Hello Reader,

Interview season never fades away. It’s one of the most important thing for interviewer and interviewee both needs question and answer. Here I am listed few of them which was asked to me during my interview.

Question 1: what is append and append to?

Answer: for example we have entity A and entity B and want to have entity B lookup on entity A. It could only be possible if we have append permission on Entity A and append to permission Entity B.

Question 2: What is the difference between Workflow, Plugin and Action.

Answer:

Note*: Sync/Async Plugin, Sync Workflow and Action executes within 2 minutes(Maggie Noodles :P)Therefore, Async workflow doesn’t bound with execution time and can wait until time. Hence, wait condition can only be run in Async Workflow.

Question3: What is CDS?

Answer: Definition: We all know CDS stands for Common Data Service, It is set of entities and entities set of records therefore, it is typically a data base which is stored data and metadata(entities and fields schema name and their relationships) of entities in the cloud.

Technical Definition: CDS is the central repository which stores data and meta data for D365 Dynamics products(Retails, Customer Engagements and Sales and while developing a apps it requires data from different source so just to make this process user friendly and ease, we just choose the connector and fetch the data.

Note: CDS is renamed to Microsoft Dataverse and Terminology has been changed like Entity is Table and field is Column and record is row and OptionSet is choice and Two Option is Yes/No

Question 4 : What is the difference between Power Automate and Azure Logic Apps

Answer: Mantra: If you don’t know from where to start then always go for Power Automate.

Question 5: you are member of BU1 and want to ask BU2, How would you do it?(most commonly asked question)

Answer: is by using owner Team, for the owner teams, you can access entities based on the roles assigned to the user plus the roles assigned to the team that a user is member of. This allows a user to have privileges outside their business unit.

Hope it helps.

May Dynamics Power be with you.

Hello Reader,

I am writing this article to tell you about the known issue of date and time in UCI on upgrade from classic to UCI.

Before this, user had reported that button image and entity icon was shown as jigsaw in UCI for that I had written a blog where I elaborated the root cause and solution of it for reference please click here

Problem Statement: Business reported that written custom logic on date and time field is not working fine(One day less or more than expected) and users from different time zone are experiencing incorrect date value in field.

Root Cause: I tried to dig into it and went to the field properties. As we know that we have Format and Behavior for the field. So, In classic we don’t have control to change the behavior of field. it is Date only by default and this is the catch or in another word I would say this is the only root cause of problem. 🙂

when system upgrade from classic to UCI, the date and time field’s behavior becomes to “User Only” which shows data based on User local time.

Earlier mechanism was working on “Date Only” behavior and that’s why the user faced the data inconsistency.

Solution: Now in UCI, we have the flexibility to change the behavior as listed below:

1.User Only(It shows data based on the user time zone{If in case you have question that what is user time zone then it is nothing but your Laptop/Desktop time setting or your dynamics 365 CE personal setting.})

2.Date Only(It displays data from crm data base where it stores time as 12:00 A.M. always or in other words it shows date in UTC format )

3. Time Zone Independent(it is independent from any conversion and will show you the data exactly what is stored in data base.

Note*: In classic, date and time field’s default behavior is “Date Only”.On upgrade and on creation, date and time field behavior sets to “User Only” by default.

In terms of resolution, I have two option to fix it.

1. Make the main form to Time-Zone Independent. Nothing to do with date and time field.
2. Change the behavior of field to Date Only.

And I opted out the 2nd option and change the field behavior as same as in classic which is exactly sorted the problem.

This was challenging for me because I was unaware from the fact which I wrote down in note section.

Bonus Tip : It is advisable that birthday date should have the “Date Only “behavior. If Birthday is being used with time then behavior should be “Time-Zone Independent”

I am hoping that my experience will help you.

May the dynamics power be with you.

Hello Reader,

Hoping you are safe during this pandemic.

Apparently, users are using UCI(Unified Interface) and they had reported couple or the other defects in UCI. Therefore, I had to investigate and need to tell them whether it is UCI or a classic issue and what is the root cause of it.

In my scenario, entire system is working fine in Classic but couple of the things are not performing well in UCI.

Thus, I had to switch it back to classic for the investigation purpose without loosing any configuration and customization.

Fixed Configuration: My organization system setting is settled up for UCI(i.e.End user only will use UCI)

Question raises that how to switch to classic when you can’t loose any existing data,configuration/customization.

Answer is, Just append force classic to true and it will navigate to old school.

Note*: If you find that this tip is not working somehow. Try it incognito mode. Basically there shouldn’t be any browser history. You should start it fresh.

orgurl/main.aspx?forceclassic=1

Hope it helps.

May the dynamics power be with you.

Hello Reader,

Playing with Java Script is common to all Developers and Dynamics 365 Technical Consultant, Therefore, there are some of the tips and trick which should be followed while working with Java Script.

Some of the tips and tricks are listed below :

Tip 1* Create Namespace of Web-Resource: During working with Web-resource, It is a good practice to use Namespace. Sometimes, It becomes big task to investigate error in large and complex Implementation and that too frustrating if it is causing from the silly mistake and took millions of hours for investigation hahaha

One of the reason is, There are same name function in other Web-resources too. So, during compilation calling function gets confused which function to refer to as it is getting multiple references.

Let’s take an Example.

Scenario 1: If Namespace is not defined.

There are three Web-Resources A and B and C, function xyz is written in Web-Resources A and B, Web-Resource C’s function pqr is calling-function xyz,

During compilation function pqr gets confused as there are two different paths to refer. 

function pqr()
{
xyz();
}

Scenario 2: When Name space is defined

a is the namespace of Web resource A, b is the namespace of Web resource B and c is the namespace of Web resource C and taking the same scenario as above xyz function is being called by pqr with no confusion since Namespace is defined and there is only one way to traverse.😊

function pqr()
{
a.xyz();
}

function pqr()
{
b.xyz();
}

Tip 2* One Onload function: Keep all the function in one function, which is being called on-load event of form. It enhances System Performance and takes less time on load.

Page_OnLoad = function () {
mno();
stu();
xvw();
} 

Tip 3* Don’t register On-change Event handler programmatically: According to developer’s choice, Attribute on-change event should be configured on from. Try to avoid writing formContext.getAttribute(arg).addOnChange(function); in java Script.

To Configure follow the below steps:

>>Go to the Field Properties

>>Click on the Events tab(third from last)

>>Register your function.

Tip 4* Have Common Web-resource commonly used function like WebAPI Call: Should have common Web resource ready where you can have all the commonly used function like Web API Calling function for retrieve Multiple and Single Records or retrieve user access based on Security Role.

if (typeof (MSP) == "undefined")
{ MSP= { __namespace: true }; }
MSP.Common = {
    CommonLibrary: function () {
    },
    RetrieveSingleRecord: function (entityName, entityId, columns) {
        var results = null;
        var entityId = entityId.replace("{", "").replace("}", "");
        var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
        req.open("GET", encodeURI(Xrm.Page.context.getClientUrl() + "/api/data/v8.0/" + entityName + "(" + entityId + ")?$select=" + columns + ""), false);
        req.setRequestHeader("OData-MaxVersion", "4.0");
        req.setRequestHeader("OData-Version", "4.0");
        req.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");
        req.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json; charset=utf-8");
        req.setRequestHeader("Prefer", "odata.include-annotations=\"OData.Community.Display.V1.FormattedValue\"");
        req.onreadystatechange = function () {
            if (this.readyState === 4) {
                req.onreadystatechange = null;
                if (this.status === 200) {
                    results = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
                }
                else {
                    results = this.statusText;
                }
            }
        };
        req.send();
        return results;
    },

    RetrieveMultipleRecords: function (entityName, Columns, filter) {
        var results = null;
        var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
        req.open("GET", encodeURI(Xrm.Page.context.getClientUrl() + "/api/data/v8.0/" + entityName + "?$select=" + Columns + "&$filter=" + filter + ""), false);
        req.setRequestHeader("OData-MaxVersion", "4.0");
        req.setRequestHeader("OData-Version", "4.0");
        req.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");
        req.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json; charset=utf-8");
        req.setRequestHeader("Prefer", "odata.include-annotations=\"OData.Community.Display.V1.FormattedValue\"");
        req.onreadystatechange = function () {
            if (this.readyState === 4) {
                req.onreadystatechange = null;
                if (this.status === 200) {
                    results = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
                }
                else {
                    results = this.statusText;
                }
            }
        };
        req.send();
        return results;
    },

    __namespace: true
};

Tip 5* Try avoid to use Global variable: Due to conflict between functions sometimes global variables refers incorrect values which cause error in other function and creates unnecessary pain to developers.

Hope it helps.

May the Dynamics Power be with you!