Category: Power Automate

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2.

The tenth of the new functionality in the Adapt faster with Power Platform section is Create Power Automate flows that dynamically support different companies.

Building Power Automate flows that are easily portable and work with multiple companies helps partners and consultants use Power Platform when adapting Business Central to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Sep 2023
General Availability: Oct 2023

Feature Details

This feature provides the following capabilities to Power Automate makers as they create or edit flows:

• Access to a list of API categories and APIs/tables in all actions—without even specifying a company.
• Edit the corresponding flow steps with all metadata details even though no company was provided.
• Use of Dataverse environment variables for environments and companies.
• Support for application lifecycle management (ALM) with Dataverse environment variables in AL-Go for GitHub.
• Use a standard variable for company ID and make flows that can run in the context of different companies.
• Use the output of the new List Companies action to perform actions or read data across companies.

My Opinion

I need to do some exploring of the new features outlined above, but on the surface they sound like they will be very useful.

The first item, access to the list of API categories and tables without selecting a company will resolve an irritation, where at present you have to explicitly select the environment and company to see the lists. This is annoying for a flow which could be run against any company, meaning you need to pick the environment and company to select from the API and then remove them and set back to the variables. This change means this won’t need to be done.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2.

The ninth of the new functionality in the Adapt faster with Power Platform section is Simplified Power Automate approval flow experience.

Approving documents or data changes in a modern company must be straightforward. Microsoft listen to feedback and continue to improve this area, making sure this experience matches business users’ expectations.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Sep 2023
General Availability: Oct 2023

Feature Details

In the previous release, Microsoft have introduced several new templates and a simplified approval experience based on Power Automate. With this wave, Microsoft have improved this area by introducing several new changes:

• Microsoft automatically set the environment and company in approval templates so that the user doesn’t need to choose those every time.
• Microsoft have added the requestor to the request for approval and confirmation emails, making it clear who requested and who approved the change.
• The Approval step in Microsoft’s templates now includes “Requested by” to indicate the proper requestor.
• Correctly handle the “cancel approval request” decision on the Power Automate side.
• An optional adaptive card can be posted to a chosen Teams channel (or user) with information that a given document was approved.

My Opinion

These changes all look to be very useful ones. I’ve been doing work with some clients recently on approval workflows from Business Central and these changes will be useful as we move forward into the build phase for the project.

The fourth item in the list looks particularly important to make sure that data isn’t corrupted, while the second and third expose additional information to the approval requests.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2.

The eighth of the new functionality in the Adapt faster with Power Platform section is Get list of companies using Business Central connector in Power Automate.

More often, customers and partners are trying to instrument workflows working across companies in Business Central, but they’re blocked. Having an action in the Business Central connector that retrieves a list of companies in Business Central unblocks these customers and partners, providing greater flexibility for executing flows across multiple companies.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Sep 2023
General Availability: Oct 2023

Feature Details

With this new action in a workflow, you can get all Business Central companies available in a given environment and then either iterate through them all or find a specific one.

This capability enables the creation of more dynamic workflows that function seamlessly across different companies.

Continue reading “New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2: Get List of Companies Using Business Central Connector in Power Automate”

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2.

The seventh of the new functionality in the Adapt faster with Power Platform section is Consolidated Power Automate flow creation from Business Central templates.

It’s essential that all Power Automate integration capabilities and sample templates are clearly defined, marked, and visible in the product so that decision makers can use them effectively when needed.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Sep 2023
General Availability: Oct 2023

Feature Details

This feature in Business Central provides advanced users with a single entry point to create flows based on templates. New actions have been added to enable flow creation in the following categories:

• Defining an approval request workflow if the page supports it. This was previously available as an application action but was difficult to find.
• Creating an automated background flow (for instance, flows based on external business events). Prior to this addition, such automations were only possible in Power Automate, and there were no Business Central templates supporting them.
• Creating a manual or instant flow. While this capability existed before, several new templates have been added to expand its functionality.

Microsoft also added several new automated and instant flow templates to their gallery.

Learn more about Business Central and Power Automate integration at Workflows in Dynamics 365 Business Central.

My Opinion

I’ve started working with Power Automate recently and I think this will be a good change which will make creating flows easier.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2.

The second of the new functionality in the Adapt faster with Power Platform section is support business events in Business Central connector for Power Automate.

During 2023 release wave 1, the new external business events feature was introduced as a preview in the platform, enabling robust and extendable integration scenarios. Adding the same capability directly to the Business Central connector opens up more possibilities for Power Automate flows and Azure Logic Apps to react on events precisely when and how the developer intended.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Jul 2023
General Availability: Oct 2023

Feature Details

With this release, building flows that react to specific business events in Business Central (version 22.2 and later) is now possible. This feature enables users and makers to hook flows to specific business events raised by Business Central (version 22.2 and later), or even events built by partners who added business event code into their applications.

To support this functionality, we’ve added a Business Central connector trigger called When a business event occurs (preview). The trigger has the following characteristics:

• It immediately reacts to any business event raised in a selected environment.
• It reacts to events in a specific named company or in any company in that environment.
• It provides the creator with more context to build the flow logic upon, like environment, company ID and company name, initiating user ID (which is the Azure AD user ID), and everything included in the specific business event payload.
• It reacts on multiple events at once, even in parallel, letting Power Automate deal with concurrency.

For more information about business events in Business Central, visit Business events on Business Central.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2.

The first of the new functionality in the Adapt faster with Power Platform section is change modification limits for triggering flows and bulk updates.

Processing large datasets in Power Automate or triggering automation when multiple rows have been updated works smoothly, even for larger updates.

Enabled for: Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically
Public Preview: Jul 2023
General Availability: Oct 2023

Feature Details

Until now, there was a limit of 100 rows in the way that Power Automate flows and Dataverse virtual tables were triggered when multiple rows were changed during a short period of time. This limit may have caused your Power Automate flows to stop reacting to certain rapid changes in data. We’ve now changed the limit from 100 to 1,000, opening up for more advanced scenarios.

My Opinion

I’ve not really had anything to do with Power Automate (in general or with Business Central) as that side of things has, so far, been dealt with by another team, but this seems a reasonable change.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1.

The sixth of the new functionality in the Adapt faster with Microsoft Power Platform section is Use Power Automate To Post Adaptive Card Or Link To Business Central Record.

Being able to blend Power Automate flows into conversations in Microsoft Teams allows for enriching conversations with useful insights.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Apr 2023
General Availability: Jun 2023

Feature Details

Microsoft have introduced two new actions in the Business Central connector for Power Automate, which are only avaiable in the cloud offering:

Get URL

• Generates a web client URL to a record.
• Requires standard parameters like environment, company, system ID, and the ID of the page that will be referenced in the URL.
• The generated URL can be used with the Get Adaptive Card action described in the next section.
• Enables scenarios in products such as Outlook and Teams where a clickable URL to a specific record in Business Central is needed. For example, you want to send an email to a colleague with actionable information and a link to a Business Central record.

Get Adaptive Card

• Creates an adaptive card for a provided URL. The card is delivered as a payload to be used with a Teams connector or elsewhere.
• Reuses the adaptive card layout, content, and customizations known from the main product.
• Respects the user permissions while accessing card details.
• Enables more scenarios for integration with Teams where a rich card displaying a Business Central record is needed. For example, you want to post information and a link to a new sales order to an internal Teams channel.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1.

The fifth of the new functionality in the Adapt faster with Microsoft Power Platform section is Remove Modification Limits For Triggering Flows.

Processing large datasets in Power Automate or triggering automation when multiple rows have been updated works smoothly, regardless of a business’s size. Removing limitations was the idea behind this feature.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Apr 2023
General Availability: Jun 2023

Feature Details

Until now, there were limits to the way that Power Automate flows and Dataverse Virtual Tables were triggered when multiple rows were changed during a short period of time. Microsoft have removed those limits, and updated the way the Power Automate connector communicates with the Business Central API layer to open up for more advanced scenarios.

My Opinion

While admittedly now with Dynamics BC, I’ve worked with a few clients who have had a lot of problems due to the volume of approvals which need to be processed, so it is good to see that improvements are being made around it and approvals with Power Automate.

This post is part of the New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1 series in which I am taking a look at the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1.

The third of the new functionality in the Adapt faster with Microsoft Power Platform section is New Approval Workflow Experience With Power Automate Templates.

Advanced and flexible approval workflows don’t need to be complex. Business owners or decision makers can choose from multiple templates when they set up approval workflows in Business Central.

Enabled for: Users, automatically
Public Preview: Mar 2023
General Availability: Apr 2023

Feature Details

Business Central online customers who use Power Automate to run document approval workflows are able to do so easily with this release. Several actions linked to workflow approvals and Power Automate have been improved with additional support for selecting one of many templates for each document type. Users and decisions makers can use Power Automate to run approval and take advantage of the rich experience:

• Define workflows tied to a selected Business Central environment and company.
• Approve documents using mobile devices.
• Approve documents using Microsoft Teams.
• Support a chain of approvers and additional input.

Continue reading “New Functionality In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1: New Approval Workflow Experience With Power Automate Templates”