The Microsoft Power Platform

Day 1-3: Customizing Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE

Introduction to the Microsoft Power Platform

The Power Platform is a powerful combination of tools that allow you to build business applications to store, process and share your data. This chapter will show you how the Power Platform is built, explain the licensing system and give you an overview of what is possible.

• The past: Dynamics CRM
• From Dynamics CRM to Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement, The Common Data Model and Model-Driven Apps
• Overview of the Microsoft Power Platform
• Introduction to Microsoft Dataverse
• The Common Data Model
• Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Services, ... as model-driven apps on Microsoft Dataverse

Overview of Model-Driven Apps/Dynamics 365

Before model-driven apps can be created, a environment with a Microsoft Dataverse database must be provisioned. This chapter introduces the concept of an environment and what role it plays in the creating, manage and deployment of model-driven apps. Students are also provided with a quick overview of the look and feel that every model-driven app has and the common functionality of model-driven apps

• Creating and working with environments
• The relationship between environments and Microsoft Dataverse
• Navigating and using a model-driven app

Working with Solutions

Solutions are used by customizers and developers to package related customizations together so that they can be managed and deployed as a single unit. We will see what components can be added to a solution and how they are essentially the building blocks of your environment.

• Introduction to customizing Model-Driven Apps
• Working with Publishers and Solutions
• Difference between Managed and Unmanaged Solutions
• Adding components to your solutions
• Working with managed properties
• Importing and Exporting Solutions
• Versioning solutions
• LAB: Working with Solutions

Creating model-driven apps

Model-driven apps are the building block of any business solution. For instance, we could create our own "event management" app. The app will group together everything our user needs from Microsoft Dataverse and the components we have built.

• Concepts of a model-driven app
• The structure of a Site Map
• Creating a Site Map for an app
• Creating apps with the App Designer
• Navigating between apps
• Managing apps in Solutions
• Preview: the modern app designer
• Introducing XrmToolBox
• LAB: Creating model-driven apps

Creating and customizing Tables

Table are used to model and store business data in a model-driven apps. Conceptually they are like tables in a relational database. Microsoft Dataverse defines quite some build-in tables like contact, account,... but almost always customizers will have to create new tables. In this chapter you will learn all aspects of how to create new tables.

• Creating and configuring tables in Microsoft Dataverse
• The default table columns
• Creating custom Activity Tables
• LAB: Creating and configuring Tables

Managing Relationships

Just like accounts and contacts have relationships in Microsoft Dataverse, we can provide relationships for our own tables. You will learn what types of relationships are possible and how to configure them.

• Plan, create, and configure Table Relationships
• Creating and using relationships - 1:N, N:N
• Connections and Connection Roles
• Defining self-referential relationships
• Defining hierarchy visualizations
• Creating polymorphic or multi-table relationships
• LAB: Managing relationships

Creating and customizing Columns

Columns define the individual data items that can be used to store data in a table. Columns are sometimes also called fields or attributes

• Adding custom Columns to Tables
• Supported column data types
• Working with File and Image data types
• Working with Lookups
• Preview: creating multi-table or polymorphic Lookups
• The Choice and Choices data types
• Using the Status and Status Reason columns
• Defining Alternate Keys for a Table
• Importing rows in tables using Dataflows
• Aggregating data with Rollup Columns
• Calculate data based on other column with Calculated Columns
• LAB: Creating columns

Customizing Forms

Forms are used to visualize table rows. In this module you will learn about the different Form Types and how to create or customize forms using the Form Designer.

• Define the structure of Forms
• How to add, remove or modify the components of a Form using the Form Designer
• Placing image column on Forms
• Configure and use Quick Create, Quick View and Card Forms
• Working with custom components
• Embedding Canvas apps in a Form
• LAB: Creating and configuring Forms

Creating and using Views

Offer the data needed for different scenario's with views. With a view, we can either look at all table rows, or we could apply some filtering, sorting, etc.

• Examine the different types of system, public and personal Views
• Create new public views and modify existing Views
• Configure quick find, advanced find and associated Views
• Configure views with custom controls like the Editable grid, Calendar Control,...
• LAB: Creating and configuring views

Day 4 AM: Working with Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, Marketing and Field Services

Manage customers, leads and opportunities with Dynamics 365 Sales

In this module, you will learn how to manage customer data records, use built-in sales tools, and take a lead through the lead lifecycle.

• Manage leads with Dynamics 365 Sales
• Manage opportunities with Dynamics 365 Sales
• Lab: Manage customers

Case Management with Dynamics 365 Customer Service

In this module you will learn how to open and resolve customer service cases, both manually and with automation.

• Case management overview
• Creating case records
• Queue management
• Case routing
• Resolving cases

Introducing Dynamics 365 Marketing

In this module, you will learn about setting up your Marketing instance and configuring advanced settings.

• Set up and manage Dynamics 365 Marketing
• Create and manage segments
• Create marketing emails
• Create customer journeys

Introducing Dynamics 365 Field Service

In this introductory module, we will introduce key concepts of Dynamics 365 Field Service,

• Introduction to Dynamics 365 Field Service
• Defining products and services
• Scheduling services

Day 4 PM: Power Apps and Power Automate

Building Canvas Apps with Power Apps

In this module, we'll explore the capabilities when building a canvas app using Power Apps Studio. It also introduces students to PowerFX, an open source formula language that allows app makers to add logic to Power Apps. The participants will get familiar with connecting to data sources, creating pages, adding controls, bindings, behavior, ...

Topics:

• Creating Canvas Apps with Power Apps Studio
• Working with connections
• Adding Screens and Screen Controls
• Working with Galleries
• Introduction to Forms
• Working with PowerFX
• LAB - Customizing a Canvas App

Building Flows with Power Automate

In this module, the participants will learn how to build and customize basic flows, either starting from a template or from scratch. We will see how to use Teams, SharePoint, Exchange and other types of connectors in a Flow.

Topics:

• Building flows from Templates or from Blank
• Start a flow when something happens with Automatic triggers
• Start a flow with the push of a button or for a selected item with Manual triggers
• Run a flow on a schedule with a Scheduled trigger
• Flow action connection basics
• Adding a simple condition
• Monitoring Flows and fixing errors
• LAB - Building Custom Flows

Day 5: Analyzing your data with Power BI

Introduction to Power BI

This module introduces the fundamental concepts of the Power BI platform. It provides a high level overview of Power BI Desktop and the Power BI Cloud Service. Participants will also setup a trial Office 365 subscription which will be used throughout the course when publishing and sharing Power BI artifacts.

• The need for Business Intelligence
• Self-Service BI versus Enterprise BI
• Core concepts of Power BI
• Introducing Power BI Desktop
• Introducing the Power BI Service
• Power BI Service Tiers and Features

Loading Data with Power BI Desktop

In this chapter you will learn how to create queries in Power BI Desktop to extract data from source systems like SQL Server, Oracle, Excel files, CSV files, and so on. Applying transformations that can filter, sort and clean the extracted data will also be covered.

• Core concepts of Power Query
• Creating Queries to load data
• Applying basic transformations
• Working with Direct Query
• LAB: Creating queries with Power BI Desktop

Introduction to the Power BI Service

If you want to share models and reports with you co-workers, you should upload them to the Power BI service. In this module you will learn about the general features of the Power BI service, the next modules dive into the details.

• What is the Power BI Service?
• Power BI Service pricing and features
• Working with Datasets and Reports
• Creating and using Workspaces
• LAB: Introduction to the Power BI Service