Interesting integration scenarios for Dynamics 365

The release of Dynamics 365, along with the general availability of Microsoft Flow, Power Apps with CDM(Common Data Model), and the vast range of Azure services have opened up a whole new world of integrated solutions.

I will go through the following 3 scenarios to show case the integration possibilities for Dynamics 365. This blog will only discuss the architecture of the solution, not the actual implementation. The aim of this blog is highlight the solution possibilities using Dynamics 365 and Azure cloud.

Integration of Dynamic 365 with Power apps

Technologies used

• Dynamics CRM 365
• Microsoft Flow
• Common Data Model (Part of Power Apps)
• Power Apps
• PowerBI

Solution Overview

The following depicts the solution architecture of Dynamics 365 and PowerApps.

Steps

1. A record is created/updated in Dynamics 365 which triggers Microsoft Flow workflows to create/Update the record in CDM.
2. The PowerApps’s mobile app connected to CDM presents the data to end users.
3. The end users read,create or update the data on the mobile app.
4. The changes are saved in CDM that triggers the Microsoft Flow workflows to create/update the data in Dynamics 365.

The data in CDM can be used by PoweBI for analytics. You can also add the data into CDM from different sources to get the consolidated view of the data.

Integration of Dynamics 365 with Microsoft Bot framework

Technologies used

• Dynamics CRM 365
• Microsoft Flow
• SharePoint Online
• Azure Storage
• Azure SQL database
• Azure Search
• Cognitive Services
• Microsoft Bot Framework
• Skype.

Solution Overview

I am very impressed with this solution. This scenarios depicts the business process of an insurance company where users have applied for the policy online. The business process workflow creates profiles in Dynamics 365 and stores the customer application in SharePoint Online.

A Microsoft Flow workflow will push structured data into the Azure SQL Database and the unstructured data into Azure Blobs.

Azure Search crawls the data at regular intervals and keeps it current for querying.

End users interact with the Bot application using Skype. The Bot application processes the user requests without any human interaction using cognitive services.

The whole solution is taken from the following blog:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/magazine/mt788623. Please check the blog for solution details.

The following depicts the architecture of the solution. The diagram is taken from the same blog.

Integration of Dynamics 365 with Azure Search (Relevance Search)

Technologies used

• Dynamics CRM 365
• Event Hub
• Azure Search

Solution Overview

This solution is a preview feature available in Dynamics 365 named “Relevance Search”. Relevance search delivers fast and comprehensive search results in a single list sorted by relevance. It is designed to boost Dynamics 365.

All this information is available at TechNet.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt723654.aspx#BKMK_Architecture

The following diagram depicts the solution architecture of the relevance search. The diagram is taken from the Microsoft TechNet site

CRM and Microsoft Flow

This blog is about the new Microsoft Product named Microsoft Flow. A few days ago my colleague told me about Microsoft Flow and my initial reaction was wow, that is cool.

What is Microsoft Flow?

It is preview product that helps you setup automated workflows between different apps.  It can create records, sync files and get notifications etc.. There are a lot of templates available. It supports a wide collection of applications like CRM online, SharePoint Online, Office 365, OneDrive, Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox and even Salesforce and many more.
Check the following link for more information and templates.
https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/

Setting up a CRM and Twitter integration workflow using Microsoft Flow

As a CRM guy, I wanted to test some of the CRM templates. There are 7 sample templates available for CRM. I tried the "Create Dynamics Leads based on tweets” template.
Here are all the steps.

Go to https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/

Search for CRM templates and choose Create Dynamics Leads based on tweets.

The template will display the permission(login) screen for Twitter and CRM and add the connection details and click Continue.

The template will display the details of the workflow. It has 3 main parts as shown in the screenshot.

In the first part, add the query text to look for in new tweets.I have used CreateCRMLead.

We don’t have to change anything in the second step. The Get User steps is shown in the following screenshot.

In the next step, change the organisation name to your organisation name and click Create Flow

The wizard will display the Done button on next screen.

You can see your workflow under “My Workflows” as shown in the screenshot.

Testing the workflow

Logon to your twitter account and tweet with the word CreateCRMLead (or whatever query text you used above) in it.

Check in the CRM after a few seconds, there will be a new lead as shown in the screenshot.


It will also add some more information in the description field of the lead.

Monitoring the workflow

You can check the how your workflow is performing from the Microsoft Flow site as shown in the screenshot by clicking on “I” next to the workflow.