Formatting Slack Messages from Dynamics365

In creating my messaging application that sent data from Dynamics365 to SLACK, I wanted to get a little fancier and not only send static content but actually embed the link to the actual record with some content to provide context to the user.

I also wanted to do a bit of formatting (bolding and links) which is relatively easy but does not follow HTML notation.  The formatting reference for SLACK is located here.

For my scenario (displaying messages for Leads), I wanted to bold the entity (because this will be used by other ones at some point) and open directly to the record when clicked.

The url format to accomplish this is as follows;

A new *Lead* has been created – <{0}/main.aspx?etc=4&id={1}&pagetype=entityrecord|{2}>

Where the first parameter is my Dynamics tenant, the “etc” value is

Read More

Integrating Dynamics365 with SLACK

On a recent project, we wanted to notify users when new items were added into Dynamics (by third-party systems).  The initial goal was to use email as the delivery mechanism but seeing as how everyone was using SLACK for messaging I decided this would be a better (and much cooler delivery mechanism).

This is my first time working with the Slack API and I have to say it was surprising how easy it was to put together some demo functionality to prove it all out.

First thing you are going to need to do is to create an application.  When you create your application you can then enable features for your application.

For my application, I created two incoming WebHooks that enabled me to post to the my #general channel and send

Read More

The Simplest Dynamics Feature Request

This post is going to have no code and might sound a bit preachy, but I have to get this off my chest because it keeps rearing it’s ugly head.

The new features existing and coming into Dynamics365 are great.  I’ve been spending the last few weeks catching up on some sessions from last year’s Ignite and working with some new features I haven’t had much time for in the past six months.

They are all great and you can see a direction the product is entering.

But here I am, working with a customer to increase their level of adoption with Dynamics inside their company (some rogue groups, it happens, we’ve all been there) and the one thing they ask for…

Can we setup default dashboards for users, groups or teams?

Can we default

Read More

Dynamics365 App Designer – External URLs

I was working with the App Designer this week in Dynamics365 and ran into an issue where I had created a second area in my sitemap but when I went to look in the app itself, I wasn’t able to see it.

If you’re not familiar with where Areas appear in the new Apps view, your second area will show in the bottom left corner (it’s a little hidden but it’s there).

areas.PNG

In my scenario, I had an Area called Tools, but when I went to it I only had one item showing, even though in the designer, I had two and they had all passed validation checks.

Read More

Accessing USD Customization Files

A little known issue that you might see crop up from time to time is when you go to download your zip file from the customizations section of the USD you are immediately presented with an error that the “Record is Unavailable” even though it clearly is.

This can be incredibly painful because sometimes all you need to do is update a configuration and redeploy.usd.PNG

Getting to your file is possible, but requires a few extra steps.

Using Advanced Find, search against the Annotations/Notes that you are looking for (in my case USDQueueControl.zip.

Read More