV will be Dynamics 365 Tenerife

17/09/201717/09/2017 atotovic Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics NAV Directions, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 tenerife, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV Tenerife, on cloud, on premises, SaaS, Tenerife

The first day of Direction NA has just started and Keynote has just finished. The event is the biggest ever with 774 attendees. We heard a lot of news about our product(s). The most important announcement is:

The future Dynamics NAV release will be Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’ on-premises;
The future Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Business Edition release will be Dynamics 365 ‘Tenerife’ on cloud.

That means, we will continue with ‘AND’ story. The main goal will be ‘on cloud’, but if we need we can continue to work with ‘on prem’. But, both of these products will be the same – a full NAV.

But there are more news, especially about ‘on cloud’ story. In the future release, we can provide customer oriented customizations in our SaaS solution, we can run Sandbox environment, our services can be offered… All of this is very exciting and we can find a lot of opportunities, especially in integrations with other products.

This is not all with details. This is just the first basic review of news. There will be more news soon.

Dynamics 365 for Talent

06/06/201706/06/2017 atotovic Dynamics 365, HRM cloud, D365, D365 for Talent, Dynamics, Dynamics 365, HRM, Operations, Preview, SaaS, Talent

Effective July 1st, Microsoft will announce new Dynamics 365 family member. This is new HRM app – Dynamics 365 for Talent. Of course, this will not be only one news, but I want to say a few words about this product. First, we can run and test technical preview and I want to share some first experiences. We still cannot find all features here, but we can make the first sight. For example, we will still wait integration with LinkedIn. It will be very important integration, especially in recruitment process. But we still don’t know all areas where integration will be done. But again, lets see what we have here.

This will be standard SaaS solution with web client, very similar with D365 for Operations. And of course, it will be integrated with this solution. And I would like if we can get integration not only with this enterprise solution, but also with D365 for Financials. Minimum, I’m expecting some App for this.

If you try to run a few basic features in demo database, you can notice that it works fast enough and very smoothly. When we open app for the first time, we can see a menu as default dashboard and in the left side in the same moment. If icons are not clear enough on the left side, we just need to click on three-lines, and it will be expanded so you can see the names of these commands. Also, when you run system for the first time, you will find very good “Get Started” with very good prepared videos and with a lot of step-by-step manuals. And if this manuals are not enough, you have a awesome tool where you can create task saving; you just need to choose this tool, run it and do everything what you want to do; when you click on stop, system will create nice manual step-by-step and you can choose how and where you want to deploy it.

In this first text, I didn’t plan to speak about features, just to make some basic overview. In my next texts, I will write more about features.

More details about this technical preview, you can find here:

https://community.dynamics.com/enterprise/b/dynamics365fortalent/archive/2017/06/05/dynamics-365-for-talent-technical-preview-is-here

Create Items with Item Templates in New NAV and Madeira

26/07/2016 atotovic Microsoft Dynamics NAV, SaaS Dynamics, Dynamics 365, Item, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, NAV, NAV Madeira, NAV2017, NAVUG, SaaS, templates

First, this feature is currently published in Project “Madeira” and I’m sure it will be part of NAV 2017, but almost all about NAV 2017 is still by NDA and I cannot write about it.

But this feature is looks fine and I want to share it. When we created new Items we usually used Item Category to preconfigure some fields for item. But now, I think we have a better feature. We can just configure page “Set Up Customer/Vendor/Item Templates” with a lot of data. And that means this feature is not connected only with Items (you notice it right); you can also use this feature as template for other codes.

Now, you can chose one of the templates from list or to create your own template choosing table number to dedicate template to some of the tables. OK, if you want to create Item Template, you will use table 27.

When you open Item template, you can see that now you can configure lot of different fields, as for example:

Base Unit of Measure
Automatic Extended Texts
Type (Inventory or Service)
Price include tax and Price/Profit Calculation with profit and discount groups
Costing Method and Indirect Cost
and Posting groups in Financial Details

But you can do even more, you can open Dimensions command from ribbon and preconfigure dimensions and dimension value and as well as value posting for dimensions (mandatory, same code, no code). And now when you want to create new Item, system will ask you what Item Template you want to use from all enabled templates.

If you want to change something you can later use command “Apply Template” from ribbon to add some template to your item.

If you didn’t use some template or if you changed some details, you can also use command “Save as Template” to save these values as template for some other usage.

Interesting feature and you can use this not only for items. This is more standardized feature in comparison with older versions.