Month: September 2022

In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… Change the User Experience in a Company from “Essentials” to “Premium”

Ian Grieve2 minute read0 comment

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business CentralThis post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Administration), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

When you create a company with the advanced evaluation with complete sample data, you also need to change the user experience for the new company from Essential to Premium.

To do this, click the Settings cog icon and then click on Company Information:

Dynamics BC homepage wth Settings pane open

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Create a Database Role to Grant Access to Views for Reporting

Ian Grieve3 minute read0 comment

Microsoft SQL ServerToo many times as a consultant I have discovered that users have been grant full access to a database when they only need select permissions on a handful of SQL views or tables. Whenever I create a new SQL view for a client I will create a database role to go with it, as best practice is to only grant the minimum permissions needed.

Below is a script example of creating a database role and then adding a couple of views in with select permissions; tables would be added in exactly the same way.

Once the role has been created you can assign it to any of the users required to have access to the objects to which it is granting access.

-- CREATE ROLE
CREATE ROLE rpt_AZRCRV_Reports
GO

-- ADD SELECT PERMISSIONS FOR VIEWS TO ROLE
GRANT SELECT ON uv_AZRCRV_POReqApprovalStatus TO rpt_AZRCRV_Reports
GRANT SELECT ON uv_AZRCRV_POPOrderApprovalStatus TO rpt_AZRCRV_Reports
GO

A role for stored procedures or function can be created in exactly the same way; the only difference is that you would be assigning EXECUTE permissions instead of SELECT.

In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… Create an Advanced Evaluation Company

Ian Grieve2 minute read0 comment

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business CentralThis post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Backin August I showed how a new company can be created in Dynamic BC and said that there were three types of company which could be created:

New company types

    
	
  1. Evaluation - Sample Data - is a company similar to the demonstration company with both sample and setup data. You can create these companies without switching to a 30-day trial period (which the other types require).
    2. 
	
  2. Production - Setup Data Only - is a company similar to the My Company company with setup data, but without sample data. This company can be used for a 30-day trial period.
    3. 
	
  3. Create New - No Data - a blank company without setup data. This company can be used for a 30-day trial period.
    4.

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Manually Enable Jet Reports on a Terminal Server

Ian Grieve4 minute read0 comment

Jet ReportsI’ve done some work with a client recently who has been a long time user of Jet Reports; they’ve recently merged with another company and needed some of the Jet Reports amended and deployed for the new companies which were added to Dynamics GP. The infrastructure and implementation decisions used by Jet Reports were made well before my involvement and, in some cases, they go against the recommendations of the vendor.

There are two key issues which we encountered rolling Jet Reports out to the new companies. The client does not use the Jet Service Tier which allows you to roll out settings to users from a central service and they have Jet Reports available to users as a published app rather than shared desktop.

The former item means a setup of connections on each client and the latter means this is not a supported configuration ( as mentioned in this article on the Jet Reports knowledge base Jet Reports can only be supported on a shared desktop).

This is something which needs to be discussed with the client, as they should really be operating using a supported method. However, the short term issue is how to get Jet reports available to users.

Usually you’d do this by using the Enable Jet Add-in app on the Windows start menu or launching Jet using the Jet Reports app. In this case, as a published app, the end-user does not have access to the Enable Jet Add-in app and the IT department was resistant to publishing the Jet Reports app.

Instead we were able to get Jet Reports enabled in Excel by adding the add-in manually to Excel.

We did this by launching Excel from the Start menu and selecting (File » options). In the Options window select the Add-ins tab and click the GoManage Excel Add-ins:

Excel Options window

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In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… Change My Role

Ian Grieve1 minute read0 comment

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business CentralThis post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Your role in Dynamics BC determines the default layout of your home screen; it doesn’t affect what you have access to, but what you se.

When you log into Dynamics BC, you will see the home page layout determined by your role:

Dynamics BC home page

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PowerShell Snippets: Prompt for Multiple Inputs

Ian Grieve2 minute read0 comment

PowerShellThis post is part of the series on PowerShell Snippets.

Over the last two posts of this series, I’ve shown PowerShell cmdlets which prompt for user input and prompt for secure entry of passwords. A PowerShell script can prompt for multiple inputs as well as output text to screen.

When I originally posted about the Write-Output cmdlet, I only showed how it could be used to output text; you can also use a couple of parameters with this command to change the foreground or background colour.

The below script example, shows two outputs to screen using these parameters as well as prompting the user to input two pieces of data:

Write-Host "Please enter details of the plugin release" -ForegroundColor Green

$ghRepository = Read-Host "Please enter the repository name"

$ghTag = Read-Host "Please enter the tag"

Write-Host "$ghRepository $ghTag will be released." -ForegroundColor Yellow -BackgroundColor Black

PowerShell Snippets: Prompt User for Password

Ian Grieve2 minute read0 comment

PowerShellThis post is part of the series on PowerShell Snippets.

In this last post, in this series, I showed a PowerShell snippet which would prompt a user for input. This is fine if you are prompting for a username, filename, version tag or similar, but if you are prompting for a password, you would not want to expose to people watching over the users shoulder.

The Read-Host cmdlet has a parameter which will allow for secure prompting of passwords:

$Password = Read-Host "Enter your password" -AsSecureString

Adding the AsSecureString parameter will prompt for the password with a popup input box which obscures the password during entry.

How to Enable the Microsoft SQL Server Database Mail Feature

Ian Grieve2 minute read2 Comments

Microsoft SQL ServerI’ve done work for a few clients recently where I’ve created stored procedures or triggers in SQL Server which needed to send email. One of them was for a Microsoft Dynamics GP client where they wanted to send an email when a PR was converted to PO; sending emails in tis way uses a part of SQL Server called Database Mail.

Database Mail is installed but not configured by default, so using it requires that it be configured. I’ve not done this personally myself until recently when I needed to configure my demo VM to send this type of custom workflow notifications.

To enable Database Mail launch SSMS and connect to the SQL Server. Expand the Management node and right click on Database Mail and select Configure Database Mail:

SSMS Database Mail popup menu

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In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… Add a User in Dynamics BC

Ian Grieve2 minute read0 comment

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business CentralThis post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Once a user has been added in Microsoft 365 we can progress to adding them in Dynamics BC.

To do this click the “Tell me what you want to do” magnifying glass in the top right corner ad type Users. Select Users from the list to open the Users Administration page. When the list of users is displayed, click on Process » Update users from Microsoft 365.:

Users administration list

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Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Business Central Functional Consultant Associate

Ian Grieve2 minute read3 Comments

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business CentralI’ve really only been working with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central a short time, but I am pleased to be able to announce that I have passed the MB-800 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Functional Consultant exam yesterday. With the exam out of the way I can now focus on learning more about Dynamics BC generally and not just the topics required for sitting the exam.

Certificate confirmation

It’s always nice to pass an exam but the real work now starts in earnest.