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{{/if}} {{/if}} Schedule board view icons Previously, schedule board views that weren’t selected would appear gray, giving the impression that they were disabled. Now they are simply underlined instead. Screenshot of schedule board icons before the update Back to Contents 57 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Screenshot of the schedule board icons after the update Styling change to buttons in panels Primary actions such as "book" are designed with a background to attract the user’s attention. Screenshot of the previous button styles in panels Back to Contents 58 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Screenshot of the new button styles in panels Label change for zoom functionality In a previous release, we introduced the ability to seamlessly change your Schedule Board view between hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly, without losing context of the resource and date you are focused on. You can simply right-click to "zoom in" or "zoom out," which changes the Schedule Board view. To make the feature a bit more understandable to new users, these labels are changed, and dynamically describe the action more explicitly. For example, if you are on the daily board, upon right-clicking, the options will be "Switch to Hours Board" (previously "Zoom In") and "Switch to Weeks Board" (previously Zoom Out"). Back to Contents 59 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Screenshot of the new labels in zoom functionality Removed redundant Cancel option from multiday boards In the last release, we introduced the ability to change booking statuses from the multiday schedule boards. Before this enhancement, we had a special option to cancel bookings from the right-click menu. We have removed this redundant option: Back to Contents 60 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Screenshot of the previous redundant options on multiday boards, which have been removed Resource search bar styling We’ve updated the resource search bar styling to include a narrower search area with a border. This will help new users find the search bar easily. Display notification on booking requirements grid when no results found Resource managers often search through the booking requirements grid at the bottom of the schedule board. We wanted to make the interaction more responsive in case there are no results that match the search criteria. Instead of whitespace, a message is shown to the user. Screenshot of previous state of the booking requirements grid with no results shown Back to Contents 61 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Screenshot of new state of the booking requirements grid with no results shown Double-click timing On our daily, weekly, and monthly schedule boards, there are multiple interactions that require users to select (single-click) a resource cell or a day, week, or month, but just in case users double-click, we interpret the user intention and treat it as a normal "select.” Screenshot of selected resource Back to Contents 62 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Resource Scheduling Optimization (RSO) enhancements Resource Scheduling Optimization (RSO) is an add-on capability for the Dynamics 365 for Field Service application that enables you to automatically schedule work orders for the most appropriate resources, while simultaneously optimizing appointment setting for travel time, work hours, and many other constraints. Extensible scope The Resource Scheduling Optimization solution uses scope to define the input for resources, resource requirements, and resource bookings, as well as the timeframes used for optimization. With extensible scope, the solution leverages entity views in Dynamics 365 to provide an easy and flexible way to define what gets optimized. Scheduling optimization scope Run as a simulation The admin can run a schedule on demand as a simulation, which results in resource bookings that are simulations without affecting actual bookings. This capability helps an administrator better understand the effects of adjusting optimization scope, constraints, objectives, and other parameters, to determine what optimization configuration best matches business goals and objectives. Back to Contents 63 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Enforce skill level Resource requirements can include not only a skill, but also the level (or rating) of the skill required to do the work. By considering the skill (or resource characteristic) rating level required, the solution is able to find resources that better match required skills and proficiency. Connected Field Service (IoT) enhancements Connected Field Service helps service organizations proactively detect, troubleshoot, and resolve service issues so a technician is dispatched only when necessary. Organizations can enable IoT alerts, device fault states, and preventive maintenance notifications to let field service managers or technicians know when to create a new case, create a work order, send commands to control customer assets remotely, prepare parts needed for a repair, or take other actions. Built on the Unified Interface framework With the Spring ’18 release, the Connected Field Service solution is built on the Unified Interface framework for improved user experience. The app delivers a consistent, uniform user interface, and follows responsive design principles for optimal viewing on any screen size or device. Synchronization of device conditions and properties with device twins Connected Field Service includes a representation of customer assets and devices that can be registered within Azure IoT Hub to enable messages to flow through Azure IoT Hub to create alerts. In the Spring ‘18 release, in addition to receiving messages that require action, Connected Field Service uses the Azure IoT device twin capability. The device twin, which is kept in sync with physical devices, is a JSON document that holds metadata and configuration data, as well as a virtual cloud representation of physical devices. Connected Field Service communicates with device twins to allow devices to report operating conditions such as device state, heartbeat for connectivity speed, and machine vibration. Field service operations managers gain visibility into device conditions and properties on a graphical dashboard. For example, the capacity of a tank can be monitored through IoT Hub and represented on the dashboard. When capacity reaches a threshold, an alert is sent to designated users for follow-up action. Synchronization of device tags with device twins Device twin tags allow grouping of devices to make them easier to search and find. Tags for device twins are created in Connected Field Service, and then converted into JSON that is understood by a device. Tags make it easy to group by device usage, identification, or other properties. For example, customer assets needing a similar repair can be grouped using a tag. Back to Contents 64 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Configuration of device properties and commands through device categories When IoT devices are registered, connected, and configured in Azure IoT hub, Connected Field Service is able to retrieve properties and configurations from device twins. With the Spring ‘18 release, field service managers and technicians can define device properties individually or in bulk. For example, field service managers can add measurements, such as temperature or vibration, which are common to devices in a category, and then update properties, configure thresholds, or send commands. Field service managers or technicians can also use pre-defined commands to control a piece of equipment, such as when to restart or shut down. Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation The Spring ‘18 release of Project Service includes multidimensional pricing capabilities, GDPR and accessibility enhancements, and new user experience with the app built on the Unified Interface framework. Project Service is available for Private Preview to select members of the Dynamics 365 for Project Service Insiders program starting in April ‘18. For consideration or to register, go to the Dynamics 365 Insider page. Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in Project Service April ’18 – Private Preview Compliance • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - Investments address the European privacy law’s requirements. Go to the Trust Center to learn more and find resources to help you comply. • Accessibility enhancements- Go to the Trust Center to learn about our industry-leading accessibility standards. Project Service Automation app • Built on the Unified Interface framework. • Common Control Framework (CCF). • Custom pricing dimensions for resource pricing. • Dimension priority and dimension context for resolution. • Price mark-ups and mark-downs. • Work breakdown structure (WBS) editable grid with Gantt visualization. • Extensible time and expense entry. Universal Resource Scheduling for Project Service • Schedule board list view. Back to Contents 65 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Project Service app enhancements The Project Service app helps sales and delivery teams engage customers and deliver billable projects on time and within budget. Project Service helps organizations: • Estimate, quote, and contract work. • Plan and schedule tasks. • Assign resources and balance utilization. • Improve team coordination and collaboration. • Capture and approve time, expenses, and progress. • Invoice in line with contractual expectations. • Track financials and monitor overall performance. Built on the Unified Interface framework With the Spring ’18 release, the Project Service app is built on the Unified Interface framework for improved user experience. The redesigned app delivers a consistent, uniform user interface, and follows responsive design principles for optimal viewing on any screen size or device. Work breakdown structure on the Unified Interface framework Back to Contents 66 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Common Control Framework (CCF) User interface controls use a Common Controls Framework (CCF) for consistency with other Dynamics 365 business applications. Controls follow consistent, familiar patterns on every surface in the application, making it easier for Project Service users to onboard and be productive. Custom pricing dimensions for resource pricing To maximize flexibility to meet different business requirements, the updated Project Service solution supports discrete application of pricing dimension sets to cost and bill rates. Dimension values can be set as the default and propagated across the costing and pricing process from resource profiling to time entry to project actuals. Customer-specific configuration and modification or extension leverages standard Dynamics 365 customizability infrastructure. Selection and prioritization of dimensions that drive cost and sales prices Back to Contents 67 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Sample price list with custom fields for standard title and work location used as pricing dimensions Sample price list with role, resource unit, and work location as pricing dimensions Back to Contents 68 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Dimension priority and dimension context for resolution For each pricing dimension, it is now possible to assign a priority by cost, purchase, sales, or other context defined by the system administrator. The pricing API runs recursively to match input dimensions to price setup in order of dimension priority, defaulting to zero only in a no-match scenario. Price mark-ups and mark-downs Prices can be set up as a percent-based markup on a base price, for example, to reflect overtime hours or hazardous work conditions. This mark-up or mark-down ties to configured pricing dimensions, such as role or resourcing unit, as defined by the administrator. Priority-based mark-up or mark-down resolution is also supported. Application of markup settings to a pricing dimension Back to Contents 69 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Configuration of cost price markups Configuration of sales price markups Back to Contents 70 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Work breakdown structure (WBS) editable grid with Gantt visualization The Spring '18 release introduces an editable grid with a Gantt visualization experience for the work breakdown structure (WBS), and removes the restriction that requires upfront booking of named resources to the project team before assigning them to tasks. Project managers can assign named or generic resources to project tasks without a prior booking. Additionally, named resources can be created and assigned for any user of installed sales, service, field service, or project service apps. Formal booking or booking requests can then be executed after the project plan has been detailed. This simplifies the project manager experience, and improves the range of scenarios where Project Service can be used to schedule work. Assigning named or generic resources to project tasks Extensible time and expense entry With the Unified Interface framework, user interface controls for time and expense entry can be customized to align with an organization’s unique business policies and workflows. New fields can be added to time and expense entry forms, and existing fields can be extended to support custom scenarios. Back to Contents 71 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Universal Resource Scheduling for Project Service The Project Service app builds on the Universal Resource Scheduling solution to help project managers and resource managers find and book resources for open project team member positions. Schedule board list view With the Spring ’18 release, the schedule board list view helps users interact with the schedule board using a list view to see data in a more meaningful way. For example, use the list view to work with bookable resources on the schedule board, or when searching for resource availability in hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly schedule board views. Back to Contents 72 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Operations, Finance Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations The Spring ‘18 release of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations delivers enhancements in system performance, servicing, reliability, and extensibility. It also offers new ways of integrating with other Dynamics 365 products and adds to our suite of business productivity tools. Highlights from this release include: • A shift to Microsoft-managed platform and financial reporting updates, to improve service reliability and availability, and also to ensure that customers have the latest improvements and can take advantage of cloud scaling capabilities. • Changing our approach to customization by moving from over-layering to enabling no-code extensibility. Extensions let Microsoft service Finance and Operations without disrupting customers, minimizing the impact and costs of subsequent releases. We’ve also added the ability to embed PowerApps in Finance and Operations forms pages and the ability to add custom fields without writing code. • Data integration capability that synchronizes data using customizable projects. Standard templates can be used to create custom integration projects, where additional standard and custom fields and entities can be mapped to adjust the integration and meet specific business needs. New data integration functionality is provided between features in Finance and Operations and features in Dynamics 365 for Field Service, Dynamics 365 for Talent, and Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation. • Lifecycle Services (LCS) tools that make it easier for customers to get support when they need it, including: o Telemetry-driven knowledge-base (KB) recommendations that help us understand how well hotfixes have solved an issue and proactively push out hotfixes to customers. This will allow customers to spend less time looking for solutions to issues that a hotfix already exists for. o Returning a list of KB recommendations when customers enter a support case and continuously refining search results based on the user’s input. This feature provides more relevant search results and reduces the need for customers to submit support cases by helping them find the solution before submitting a case. o Ability to report a production outage, providing a quick and effective channel to escalate issues to Microsoft Support if the services in a production environment are degraded or become unavailable. • Intelligence applications that analyze customers’ business processes and data, and proactively provide insights and recommendations. These include Optimization advisor and Credit and collections. • Enhancements to vendor collaboration and warehouse management tools, allowing customers to streamline and expedite business operations. Back to Contents 73 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Investments in globalization features, including support for the India Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the Project management and accounting modules, enhanced code-free configuration, and the ability to translate documentation (.docx and .html formats) by using Dynamics Translation Service (DTS). Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in Finance and Operations April ’18 – General Availability Business productivity • Alerts - Client-based alert functionality enables a user to define alert rules based on business events, such as when an invoice is paid or a customer changes an address. • Optimization advisor - Uses telemetry to analyze customers’ business processes, finds optimization opportunities, uses application data to quantify the opportunities, and then recommends solutions. • Project timesheet mobile - Employees can create and submit project timesheets. The use of saved favorites and the ability to copy from a previous timesheet facilitates rapid, accurate time entry. • Edit default project fulfillment hours - Project resource managers can edit the default hours as part of the project booking fulfillment process. • Reserve project resources past the task end date - Project resource managers can fulfill resources on tasks past the current planned end date for the task. • Person search report - You can find a person and their personal data in Finance and Operations. • Data sharing for customer and vendor tables - Data can be shared across customer and vendor tables and many related tables across multiple legal entities. • One voucher deprecation – One voucher is turned off by default, through a General ledger parameter. Extensibility and customization • Customizations through extensions only - Migrating customizations from one release to the next has been simplified by moving away from over-layering to the use of extensions. • Extensibility requests - Customers can submit a request to Microsoft for extension support to be added to the product for a needed scenario. The Spring '18 release enhances this feature by moving it to Lifecycle Services. • Embedding PowerApps in workspaces and forms - Use PowerApps to embed data from external sources into Finance and Operations data. • Custom fields - Organizations can add custom fields to tailor their application to their business requirements, using a no-code extensibility experience. Integration • Integration with Common Data Service (CDS) • Integration with Dynamics 365 for Field Service - Provides data integration to support scenarios where Field Service activities are done outside Finance and Operations, leveraging the data integrator. • Integration with Dynamics 365 for Talent (Public Preview) - Provides data integration of the appropriate HR information into Finance and Operations Back to Contents 74 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Integration with Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation - (Private Preview)- Supports scenarios where project and resource management activities are done outside Finance and Operations, and the project accounting activities are done in Finance and Operations, leveraging the data integrator. Improved support experiences • Telemetry-based KB recommendation - Telemetry from a production environment can be used to identify the application hotfixes that apply to a tenant. • KB recommendations when entering a support case - LCS provides telemetry-driven KB recommendations. • Report production outage - Provides a quick and effective channel to escalate issues to Microsoft Support if the services in a production environment are degraded or become unavailable. Supply chain management • Vendor collaboration – RFQ process - Enhancements make it easy to tell who entered a bid (a vendor or a procurement department). • Partial shipment of a load (split load) - Allows single loads or multiple loads to be fully or partially loaded. • Immediate replenishment of locations - Used during wave execution if allocation fails for a location directive line that has a replenishment template. • Reason codes added to warehouse counting and adjustment - Users can add a reason code when performing counts and when making an adjustment. • Batch balancing enabled for advanced warehousing processes. • Analytical workspaces with embedded Power BI for Cost management – new Cost administration and Cost analysis workspaces Globalization • India localization – project and upgrade - Users can manage India Goods and Services Tax (GST) for the Project management and accounting module, and AX 2012 customers can upgrade to Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. • Translation Service enhancements - In addition to supporting user interface translation, Dynamics Translation Service (DTS) now supports documentation translation in Microsoft Word and HTML formats (.docx, .html) (Public Preview). • Enhanced configurability - New features include import and testing scenarios, and also broader support for configurability without coding. Servicing, performance, and deployment • Improved delivery of platform and financial reporting updates - Enhancements to how software updates are provided, to improve deployment time and the reliability of servicing. • Service hardening - Added service monitoring and alerting for core business processes, and improved form load performance of the most commonly used forms. • On-premises deployment updates. Compliance • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - Investments address the European privacy law’s requirements. Go to the Trust Center to learn more and find resources to help you comply. Back to Contents 75 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Accessibility enhancements - Go to the Trust Center to learn about our industry-leading accessibility standards. April 2018 - Preview • Regulatory service – configuration (available at the end of April) - Regulatory service targets a no-code programming approach, allowing users to configure electronic reporting formats or tax rules rather than write code for them in the underlying application. • Customer payment insights (Preview) - Customer payment insights (preview) uses machine learning to predict when an invoice will be paid and provides optimization strategies that can be tailored to maximize the probability of customers paying on time. Integration • Integration with Dynamics 365 for Talent (Public Preview) - Provides data integration of the appropriate HR information into Finance and Operations. • Integration with Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation (Private Preview)- Supports scenarios where project and resource management activities are done outside Finance and Operations, and the project accounting activities are done in Finance and Operations, leveraging the data integrator. May ’18 – General Availability Globalization • United Arab Emirates (UAE) localization – The Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Fall 2017 release (version 7.3) has been updated with support for mandatory regulatory requirements in United Arab Emirates (UAE). Extensibility and customization • Extensible project work breakdown structure – Enables customization of the project work breakdown structure through extensions. This replaces the hierarchical grid control that was previously used for the project work breakdown structure with a standard grid that supports hierarchical data. This feature is available in the May 2018 application update. Alerts Alerts form a notification system for critical events in Finance and Operations. You can use alerts to stay informed about events that you want to track during the workday. You can easily create your own set of alert rules so that you're alerted about deliveries that are overdue, orders that are deleted, prices that change, or other events you must respond to. Back to Contents 76 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Create alert rule When you create an alert rule, you can specify that you want to be alerted when a specific field changes. For example, suppose that you work in the Sales department of a company where the number of customer returns has become a major issue. You want to be alerted about any returned goods, so that you can immediately start to investigate why the goods are returned. Therefore, you create a rule that triggers an alert if the Status field of any sales order is changed to Canceled. Alternatively, you can specify that you want to be alerted when a record on a page is created or deleted. For example, you want to make sure that no customers are deleted on the All customers page without your knowledge. Therefore, you create a rule that triggers an alert when a record is deleted on that page. When the selected event occurs for the field or record on the page, an alert is sent to you. These alerts can help you monitor your business more effectively and enable you to take corrective action when necessary. Alerts are processed by the batch processing functionality in Finance and Operations. You must set up batch processing before alerts can be delivered. Optimization advisor Optimization advisor provides added visibility and intelligence in your business operations to improve efficiency. This system, which is available to business users, uses telemetry to analyze your business processes, find optimization opportunities, use application data to quantify the opportunities, and then recommend solutions. In this release, Optimization advisor rules analyze the: • Performance of inventory closing. • Performance of wave processing and work creation within warehouse management. • Overall performance of the application. Optimization advisor then recommends changes to system configuration settings to improve the performance of the business processes in use. Back to Contents 77 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Master data quality across bills of materials, routes, and inventory management. • Ability to unlock a financial journal that is locked by the system. Optimization opportunities After running a business process, a notification appears in the Action center. A user opens the notification and is directed to opportunities in the Optimization advisor workspace. The user reviews the list of opportunities and then decides whether to take the recommended action. The system automates the action to be taken, if possible, or takes the user to the appropriate location, if manual steps are needed. If the action isn't appropriate for the business, the user can either hide the opportunity or deactivate the analysis. Organizations can also create new Optimization advisor rules for their businesses. In the following example, an inefficient route runtime was detected in a warehouse because the route runtime varied from the system's average runtime. Back to Contents 78 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Optimization advisor recommendation To learn more about Optimization advisor, watch this video or go to the Optimization advisor documentation. Project timesheet mobile Project timesheet is a mobile app that lets employees create and submit project timesheets to record their hours for a specific project. Employees can create a new timesheet from scratch or copy data from an existing timesheet to ensure rapid, accurate time entry. If an employee is designated as a delegate, he or she can also enter a timesheet for another worker. The app lets employees filter by project, resource, or approval status to quickly locate and select a timesheet. Employees can also save favorites, which saves the project and activity information on the timesheet. The saved favorites can be used to create future timesheets, speeding the time entry process. Project timesheet can be accessed via the web browser on a mobile device. Back to Contents 79 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Project timesheet mobile Edit default project fulfillment hours The project resource manager can view and edit the default hours as part of the project booking fulfillment process. By default, the system fulfills a resource from the start of the project over the scheduled task period. This might not align with the true availability of the resource, and the resource manager must be able to adjust the default fulfillment hours. For example, if a specific task is selected to start on February 26 and is projected to take 20 hours, the system assigns default hours for the selected resource beginning on February 26. Typically, the hours assigned would be 8 hours on day 1, 8 hours on day 2, and 4 hours on day 3. Assume that the selected resource was finishing another project and was allocated on that project for 4 hours on February 26. Based on the default hours assigned to the resource, the resource would be overbooked on day 1 (12 hours). The resource manager can edit the assigned hours and change them to 4 hours (total of 8 hours across both projects) on the first day and 8 hours on the third day. The resource manager can also potentially choose to schedule days 2 and 3 at 10 hours each, and day 1 at 0 hours for the project task (all within the task schedule period). Back to Contents 80 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Edit default project fulfillment hours Reserve project resources past the task end date At times, the project resource manager might not have resources available to start on a project task's start date, or the requested resource might be unavailable for a portion of the task duration. The resource manager must be able to fulfill resources for tasks that might extend past the planned task end date. This feature lets the project resource manager extend the resource reservation past the planned task end date. The project manager is notified of the change so that they can review the task assignments and determine the impact on the project overall. The project manager can then either make the changes to the project tasks or request a new resource reservation. Back to Contents 81 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Reserving a resource past the planned task end date Person search report The Person search report lets you find a person and their personal data in Finance and Operations. (The report is also available for Dynamics 365 for Talent and Dynamics 365 for Retail.) By using the Finance and Operations data management framework and a pre-packaged set of entities, you can generate a report and export personal data for a specified person. The data can be exported in a choice of formats, including Excel worksheets. A person might be a customer, a vendor, an applicant, a truck driver, or an employee. When using the Person search report, you can specify data that lets you easily identify those roles and extract the data in a single report. The report can provide value in a number of situations. It's possible for a single person to be entered in Finance and Operations more than once. For example, someone named Jodi Christiansen might be listed in the address book by the name “Jodi Christiansen” and by using initials, such as “J. R. Christiansen.” The Person search report lets you specify each instance of a person and include them on a single report. The report can also be used in response to a request for personal data under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Back to Contents 82 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 To use the Person search report: 1. From the System administration menu, open the Person search list page, and create a new search. 2. Name the project “Jodi Christiansen.” Person search report 3. The search gives you three options: you can search by ID, by name, or by address. In this example, you would search by ID, so that the report will return instances of each name that is associated with the ID you entered. 4. Run the search to show the results. 5. Verify that the results are valid. Clear any selections that return information you don't want to include on the report. 6. Select Process report, and then select the Person search template. 7. Select OK. A data package is generated. 8. When the package has been generated, export it to your selected data format. Back to Contents 83 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Data sharing for customer and vendor tables You can share the customer and vendor tables and many related tables across multiple legal entities. Although data sharing was already available under System Administration > Setup > Configure crosscompany data sharing, tables with the “Main” table group were not supported for cross-company data sharing. The Spring '18 release enables data sharing for customers and vendors and for related tables across a small number of legal entities. To enable this functionality, contact your Solution Architect, who will verify that your business requirements and data volumes will be acceptable for data sharing, and then enable the sharing policies in your environment. One voucher deprecation The existing functionality for financial journals (general journal, fixed asset journal, vendor payment journal, and so on) lets you enter multiple subledger transactions in the context of a single voucher. This functionality is referred to as “One voucher.” The One voucher functionality causes issues during settlement, tax calculation, reconciliation of a subledger to the general ledger, financial reporting, and more. Because of these issues, the One voucher functionality will be made obsolete. However, because there are functional gaps that depend on this functionality, the functionality won't become obsolete all at once. Instead, we will use the following schedule: • Spring '18 release – The functionality will be turned off by default, through a general ledger parameter. However, you can turn the functionality on if your organization has a scenario that falls in the business scenario gaps that are listed in the One voucher documentation. o If a customer has a business scenario that doesn't require One voucher, don’t turn the functionality on. We won’t fix “bugs” in the areas that are identified in the One voucher documentation if this functionality is used. o Stop using One voucher for integrations into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, unless the functionality is required for one of the functional gaps. • Fall '18 and later releases – The functional gaps will be filled. After the functional gaps are filled, the One voucher functionality will be permanently turned off. See the One voucher documentation for detailed information about the use and deprecation of this functionality. Customizations through extensions only In the Spring '18 release, we’ve continued our work to allow our application code base be customized only through extensions. We are removing the ability to over-layer customizations. The primary benefits of this change include: • Removing the ability to create intrusive customizations, to make customized environments more robust. • Simplified application lifecycle management for customizations: Customers will no longer have to merge code, or compile and deploy Microsoft code. This will lead to shorter build times and a shorter development lifecycle. Back to Contents 84 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Making it possible for customers to be on the latest release of Finance and Operations. This is just one of the key steps in this process. To take advantage of the new extensibility features, partners and customers need to convert their existing overlayered customizations to extensions. To support this move, we have updated our extensibility documentation, which has details about the process of migrating existing code to extensions, and also specific articles about platform capabilities and application frameworks and how to extend them: Extensibility documentation. We have future work planned to improve the Code upgrade service and development tools to facilitate this migration. Extensibility requests If you discover a customization that you can't implement as an extension, you can log a request to Microsoft to add appropriate extension support to the product for your scenario. Currently, you can use the process described in the Extensibility requests documentation. Also, in the Spring '18 timeframe, we are adding the Extensibility requests feature to Lifecycle Services, and currently have it available for private preview. This change lets you manage the work items that you've filed with Microsoft in a single location. To create an extensibility request, sign in to LCS, in the project for which you need the additional extension support, and then from the Support Work items workspace, create the request. Extensibility request Back to Contents 85 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Extensible project work breakdown structure The current hierarchal grid control used for the project work breakdown structure is being deprecated and replaced with a standard grid that is enhanced to support hierarchical data. This change will let you use extensions to customize the project work breakdown structure. This feature is available in the May 2018 application update. Work breakdown structure – Scheduling view Back to Contents 86 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Work breakdown structure – Cost estimates view Embedding PowerApps in workspaces and forms We have added support for embedding PowerApps in Finance and Operations workspaces and forms. Users can pin Microsoft PowerApps to forms and share them with peers to augment system functionality. Finance and Operations now extends this capability, allowing customers to use PowerApps to embed data from external sources into Finance and Operations. The following images show how easy it is to embed a PowerApp into a Finance and Operations form. In this example, a sample PowerApps application called Package Tracker, built on data outside Finance and Operations, is added as an embedded experience. 1. Open a form and, under the PowerApps button on the menu bar, select Insert a PowerApp. 2. Configure the PowerApp you want to embed. 3. Select Insert, and the selected PowerApp is available on the form. Back to Contents 87 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Select a PowerApp to embed After users select Insert, their PowerApp is available on the form. In this example, a sample PowerApp application called Package Tracker, built on data outside Finance and Operations, is now enabled as an embedded experience. For more information, see PowerApps host control. Embedded PowerApp Back to Contents 88 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Custom fields Although Finance and Operations provides an extensive set of fields out of the box for managing a broad range of business processes, customers sometimes need to track additional information in their system. To accommodate this, Finance and Operations lets you create custom fields to tailor the application to fit your business, without coding. Creating a custom field After you've created a custom field and exposed it on a form, a system administrator can push a personalization to all users or a subset of users. You can also export your personalizations, send them to one or more users, and have each of those users import your changes. Use the Manage option on the personalization toolbar to export and import personalizations. Back to Contents 89 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Exporting a custom field You can manage custom fields using the Custom fields page in the System administration module. This is used to: • View a list of all custom fields in the system. • Limit editing of existing custom fields. • Delete custom fields. • Expose custom fields on data entities. • Provide translations of custom field labels and Help text. Back to Contents 90 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Managing custom fields To learn more about creating a custom field, watch this video or go to the Custom fields documentation. Integration with Common Data Service (CDS) Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations has enabled cross-application business processes between Finance and Operations and Dynamics 365 for Field Service and between Finance and Operations and Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation. These scenarios are configured using extensible Data integrator templates and CDS to enable the cross-application scenarios. To learn more about CDS, see Common Data Service for Apps. Integration with Dynamics 365 for Field Service Data integration supports scenarios where Field Service activities are done outside Finance and Operations. Functionality includes: • Enabling invoicing of Dynamics 365 for Field Service work orders and agreements in Finance and Operations. • Integration of warehouse information with on-hand inventory, item reservations, usage, adjustments, and transfers. • Support for purchase order integration with synchronization of vendors, purchase orders, and receipts. Back to Contents 91 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 The first phase of feature work focuses on enabling invoicing of Field Service work orders and agreements in Finance and Operations. The supported flow starts in Field Service, where information from work orders is synchronized to Finance and Operations as sales orders. In Finance and Operations, the sales orders are invoiced to generate invoice documents. In addition, the information from Field Service agreement invoices is synchronized to Finance and Operations. The Dynamics 365 data integrator synchronizes data by using customizable projects. Standard templates can be used to create custom integration projects, where additional standard and custom fields, and also entities, can be mapped to adjust the integration and meet specific needs. Field Service and Finance and Operations integrations In the first phase, templates are provided for integration from Field Service to Finance and Operations for the following entities: • Products, including Field Service Product Type information • Work orders to sales orders • Agreements invoices to free text invoices Back to Contents 92 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Work orders to sales orders integration In addition to the templates listed earlier, the previously released templates and functionality for Prospect to cash integration can be used to synchronize: • Accounts to Customers. • Invoices. Prospect to cash data flow To learn more about the Prospect to cash integration, watch this video or go to the Prospect to cash documentation. Back to Contents 93 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Integration with Dynamics 365 for Talent (Public Preview) Finance and Operations customers can use Dynamics 365 for Talent to manage their people. The integration provides the ability to integrate appropriate HR information into Finance and Operations. It takes advantage of the data management tools that are available in both Talent - Core HR and Finance and Operations. It provides the ability to quickly front-load Talent - Core HR with HCM data that currently resides in Finance and Operations. There will then be a recurring integration flow from Talent to Finance and Operations. Configuring Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations and Dynamics 365 for Talent integration Integration with Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation (Private Preview) The Project Service Automation to Finance and Operations integration solution uses the data integrator feature to synchronize data across instances of Finance and Operations and Project Service Automation via the Common Data Service (CDS). Integration templates that are available with the data integrator feature enable the flow of projects, project contracts, and project contract lines from Project Service Automation to Finance and Operations. Note: Before you can integrate Project Service Automation with Finance and Operations, you must configure the Project Service Automation integration parameters. This integration solution enables direct synchronization in the following scenarios: • Maintain project contracts in Project Service Automation and synchronize them directly from Project Service Automation to Finance and Operations. • Create projects in Project Service Automation and synchronize them directly from Project Service Automation to Finance and Operations. • Maintain project contract lines in Project Service Automation and synchronize them directly from Project Service Automation to Finance and Operations. Back to Contents 94 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Maintain project contract line milestones in Project Service Automation and synchronize them directly from Project Service Automation to Finance and Operations. • Maintain project tasks in Project Service Automation and synchronize them directly from Project Service Automaton to Finance and Operations. • Synchronize project expense categories between Finance and Operations and Project Service Automation. • Create hour estimates in Project Service Automation and synchronize them directly from Project Service Automation to Finance and Operations project hour forecasts. • Create expense estimates in Project Service Automation and synchronize them directly from Project Service Automation to Finance and Operations project expense forecasts. • Create actuals in Project Service Automation and synchronize them directly from Project Service Automation to the Finance and Operations integration journal, where the accounting will be applied and the project transactions are posted. Synchronization of information back to Project Service Automation, such as the voucher number and any sales tax calculated in Finance and Operations, will also be provided as a template. Not all templates are currently available. Templates will be released as they are completed. Additional phased releases will provide templates for synchronizing: • Expense reports. • Work breakdown structure. • Billing. • Purchase orders. The following illustration shows how data is synchronized as part of the integration between Project Service Automation and Finance and Operations. Back to Contents 95 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation and Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations integration Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation and Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations integration Lifecycle Services: Telemetry-based KB recommendation LCS has been extended to include telemetry-driven KB recommendations to customers. The goal of this functionality is to help us understand the extent to which hotfixes have solved an issue and to proactively push out hotfixes to customers. This will allow customers to spend less time looking for solutions to issues that a hotfix already exists for. In addition, it will provide telemetry that gives us better insight into which Back to Contents 96 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 fixes have solved specific customer issues. This enhancement also lets us ship additional telemetry to gain additional insight where needed. The first example of telemetry-based KB recommendations is the Critical X++ updates tile. Critical X++ updates are hotfixes that we recommend based on the telemetry data from your production environment. These updates are specific to your production environment and can be downloaded only from your production environment. To test and apply critical X++ updates, you should first download the updates from the production environment, and then apply them in a development environment, build a deployable package, and then deploy and test it in your sandbox environment. After it's fully tested, you can then deploy it to your production environment. LCS telemetry-based KB recommendations KB recommendations when entering a support case When a user creates a support case, the LCS support workflow populates possible issue solutions in Issue Search based on the user's selection and input, and dynamically refreshes these results as the user provides more details. This feature uses Azure Search to extract and collect data to use as search criteria, filter relevant KB results to the correct product version and environment, and provide an interactive, continuous, contextbased support experience. The result is a smarter Issue Search that continuously refines search results based on the user’s input. Therefore, it provides more relevant search results and better solutions, thereby reducing the need for users to submit cases by helping them find existing solutions. Back to Contents 97 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 KB recommendations when entering a support case Back to Contents 98 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Report production outage This feature is available to customers who have purchased Finance and Operations and who have implementation projects that have a production environment deployed in LCS. It provides a quick and effective channel to escalate issues to Microsoft Support if the services in a production environment are degraded or become unavailable. A production outage can be defined as one or more system-wide issues on a live production environment that affect multiple users and prevent your business from performing daily operations. The reporting flow is as follows: 1. In a live production environment, a customer experiences an outage or other situation that prevents business from continuing. 2. The customer reports a production outage issue by using the LCS Support portal. 3. The customer selects a production outage issue and provides additional information. 4. A Microsoft support engineer acknowledges the production outage ticket within 30 minutes of submission and begins to immediately collaborate with stakeholders to investigate and resolve the issue. 5. A support engineer contacts the customer to provide a status update. Report production outage Back to Contents 99 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Confirming a production outage Vendor collaboration – RFQ process Organizations issue requests for quotation (RFQ) when they want to receive competitive offers from several vendors for the items or services that they must purchase. The introduction of the vendor’s ability to enter a bid for an RFQ resulted in the need for explicitly indicating who entered bid data: the vendor or the procurement department. This requirement is addressed by the introduction of a new reply status. In addition, there is a new form dedicated to entering bids, so that entering the bid and processing the bid are now handled on separate forms. Vendor bidding Back to Contents 100 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Partial shipment of a load (split load) This functionality supports scenarios where load planning from a transportation department can’t affect loads that are planned for a single truck or a specific outbound transport capacity. With this functionality, it's no longer necessary to wait for the transport trucks or other capacity to arrive to create the planning load. This feature lets customers designate a single load or multiple loads to be fully or partially loaded. The feature is integrated with appointment scheduling. Partial shipment of a load Immediate replenishment of locations Immediate replenishment is used during wave execution if allocation fails for a location directive line that has a replenishment template. Instead of having to sum demand at the end of an allocation process and do replenishment based on the total quantity, you can apply an immediate replenishment strategy. When you use this strategy, the inventory can be replenished immediately after a location directive line fails. Therefore, you can set up the replenishment so that it’s restricted by specific units and uses quantities that are set for specific locations. Back to Contents 101 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Immediate replenishment of locations Reason codes added to warehouse counting and adjustment It’s now possible to add a reason code when performing counts and when making an adjustment. This allows the warehouse manager and the controller to have a better understanding of the distribution of an event and to take appropriate measures. Reason codes are implemented in counting journals for Warehouse and on a mobile device. The following functions will be available: • Post-counting journals as per standard Finance and Operations functionality • Cycle count • Spot count • Threshold count • Adjustment in • Adjustment out Back to Contents 102 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Reason codes for warehouse counting and adjustment Batch balancing enabled for advanced warehousing processes Batch balancing is a process where the amount of ingredients to use in a production batch is calculated from the concentration of active ingredients in product batches selected by the user. The batch balancing process is now available for products that are set up for warehouse management processes (in earlier releases, the batch balancing process was enabled only for products that were not set up for warehouse management processes). This enhancement makes it possible for the user to release ingredients to picking after the batch balancing process has been completed. The batch balancing process is performed from the Batch balancing page. Select Cost management > Batch orders, and then, on the Process tab, select Batch balancing. Batch balancing is available for batch orders that have a status of Started. In general, the following rule applies: Batch orders are applicable for batch balancing if the formula has at least one formula line where the ingredient type is Active. The batch balancing process can be divided into two sub-processes: Balance batch ingredients. In the Balance batch ingredients sub-process, the amount of ingredients to use for the production batch is calculated based on the selected batches that have active ingredients. As a rule, the calculation can be completed only if there is full coverage of all ingredients. You can't balance only part of the batch that the batch order is set up to produce. Confirm and release the formula. After the ingredient quantities have been calculated, you can confirm and release the formula. The release process differs, depending on whether the products are enabled for the warehouse management processes. Back to Contents 103 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 There is one exception to the rule that batch orders are applicable for batch balancing if the formula has at least one formula line where the ingredient type is Active. If a formula contains an active ingredient for a product that is enabled for warehouse management processes, but Batch number is below Location in the reservation hierarchy, the batch order isn't applicable for batch balancing. A batch order that isn't applicable for batch balancing goes through the regular process cycle for batch orders. Analytical workspaces with embedded Power BI for Cost management If you are an Operations Manager or a cost accountant who wants to optimize your supply chain performance as well as manage costs, Analytical workspaces in Cost management provide you with the deep insights necessary for your role. You can get a bird’s eye view of your inventory and the associated costs by location or by product category. You can dive deeper into trouble spots and take action without leaving Finance and Operations. New Analytical workspaces for Cost management are embedded in the Cost administration and Cost Analysis workspaces. The content pack includes measures such as beginning balance, ending balance, net sourcing and net usage. A set of calculated measures, such as inventory turn ratio, days inventory on-hand, and inventory accuracy are also included. A new category hierarchy role named Cost management has been implemented. The hierarchies assigned to this role are made available for reporting in the Cost management Power BI content. The category hierarchies should be considered as an alternative to Item group. The Cost administration workspace provides a bird's-eye view of: • Overview (Application data) • Inventory accounting status (Embedded Power BI) • Manufacturing accounting status (Embedded Power BI) Back to Contents 104 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Inventory accounting status Manufacturing accounting status Back to Contents 105 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 The Cost analysis workspace provides a bird's-eye view of: • Overview (Application data) • Inventory accounting analysis (Embedded Power BI) • Manufacturing accounting analysis (Embedded Power BI) • Standard cost variance analysis (Embedded Power BI) Globalization – India localization: Project and upgrade Project localization for India lets users manage Indian Goods and Services Tax (GST) for the Project management and accounting module. • Maintain Indian GST information in project contracts, project categories, and so on. • Calculate GST by using a configurable Global Tax Engine (GTE) for all tax-relevant project transactions, such as project quotations, expense journals, hour journals, item journals, fee journals, on-account transactions, project invoice proposals, and service management. • Print a Tax invoice for a project. Localization upgrade for India lets current Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 customers upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. Project management and accounting for India Back to Contents 106 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Globalization – Enhanced configurability Configurability of globalization features lets partners and customers do customizations without coding. We continue to extend not only the depth of configurability, by adding new features for import and testing scenarios, but also the breadth of configurability, by configuring features that were previously hard-coded, such as the free text invoice layout. Telemetry for all regulatory features lets us track usage of these features and proactively respond to any issues partners and customers have with these features. New capabilities include: • Support for import formats in batch mode and detailed log of errors during import. This feature lets customers automate end-to-end scenarios that involve both sending an electronic file and processing the response, such as for payments. • Configuration-specific data for validation. A business user can create test data in Microsoft Excel to fill the Electronic reporting (ER) data model that is defined in business terms, and use this data to validate the correctness of the output format, such as electronic invoices for tax authorities. • Configurable free text invoice (FTI) layout example. We provide a fully-configurable ER template that partners and customers can use as a basis for their customized invoices. • We track telemetry for all regulatory features, extending the coverage from configurable-only features. Customized invoice example Back to Contents 107 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Globalization – United Arab Emirates localization for Fall 2017 release (version 7.3 update) The Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Fall 2017 release (version 7.3) has been updated with support for mandatory regulatory requirements in the tax area for United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE localization functionality includes: • Electronic VAT return declaration. • Electronic FAF audit file. • VAT reverse charge functionality. • Sales invoice printout report localization according to UAE requirements. • New user interface language: Arabic for UAE. User interface in Arabic (UAE) language Back to Contents 108 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Translation Service enhancements Dynamics Translation Service (DTS) allows ISVs and partners to translate Dynamics solutions and products (ERP only) in existing and new languages, taking advantage of their own linguistics assets and Microsoft linguistic assets. In addition to supporting user interface (UI) translation, DTS now supports user assistance (UA) translation in Microsoft Word and HTML formats (.docx, .html) (Public Preview). Recycling capabilities from the latest Microsoft translations have also been enhanced for UI and documentation translation projects. Globalization – translation service Back to Contents 109 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Regulatory service – Configuration (Public Preview) (Available at the end of April) Regulatory service targets a no-code programming approach, allowing users to configure Electronic reporting formats or tax rules rather than write code for them in the underlying application. Partners and customers using multiple versions of Finance and Operations and earlier versions (such as Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 or Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, for India only) can work with one configuration service to produce configurations for use across the various versions that they are using. With the Public Preview release, customers and partners can access Regulatory service as an independent service through a browser. They will have access to: • Electronic reporting and tax visual designers that let them create configurations for electronic document formats and tax calculation rules in accordance with country/region regulatory requirements. • Metadata capabilities that provide the ability to import a description of the target application’s artifacts, such as data tables, enumeration, and classes. These are used at design time to define data sources of a data model mapping version. Customer payment insights (Preview) Organizations often find it challenging to predict when a customer will pay their invoices. This lack of insight can lead to inaccurate cash flow forecasts, inefficient collection processes, and the possibility of orders being released to customers who may pose a credit risk. Customer payment insights (preview) uses machine learning to predict when an invoice will be paid. It also provides optimization strategies that can be tailored to maximize the probability of customers paying on time. Payment predictions allow organizations to improve their business processes by helping to: • Easily identify the invoices that are predicted to be paid late. • Take appropriate measures to improve chances of getting paid on time. Customer payment insights (preview) uses historical invoice, payment, and customer data to create a machine learning model that is used to predict when an invoice will be paid. In addition to payment predictions, Customer payment insights (preview) can use optimization strategies to improve the chances of getting paid on time. This lets organizations do “What if” analysis by allowing users to adjust invoice and customer parameters and then compare the corresponding effect on the probability of receiving payment for invoices on time. Availability Public Preview of Regulatory service - Configuration is available in all regions where Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations is available. However, data is hosted only in a US data center. For a complete list of regions, see the Dynamics 365 International Availability Guide. Back to Contents 110 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Improved delivery of platform and financial reporting updates Starting April 1, 2018, platform and financial reporting updates will be continual updates managed by Microsoft rather than optional updates. This change is intended to improve service reliability and availability, and also to ensure that customers have the latest improvements and fixes. Platform and financial reporting updates are backward-compatible. Platform updates don't require any change in your customizations. • If you purchase subscriptions to Finance and Operation after April 1, 2018, you will automatically begin receiving continual updates. • For platform updates, if you're an existing customer and have Platform update 11 or earlier installed, you will be asked to move to Platform update 12 by April 1, 2018. By July 1, 2018, all customers will receive continual platform updates managed by Microsoft. Starting with the Spring ‘18 release, platform updates for both on-premises and online deployments will be available together. Continual updates will be applied first to the sandbox environment and then on production. These enhancements to the way software updates are provided will improve deployment time and the reliability of servicing, and will also lead to significantly reduced downtimes. These changes also provide the ability to elastically scale computing resources without downtime. We believe that these changes will result in gains for customers in the long term, allowing them to take advantage of cloud innovation and capabilities. Upgrade automation Upgrade automation makes major version upgrades a self-service operation for customers, using LCS for non-production environments. Upgrade automation includes environment, data, and code upgrades. Customers can also diagnose and fix issues as needed. This improves automation reliability and reduces downtime for servicing. Service hardening We have added service monitoring and alerting for core business processes, and improved the form load performance of the most commonly used forms. We have also improved the performance of business processes such as master planning and warehouse wave processing, and added resiliency for account structure activation. Lifecycle Services sandbox self-service automation and RDP lockdown Sandbox self-service automation supports data movement, debugging operations, monitoring, and diagnostics without requiring access to the sandbox environments through Remote Desktop. Remote Desktop capabilities for sandbox environments will be deprecated. This means that customers won’t be required to use Remote Desktop to access the VM, which improves reliability and security. Back to Contents 111 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 On-premises deployment updates In the Spring '18 release timeframe, releases (for new deployments) include: • Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition 7.2 with Platform Update 12 (on-premises). • Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition 7.3 with Platform Update 15 (on-premises). Additional on-premises-specific features are listed below. • Setup and deployment. Improvements to setup and deployment greatly reduce the time to set up infrastructure. Increased automation and added multiple prerequisite checks improve reliability. For more information, see the most current setup instructions. • Servicing. After deployment, on-premises customers can apply Microsoft-released platform and application updates, and also code customizations, to their environment through Lifecycle Services. This lets customers stay current with the latest set of fixes and take new customizations without having to reconfigure an existing environment or redeploy the on-premises environment. Customers can roll back code changes if package application fails. Note that the reconfigure feature will remain available for environments deployed with Platform update versions earlier than Platform update 12. • Disconnected client experiences. You can disable experiences that depend on internet connectivity on the client machine, even when the client is connected to the internet, by using a simple configuration update from the application. • Data management. The ability to import and export data in Data management via integration APIs is available for on-premises deployments. This functionality lets you integrate external applications with Finance and Operations so that you can import and export data by using data entities. • Retail. The following retail head-office capabilities will be included in the Spring ’18 timeframe: o Product categories o Channel categories and product attributes o Attributes, attribute types, and attribute groups o Trade agreements o On-hand quantities o Stock counts o Assortments o Retail catalogs o Retail product kits o Cross-docking and buyer's push o Call Center o Customer Loyalty Back to Contents 112 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Retail channel components, including support for Retail Server and Point of Sale, will be available in the Fall ’18 timeframe. Accessibility Building on top of a comprehensive accessibility foundation, Finance and Operations provides accessibility support by performing self-validation and resolving issues discovered on the most heavily used pages and controls in the product. Go to the Trust Center to learn about our industry-leading accessibility standards. GDPR compliance Finance and Operations and Lifecycle Services help partners and customers comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). GDPR investments address the European privacy law’s requirements. Go to the Trust Center to learn more and find resources to help you comply. For detailed information, see the Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations GDPR white paper. Back to Contents 113 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Finance Insights: Credit and collections Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in Credit and collections April ’18 - Public Preview Credit and collections insights provides analytics that help organizations effectively manage their credit and collections processes. It provides: • Aggregate views of credit and collections across all designated companies. • Data broken down by company, customer group, and customer. • Credit overview report. • Collections report. • Credit and collections details for a variety of dimensions. • Predictive analytics to help identify trends. Credit and collections overview Are you providing the right level of credit to the right customers? Is your organization collecting efficiently and effectively? Credit and collections insights provides proactive guidance about questions such as these and more. It provides key credit and collections metrics, such as days sales outstanding, balance overdue, credit exposure, and customers who are over their credit limit. It uses transactional data and provides aggregate views of credit and collections across all designated companies. It also provides a breakdown per company, customer group, and customer. In addition to historical trends and analysis, you can leverage predictive analysis and built-in visuals to proactively show and identify trends. By experimenting with the visuals, you can see emerging trends and key groups of customers and credit. The Credit and collections insights capabilities are available as part of a workspace within Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, and also in a stand-alone app, which is available at https://appsource.microsoft.com. Availability Public Preview of Credit and collections is available in all regions where Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations is available. For a complete list of regions, see the Dynamics 365 International Availability Guide. Back to Contents 114 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Credit and collections Credit and collections Back to Contents 115 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Retail Dynamics 365 for Retail The focus of the Spring ‘18 release for Retail includes an investment in service hardening and enabling new capabilities that drive our integrated and omni-channel value proposition even further. Specifically, our investments enhance customers’ ability to: • Work in a performant, scalable, and reliable cloud service that has better telemetry, diagnostics, and alerting. With this system, customer issues can be quickly and proactively analyzed and resolved. • Manage customizations by using extensions. With a fully hard-sealed environment, customers should experience a significant reduction in the time and cost of servicing. • Reconcile financials by using improved integrated end-of-day processing capabilities. Customers should experience improved performance and processes that are easier to understand. • Process payments with faster and more secure transaction processing. Customers should experience better coverage and reliability. We have also made it easier to understand and recover from hardware, network, and back-end processing failures. • Manage data distribution across distributed channels. Customers can more effectively manage network disruptions, using offline capabilities that are easy to administer and use. • Operate retail stores on a 24/7 basis with greater predictability. We have introduced enhancements to support the goal of zero downtime during software updates and the separation of front-office and backoffice processes through Retail Cloud Scale Unit. With this, Retail can scale more effectively to seasonal and on-demand needs. Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in Retail April ’18 - General Availability • CDX and data management - Provides improved offline capabilities to ensure that point of sale terminals continue to function during updates or internet disconnects. • Deployment and servicing - Provides resource governance between transactional and back-office workloads to ensure that long-running batch processes don't affect transactional system performance, and that peak store traffic doesn't impede back office operations. • End-of-day processing - Enhancements include improved statement posting performance, the addition of rollback and recovery to prevent data corruption, and enhanced in-app diagnostics that show status, errors, and logs. • Globalization: Retail localization for India - Calculation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) and valueadded tax (VAT) in POS is implemented. • Globalization: Certified cash registers for France - New capabilities fulfill the requirements for NF525. The Retail solution is certified by an accredited body. Back to Contents 116 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Payments - Improved tolerance when connecting to payment providers over unreliable networks. There is also a stateless payment stack to prevent payment failures from crashing the point of sale app, and improved extensibility for payment scenarios at the point of sale. • Extensibility (HQ, POS, CRT) - New extension points simplify the customization model, reduce the lines of code that need to be written by customers and partners, and reduce the effort required to upgrade. • Monitoring and alerting - Added granularity in monitoring the health of specific user operations. CDX and data management Retail organizations often find it challenging to maintain connectivity everywhere at all times. It can be a disruptive and daunting task to manage and maintain full connectivity without downtime. By allowing for offline functionality that is seamless and simple to administer, retail organizations’ point of sale terminals can continue to function during software updates or internet disconnects. To facilitate easy and informative workflows, the user interface and logic around when to switch between an online connectivity and an offline functionality has been enhanced to make it clear what is occurring and how to best handle any changes to the work being done. On the Offline profile page, retail organizations can configure what happens when the point of sale terminal switches to offline functionality. Configuring offline functionality On the point of sale device, users can view the status of their connection to the database and choose to work offline, if required. Back to Contents 117 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Viewing connected status of POS Based on configuration settings, users can be prompted when offline operation is triggered. Confirming offline functionality Deployment and servicing Retail organizations, especially those with globally-distributed operations, often find it challenging to pick a single maintenance window that is simultaneously non-disruptive to their entire global operational footprint. With near-zero downtime updates, most retail store operations can continue to work even through maintenance windows. This allows organizations that prefer low/no-footprint deployment to enjoy the same level of business continuity in their stores, even with a cloud-only topology. Retailers also routinely experience significant fluctuations in customer traffic based on seasonal trends, flash sales, viral popularity, or weather events. Likewise, system load during times of statement calculation and posting, or other batch Back to Contents 118 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 processes, can be disproportionately high. Resource governance between transactional and back-office workloads ensures that long-running batch processes don't affect transactional system performance, and that peak store traffic doesn't impede back office operations. End-of-day processing End-of-day processing is a crucial element of retail operational workflow. This involves aggregation of raw transactions into meaningful business data to ensure that business and accounting rules are conformed to, before posting transactions as official business records. Improving the reliability and performance of this batch process and increasing the visibility of the processing for the administrator improves the user experience. Users can easily monitor the progress of the processing and see exactly what caused a validation failure. As a result, they can quickly resolve the issue and reliably retry the process without contacting Microsoft Support. New capabilities include improved statement posting performance by removing table deadlocks and optimizing batch processing. The introduction of a state model in the posting process aids in rollback and recovery, which eliminates data corruption and the need for manual intervention. Enhanced in-app diagnostics with detailed status, errors, and logs (including details of transactions included in the scope of the statement, transactions resulting in errors, and possible steps to correct issues) allow for easy troubleshooting. Globalization: Retail localization for India Retailers in India need to be able to calculate Goods and Services Tax (GST) in their POS solutions, and to post GST in Retail headquarters. Dynamics 365 for Retail was integrated with Global Tax Engine (GTE) to support GST calculation in POS. Both intrastate GST and interstate GST can be calculated, depending on the customer delivery location. GST integration is supported for normal sales and return transactions, and also for customer orders and replenishment operations. Dynamics 365 for Retail POS also supports the calculation of value-added tax (VAT) if it's required. In addition, for named customers, invoice numbers can be populated from POS receipt numbers. Some sample transactions that are possible with this new functionality include: • Sell to a registered customer. • Sell taxable goods to a consumer. • Sell taxable goods to an anonymous customer where GST is price-inclusive. • Sell an exempted good. • Return a transaction that has GST. Back to Contents 119 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Receipt example from a taxable goods sale to an anonymous customer where GST is price-inclusive Globalization: Certified cash registers for France As of January 1, 2018, all retailers in France must use cash systems certified per the NF525 requirements. The requirements cover inalterability, security, retention, and archiving of information pertaining to cash sales. New capabilities were implemented to fulfill the NF525 requirements. These requirements were confirmed by a certificate issued by an accredited body. The capabilities include: • Retail POS capabilities: o Digital signing of all retail sales transactions, and also end-of-day reports and audit events. o Additional required data fields that can be added to receipt layouts, including an extract of the digital signature of the signed retail transaction, software version, count of receipt lines, and so on. o Registration of audit events, such as printing a copy of a receipt, entering/exiting offline mode, and so on. o Additional required data in end-of-day reports (X/Z reports), including cumulative grand totals, decomposition of shift totals per tax code, and so on. o Options to restrict shift duration to one day. Back to Contents 120 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Retail headquarters capabilities: o A period grand total journal that calculates retail sales and returns totals per store for a period and cumulatively, and also the decomposition of totals per tax code. A calculated and closed journal is digitally signed. o Archiving the export of retail sales data for a closed period, such as a closed period grand total journal. This includes transaction data for transactions completed in the period, shift data for shifts closed in the period, audit event data for events in the period, and the period grand total data. The resulting export file is digitally signed. Payments Beginning with the Spring ‘18 release, we have made investments to improve tolerance when connecting to payment providers over unreliable networks. This also includes a stateless payment stack to prevent payment failures from crashing the POS app, and improved extensibility for payment scenarios at POS. Issues with external components such as Hardware station, Payment connector, and Payment device are better handled by POS, which reduces the likelihood of POS app crashes due to payment failures. This functionality will be released incrementally through application updates starting in Spring 2018. Extensibility (HQ, POS, CRT) Most customers customize our product to support their business process. We made major enhancements in our retail extensibility framework to simplify the customization model, introducing a metadata and configuration-driven development experience and more advanced APIs. This new framework reduces the lines of code that need to be written and the time spent to do customizations. By using the framework, business users or power users can do simple customizations without writing any code. We also introduced a new independent packaging model so that extensions can be packaged separately. With the new extension framework and independent packaging model, extensions can be created independently from the core app. They can then be packaged and published to AppSource or the marketplace seamlessly, and then loaded at runtime. This seamless extension model helps easily plug and unplug any new extension, app, or extension to an existing business process model. Extensions can also be serviced seamlessly without any change to the core app model. With this new model, ISVs and partners can independently develop extensions and deploy them seamlessly. POS can also load multiple extensions independently. We are continuously enhancing the Dev Application Lifecycle Management and the extensibility framework to add more new extension features and APIs to simplify the development process and reduce the effort required for servicing the extensions. Some new extensibility capabilities include: • Dev Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) – Developer tools were added to simplify the developer experience. Many new code samples and docs were published to help with development scenarios. The samples will help customers complete their customizations more efficiently by copying and pasting the code and making minor changes. Back to Contents 121 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Packaging – With the independent extension packaging model and framework, customers can package extensions separately from POS, load multiple extensions, and plug or unplug individual extensions. • POS UI and API extension – We are continuously enhancing the POS framework to expose new POS APIs and user interface (UI) extension points, such as metadata-driven extensions and custom controls. With these enhancements, customers can modify their POS layout to add or change UI workflow or elements. • POS overridable requests and triggers – Overridable requests were added in POS to override the POS workflow or POS business logic and add custom logic and validation. The POS triggers framework helps run custom logic before or after core POS logic. With this new pattern, any workflow in POS can be modified. • Search extensions – We enhanced the search framework to support searching any external system. Customers can modify Search by using their own custom fields or logic. • Commerce runtime (business logic layer) – With our enhanced framework, business logic can be added and core logic can be modified to support custom extension scenarios. Extensions are supported in both the business logic layer and the data layer. • Payment SDK – With the enhanced Payment SDK, any payment device or third-party payment provider can be integrated. • Hardware station and peripherals – Enhancements in the hardware layer support existing device extensions, such as printers or line displays. Almost any new device can be integrated. Extensibility example in Point of Sale Back to Contents 122 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Monitoring and alerting Building on existing capabilities related to monitoring of tenant and system-wide availability and reliability, this release extends these capabilities to the next level of granularity by monitoring the health of specific user operations. This ensures that, regardless of the relative volume of operations performed in a customer's tenant, business-impacting issues are immediately detected, and the reliability of the service remains high. In addition to availability and reliability monitoring at the scenario level, performance monitoring to proactively detect performance degradations for high-value business operations has been implemented. To get comprehensive coverage, the reliability alerting capability has been extended to the client components, such as Modern POS. By seamlessly detecting issues logged at the client components, it’s now possible to detect reliability issues that are specific to the client applications and that might not otherwise have been detectable in the cloud service alone. Back to Contents 123 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Talent Dynamics 365 for Talent – Core HR The Spring ‘18 release of Talent - Core HR focuses on General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance, enabling integrations, and adding key capabilities based on customer feedback. To support best-of-breed payroll functionality and increase the portfolio of customers we can support, we have added payroll integration capabilities, including support for Ceridian Dayforce. In addition, we provide support for open enrollment processing and streamlined processing for employees to initiate qualified life event changes. These updates provide configuration and processing of all changes, together with a workflow to ensure accurate data across Talent for compliance and eligibility, and the ability to export elections to benefits providers. Enhanced manager self-service capabilities mean that managers can initiate compensation change processes within their organizations. Integrated review and workflow approval processes ensure that changes are accurate and within budget. We have integrations with Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations to provide initial data load into Talent to support customers’ migrations. We also provide ongoing integration to maintain Finance and Operations workflows and Human resources (HR) transactions. These integrations let existing Finance and Operations customers migrate to Dynamics 365 for Talent. They also let customers use Finance and Operations and Talent in concert. Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in Talent – Core HR January ’18 - General Availability • Manager self-service promotion requests/workflow - Expanded manager self-service capabilities. • Attachments - Attachments from the hiring process can be transferred to new hires’ employee records. February ’18 - General Availability • Contextual filtering of reason codes - Reason codes can be configured for hire, transfer, termination, and compensation processes. • Custom fields - This functionality has been enabled across Talent. • Streamlined transfer process - When transferring an employee, the job is automatically added to the transfer request. • Updated Power BI visuals - The visuals have been refreshed in Power BI reports. Mean and median gender pay metrics have also been added. • Default dates - Dates are no longer completed by default for hire, transfer, and termination processes. • Rehire flag – A flag for the worker's eligibility for rehire is set as part of the termination process. Back to Contents 124 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 March ’18 – Public Preview • Integration with Finance and Operations 7.2 and 7.3 (Public Preview) - Integration provides an initial data load into Talent, with ongoing integration to maintain Finance and Operations workflows and HR transactions. April ’18 – General Availability • Absence management: o Working days calendars – Supports the creation of calendars that reflect company holidays. o Submit time off in days – More flexible increments for entering time off. • Position and employee management updates - Provide additional information related to positions and employees, allowing HR professionals and managers to streamline the hiring process. May ’18 - General Availability • Absence management: o Time entry on behalf of someone else – Enables managers and HR professionals to enter time-off for employees who can’t. o Configurable proration options – More flexible options for handling proration of time-off accruals. o Custom absence accrual dates – Customize time carry-over and time-off accrual capabilities. May ’18 – Public Preview • Payroll integration – Take advantage of the out-of-box integration with Ceridian. • Benefits enhancements – Open enrollment June ’18 – Public Preview • Payroll integration – Take advantage of the out-of-box integration with Ceridian in the UK. • Calendar view of working time – Visualize the working days and times across the organization in a calendar view. Manager self-service Spring '18 updates provide managers with increased productivity and efficiency by expanding self-service options. Managers can initiate compensation changes and provide justification for them. The system then provides a workflow so HR can review and approve changes and ensure they are accurate and within budget. Back to Contents 125 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Manager self-service promotion requests Attachments All attachments associated with hire requests are transferred to an employee record upon completion of the hiring workflow, providing a single source for all information. Contextual filtering of reason codes This feature lets users configure reason codes for hire, transfer, termination, and compensation processes. This streamlines reason codes, increasing data accuracy and providing better analytics for all processes that use reason codes. It also makes hire, transfer, and termination processes more efficient by displaying only the reason codes that are appropriate for the process. Back to Contents 126 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Filtering of reason codes Custom fields Custom fields functionality enables new fields to be added to support additional tracking, integrations (using entities), and exports for reporting. Streamlined transfer process When transferring an employee, you can filter by position, and the job is automatically added to the transfer request. For easier filtering, the position lookup contains the person that the position reports to. Updated Power BI visuals The embedded Power BI reports have been updated, and new visuals and additional measures have been added, such as mean and median gender pay metrics for compensation analytics. Default dates Dates are no longer completed by default for hire, transfer, and termination processes. This reduces mistakes caused by accepting defaults that don't apply. Also, when hiring a new worker and entering a future hire date, the worker page opens as of the future hire date for correct date-effective entries. Back to Contents 127 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Rehire flag When completing the termination process, workers can now be flagged if they are eligible for rehire. If the employee is flagged as not eligible for rehire, he or she won't be included in the skill mapping process. The flag is also visible in the Past workers list. Absence management • “Days” support: In many organizations, especially in European markets, employees submit time off in days, not hours. This change provides expanded capabilities to help companies ensure that they can meet compliance policies in European markets. Human resource administrators and managers can do absence tracking and approvals, while employees can submit time-off requests in increments of days or half-days as well as in hours. Absence management days support • Working day calendar: Human resource administrators can create working day calendars that reflect company holidays. Working day calendars can be created for different types of employees and employees in different countries. As employees submit time-off requests, holidays are automatically excluded from the request, which streamlines the time-off request process. • Custom absence accrual dates: (coming after April) Enable carry-over and time-off accrual capabilities that are customizable to meet organization policies. Back to Contents 128 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Time entry on behalf of someone else: When employees have emergencies or are away from work, human resource administrators and managers can enter time for them, keeping time-off data and schedules up to date. • Configurable proration options: Each organization has unique requirements related to proration of employee time-off accruals. Options for not prorating accruals, prorating accruals, or awarding the full time-off amount at the time of enrollment ensure compliance with company policies and provide a more accurate time-off balance for employees. • Calendar view of working time (Public Preview): Visualizing the working days and times across the organization as a calendar enables HR professionals a way to easily understand when employees are working. Integration with Finance and Operations 7.2 and 7.3 (Public Preview) In March, we enabled a connected story for Dynamics customers who are operating in our cloud service and using Finance and Operations. Finance and Operations customers will use Talent as the single source of truth for all their HR data. The new integration features provide an initial data upload into Talent and then provide ongoing integration to maintain Finance and Operations workflows and HR transactions. Payroll integration/payroll data package Plug Talent into your broader HR technology ecosystem by connecting your payroll system through a purpose-built, out-of-box integration to Ceridian, or connect manually to other payroll providers. • Ceridian Payroll integration - HR and payroll configuration data, together with worker data, is sourced in Talent, whereas payroll processing is done within Ceridian’s Dayforce application. The resulting pay runs produce general ledger transactions that are imported into Finance and Operations. This functionality is now available for public preview in the UK. • Generic payroll data export package – If a customer is using a different payroll provider, they can modify the data included in the export package and then export the data package to any file storage location that their payroll software can access. Back to Contents 129 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Talent to Ceridian integration flow Benefits enhancements • Benefits open enrollment. Benefits open enrollment provides employees with an easy-to-follow, selfservice experience for selecting their benefits. Human resource administrators can configure their organization’s benefits open enrollment process. They can also design the employee enrollment experience using a guided solution. Employee benefit enrollment elections can then be exported and sent to benefit providers. Back to Contents 130 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Benefits open enrollment Dynamics 365 for Talent – Attract The Spring ‘18 releases expand recruiting management capabilities to include support for career websites and for posting multiple jobs at the same time to simplify the job posting process. We are continuing to build on our integration with LinkedIn to include: • Apply with LinkedIn. • Post to LinkedIn. • Export candidates from Recruiter to Dynamics 365 for Talent. Back to Contents 131 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 The Spring '18 releases also add the ability to easily initiate candidate assessments via Koru, a leading provider in this space. We are also releasing Gauge, a companion application provided as part of Attract, that lets you easily create candidate assessments and surveys. Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in Talent – Attract February ‘18 - General Availability • Configurable hiring process - Customers can define the hiring process on a job-by-job basis. • Advanced interview scheduling - Enhanced scheduling of multi-day interviews, last-minute interviewer replacement, and improved communication throughout the scheduling process. • Candidate notes - Ability for the hiring team to keep notes on candidate applications. May ‘18 - General Availability • Assessment activity with Koru integration - Third-party candidate assessment from Koru (www.joinkoru.com). April ‘18 – Public Preview • Company Career site - Quickly post jobs to a company career site to kick off the application process. o Candidate apply - Candidates can apply for open positions directly from the career site. o LinkedIn integrations - Apply with LinkedIn, and post openings to LinkedIn. • Assessment activity with Gauge integration - Gauge is a tool for creating assessments for efficient hiring or employee assessment surveys. • Configurable hiring process – templates - Create custom templates to guide the hiring process. May ‘18 – Public Preview • Offer management - Offer creation and management through templates and workflows. • Prospect tracking - Manages all prospective candidates before formal application. • LinkedIn Recruiter system connect - Quickly push candidates into Attract from LinkedIn Recruiter. Back to Contents 132 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Configurable hiring process Configurable hiring process features let customers fit Attract to their unique needs by using an out-of-box hiring process, or by configuring tailored hiring processes and saving them for future use. This allows customers to create a distinct hiring process for an individual job or apply a hiring process template to a job. This feature can be helpful in a complex enterprise hiring environment. (Templates will be available in late April 2018.) Customers can add or remove stages to their hiring process. Within stages, activities can be added to tailor the process to an organization’s needs. For example, an organization can set up different processes for different types of jobs. For seasonal workers, there might be just one interview stage, but for full-time employees, the process might be more complex and consist of multiple screening and interview stages. Configurable hiring process Back to Contents 133 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Company Career site (Public Preview) Job management lets customers automate the publication of jobs to the new Talent Career site or use a unique URL for each job to advertise a position. New capabilities include: • Talent Career site – Organizations can host open jobs on the public job listing site, which allows: o Searching for jobs, saving searches, and setting notifications of future job postings. o Displaying jobs based on internal versus external flags. o Recommending jobs based on candidate information. • Quickly posting jobs to a company career site to kick off the application process. • Publishing open positions to third-party job boards such as LinkedIn. On the Job setup page, a hiring manager or recruiter can publish a job to the Talent Career site or LinkedIn, and manage other postings to external job boards, on separate tiles. Publishing a job to a website Availability Public Preview of Talent - Attract is available in all regions where the product is available. For a complete list of regions, see the Dynamics 365 International Availability Guide. Back to Contents 134 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Job page on the Talent Career site Advanced interview scheduling Advanced interview scheduling makes it easier to manage multi-day interviews, handle last-minute interviewer replacement, and provide improved communication throughout the scheduling process. It supports customers with more complex requirements and provides additional options in the automated scheduling engine. New capabilities include: • Scheduler role that provides the ability to: o View interview accept/decline notifications in Attract. o Create an interview schedule in just a few clicks. • Propose alternate interview times. • Cancel, propose, or notify the recruiter/hiring manager about interview schedule changes. • Propose a list of interview time slots to candidates. Back to Contents 135 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 The interview scheduler might be a recruiter or hiring manager. They can use a scheduling wizard to create an interview schedule for a candidate in just a few clicks. The suggested schedule can be modified and extended with one or more interview slots, and each slot can have one or multiple interviewers. The scheduler can set an individual start time and duration for each interview slot, provide details about that slot, and include a conference room. After the interview schedule is completed, the scheduler sends invitations to interviewers. The status that indicates whether the interviewer accepted or declined can be tracked, and the scheduler can decide at any point to share the schedule with the candidate. Advanced interview scheduler Assessment activities Hiring managers and recruiters can add an assessment activity to the hiring process. They can use two types of assessments to collect additional information about candidates and objectively compare them. The two types of assessments are Gauge and Koru. Gauge (Public Preview) Gauge lets hiring managers or recruiters create questionnaires and send them to candidates as part of an assessment activity. Candidates are informed in their candidate app that a new task is waiting for them. They can easily navigate to the questionnaire and complete the assessment. The hiring manager and recruiter can track the process and results directly in Attract. Back to Contents 136 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Gauge integration Koru Koru is a third-party company that applies predictive analytics to assess, score, and rank candidates’ fit for an organization. Koru integration lets customers score and rank candidates to predict who will be the best fit. Hiring managers and recruiters can add a Koru project as an assessment activity to the hiring process. Candidates then take the Koru assessment, and the result is directly accessible from within Attract. Dynamics 365 for Talent – Onboard The focus for Spring '18 updates has been to streamline onboarding at the department level through more robust templates, reporting, and automation. Based on customer feedback, Onboard has been enhanced with collaborative capabilities to allow more individuals to create and implement onboarding experiences. Onboard now also includes template authoring workflows to enable template updates to be rolled out to all instances instantiated from the template. Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in Talent – Onboard March ‘18 - General Availability • Customizable welcome emails • Due date placeholders • Export to Excel June ‘18 – Public Preview • Import activities from other guides or templates • Assignee placeholders Back to Contents 137 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Customizable welcome emails Managers can personalize the welcome email sent to their new hires when it’s time to onboard. This creates a personal touch and improves email response rate. Due date placeholders Managers can insert due date placeholders as an offset from a new hire’s start date, such as two weeks after the start date or three days before. Due dates are updated automatically if the new hire’s start date is changed. Export to Excel Hiring managers can export all the guides they create or contribute to an Excel file that can be used for reporting and Power BI. Import (Public Preview) Hiring managers can import content from other guides or templates to ensure that the latest content is always reflected. This helps them get started quickly and makes it easier to include the latest content from their manager or department leader. Assignee placeholders (Public Preview) Managers can insert assignee placeholders in their template, to be filled out later. For example, a group of tasks can be assigned to “business administrator” in a template. Then, when the someone uses that template, they specify who “business administrator” is. This allows for more flexibility and template reuse. Back to Contents 138 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Business Central Dynamics 365 Business Central With the Spring ’18 release, Dynamics 365 Business Central brings the full power of Dynamics NAV to the cloud in 14 countries or regions and replaces Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Business edition. Existing Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Business edition customers will be automatically upgraded to Dynamics 365 Business Central at the next upgrade of their service. Dynamics 365 Business Central is the next generation of Dynamics NAV, one of the leading Microsoft business application products, which has served 140,000 customers and millions of users worldwide. Dynamics 365 Business Central is an extremely flexible solution, easily adaptable to the needs of geographies, industries, and individual customers. Our key investments for the Spring ‘18 release center around: • Full suite of application functionality in the cloud. • Refreshed and modern user experience, optimized for insights and productivity. • Easy extensibility by using apps from AppSource. Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in Business Central March 2018 - General Availability Broad regional availability • 14 markets - Dynamics 365 Business Central is available in 14 markets. Full suite of application functionality • Essential - Includes a broad range of functionality that most businesses need to run their business. • Premium - Adds Service management and Manufacturing. Look and feel • Modern user experience - A refreshed and modern user experience, optimized for insights and productivity. Easy to extend • App Source - Customize your experience with apps from App Source. • Power BI, PowerApps, and Flow - Combine with PowerApps and Microsoft Flow to compose new applications and extend existing business processes. Integrate with Power BI for custom dashboards and configurable reports. • Extensions - Many improvements have been made to the extensions technology, so that you can extend, customize, and build solutions in an upgradable fashion, decoupled from the base application. • Individual customizations - As a user, you can personalize your experience. As a partner, you can apply customizations to one or more customers' experiences. Back to Contents 139 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Business API - Integrate with external systems and services by using the robust API. • Modern developer experience - File-based development environment and a new development language. Compliance • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - Investments address the European privacy law’s requirements. Go to the Trust Center to learn more and find resources to help you comply. • Accessibility enhancements - Go to the Trust Center to learn about our industry-leading accessibility standards. • ISO and SOC compliance. Broad regional availability At launch, Dynamics 365 Business Central is available in 14 markets: • Europe: o Austria o Belgium o Denmark o Germany o Finland o France o Italy o Netherlands o Spain o Sweden o Switzerland o United Kingdom • North America: o Canada o United States Back to Contents 140 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Modern user experience With the Spring ’18 release, Dynamics 365 Business Central offers a refreshed and modern user experience, optimized for insights and productivity. Example of a refreshed interface in Business Central Essential and Premium Dynamics 365 Business Central is available at two price points: Essential and Premium. Essential licensing covers business areas that most businesses require in order to run their business. These areas are described in the following sections. Premium licensing adds Service order management and Manufacturing, bringing the full breadth of the popular Dynamics NAV application to the cloud. Financial management Basic General Ledger Set up a company, and start posting to the general ledger, chart of accounts, general journals, VAT facilities, recurring journals, and source codes. Back to Contents 141 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Budgets Work with budgets in general ledger accounts. Deferrals Set up deferral templates that automate the process of deferring revenues and expenses over a predefined schedule. Basic fixed assets Keep track of fixed assets and related transactions, such as acquisitions, depreciations, write-downs, appreciations, and disposals. Audit trails The system automatically assigns audit trails and posting descriptions to every transaction. In addition, users can define reason codes to create complementary audit trails. Bank account management Create, operate, and manage multiple bank accounts to cater to your diverse business needs and across different currencies. Reconciliation Reconcile your bank statement data automatically to open bank account ledger entries end keep track of all your bank statements. Dimensions Add unlimited dimensions to any ledger for advanced transaction analyses. Currencies Manage multiple currencies throughout the system, including payables and receivables, general ledger reports, resource and inventory items, and bank accounts. Back to Contents 142 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Example of the Business Central Accountant Role Center Customer relational management Contacts Maintain an overview of your contacts, and record your contact information for all business relationships. Campaigns Organize campaigns based on segments of your contacts that you define. Opportunity management Keep track of sales opportunities, section your sales processes into different stages, and use this information to manage your sales opportunities. Dynamics 365 for Sales integration Integrate with Dynamics 365 for Sales in a few easy steps to synchronize your data, including sales orders, item availability, units of measure, and currencies. Back to Contents 143 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Example of Business Central on a tablet device Supply chain management Sales order management Manage sales orders, blanket sales orders, and sales order processes. Basic receivables Post sales transactions in journals and manage receivables. Register customers and manage receivables by using general journals. Purchase order management Manage purchases, blanket orders, and purchase order processes. Locations Manage inventory in multiple locations that might represent a production plant, distribution center, warehouse, showroom, retail outlet, or service car. Back to Contents 144 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Item transfers Track inventory as it’s moved from one location to another, and account for the value of inventory in transit at various locations. Basic warehousing Manage items on a bin level. Pick and put away items in a bin, and move items between bins by using a report that optimizes space usage and picking processes. Example of a new warehouse shipment in Business Central Human resources Employees Group and track employee information, and organize employee data according to different types of information, such as experience, skills, education, training, and union membership. Expense management Post expenses against employee cards to track and reimburse their expenses. Back to Contents 145 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Example of a Business Central employee list Project management Resources Register and sell resources, combine related resources into one resource group, or track individual resources. Estimates Monitor resource usage, and get a complete overview of your capacity for each resource, with information about availability and planned costs on orders and quotations. Jobs Keep track of usage on jobs and data for invoicing the customer. Manage both fixed-price jobs and timeand-materials jobs. Time sheets Time sheets are a simple and flexible solution for time registration with manager approval, and they integrate with Service, Jobs, and Basic Resources. Back to Contents 146 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Example of a Business Central project list Other With Essential licensing, you also have access to a wide range of capabilities that go across the various business areas. Multiple languages Switch languages on the client in real time, provided that the desired language is available. Reason codes Define a set of reason codes that can be assigned to individual transactions throughout the system, providing user-defined audit trails. Extended text Set up an unlimited number of lines to describe inventory items, resources, and general ledger accounts. Intrastat reporting Automatically retrieve the necessary data to report Intrastat information to statistics authorities. Local customs authorities can tell you whether your company is obligated to file such a report. Outlook integration Synchronize your to-do items and your contacts with your meetings, tasks, and contacts in Outlook. Back to Contents 147 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Service order management With Premium licensing, you get access to service management capabilities. Service orders Register your after-sales issues, including service requests, services due, service orders, and repair requests. Service price management Set up, maintain, and monitor your service prices. Service item management Record and keep track of all your service items, including contract information, component management, and BOM reference and warranty information. Service contract management Record details on service levels, response times, and discount levels, and also on the service history of each contract, including used service items and parts and labor hours. Planning Assign personnel to work orders, and log details such as work order handling and work order status. Dispatching Manage service personnel and field technician information, and filter according to availability, skills, and stock items. Manufacturing With Premium licensing, you get access to manufacturing capabilities. Production orders Create and manage production orders, and post consumption and output to the production orders. Version management Create and manage different version of the manufacturing bill of materials and routings. Agile manufacturing Plan rush hours, make exceptions, and handle last-minute changes to your processes with multiple planning options. Basic supply planning Plan for material requirements based on demand, with support for master production scheduling and materials requirements planning. Demand forecasting Plan and create production and purchase orders, taking into consideration the demand forecast together with the level of available inventory and parameters of requirement planning. Back to Contents 148 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Capacity planning Add capacities to the manufacturing process. Set up routings, and use these routings on production orders and in material requirements planning. Machine centers Manage capacity on several levels: on a more detailed level for machine centers and on a consolidated level for work centers. Finite loading Take capacity constraints into account, so that no more work is assigned to a work center than the capacities can be expected to execute during a given time period. Extensibility App Source Within Dynamics 365 Business Central, you can find apps on App Source that bring you more capabilities. If you're a developer, you can build powerful extensions and then add them to App Source for easy discoverability. The April release includes many improvements to the extensions technology, allowing partners to extend, customize, and build solutions in an upgradable fashion, decoupled from the base application. Power BI, PowerApps, and Flow Dynamics 365 Business Central comes with easy integration with Power BI, PowerApps, and Flow, so that you can configure capabilities and implement business flows without writing a single line of code. Individual customizations You can personalize Dynamics 365 Business Central by, for example, adding or removing fields. Use the embedded designer to customize the user interface by moving fields or decluttering the experience. As a partner, you can apply customizations to one or more of your customers individually. You can apply the same changes to all your customers in Dynamics 365 Business Central or give each of them the tweaks they need. Modern developer experience By using Visual Studio Code, you can build powerful extensions in a modern file-based development environment and language. All-new language capabilities are included for easy integration with Microsoft Azure services such as Azure Functions. You can use the Dynamics 365 Business Central business API with 44 entities for easy, flexible, and fast interoperability with third-party solutions. Back to Contents 149 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Business Application Platform PowerApps PowerApps is the high-productivity application development platform from Microsoft. In this release, we’re combining the richness of Dynamics 365 with the agility of PowerApps to create a single unified platform. The PowerApps platform is now the platform that the Dynamics 365 for Sales, Service, Marketing, and Talent applications are natively built on. This release also includes major advancements to the Common Data Service for Apps (the data platform that comes with PowerApps) and client UX creation tools. These new capabilities are backward-compatible with the Dynamics 365 platform (frequently called the xRM platform), which means that Dynamics 365 customizers and partners can use already-acquired skills to create apps with PowerApps. PowerApps is also tightly integrated with Office 365. You can use the same set of tools to customize and extend an increasing number of Office 365 apps, and build standalone business applications connected to more than 200 data sources. You can now build two types of applications with PowerApps: model-driven apps and canvas apps. New capabilities include: • Model-driven apps. You can build a new type of application with PowerApps: model-driven apps. Create and customize model-driven apps directly from PowerApps.com by using the app designer. Bring together entities, forms, views, dashboards, charts, and business processes to automatically generate powerful line-of-business applications. It's easy to get started building model-driven apps. Switch to model-driven mode, learn the basics, and then explore one of our great sample apps. o Entity forms. Create and customize sophisticated forms for Common Data Service for Apps entities directly from model-driven mode on PowerApps.com. Create forms with visual drag-and-drop designers by using a host of custom controls that are available from a rich control library. o Entity views. Create and customize views for Common Data Service for Apps entities directly from model-driven mode on PowerApps.com. Use point-and-click tools to create filters, set the sort order, and choose which columns to display. o Business process flows. Associate one or more business process flows with your model-driven app to focus your users' experience through a specific set of guided steps. o Dashboards. Build and use custom interactive dashboards with rich chart controls that use data from Common Data Service for Apps entities. Embed Power BI dashboards in model-driven application dashboards for deeper cross-system data analysis directly from the application. o Metadata-driven responsive user experiences. Model-driven application user experiences are automatically generated upon entity creation. A navigation model, basic forms, and a subset of views are available for customization. User experiences are responsive and metadata-driven. Applications provide consistent functionality across all surfaces, including web and mobile and support for rightto-left (RTL) languages. Back to Contents 150 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 o Accessible apps out of the box. Model-driven apps built using the Unified Interface infrastructure meet Microsoft accessibility standards. The applications enable users, including keyboard-only users and touch-only users, to perform key tasks. The apps work well with screen readers and won’t block other accessibility tools, such as one-click devices. o Mobile player. Run model-driven apps on mobile devices. For tablets and phones, applications are automatically optimized for the device. • Canvas apps. The term “canvas apps” refers to apps built through the WYSIWYG screen design that provides complete control over the interface. With a canvas app, you start with a blank canvas to create a very tailored user interface. Then you connect that user interface to your choice of 200 data sources. You can build canvas apps for web, mobile, and tablet applications. With a model-driven app, you start with your data model. Build from your core business data and processes in the Common Data Service for Apps to model forms, views, and other components. Model-driven apps automatically generate a great user interface that’s responsive across devices. o Controllable delegation limits. Control delegation limits for non-delegable data sources that have up to a maximum of 2,000 records. This allows client-side operations to work on larger datasets. o SQL views. To avoid performance issues, use SQL views to combine data in SQL Server before bringing it into PowerApps. o Simplified access to entities through foreign key relationships. Intuitive access to entities included in a relationship (foreign key) in entities that are stored in the Common Data Service for Apps makes it significantly easier to use related entities in canvas apps. • Improved app sharing experience. The improved experience for canvas apps makes it easier to view the data sources used by an app and easier to set up user permissions to access that data. For model-driven apps, share apps by assigning appropriate security roles that provide user access to the entities and data in the Common Data Service for Apps. • Apps connected to SharePoint lists can include attachments. Apps connected to SharePoint Online can now be used to view and upload attachments, including images and documents. • Improved support ticketing for admins. Request help from a Microsoft support representative from the new Business platform admin center. • GDPR compliance. To support the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), administrators can support data subject rights requests for PowerApps users. • Automate governance with PowerShell. The administrative capabilities of the Admin Center are now available programmatically to admins through the release of the PowerApps PowerShell cmdlets. Back to Contents 151 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Spring '18 summary of what’s new in PowerApps April '18 - General Availability Model-driven apps Entity forms for model-driven apps Entity views for model-driven apps Business process flows for model-driven apps Dashboards for model-driven apps Metadata-driven responsive user experiences Accessible model-driven apps out of the box Mobile player for model-driven apps Canvas apps Controllable delegation limits for canvas apps SQL views for canvas apps Simplified access to entities through foreign key relationships Improved app sharing experience Apps connected to SharePoint can include attachments Improved support ticketing for admins GDPR compliance Automate governance with PowerShell Model-driven apps In addition to the canvas app development that PowerApps has been known for, which provides full visual control over the user experience of an app, PowerApps now offers another choice for high-productivity app development. With model-driven applications, app developers can start building an app with their data model instead. They can model entities and their associated business rules, processes, forms, views, and dashboards. From this model, they can easily generate immersive user experiences by using the app designer. To get started with model-driven apps, use designers to: • Define your site map. Model your app's navigation, pulling in only the subset of information your users need. Take advantage of multiple levels of hierarchy and the ability to reference external resources. • Add dashboards. Include model-driven dashboards or embedded Power BI content within your app. • Include entities and components. Add specific forms, views, dashboards, and charts for targeted entities to craft your user experience. Back to Contents 152 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Model-driven apps list Model-driven apps designer For more information about the app designer, go to Design custom business apps by using the app designer. Back to Contents 153 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Entity forms Model-driven entity forms are a critical component in any Dynamics 365 application and are now available for standalone model-driven apps built with PowerApps. Entity forms include the following features: • Multiple tabs. Craft purpose-built tabs for any entity. • Sub-grids. Show a list of related records from another entity. • Automatic responsive reflow. Forms adapt automatically to the type and size of device, and to various web browser resolutions. • Form-factor targeting. Choose custom controls that are shown only on mobile, for a purpose-built view. • Embedded business flow. Guide users through a specific set of steps. • Navigation. Add navigation links to other related entities. Form designer For more information about using the form designer, go to Overview of the form editor interface. Back to Contents 154 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Entity views Model-driven views make it easy for citizen developers and users to quickly define custom views for a set of records on any entity. Entity views include the following features: • Create filters with sophisticated conditional logic by using drag-and-drop operations. • Show or hide columns, and set the sort order. • Provide visual snapshots through entity charts. Users can interactively create a subset of the underlying view for a chart. • Users can create their own personal views. For more information about entity views, go to Create and edit public or system views by using the app designer. Business process flows Use a business process flow to define a set of steps for people to follow to take them to a desired outcome. These steps provide a visual indicator that tells people where they are in the business process. Business process flows reduce the need for training, because new users don’t have to focus on which entity they should be using. They can let the process guide them. For example, you can configure business process flows to support common sales methodologies that can help your sales groups achieve better results. Or, for service groups, business process flows can help new staff get up to speed more quickly and avoid mistakes that could result in unsatisfied customers. The user experience can be tailored so that people with different security roles can have an experience that best fits the work they do in PowerApps. For more information about business process flows, go to Create a business process flow to standardize processes. Dashboards Create rich, interactive dashboards to visualize data from the Common Data Service for Apps inside a model-driven application. The drag-and-drop designer simplifies the dashboard creation process for: • Homepage dashboards that include charts and lists from multiple entities. • Entity-specific interactive dashboards that allow visual filtering and sorting of information. Include rich Power BI capabilities directly inside model-driven apps by embedding Power BI dashboards in home pages. Dashboards can include data from any source, including the Common Data Service for Apps. Back to Contents 155 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Interactive dashboard Power BI Embedded in a dashboard Back to Contents 156 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 For more information about dashboards, go to Create or edit dashboards. Metadata-driven responsive user experiences Model-driven apps are responsive across different form factors and devices, allowing users to quickly continue their work while on the go. Responsive user experiences allow for: • A single layout for forms, dashboards, and lists that automatically reflows. • Navigation and grids that adapt to mobile devices to enable efficient touch interactions. • Visual controls that are optimized for touch and provide engaging user experiences. Examples include Slider, Arc, and Calendar controls. Account form on a desktop computer Back to Contents 157 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Account form on a phone Accessible apps out of the box Model-driven apps are metadata-driven. Core components of the user experience, such as dashboards, lists, navigation, forms, and commands, are generated upon creation of the entity. Standard components, such as charts, lists, and controls, are built to Microsoft accessibility standards (go to the Trust Center to learn about our industry-leading accessibility standards). By default, any app built using these components is also accessible. The custom control framework that controls are built on also provides accessibility hooks, so that any new controls that are created can easily be made accessible. Mobile player for model-driven apps Run any model-driven application on the Dynamics 365 mobile player. Applications can run on mobile devices, including Windows tablets, iPhone, iPad, Android phones, and Android tablets. Manage model-driven apps through Intune integration for enterprise scenarios. Back to Contents 158 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Account form on a phone, showing Summary and Timeline tabs Interactive dashboard on a phone Back to Contents 159 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Canvas apps You can now build two types of applications with PowerApps: canvas apps and model-driven apps. The term “canvas apps” refers to building apps through the WYSIWYG screen design. Canvas app Canvas app for a phone Back to Contents 160 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Controllable delegation limits for canvas apps Users can now control delegation limits for non-delegable data sources that have up to a maximum of 2,000 records, allowing client-side operations to work on larger datasets. By intentionally setting a low limit, you can also use this capability to spot potential problems due to lack of delegation of operations. SQL views for canvas apps Use SQL views to combine data in SQL Server before bringing it into PowerApps. A common scenario is to have a single table (Product Category) with lookups to another table (Products) that contains data points such as the product number, name, and price. Previously, you had to bring both tables into PowerApps, create a gallery of categories, and then look up the detail information for the product information. If this was done incorrectly, it could cause performance issues due to the number of data calls to SQL Server. Another possible scenario is to aggregate (group and sum) data before bringing it into PowerApps. Rather than bringing all the records into PowerApps and using the Sum feature, you can do all of the advanced processing in SQL Server first. Simplified access to entities through foreign key relationships Makers can now write formulas that work seamlessly between entities, following lookups for related information. For example, a record in the Accounts entity might have a Primary Contact field that is a lookup to a record in the Contacts entity. Previously, the maker had to manually look up records across entities, which meant knowing about and working with a foreign key. Now, a maker can simply write: First( Accounts ).PrimaryContact.FullName The maker then has access to all the PrimaryContact fields, such as Fullname, EmailAddress, or any other field. Improved app sharing experience Canvas apps. With the improved app sharing experience for canvas apps, you can quickly view the list of data sources used by an app and set up user permissions to access that data. For example, if an app connects to a SharePoint list and the Common Data Service for Apps, you’ll see the data sources listed in the Data permissions section. For the Common Data Service for Apps, you’ll see a list of entities used by the app. You can then select quick permissions to apply to these entities, such as Read only, Read and write, or Full access. If the quick permissions don't meet your needs, assign custom permissions through security roles. Back to Contents 161 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Share an app: Data sources and permissions Model-driven apps. Share model-driven apps with users by assigning appropriate security roles that provide access to the entities and data in the Common Data Service for Apps. Share a model-driven app with security roles Back to Contents 162 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Apps connected to SharePoint can include attachments Apps connected to a SharePoint list with attachments can now both read and write attachments to the SharePoint site in PowerApps. Attachments appear in the data source as a field that can be added to a form as part of a data card. Create applications from scratch by using the attachment control as part of a data card and reference attachments in a gallery. Canvas apps support storing up to 20 MB of data locally on Android and iOS Apps that use the SaveData and LoadData functions to build offline-enabled apps on PowerApps can now save up to 20 MB of data in a single SaveData/LoadData call. This should enable common use cases, such as offline capture of images that are later uploaded to the service. Improved support ticketing for admins The Business Application Platform Admin center includes a support ticketing experience that admins can use to contact a Microsoft support representative if they are blocked. Note: The Business Application Platform Admin center also includes the existing capabilities of the current PowerApps admin center, including the ability to establish data loss prevention policies, manage environments, and monitor active PowerApps and Flow users within an organization. To try out the new support experience: 1. Go to the Business Application Platform Admin center, and select Help + support on the left navigation bar. 2. Select New support request, fill out the details for your issue, attach any relevant screenshots, and select Submit. Back to Contents 163 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 New support request form GDPR compliance Microsoft is committed to helping you comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). When a user is deleted from Azure Active Directory (AAD), the tenant administrator receives an email notification indicating that the user has been deleted from the corporate directory. At that point, the admin can determine which apps were previously owned by the user and reassign ownership of those apps by using PowerShell admin cmdlets. The admin can optionally delete the applications if they are no longer in use within the organization. The newly assigned app owner can view, rename, edit, or delete the application. When a user is deleted from Azure Active Directory, if the app relied on any connections that were created by the user (such as connections to a Customer Connector, SQL Server, and so on), the app will be broken until the new owner takes the following steps: 1. Re-create the required connections. 2. In PowerApps Studio, update the app to point to those new connections. 3. Save and publish the application. Back to Contents 164 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Update connections Go to the Trust Center to learn more about GDPR and find resources to help you comply. Automate governance with PowerShell The PowerShell admin cmdlets provide PowerApps admins with visibility and control over their organization's usage of PowerApps and Flow. Most importantly, these cmdlets let admins of larger organizations automate their application lifecycle management and monitor the following areas: • Environments and environment permissions • PowerApps and app permission • Flows and flow permissions • Export and import of resource packages across environments • PowerApps and Flow licenses report (of active users) Back to Contents 165 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 PowerShell administration Back to Contents 166 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Common Data Service for Apps The Common Data Service for Apps is how PowerApps, Office, and the Dynamics suite of products integrate with a single system of record for business data. The Common Data Service for Apps is the native system of record for: • Dynamics 365 for Sales. • Dynamics 365 for Service. • Dynamics 365 for Field Service. • Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation. • Dynamics 365 for Marketing. • The Dynamics 365 for Talent family of applications. • Standalone IT business apps. Additionally, the new Data Integrator (powered by Power Query) provides an easy way to integrate data from Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations with Common Data Service for Apps data. Taken together, the Common Data Service for Apps provides a coherent view of a business across functions and roles in Dynamics 365. For example, you can have a single customer list, product catalog, or employee directory. The single system of record acts as the foundation for digital transformation. New capabilities include: • Support for additional data types - Additional data types support more complex entity definitions and provide richer experiences. (Applies to canvas and model-driven apps) • Improved entity creation and customization - Create and customize entities in the Common Data Service for Apps right from PowerApps.com. The refreshed experience includes improved performance, a more user-friendly UI, and helpful features such as in-line option set creation. (Applies to canvas and model-driven apps) • Server-side logic for validation - Create server-side business rules for validating data entered into the Common Data Service for Apps. (Applies to canvas and model-driven apps) • Calculated and rollup fields - Create calculated and rollup fields in Common Data Service for Apps entities directly from PowerApps.com. (Applies to canvas and model-driven apps) • Improved Excel add-in for the Common Data Service for Apps - The Common Data Service for Apps Excel add-in now supports the upgraded Common Data Service for Apps features. • Software Development Kit (SDK) - Developers can use the Common Data Service for Apps Software Development Kit (SDK) to create code-based customizations for the Common Data Service for Apps. • Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) - Solutions in the Common Data Service for Apps allow customizations to be organized, exported, and imported between environments to support Application Lifecycle Management scenarios within organizations, and between ISVs and their customers. (Applies to model-driven apps) Back to Contents 167 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Common Data Service OData Web API - Advanced users can access data stored in the Common Data Service for Apps through a new OData Web API. • Import data into Common Data Service for Apps with Power Query - Use Power Query on the web to directly import data into the Common Data Service for Apps from multiple sources. Spring '18 summary of what’s new in Common Data Service for Apps April '18 - General Availability Support for additional data types Improved entity creation and customization Server-side logic for validation Calculated and rollup fields Improved Excel add-in Software Development Kit (SDK) Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Common Data Service for Apps OData Web API Import data into Common Data Service for Apps with Power Query Support for additional data types Data stored in the Common Data Service for Apps in both standard and custom entities can use an updated list of data types. Data types provide basic validation of the data stored in a field and also different experiences within apps to ensure that the correct type of data is collected. Support for IME Mode for complex characters and symbols such as Japanese Kanji characters is now supported on Single and Multiline text data types. New data types include: • Multi Select Option Sets. Allows multiple values to be selected from a drop-down. • Two Options. Similar to a Boolean data type but with customizable selections. • Floating Point Number. Similar to decimal number but provides greater control over precision. • Customer. Creates a lookup to a list of Accounts and Contacts within the Common Data Service for Apps. Existing data types include: • Single Line of Text. • New formats for Email, URL, Ticker Symbol, and Phone. • Multiple Lines of Text. • Option Sets: New support for one-time in addition to reusable. Back to Contents 168 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Whole Number. • Decimal Number. • Currency. • Date and Time. • Image. • Lookup. For more information about data types, go to the Types of fields and data types page. Improved entity creation and customization Creating and customizing Common Data Service for Apps entities from PowerApps.com is improved in the following ways: • Improved entity experience. The experience for viewing, editing, and creating entities has been redesigned to take advantage of the latest Common Data Service for Apps features and the latest experience standards. • See only what you need. Entity lists are now filtered to recommended views to make it easier to find what you need. Change the filter to “all” to see system entities and other less commonly used items. When creating entities and adding fields, you can focus on the most important decisions in-line, and then expand to more advanced options when needed. • Simplified in-line experiences. Improve productivity when customizing entities by creating option sets directly in-line when adding fields to your entities. There’s no need to switch contexts. Back to Contents 169 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Improved entity experience Server-side logic for validation Business rules on Common Data Service for Apps entities make it possible to visually define server-side business logic for canvas and model-driven apps. Use business rules to: • Set default values for form fields based on logical parameters. • Create simple and multi-step validation logic for any entity field, or for a combination of fields. • Trigger workflows and other processes directly from rule logic. Back to Contents 170 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Business rules designer For more information about the business rules designer, go to Create business rules and recommendations to apply logic in a form. Calculated and rollup fields Calculated and rollup fields on Common Data Service for Apps entities make it possible to easily compute values for any field and summarize multiple records in a single rollup calculation. Create calculated and rollup fields when you need to: • Create number-based calculations by using Excel-like formulas. • Concatenate and update text. • Create calculations by using values from related entities. • Create rollups of number fields. • Apply conditional calculations based on values in other fields. • Create rollups of date fields (for example, MAX(Datefield)). Back to Contents 171 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Calculated field For more information about calculated fields, go to Define calculated fields to automate manual calculations. For information about rollup fields, go to Define rollup fields that aggregate values. Improved Excel Add-in Data stored in the Common Data Service for Apps can be viewed, created, and edited through the updated PowerApps and Common Data Service for Apps Excel Add-in. Use the Excel Add-in to do any of the following from Excel: • Create and edit data stored in standard and custom entities from the Common Data Service for Apps. • Look up related entities and option sets for easier data editing. • Apply server-side logic to data changes, including business rules and calculated fields. Software Development Kit (SDK) The SDK includes an architectural overview of the Common Data Service for Apps, the entity model, security model, and web services. Sample code and walkthroughs are provided to guide you through the features. It also contains information that developers can use to customize components within the Common Data Service for Apps through code. Note: If you used the Preview of the SDK for the previous version of the Common Data Service, you’ll find that the new SDK (which is the version available for Dynamics 365) offers significant changes. The previous SDK will remain in Preview. Any apps using that SDK will have to be updated to work against the new SDK. Developers can use the SDK to create and customize: • Entities (including fields and views). • Charts and dashboards. • Business processes. Back to Contents 172 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Virtual entities. The SDK can also be used for more advanced scenarios, including: • Plug-ins, Azure extensions, and webhooks. • Code-based data generation and import. • Solution creation and management (ALM). For information about the SDK, go to Developer Guide for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. Back to Contents 173 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Microsoft Flow Microsoft is modernizing business processes across productivity, CRM, and ERP applications, which makes it easier for every business to transform how people work. Microsoft Flow, the Microsoft workflow and business process management platform, is core to the success of this mission. It's the connective glue that’s used by users and app developers alike for digital transformation, no matter what application they’re using. Flow, together with PowerApps and Power BI, makes up the Business application platform. New capabilities for Flow in the Spring ’18 release include: • Create a business process flow. A business process flow is a new type of stateful, human-interactive flow based on the Common Data Service for Apps. Use these new flows to define a set of stages and steps for people to follow. They can move forward and backward as needed. • Business process flow entity customization. Business process flow entities can appear in the system, so that entity record data can be made available in grids, views, charts, and dashboards. • Add an action to a business process flow. In a business process flow, add a button that triggers an action or workflow that runs processes on your data. • Repair recommendations sent in email for failed flows. If a flow fails, have detailed repair recommendations sent right to your inbox. These step-by-step recommendations are linked directly to the information you need to fix the most common failures. • Request for sign-off flow built into SharePoint. When you select a file or item in SharePoint, you’ll see a new Request for sign-off flow. This flow, which doesn't require any configuration or setup, sends a sign-off request with a single click. • Customize SharePoint content approvals with Flow. For SharePoint page libraries, site administrators can take advantage of Flow for content approval workflows. • Flows “owned by” SharePoint lists and libraries. Flows that work with SharePoint lists (and libraries) can be shared with those lists, so instead of being shared with individuals or groups, they’re shared with everyone who has access to the list. As membership of the list or library changes, users are automatically given access to the flow. • Test your flow by using sample data. Creating a flow might require some trial and error during the development process. Use sample data to test your flow as you build it, so you know that the flow will run as expected. • Build and run flows from Excel. With the new Flow button (accessed from the ribbon’s Data tab), you can create and trigger automations from Flow on your table data in Excel. Automate data processing or the copying/importing of data. • Create a flow for Microsoft To-Do in Outlook Web App. If someone is @mentioned in Outlook Web App, they’ll see a shortcut to create a flow. This flow automatically creates tasks for the @mentioned person in Microsoft To-Do, based on the content of the email. • Return data to PowerApps from a flow. Build flows that can be called from an app built with PowerApps, and return data back to the app. Use the visual drag-and-drop flow designer to build the logic you need for the app. Back to Contents 174 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Quick access to help and support. Open support tickets in the context of an issue encountered in Flow, such as when your workflow is failing. Automatically provide Microsoft support engineers with failure details for quicker resolution. • GDPR compliance. To support the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), administrators can now submit a request to export or delete all of the data about Flow users. • Access modern approvals in the Common Data Service for Apps. Modern approvals data in Flow is built on the latest version of the Common Data Service for Apps. This means that you can build flows that read the status of the approvals you send or receive with the CDS connector. • Find errors in “Apply to each” actions. Jump directly to errors in loops in the flow run view, even when there are hundreds of items in the loop. • Reassign approvals. Assign any approval that you receive to another person in your organization, to delegate the approval. • See details of flow buttons. When you run a flow that has been shared with you, see all the actions that the flow uses. • United Kingdom region. Create environments to store data in the United Kingdom. • New documentation landing page. On the documentation landing page, group content by skill level: beginner, intermediate user, or expert. • Add multiple records to array inputs. Use a list builder to add multiple attachments to an email, for example. • Test flows with previous run data. Test your flow with trigger data from previous flow runs by using a Test flow button in the designer. • Access flow details with the workflow() expression. Access the environment name and flow display name with the workflow() expression. Spring '18 summary of what’s new in Microsoft Flow April '18 - General Availability Return data to PowerApps from a flow Access modern approvals in the Common Data Service for Apps Find errors in Apply to each Reassign approvals See details of flow buttons United Kingdom region New documentation landing page Add multiple records to array inputs Test flows with previous run data Access flow details with the workflow() expression Back to Contents 175 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 May '18 - General Availability Build and run flows from Excel Flows “owned by” SharePoint lists and libraries GDPR compliance Error details analytics Share flows with Office 365 groups SharePoint connector improvements June - July '18 - General Availability Request for sign-off flow built into SharePoint Repair recommendations sent in email for failed flows Customize SharePoint content approvals with Flow Create a business process flow Business process flow entity customization Add an action to a business process flow Create a flow for Microsoft To-Do in Outlook Web App Test your flow by using sample data Quick access to help and support Create a business process flow Use business process flows to define a set of steps for people to follow to take them to a desired outcome. You can configure business process flows to support common sales methodologies that can help your sales groups achieve better results. For service groups, business process flows can help new staff get up to speed more quickly and avoid mistakes that could result in unsatisfied customers. With business process flows, you define a set of stages and steps that people go through. Back to Contents 176 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Business process flow Each stage contains a group of steps. Each step represents a field where data can be entered. People advance to the next stage by using the Next Stage button. You can make a step required, so that people must enter data for the corresponding field before they can proceed to the next stage. This is commonly called “stage-gating.” In addition, you can call workflows from inside a business process flow. Access business processes by selecting Processes in the Flow portal. From there, you can create new business process flows and monitor existing business process flows. For more information about business process flows, go to Create a business process flow to standardize processes. Business process flow entity customization Because business processes flows are available as entities in the Common Data Service for Apps, you can use advanced find results as well as views, charts, and dashboards sourced from business process flow data for a given entity, such as a lead or opportunity. Create custom business process flow grids, views, charts, and dashboards that are similar to those created with any other entity. Business process flows, such as Lead To Opportunity Sales Process, appear as a customizable entity in Solution Explorer. Back to Contents 177 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Solution Explorer with the Lead To Opportunity Sales Process entity Several default views are available that you can view as a chart, such as the Active Lead To Opportunity Sales Processes view. Back to Contents 178 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Active Lead to Opportunity Sales Processes view Currently, you can’t create custom forms for entities based on a business process flow. Add an action to a business process flow You can add an action that triggers a workflow to run processes on your data. For example, as part of the opportunity qualification process, the Contoso organization requires all opportunities to be reviewed by a designated reviewer. They need an action they can run on demand that: • Creates a task record that is assigned to the opportunity reviewer. • Appends “Ready for review” to the opportunity topic. To integrate these tasks into the opportunity qualification process, the actions must appear on the opportunity business process flow. To enable this functionality, under Available to Run, select As a Business Process Flow action step. Back to Contents 179 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Available to run as a business process flow Next, add the action step to Contoso’s Opportunity business process flow, and validate the process. Action added to the Opportunity business process flow Back to Contents 180 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Now, members of Contoso’s salesforce can start the action from the Opportunity Qualify business process step whenever they want by selecting Execute. Execute action To be able to execute an action or workflow on demand: • The business process flow must include an action step. If the action step runs a workflow, the workflow must be configured to run on demand. • The entity associated with the action or workflow must be the same as the entity associated with the business process flow. Repair recommendations sent in email for failed flows Enable email notifications to detect flow failures. To enable this feature, go to the Flow details page, and then, on the contextual menu (…), subscribe to receiving emails about flow failures. These useful email notifications provide: • Information about why your flow failed. • Meaningful remediation steps. • Additional resources to help you build robust flows that never fail. Back to Contents 181 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Flow repair email If you don’t want to receive emails but want to read about remediation steps and related resources, access them from the Run History view in the Flow portal. Request for sign-off flow built into SharePoint Use the Request sign-off feature in SharePoint to quickly send an item for approval to someone in your organization (no setup required). Request sign-off makes use of SharePoint's integration with Flow. Just select a file or list item (not a folder) in SharePoint, access the Flow menu in the modern library UI, and then select Request sign-off. This flow will appear alongside any other custom flows added to the library. Back to Contents 182 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Request sign-off from the Flow menu in SharePoint When invoked, Request sign-off creates a new text column in your library, called Sign-off status. This column records the state of your request. It works just like any other text column—sort, filter, or group by it to organize your library. On invocation, you’re also notified that an approval request will be sent on your behalf, and asked to provide consent. After providing consent, pick one or more approvers, and then write a message for your approval request. If you add more than one approver, any one of them can approve your request. Back to Contents 183 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Pick one or more approvers and enter a message When you select the Run flow button, your request is sent, and the Sign-off status column shows Pending. The person you send the approval to will receive an approval request. This is an actionable message on clients that support it. For example, an Outlook user can approve the request directly from Outlook. The approver can also provide comments along with their decision and can click a link to view the item in question. Back to Contents 184 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Actionable message The Sign-off status column is then updated with the decision, and the person who sent the approval request receives an email with the comments. Sign-off status is updated with the decision Back to Contents 185 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Customize SharePoint content approvals with Flow For any modern SharePoint page libraries, site administrators and owners can turn on content approvals for new edits. With content approvals turned on, whenever a change is made to a page, it’s put into Pending mode and submitted for approval. This in turn results in a new approval item for designated approvers. An approver can review changes and either approve them directly in SharePoint by using an embedded Flow experience or respond on the approvals center, on their phone, or directly from email. When an approver responds, the content author is notified, the change is published, and the page is updated. Flows ‘owned by’ SharePoint lists and libraries Until recently, flows could be shared only with individuals or Azure Active Directory security groups. Now, flows that use SharePoint lists or libraries can be shared with those lists or libraries. This means that if new members are added to the list or removed, their access to the flow changes accordingly. Sharing comes in two flavors: you can add a list as a co-owner or as a run-only user. When you add a list as a co-owner, all members of the list have full access to the flow. They can edit the flow, delete it, or share it with others. When you add a list as a run-only user, all members of the list can only run the flow. Add a list as a co-owner Let’s suppose you have a flow that runs when an item is created or modified in a SharePoint list—say Turbine Energy Distribution; this flow also does a Get item from another list called Turbines. You can add both lists as co-owners to the flow so that everyone who has edit access to the list automatically gets edit access to the flow. Once the flow has been shared, you can simply distribute a link to it. Add a list as a co-owner To add the lists, select Add another owner on the flow and then the SharePoint tab in the Owners section. You should then be able to choose the Site and Lists/Libraries and select Add. You will see the List in the section below once you add it. Back to Contents 186 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Adding another owner Add a list as run-only user Similarly, let’s suppose you have a flow that sends out a document for approval and it references the Documents library. From the Flow details screen, you can add the Site and corresponding Documents library as a run-only user. Back to Contents 187 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Add a list as run-only user Now all users that have read/write access to the Document library automatically have permissions to run the flow from the Flow menu in SharePoint. List of documents Back to Contents 188 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Test your flow by using sample data Test your flows after creating them to ensure that they work as you expect. There are two ways to access the test flow: • Go to the flow details page, select the contextual menu (…), and then select Test Flow. -or- • Select the Test button in the banner after saving your flow. In the Test pane, there are three modes for testing your flow: • Let Flow trigger the test by using sample data. • Manually trigger the test yourself by doing the action that triggers the flow. • Use data from previous runs to perform the test. Testing flow side panel Note, however, that not all options are available for all types of triggers. Back to Contents 189 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Build and run flows from Excel With the new Flow button, create and trigger automations from Flow on your table data in Excel to automate data processing or the copying/importing of data. You can create and run on-demand flows for selected rows in any Excel table on spreadsheets hosted in SharePoint or OneDrive for Business. To get started, in Excel, select the Flow button on the Data tab. From the Flow launch panel, build your flow by using the For a selected row trigger, or start from one of the templates: • For a selected row -> send email • For a selected row -> create an entity in Dynamics • For a selected row -> send for approval • For a selected row -> post a message to Teams • For a selected row -> create a row in another spreadsheet • For a selected row -> Post a message to Twitter After the flow is created, select a row, and then select the Play button to see your flow in action. Back to Contents 190 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Create a new on-demand flow in Excel Create a flow for Microsoft To-Do in Outlook Web App A popular feature in Outlook is the sender's ability to explicitly call out a person on the recipient list to draw his or her attention to the email. This is done by including the at sign (@) before the name of the person, which causes the name of the recipient to be highlighted in the email and the recipient's email to be automatically included in the To line. By @mentioning someone in an email, you can call the recipient’s attention to an action item assigned to them. Now, with just a few clicks, create a flow that automatically creates a task in Microsoft To-Do whenever someone is @mentioned in an email message. That way, tasks they need to follow up on are centrally located in the Microsoft To-Do app. Back to Contents 191 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Flow creation in Outlook Web App The task contains the context from the email for reference, such as the sender and the body of the email. The recipient can add additional context, such as the due date and categorization, from within the To-Do app. At this time, this functionality is available only for Outlook Web App (OWA). Return data to PowerApps from a flow Use Microsoft Flow to create logic that performs one or more tasks when an event occurs in a PowerApp. For example, configure a button that creates an item in a SharePoint list, sends an email or meeting request, or creates an online file. You can also use a flow to return data to PowerApps. For example, configure a flow that retrieves data from a web endpoint, SQL Server, or an Excel file in SharePoint, and then processes that data by using built-in actions. You can configure any control in the app to start the flow, which continues to run even if you close PowerApps. Step One To set up a flow that calls data from PowerApps, first start your flow with the PowerApps trigger. Back to Contents 192 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 PowerApps trigger Next, add whatever actions you want to run when your flow is called. Inside these actions, you can use the Ask in PowerApps option to collect additional parameters from the PowerApp. Step Two After you have built your flow and collected the data you need, add the Respond to PowerApps action. In this action, define the output fields you want to provide to PowerApps. Name each field, and select Add Dynamic Content to pass in data from the actions in the flow. Response action Step Three The last step is to add your flow to the PowerApp in the formula bar. Select the control to run your flow from, and then, on the Action tab on the ribbon, select Flow. Select the flow you created to add it to the formula bar, and pass any parameters that the flow requires. Back to Contents 193 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Set variable We recommend that you use Set() or UpdateContext() to set a variable that stores the result of your flow. That way, if multiple values are returned from the flow, you can access different properties in various places in your app. For example, the preceding flow returns two properties, most_sales and sellers, and you can use either on a control. View result properties Today, you can return basic types such as Text or Email. However, there might be cases where you want to return a list of data to the PowerApp, such as a list of names. In this case, you can use the Join action inside your flow and then use the Split function in your PowerApp. Use results in the gallery In the preceding example, notice that the result of the flow is set in SalesInfoVariable, and then the gallery is bound to the table output by splitting the names on a comma. If you have an array of objects in the flow, use the Select action first, to choose the property you want to pass to the PowerApp before joining the array. Back to Contents 194 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Quick access to help and support If you encounter issues when you’re building or running a flow, or encounter any other issue while using Flow, open a support ticket from the Flow website (you don’t have to go to a separate portal and sign in again to provide issue details). If you open the support ticket from the page of a broken flow, the flow ID details are automatically added to the ticket. The ticket contains details about your user account plan and the broken flow, where applicable, and will be sent to Microsoft support engineers so that they can quickly resolve the issue. GDPR compliance Microsoft is committed to GDPR compliance across our cloud services, including Microsoft Flow. When a user is deleted from Azure Active Directory, the tenant administrator receives an email notification indicating that the user has been deleted from the corporate directory. The admin can determine which flows the user owned by executing a PowerShell script, and can then reassign ownership in the Flow Admin Center. Modify ownership in the Admin Center Newly assigned owners can view or export the run details for the flow. Back to Contents 195 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Run details Flow owners can also do a Save As operation to provide a new name. Save As During this process, connections need to be reestablished to make the flow operational again. Back to Contents 196 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Connections Access modern approvals in the Common Data Service for Apps Modern approvals data in Flow is now built on the latest version of the Common Data Service for Apps. This means that you can build flows that read the status of approvals you send or receive with the CDS connector. Examples include: • Send automatic reminders for pending approval requests. • Create to-do tasks in Microsoft To-Do, Trello, or Todoist when an approval is waiting for you. • Post a message to Teams when a new approval request matching specific parameters waiting for you. You can use this template as an example to start with. Customize it, and add or remove actions as needed, such as creating a To-Do or posting to Microsoft Teams. Back to Contents 197 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Approvals in the CDS template Today, all new environments created by an administrator use the latest version of the Common Data Service for Apps. Here are a few important notes for using this new functionality: 1. To have Approvals installed in an environment, the administrator must first create an Approval flow before any other users in the environment can use approvals. 2. After creation, it can take up to 10 minutes (or, in rare cases, longer) for Approvals to begin working in the environment. 3. For these templates to work, the person who is using them must be assigned the Common Data Service User security role in the CDS environment. Otherwise, the user won’t be able to access the Approval records through the CDS connector. However, Approvals will continue to work as they do today, through the Approval center, regardless of the roles that are assigned to the user. Existing environments that use Approvals will be updated with these new capabilities in the coming weeks. Find errors in Apply to each We recently increased the limits for Apply to each, which means that you can have loops that contain thousands of items. However, if a small number of the actions in these loops fail, it's important that you be able to jump directly to the failure. This week, we are adding new functionality: in the run view, there are two new buttons to take you directly to the next and previous failed items. You can now quickly go through only the failures in your actions to identify what went wrong, even if there are thousands of items in the loop. Back to Contents 198 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Errors in Apply to each Approval reassignment If you can’t or don’t want to complete an approval yourself, you can now send the approvals you receive to another person. First, click the approval in the Approval center, and then select Advanced in the approval pane. You can then provide the email address of the user that you want to handle the approval on your behalf. After you reassign the approval, that user will see the approval request in their Approval center. Reassign approvals You can also reassign from the ellipsis (...) menu on each approval in your received requests. See details of a flow When you run a flow that has been shared with you, you can see details of exactly what that flow is going to do with your connections. Whenever you run a flow, select See details to view a list of every action that the flow uses (both name and description). Because the flow can use your accounts or connections, you should Back to Contents 199 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 only ever run a flow if you trust the owner of the flow and are comfortable having them take the actions listed under See details. See details United Kingdom region The United Kingdom region is now available for Microsoft Flow. This means that you can create environments in the UK, and all the flow customer data will be maintained solely within the UK. You can read more about our commitments to storing data on the Microsoft Trust Center page for Microsoft Flow. New documentation landing page We always want to make it easier to learn about Microsoft Flow. There is a lot of content out there, so we have grouped our documentation content into three sections to help you find the right level of depth for your task: Back to Contents 200 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 New documentation page • I'm a beginner - Covering topics such as our guided learning tour, getting to know the mobile app, and how to create a button flow. • I'm intermediate - Covering how to create flows from scratch and how to troubleshoot those flows. • I'm an expert - Covering how to work with expressions, admin features, and custom connectors. Add multiple records to array inputs There are many actions in Flow that take an array as input. For example, the Send email action has a list of attachments that can be included with the email. Before, you could pass just one attachment, or you could generate a list of attachments from the outputs of another action by using the Select action. However, there was no easy way to just have two attachments. So we're happy to announce that, for any action that takes a list as an input, you can now add as many items inline as you want. Array inputs To add a second (or third, fourth, and so on) attachment, just click the Add new item button below the main fields for that attachment. Each time, you'll get a new set of the fields for the new attachment (or any other record that you’re adding). To remove an item, select the ellipsis (...) menu next to the first field in the record you want to delete. Back to Contents 201 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Test flows with previous run data When you’re editing a flow that you’ve run in the past, it can be useful to be able to rerun the flow with the trigger data from a previous run. This gives you a way to verify that your flow now behaves as you expect. This has been possible before by going to the Run history view and selecting Resubmit. Now, to streamline the editing experience, we are adding a Test flow button directly in the designer. Test flow button When you select Test flow, you will see a new pane with two options: 1. Perform the trigger action yourself. The action depends on what the trigger is. For example, for a button trigger, you'll run the flow button; for an email trigger, you'll send yourself an email; and for a file trigger, you'll upload a file to SharePoint Online. 2. Use data from previous runs. Here, if your flow has run before, you'll get a list of the most recent runs and can pick one to test your flow with. Back to Contents 202 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Test flow pane After you run the flow, you'll immediately see the details of the flow run and can watch each steps being executed. Finally, runs started via this route are marked as Tests in the run history view, so you can distinguish them from flow runs that were triggered normally. Access flow details with the workflow() expression The last feature that we added is a new output property called tags to the workflow() expression. The tags contain properties such as flowDisplayName and environmentName. This means that, from the flow itself, you can send custom email notifications that link back to the flow. For example, this will create an HTML link back to the flow, with the display name of the flow in the title. Open flow @{workflow()['tags']['flowDisplayName']} Back to Contents 203 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Error details analytics In December, we announced Microsoft Flow Analytics where we provided flow makers with the ability to visualize their run history. Starting today, we are rolling out updates to our maker analytics experience to include Error Details. These analytics will help users quickly identify the source and magnitude of errors they may be encountering and aid in the prompt resolution of these errors. In this release of Microsoft Flow Analytics, we are providing the ability to view: • Number of errors by day. • Distribution of errors by type. • Error details table. Users can access Microsoft Flow Analytics by clicking the See analytics link from a flow’s main page. Errors tab shows error details After users are in the analytics experience, they can click the Errors tab to see the error details. From there, a user can filter data based on a selected Date Range, Action(s), Trigger or Error Type(s). In addition to Back to Contents 204 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 filtering, a user can navigate to the last occurrence of a specific error, by clicking the hyperlink icon. After clicking this link, a user will be redirected to that specific run instance for further debugging. Substring create error Note: It may take up to 1.5 hours for run-time data to be loaded into our analytics experience. If instant run execution data is required, see run details for a specific flow. If you discover a discrepancy between the number of errors on your Usage tab compared to your Errors tab, there may be a valid reason for this, including: • If a trigger fails, you will not see it count as part of your usage as it does not represent a flow that has been successfully initiated. But, technically it is an error, so we will report it on our Errors tab. • A flow may have multiple errors that exist within a single flow execution. For example, you may have a loop that contains multiple action(s) that have failed as part of that run instance. • Within a flow, a maker can Configure run after settings, which allows a flow to continue executing when an action has failed. Accessing Microsoft Flow Analytics requires a Flow Plan 2 license. If you do not see the See analytics link, appearing in the maker portal, it means that you do not meet the minimum licensing requirements. For more details about Flow licensing, including signing up for a free Flow Plan 2 trial license, please visit our licensing page. SharePoint connector improvements Because Flow is the successor to SharePoint Designer workflows, we continuously strive to improve our SharePoint connector capabilities. We've added two new capabilities: • Triggers for when an item or file is deleted. • An action to send an HTTP request to SharePoint. Back to Contents 205 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 The new action helps advanced users that are familiar with the SharePoint REST APIs to build queries and get results from SharePoint, especially if existing actions don’t currently support what you need or for scenarios where no action is available. For example, you can use this action to filter items using lookup fields or for controlling permissions to an individual item. Filtering by lookup field Share flows with Office 365 groups Currently, Flow enables you to share flows with your colleagues either by adding them as co-owners or runonly users (for manual flows only). As co-owners, they have full edit permissions for the flow. As run-only users of manual flows, they can only run the flow. Previously, you could only add other individuals in your tenant or security groups. Now, we are enhancing these capabilities by allowing you to share all flows with Office 365 Groups. Suppose you have a flow that you want to share with an Office 365 Group called CRONUS Energy. From the Flow details screen, you can choose to Add another owner and simply enter the name or email address of the Office 365 Group. Back to Contents 206 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Add another owner All members will be added as co-owners to the flow and can find it listed under Team flows. You can also add Office 365 Groups as run-only users to button flows. Back to Contents 207 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Find members under Team flows Back to Contents 208 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Business Intelligence Platform Organizations can use Power BI to translate a wealth of data into actionable insights. New Power BI capabilities in the Spring ’18 release include: • Analytics and exploration experiences. Features include an improved SAP HANA connector that treats SAP HANA as a multi-dimensional source, and capabilities for analysts to improve productivity with unique ways to visualize data. For example, users can use canvas tooltips to express more detail in context. Excel users who use the matrix visual receive measure-driven conditional formatting, and the ability to expand or collapse sections of the visual. • Natural language analytics for everyone. Authors can use some of the improvements to Q&A natural language experiences to add domain-specific language and phrasing tailored for their domain. Users can ask questions in the context of their workflow, which includes Cortana and reports in Dynamics 365. Users can identify trends or changes in their data using Smart alerts and enhanced Quick Insights. • Enterprise-grade trusted platform. Governance improvements include additional administrative controls, access to user content, and reporting. With Power BI Premium, you get improved scalability support with larger node sizes, incremental refresh for faster data loads, and deployments that span multiple geographic regions worldwide. Spring ’18 summary of what’s new in Business Intelligence Platform Jan ’18 - General Availability Power BI Desktop • Ask Top N questions in Q&A - Easily ask Top N questions in Q&A in both Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service. • Azure Active Directory authentication - Leverage Azure Active Directory authentication when connecting to Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Data Warehouse. • Hide pages from reading mode - Authors control which report pages are exposed to users. Power BI Service • Ability to share and favorite reports - Shared reports appear in recent, favorites, and “shared with me” lists, similar to dashboards. • Push apps - Admins can automatically deploy Power BI apps to users. • Pin from apps to dashboard - Create dashboards that combine information from other shared dashboards, reports, or apps in an integrated view. • Persistent filters - With persistent filters, Power BI saves a user’s slicer and filter values, and automatically applies them when the user returns. • Custom visual administrator control - Power BI admins can disable custom visuals for an organization. Back to Contents 209 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Power BI Mobile • Visio custom visual support - Custom visuals are presented in the mobile app when users tap the visual and sign into their Visio online account. • Responsive visuals optimized for phone layout - Text—such as labels—also adjust based on the size of the visuals. Power BI Embedded • Capacity API – Using Enhanced Application Lifecycle Management capabilities, you can use APIs to assign or remove Workspaces from Power BI capacity. • Row-level security on Azure Analysis Services based on CustomData - Filter data based on the CustomData function in Azure Analysis Services for row-level security. • Custom layout - Dynamically change the size and layout definitions of a report page. Use one of the layouts in Power BI Desktop, or a fixed size to match the application element. • Phased embedding - Load embedded content in the background to improve performance and get object metadata. • Single visual embedding - Embed one or more visuals inside an iFrame. Feb ’18 - General Availability Power BI Desktop • Report level slicers - Filter other pages of the report. • Cross-highlight across multiple visuals - Multi-select data points across visuals. • Quick measures - Support for live connections and custom date tables. Power BI Mobile • Ability to invite and favorite reports - Users can view reports shared with them, share reports with others, view favorite reports, and mark reports as favorites. Power BI Embedded • Azure monitoring - With usage metrics, monitor the consumption of resources, and trigger actions when thresholds are met. • Azure US Government Cloud availability - Power BI Embedded is available for United States government customers. • Mobile layout support - Load embedded report pages in a phone layout. • Model Parameters API - Get or set predefined model parameters using APIs. • Visual level filters - Apply and capture filters for embedded visuals. Feb 18 – Public Preview Power BI Desktop • SAP HANA connector - Treats SAP HANA as a multi-dimensional source. • Organizational visuals store - Discover and import custom visuals distributed by your Power BI administrator. Back to Contents 210 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Power BI Service • Manage organizational visuals store - Power BI administrators can deploy and manage custom visuals for their organization. March ’18 - General Availability Power BI Desktop • Bookmarking - Bookmark report states to keep track of an exploration, tell a story, or create custom navigation. • New SAP HANA and SAP Business Warehouse (BW) connectors. Power BI Service • Share content with consumer accounts - Share content with other users who have email addresses from consumer email services and telecommunications providers. • Larger node sizes in Power BI Premium - Organizations can use P4 and P5 nodes to run larger workloads on premium capacity. • Performance reporting for Power BI Premium - Provides insights about how Premium capacity resources are utilized, troubleshooting performance issues, and deciding when to upgrade to a larger node size. Power BI Mobile • Report tooltip touch optimization - Data point selection with tap and hold gesture. • Power BI for mixed reality (Public Preview) - Mixed reality experience for viewing dashboards and reports, and positioning them in their surroundings with Microsoft HoloLens. Available in Microsoft Store. • Persistent filters - Users resume working with report filters and slicers in the same state as their last interaction. • Phone optimization for embedded reports - Mobile app developers who use embedded reports for phone optimized layout can resize and position visuals to fit the device. • External sharing - Users can share reports and dashboards with external users. Power BI Embedded • Bookmarks support - Apply bookmarks on embedded reports and control UI elements through APIs. • Update dashboard/tile - With Application Lifecycle Management, developers can change deployed tiles and dashboards while retaining their original IDs. • Single sign-on (SSO) for Azure SQL database - Optionally pass in authenticated Azure AD credentials in queries to the Azure SQL database. Power BI report server • Power BI Desktop features available since October ’17: o Drill with filtering of all visuals on page o Rule-based conditional formatting for table and matrix o Cell alignment for table and matrix o Lock objects on your reports Back to Contents 211 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 o Report options for slow data sources o Filtering performance improvements o Selection pane and visual display controls o Bookmarking o Report-level slicers o Quick measures o Cross-highlight across multiple visuals o DirectQuery performance improvements March ’18 - Public Preview Power BI Desktop • Canvas tooltips - Design report pages for use as tooltips for a custom experience. April ’18 - General Availability Power BI Desktop • Control over linguistic schema - Report authors can improve Q&A results for users by adjusting the linguistic schema with phrasing and synonyms specific to the model domain. • New experiences for Q&A in reports - Report authors can enable Q&A experiences for report consumers with suggested starting questions. These user experiences surface in Power BI Service, Power BI Embedded, and Cortana. • Organizational visuals store - Discover and import custom visuals from the Power BI admin. Power BI Service • Data source setup improvements - Easily configure gateways and diagnose common errors. • Organizational visuals store - Discover and import custom visuals from the Power BI admin. • Administrator tenant usage reporting - APIs allow admins to gain insights into workspace, report, and dataset artifacts across the tenant. Power BI Mobile • Drill-down and drill-up support - Users drill down and drill up to analyze data on mobile via tap and hold to open a tooltip menu on report visuals. Power BI Embedded • Azure load monitoring - Monitor consumption of resources, and trigger actions when thresholds are met. • Onboarding experience - Onboarding tool makes initial setup fast and easy. • Show or hide report pages - Set the visibility of embedded report pages through the API. • Get data APIs - Enable applications to extract data shown in visuals. • Themes support - Manage themes by session for embedded objects with JavaScript API. Back to Contents 212 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Visual level configuration - Control which visual functions, such as focus mode and export data, are exposed to users. • Azure diagnostics - Use error logging for analysis and tracking. May ’18 - General Availability Power BI Desktop • Drill-through on measures – Power BI now supports drilling through on measures. This includes passing through the filter and slicer context from the current page. • Conditional formatting based on another column – Table and matrix visuals can leverage columns that aren’t necessarily part of the visual when they’re conditionally formatted. • Incremental data refresh – Users can set up incremental data refresh policies that will be applied when they publish to the Power BI service. May ’18 – Public Preview Power BI Service • Incremental data refresh - Incrementally load new data into a dataset without reloading all the data. June ’18 - General Availability Power BI Desktop • Filters on data view – In the data view of Power BI Desktop, users can now filter the data that they are working with. Power BI Service • Multiple-geographic regions for Power BI Premium - Create Premium capacities in geographic locations that are different from the Power BI tenant to achieve compliance requirements. • Set up email subscriptions for other users. • XMLA connectivity with Analysis Services - Treat Power BI Premium workspaces like Analysis Services servers and connect to them with existing tools. Power BI Mobile • Drill-through support - On mobile, use drill-through to navigate from one report page to another report page filtered by a selected entity. Power BI Embedded • Workspace collection deprecation. June ’18 - Public Preview Power BI Service • Workspaces with Azure AD groups - Workspaces have their own roles and permissions separate from Office 365 groups to enable more control over management of workspaces, including assigning workspace roles to individual users. The preview is available for customers with Power BI deployments Back to Contents 213 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 that meet certain criteria. Contact your Microsoft account representative to learn more about how you can participate. July – September ’18 - General Availability Power BI Service • Dataset metadata translations - Users see dataset fields in their client locale and language when translations are defined in the dataset or Analysis Services model. • Export to PDF - Export a Power BI report in PDF format. Power BI Embedded • App-only token support - Identify an application on the Power BI platform for enhanced deployment, security, and Application Lifecycle Management. July – September ’18 – Public Preview Power BI Desktop • Model diagram and navigation - An improved modeling experience that scales to large and complex data models with many tables, calculations, and other objects. • Power BI datapools connector - Easily add entities from Power BI datapools to your data models, and use them to create advanced reports and visualizations leveraging the standard schema of the common data model and Azure Data Lake technologies. Power BI Service • Smart alerts - Users receive automatic alerts when there are important changes to data. • Query acceleration for large datasets - Dataset authors create in-memory aggregations to enable interactive queries over big data. • Workspace search - Search for and find content across all the workspaces that you have access to. • SSRS reports for Power BI Premium - Publish and view SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports in Power BI Premium. Advanced data prep in Power BI • Advanced data prep with datapools - Datapools help organizations easily bring business data from one or more data sources into Power BI. • Computed entities - Computed entities allows third parties to build Power BI apps leveraging datapools with richer insights and with AI capabilities. • Linked entities - Linked entities can be used in the transformation, enrichment, or calculation of new entities. • Datapool refresh - Streamlines and speeds the datapool refresh process and supports the ingestion of larger data sets. • Azure integration - Power BI can be configured to store datapools in your organization’s Azure Data Lake storage. • Datapools on Premium capacity - Easily assign workspaces with datapools to Premium capacity and manage usage as part of a Power BI Premium subscription. Back to Contents 214 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Power BI Insights apps • Power BI for Sales Insights – Brings in key entities from either Dynamics 365 or Salesforce, allowing sales managers to track sales performance across products and salespeople. • Power BI for Service Insights – Takes advantage of Dynamics 365 for Customer Service, Field Service, or Project Service Automation data to provide insights in each of these areas. view Power BI Desktop Ask Top N questions in Q&A Use ad-hoc analysis in Q&A to ask Top N questions, such as “What are my top 10 customers by sales?” Users can ask these questions in Power BI Desktop when authoring a visual, in the Power BI Service while viewing a dashboard, or on mobile using voice. Example of a question-based query on a dashboard Back to Contents 215 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Azure Active Directory authentication Connect to Azure SQL database and Azure Data Warehouse by using Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication. This simplifies an organization’s ability to grant and manage access to these data sources in a single place. Hide pages from reading mode A report author can hide a page from view of the report consumer until the report is accessed via a drill-through or bookmark action. This capability is helpful for reports with many pages that should be hidden from the user unless accessed within context. This capability is familiar to users who use Excel and PowerPoint. Authors can hide pages Back to Contents 216 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Report level slicers Report authors can use slicers that sync across pages, and update visuals across a report. This capability allows for dynamic navigation without losing context when switching from page to page. Report authors can take control of filtering in their report and customize it to meet user needs. Report level slicers Back to Contents 217 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Cross-highlight across multiple visuals Users can multi-select data points across visuals to apply cross-highlighting. Users can perform deeper data exploration and glean new insights that may have otherwise been missed. Example of cross-highlighting for deeper data exploration Back to Contents 218 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Quick measures The quick measures feature is generally available, and it no longer requires the feature to be turned on from the Preview tab in the Options dialog box. Additionally, the date hierarchy in Power BI is no longer required for time intelligence quick measures. Instead, you can use the Date field from your own date table. Quick measures for Power BI Desktop SAP HANA connector By default, the SAP HANA connector treats SAP HANA as a multi-dimensional source, similar to SAP Business Warehouse (BW) or Analysis Services. For more information, see SAP HANA DirectQuery and SAP HANA. SAP Business Warehouse (BW) connector The DirectQuery mode for SAP Business Warehouse (BW) is generally available. For more information, see DirectQuery and SAP Business Warehouse (BW). Back to Contents 219 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Organizational visuals store Power BI admins can deploy visuals as part of an organizational repository. Deployed visuals display under a section of the Power BI custom visual store called MY ORGANIZATION. Marketplace for Power BI Visuals Back to Contents 220 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Bookmarking Create bookmarks in the Power BI Service without first creating a bookmark in Power BI Desktop. The Bookmarking feature is generally available, and it no longer requires the feature to be turned on from the Preview tab in the Options dialog box. Example of bookmarks Back to Contents 221 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Canvas tooltips (Public Preview) Using Canvas tooltips, you can design a report page as a custom tooltip for other visuals in a report. You can design any type of custom tooltips you need, from using cards that show detailed information to miniature drill-through pages shown on mouse hover. Customizable canvas tooltips Control over linguistic schema To improve the results of Q&A for users across Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service, a report author can adjust the linguistic schema with phrasing and synonyms that are specific to a model domain. Back to Contents 222 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 User experiences for Q&A in reports Report authors can enable Q&A experiences for report consumers with suggested questions to start from. These same experiences are surfaced in the Power BI Service, Power BI Embedded, and Cortana, so users can perform explorations with a preferred client. Example of Power BI Desktop Q&A Back to Contents 223 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Conditional formatting based on another column The table and matrix visuals in Power BI will now support conditional formatting based on another column, even if that column isn’t being used in the visual itself. This will allow more flexibility with conditional formatting and even allow you to write measures for deeper control over the formatting. Conditional formatting based on another column Back to Contents 224 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Filtering on Data View In Power BI Desktop, the data view allows users to view individual rows from their data set. Power BI now supports Excel like filtering on the data view, enabling end users to slice and dice in the data view to get a better understanding of the data they are working with. Filtering on the data view Power BI datapools connector (Public Preview) Power BI datapools connector lets you easily add entities from Power BI datapools to your data models, and use them to create advanced reports and visualizations leveraging the standard schema of the common data Back to Contents 225 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 model and Azure Data Lake technologies. You can even mash-up datapool data with data from other sources to build fully customized solutions. Power BI Service Share and favorite reports When you share a dashboard, related resources added to the dashboard are also shared. In other words, when report content is pinned to a dashboard, that report is also shared when you share the dashboard. But, what if a report you want to share is not on a dashboard, or if you want to share only a report? The report sharing capability works like the dashboard sharing feature; using it, you can directly share a report. You can use the sharing pane to control access rights to a report and send invites to authorized users. When you share a report with a colleague, the report appears in their Shared with me list. Share reports in your personal workspace or in an app workspace where you’re a member. Or share other owners’ reports after they grant you permission. When you share a report, the underlying dataset is also shared. Row-level security settings for the dataset remain the same, so recipients see only the data that they’re authorized to view. Example of report sharing Back to Contents 226 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Push apps You can automatically install apps that people use for work in the Apps content list, instead of requiring users to find the app in Microsoft AppSource or follow an installation link. This streamlines roll-out of standard Power BI content to users. To turn on this capability, tenant admins enable Push apps to users on the Settings tab in the Power BI admin portal. Admins can specify whether the entire organization or specific security groups get this capability. Push apps functionality in the admin portal Back to Contents 227 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 How to install an app automatically for users After an app publisher enables the Push apps setting, they need to push the app to all users or groups defined in the Permissions section of the Access tab. To do this, they select Install app automatically, and then select Finish. Auto-install configuration setting How users get the apps that were pushed to them After you push an app, it automatically shows up in the Apps list. This helps organizations curate apps for a user or job role. Back to Contents 228 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Curated list of apps Pin from apps to dashboard You can use dashboards to combine information from other shared dashboards, reports, or apps to create a 360-degree view. Now you can pin from dashboards that are distributed to you through apps, as well as when you’re the owner of the dashboard or report that you’re pinning from. You can create a personal dashboard or bring together and distribute information. Back to Contents 229 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Pin apps to a dashboard Persistent filters Power BI persistent filters save users’ slicer and filter values, and automatically applies them when users return to view the reports. Users can reset filters back to the default setting. Back to Contents 230 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Filters on a report Sharing content with consumer accounts You can share content with other users who have email addresses from consumer email services or telecommunications providers. Users can view Power BI content, but not author it. You can use additional admin controls through Azure Active Directory to restrict or control consumer sharing behavior, depending on organizational security policies. Back to Contents 231 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Share a report Larger node sizes in Power BI Premium The Power BI Premium P4 and P5 nodes allow you to run larger workloads on Premium capacity. Performance reporting for Power BI Premium Organizations can use performance reporting for Power BI Premium to understand how their Premium capacity resources are used, troubleshoot performance issues, and decide when to upgrade to a larger node size. Metrics are included for common scenarios such as planning for scheduled refreshes, and to ensure good user query performance. Back to Contents 232 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Data source setup improvements Data source setup improvements make it easier to configure gateways and diagnose common errors. Improved data source setup Incremental data refresh Organizations can use incremental data refresh to scale datasets to even larger sizes. With incremental data refresh, users can load only new or changed data. When creating a dataset in the Power BI Desktop, a user configures a refresh table for each table in the model that is to load incrementally, and then publishes it to a Power BI Premium workspace. Thereafter, each scheduled refresh loads only new or changed data. Query acceleration for large datasets (Public Preview) Users can create DirectQuery models over any size data in sources, such as Spark and Azure SQL Data Warehouse, and then accelerate common queries by building in-memory aggregations over some of the data. Common queries use the aggregated cache to return results in a fraction of a second instead of directly querying the source. Users can create datasets of massive size and still provide interactive querying. Dataset metadata translations Power BI users see dataset fields in their client locale or language when translations are defined in the dataset or Analysis Services model. Back to Contents 233 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Smart alerts Receive automatic alerts when there are important changes to data. A library of pre-built algorithms automatically runs to determine the best insights for users, and automatically delivers alerts to them. The alerts have additional controls that allow customizing the alerts. Workspaces with Azure AD groups Power BI workspaces have their own roles and permissions that are separate from Office 365 groups, and which enable control over management of workspaces. Capabilities include assigning workspace roles to individual users, Azure AD security groups, and Office 365 modern groups. Additionally, governance of Power BI workspaces is separated from governance of Office 365 modern groups. Add a Power BI workspace on mobile Back to Contents 234 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports for Power BI Premium (Public Preview) Publish SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports (*.RDL format) to a Power BI Premium workspace, and view reports within the Power BI web app. No SSRS server is required. SSRS reports for Power BI Premium Subscribe other users for email Set up email subscriptions for other users so they all receive relevant information. As part of subscribe others, users can customize a subject line and additional text for the email. Back to Contents 235 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 XMLA connectivity with Analysis Services The connectivity of Power BI Premium With this new capability, you can treat Power BI workspaces as if they were Analysis Services servers. You’re able to connect the same tools to Power BI premium that are currently used with Analysis Services. Advanced data prep in Power BI Power BI introduces a suite of new features to bring advanced data preparation and data lake capabilities to Power BI. With these new capabilities, organizations can bring data from disparate sources into a single data lake, to simplify the ingestion, transformation, integration, and enrichment of their business data. We’ve expanded the familiar Power BI workspace experience to include new tools to easily map your business data to the common data model (Microsoft’s standardized schema), enrich it with Microsoft and third-party data, and gain simplified access to machine learning. These new capabilities can be leveraged to provide intelligent and actionable insights into your business data. New data-prep capabilities expand Power BI to include a self-service data lake of business entities, stored and managed directly within the Power BI service, leveraging the following features and capabilities: • The common data model. A standardized and extensible collection of schemas (entities, attributes, and relationships) to represent business data objects and activities with well-defined semantics, publicly published by Microsoft. Examples of entities include: Account, Business Unit, Case, Contact, Lead, Opportunity, Product, Product Category, Purchase Order, and so on. Back to Contents 236 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Federated data-lake storage for these entities. These entities are stored within Power BI and across mounted Azure Data Lake storage. • The ability to create, populate, transform, and enrich these entities. Using an evolution of the lowcode/no-code Power Query experience, users can create, populate, transform, and enrich these entities. Advanced data prep with datapools (Public Preview) Power BI introduces datapools to help organizations easily bring business data from one or more data sources into Power BI. Datapools are collections of entities (like tables) that are created and managed in app workspaces, using the Power BI service. You can use datapools to ingest data from a large and growing set of supported on-premises and cloudbased data sources, including Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Azure SQL DB, Excel, SharePoint, and more. You can then map data to known common data model entities, modify and extend existing entities, and create custom entities. Advanced users can create fully customized datapools, using a self-service, lowcode/no-code, built-in Power Query authoring experience, similar to the Power Query experience that millions of Power BI Desktop and Excel users already know. Once you’ve created a datapool, you can use Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service to create datasets, reports, dashboards, and apps that leverage the power of the common data model to drive deep insights into your business activities. Datapool refresh scheduling is managed directly from the workspace in which your datapool was created, just like your datasets. The preview includes out-of-the-box connectivity to Dynamics 365 and Salesforce. Computed entities (Public Preview) Once you’ve loaded datapool entities to Power BI, you can generate new insights by transforming, modifying, and enriching entities, and aggregating large-scale data. Static analysis of Power Query M expressions makes it possible to identify dependencies between entities automatically, so they’ll always be computed and updated in the optimal order, with no need for manual data task-flow authoring and orchestration. Support for computed entities allows third parties to build Power BI apps leveraging datapools with richer insights and with AI capabilities. For example, you could enrich a customer account entity from Dynamics 365 for Sales with information from open service tickets in Dynamics 365 for Service, and relevant customer meeting information from Office 365. Refreshing computed entities requires Power BI Premium. Linked entities (Public Preview) Power BI makes it possible to link entities from one datapool to another, without duplicating them. Linked entities can be used in the transformation, enrichment, or calculation of new entities. Avoiding duplication with linked entities makes it possible to maintain a single source of truth across your organization. Refreshing linked entities requires Power BI Premium. Back to Contents 237 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Datapool refresh (Public Preview) Power BI supports advanced datapool refresh features, including incremental datapool refresh, to streamline and speed the datapool refresh process, and to support the ingestion of larger data sets. This feature requires Power BI Premium. Azure integration (Public Preview) Power BI can be configured to store datapools in your organization’s Azure Data Lake storage. When Power BI is connected to your Azure subscription, datapool data and metadata are stored in your organization’s Azure Data Lake storage, making it possible to leverage the full Azure data stack to create robust, fully customized, end-to-end data solutions, using familiar Azure products, such as Azure Machine Learning, Databricks, Data Factory, and more. Power BI users can also connect an external datapool, hosted in Azure storage, to Power BI. Datapools on Premium capacity (Public Preview) Power BI administrators can easily assign workspaces with datapools to Premium capacity and manage usage as part of a Power BI Premium subscription. Once capacity is allocated, datapools will have access to the Power BI Premium storage (100TB per P1 node), and dedicated capacity. Administrators can track capacity usage, resolve bottlenecks, and scale up capacity as needed. Datapools hosted on Premium capacity will support advanced features, such as calculated entities, linked entities, incremental refresh, and more. Power BI Insights apps Deliver out-of-box insights tailored to specific business scenarios across marketing, sales, service, finance, operations, and talent management. Insights are generated by applying advanced intelligence to a subset of unique Microsoft data, such as business, productivity and collaboration, and professional network data. Also, customers can easily incorporate additional data from a range of third-party sources to enhance relevance and accuracy. Power BI Insights apps can be further tailored by applying the full power of Azure Data Services. Power BI for Sales Insights The Power BI for Sales Insights app brings in key entities from either Dynamics 365 or Salesforce. Sales managers can to track sales performance across products and salespeople. They can also monitor the health of their pipeline and quickly identify at-risk accounts that they may want to focus their attention on. The app provides key KPIs like win ratios, lead conversion rates, and year-to-date (YTD) revenue. Back to Contents 238 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Example of Sales Insights Power BI for Service Insights The Power BI for Service insights app provides out-of-the-box analytics for several scenarios, such as Project Service Automation, Customer Service, and Field Service. Project Service Automation The Project Service Automation reports focus on information that’s critical to a Practice Manager, Resource Manager, and Account Manager. The app provides tailored reporting and insights for each role: • Practice Manager. Responsible for revenue goals, project completion, and customer satisfaction for service engagements delivered. The app provides key insights around gross margins, revenue, costs, and utilization to help answer questions like: o Who are the most profitable customers? o Where are the largest costs on a project incurred? • Resource Manager. Responsible for assigning the right resources to the projects at the right time. The app provides key insights about resource and role utilization, as well as unfulfilled demand to help answer questions like: o What does the utilization rate look like for developers over the last six weeks? o Is there enough resource capacity to fulfill incoming requests? Back to Contents 239 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 • Account Manager. Responsible for driving revenue from the customers. The app provides key insights about closed deals, billed versus unbilled sales, and ongoing engagements to help answer questions like: o On average, how long does it take to close a deal? o How are current contracts performing? Customer Service Analytics The Customer Service Analytics reports provide case analytics to the service manager about cases opened, resolved, and escalated, as well as key performance indicators (KPIs) for service level agreement (SLA) violations. The reports also provide insights about customer satisfaction and survey responses. The reports help answer questions like: • Which service engineers resolve the highest number of cases? • What is the service team’s average case duration? Field Service Analytics The Field Service Analytics reports focuses on the dispatcher or scheduler persona. The reports cover KPIs that help monitor the effectiveness of field service operations. Report pages focus on open and closed work orders, as well as bookings. The app helps answer questions like: • What is the average duration of an incident? • How many work orders have been completed by each field service engineer? Power BI Embedded Capacity API Use capacity APIs to assign or remove workspaces to capacities, and get a list of capacities a user can access. Currently, through the Power BI portal, a workspace admin with capacity assign permissions can use the Edit workspace dialog box to assign a capacity to a workspace. Back to Contents 240 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Edit workspace options With the AssignToCapacity API, you can manage a workspace with a Power BI Premium/Azure capacity, such as assign or remove the workspace from a capacity, or move between capacities. Use the GetCapacities API to get a list of all the capacities a user has access to as a capacity admin and their assignment permissions. An additional property that states the capacity where a workspace resides, is available in the existing GetGroups API. These Capacity API additions provide an enhanced ALM experience to onboard new customers by using a workspace for each customer. Here are the steps to automate the process: 1. Clone workspace with the analytical content for a new customer. 2. Connect the cloned content to the customer’s data source. 3. Get the customer into production by assigning the cloned workspace to a dedicated capacity. Row-level security on Azure Analysis Services based on CustomData Use row-level security and filter data based on the CustomData function in Azure Analysis Services. You can customize and filter data retrieved from Analysis Services for each user session, which controls the data exposed to each user. For Azure Analysis Services users, a property is added on token generation, so you can set the CustomData property on the connection string. This property can also be used by the CustomData function. The property can be applied for all embedded objects: reports, visuals, dashboards, and tiles. The feature works only with Azure Analysis Services. Back to Contents 241 Dynamics 365 Release Notes – Spring ’18 Version 18.1.4 Custom layout You can use custom layout to set and change the size of a report page layout or control the size, position, and visibility of a report visual. • Page layout. When you build a report page through Power BI Desktop, you configure the layout using two fields: page size type and page layout. Page size options Page layout options By default, each time you embed a report, it uses the configuration made in Power BI Desktop. With custom layout, you can dynamically set the definitions to optimize the report layout inside the application page. You can change the layout during the session based on events such as a content change or browser resizing. • Visual layout. This feature supports single visual embedding. With custom layout, you define which visuals to display and specify their size and position on the canvas. You have full configuration control of appearance of visuals on the canvas dynamically during user sessions. For example, assume that your application’s customer has different departments. Instead of creating copies of the same report or report pages for each department and making the modifications, you can show the same report page and expose only the relevant visuals to that user. Using custom layout, you can optimize the position of each visual. Phased embedding Load the embedded content in the background to improve performance and get metadata on the object. The loading of an embedded artifact is done using the embed call, containing an embed configuration object and the