Author Archives: Joel

SAGlobal at AXUG Summit

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I wanted to highlight some of my partners in crime presenting at AXUG/D365UG Summit next week. (Ok to be honest I wanted to highlight myself as well.)

BI12 | Moving From Reports to Business Intelligence

I won’t take Excel away until you’re ready. Promise.

https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/Summit/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=FullD365UG_AXUG&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=423650

Joel Leichty | Tuesday, October 16 | 9:45 AM – 10:45 AM | 122A – North

FIN01 | Fixed Price Projects, and Revenue Recognition, and Currencies, Oh My!

Josh is juggling in the session picture – I can only assume he will do this entire session while juggling flaming knives.

https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/Summit/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=FullD365UG_AXUG&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=423657

Josh Knox | Tuesday, October 16 | 9:45 AM – 10:45 AM | 121C – North

PM01 | Data Migration: Isn’t it Just Exporting and Importing?

Sherry won a big AXUG award last year, so I’ll retitle this session “Award Winning Data Migration Information”.

https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/Summit/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=FullD365UG_AXUG&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=423645

Sherry Moran | Tuesday, October 16 | 9:45 AM – 10:45 AM | 121A – North

BI14 | Collecting BI Requirements for an Upgrade or Implementation

I’m co-presenting with Gina Pabalan on this presentation. Fun fact: Gina and I didn’t know each other until we started collaborating for this session. That’s my favorite part of AXUG!

https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/Summit/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=FullD365UG_AXUG&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=423684

Joel Leichty and Gina Pabalan (Edgerwater Fullscope) | Tuesday, October 16 | 1:15 PM – 2:15 PM | 122A – North

FIN03 | Everything About Streamlining Your Project Intercompany Transactions

Should be a good one. And how many presenters do you know that can rock orange pants?

https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/Summit/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=FullD365UG_AXUG&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=423671

Alex Song | Tuesday, October 16 | 1:15 PM – 2:15 PM | 121C – North

APS33 | SAGlobal “Ask Us Anything”

Come to our Partner Showcase where we promise to not sell you anything! Bring your questions, we’ll have experts on hand to answer anything: F&O, AX, CRM, Talent, Power BI, baking at higher altitudes, average airspeed of unladen swallows – we’ll do our best!

https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/Summit/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=FullD365UG_AXUG&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=424349

Wednesday, October 17 | 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM | 125A – North

IND02 | Member Showcase: Implementing Dynamics 365 for Talent

See how our customer, M3, is using Talent.

https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/Summit/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=FullD365UG_AXUG&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=423713

Nancy Graver and Trish Mallon (M3) | Wednesday, October 17 | 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM | 126A – North

IND03 | Project Budgeting for the Service and AEC Industries

Budget your time wisely (#dadjokes) and attend Steve’s project budgeting session.

https://www.eventscribe.com/2018/Summit/fsPopup.asp?embedded=true&pfp=FullD365UG_AXUG&Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=423724

Steve Dobbs | Wednesday, October 17 | 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM | 126A – North

Platform 20 Brings Significant UI Changes to Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations

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Platform 20 was recently released and includes a number of noticeable changes to the User Interface; this article will highlight some of the significant changes. Overall, these changes are a welcome incremental improvement to some common usability issues.

Workspaces

Workspaces on the Default Dashboard are set apart from the background, making it more obvious they are buttons.

Old Button
2018-09-24_11-45-46.png

New Button
2018-09-24_11-46-12.png

Font Changes

Header fonts are bolder and use a heavier font than before.

Old Fonts
2018-09-24_11-53-42.png

New Fonts
2018-09-24_11-53-01.png

Ribbon Bar Color

Ribbon bar is now a more neutral color to better indicate the buttons are related to the form below.

Old Coloring
2018-09-24_12-01-01.png

New Coloring
2018-09-24_12-01-40.png

Fact Boxes

Opening the Fact Boxes went from an impossible to discover button to a “Related information” slide-out.

Old Button
2018-09-24_12-06-01.png

New Slide-out
2018-09-24_12-06-42.png

Filter Drop-down

The grid filter drop-down and filter pane have been reorganized and enhanced.

Old Drop-down
2018-09-24_12-10-46.png

New Drop-down and Filter pane
2018-09-24_12-08-45.png

2018-09-24_12-22-56.png

Filter Slide-out Blends into Form

The filter slide out has new fonts, coloring that better blends into the form, and more obvious link indicators.

Old Filter Slide-out
2018-09-24_12-32-17.png

New Filter Slide-out
2018-09-24_12-31-33.png

Edit Icon When Form in Read-only Mode

There’s now an edit icon on each field when a form is in read-only mode. This makes it more obvious for users to switch the form into edit mode.

2018-09-24_12-14-33.png

Subtle Field Outlines in Read-only Mode

Field boxes in detail forms are more subtle when in Read-only mode. Edit mode is similar to the prior design.

2018-09-24_12-17-14.png

Implement BI With These 394 Simple Steps

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There’s a famous Nobel Prize winning study in psychology around Experience versus Confidence that is commonly known as the “Dunning-Kruger” effect. The study showed when we know a little bit about a topic, we initially rate our confidence level extremely high. As we attain intermediate experience, our confidence level dips way down. Then as we actually attain expertise, our confidence goes back up, but never quite as high as it originally was.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

I’ve certainly felt this way in many areas of my work and personal life. One of my hobbies is photography; it seems like many times the more photos I take, the lower my confidence level gets. It’s an odd and frustrating feeling.

Sunset from 2012
Sunset from 2017

2012 vs 2017. Maybe I’m improving?

Hello? The Title of this Post Mentioned BI?

About a year ago I was asked by SAGlobal to head up our Business Intelligence and Reporting group. “Great,” I thought. Grab some data, sprinkle in some Power BI, drill down-through-over-beyond, and let our praises be sung. Confidence level: 100%.

Then that dreaded Experience took over and started to teach me that perhaps there are additional lessons to learn.

Technology Versus Decision Making

Experience taught me that all the pretty graphs, data, and fancy user experiences are simultaneously important and irrelevant. There’s a lot of complexity that can be introduced around methodologies, user stories, maturity models, metrics, technologies, data science, and machine learning.

What really matters is how can businesses make more accurate, faster, and fact-based decisions? In other words, how can BI and Reporting improve the bottom line?

Many times the decision making process is buried in the hearts and minds of the people in the business. Turning soft intuitions and feelings into hard metrics and performance indicators is a process that’s longer term than just developing any single report. The most underrated part of a Business Intelligence solution is extracting the intelligence from the business.

Help Companies Make Better Decisions

Organizations may go through their own Dunning-Kruger lifecycle when it comes to Business Intelligence. Initially they see the latest and greatest tools, and Confidence is at 100%. Experience goes up, and there may be a drop in Confidence around their progress. Over time, key concepts and ideas are visualized in ways used to take a human to analyze and the Confidence goes sky high.

If the decision making process sounds intriguing to you, or fits someone you know, check out our BI Business Analyst job ad on LinkedIn. We’re hiring, and I’m 100% Confident you’ll love it.

AXUG Summit | Deep Dive Into D356FO Reporting

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Scott has a great opening slide for this deep-dive reporting session:


It’s so true that many times BI is described in terms of the final output, but much of the work goes into building the underlying data model. For D365FO, data for high volume transactional reporting is exported to an “Entity store” or “BYOD” database.

Entity Store – A Data Warehouse that Microsoft Manages

The Entity store is a repository for reporting aggegated data. Power BI using Direct Query is the only mechanism to report off Entity store data.

Power BI Embedded in Workspaces is only available using the Entity store.

Bring Your Own Database – A Data Warehouse the You Manage

The alternative to the Entity store is using the Data Management framework to extract denormalized data into an Azure SQL database in your Azure subscription. One of the primary advantages of BYOD is more flexible than the Entity store.

Data tools possible with BYOD:

  • Power BI using Direct Query or Import
  • SSAS Cubes
  • Consuming data from systems other than D365FO
  • Third party data tools

Reporting tools possible with BYOD:

  • Power BI
  • SSRS
  • Third party reporting tools

Summary

Great session providing a deeper dive into the technical details of using the new D365FO tools. Reporting is a complicated but critical area to understand for any D365FO implementation.

 

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