Extending Microsoft Business Central with Power Platform E-Book

Kim Congleton

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 332

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Unlock the untapped potential of Business Central by harnessing the power of the Power Platform with this comprehensive guide, transforming your cumbersome manual processes and limited customization capabilities into a vast array of extended functionalities and possibilities.
You’ll begin by exploring the potential of Power Platform and its seamless integration with both the on-premises and cloud versions of Business Central, amplifying the capabilities of your business operations. You’ll then learn how to set up virtual tables and use Dataverse to create a simple model-driven app. As the book progresses, you’ll leverage Power Apps, including both Canvas apps and model-driven apps, to build apps around Business Central processes. The book also highlights Power Automate’s capabilities to create or modify business processes while incorporating new processes and automation. As you advance, you’ll connect to Business Central APIs that can be implemented to connect with Business Central Data and finally integrate Power BI natively with Business Central, empowering you to construct advanced reports and dashboards.
With the hands-on experience gained throughout the book, you’ll build expertise in customizing Business Central with Power Platform to deliver more scalable and maintainable solutions.

Leseprobe

Extending Microsoft Business Central with Power Platform

Leverage Power Platform to create scalable Business Central solutions with high business value

Kim Congleton

Shawn Sissenwein

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Extending Microsoft Business Central with Power Platform

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To my mother, for teaching me to think creatively. To Cherie, for putting up with all the long hours working on this book on top of everything else and for always encouraging and supporting me. To Ms. Belinda Allen, for all of your support, encouragement, and mentorship. You are the true definition of a mentor, and we are so grateful to have you as ours!

– Kim Congleton

To my parents; thank you for always pushing me to be the best version of myself and standing by me through thick and thin. Your unwavering belief in my abilities has driven this book, and I am forever grateful for your love and encouragement.

To my husband, Derek; you have been my rock and biggest cheerleader throughout this journey. I couldn’t have asked for a better life partner, and your presence makes every achievement more meaningful.

As I reflect on the completion of this book, my heart is filled with immense love and pride. I am humbled by the profound impact that being a mom has had on my life. To my incredible children, Ash and Alyssa; you are my greatest source of inspiration. Your presence has given me the strength and motivation to pursue my dreams.

And to you, Ms. Belinda Allen; I want to echo Kim’s sentiments and express my heartfelt gratitude for your guidance and wisdom. Your belief in my potential kept me striving for excellence. Your mentorship has been invaluable, and I am deeply thankful for your impact on my journey.

– Shawn Sissenwein

Contributors

About the authors

Kim Congleton is a Microsoft Certified Professional and started her technology career over 25 years ago. She fell in love with technology at an early age when her mother gave her a book on programming with DOS 2.0. Ever since then, she has been learning technologies in order to build solutions for people and companies. She has been a system analyst, developer, solution architect, consultant, chief operations officer, and chief technology officer. She began her journey with Microsoft Navision on version 4.0 and quickly fell in love with ERP systems. Her passion is using technology to solve complex problems as simply as possible. She is a NAVUG All-Star and has presented at numerous Microsoft and user group conferences. The Power Platform has given her the opportunity to become a true citizen developer and do that.

Shawn Sissenwein is a Microsoft Certified Professional and works as a solution architect. With over 20 years of experience in the NAV and Business Central space, Shawn has developed a deep understanding of the platform and its capabilities. Her primary role revolves around architecting and developing solutions that enable organizations to optimize their operations and achieve their business goals. With over a decade of experience in international projects and organizations, Shawn has honed her ability to understand and adapt to different business environments and cultural nuances. Shawn’s ability to navigate cultural differences has been vital in delivering successful implementations for multinational clients. Passionate about continuous learning, Shawn keeps up to date with the latest advancements and best practices in the NAV, Business Central, and Power Platform space. Shawn brings valuable insights through speaking engagements, fostering collaboration and networking among industry peers.

About the reviewers

Stefano Demiliani is a Microsoft MVP on Azure and business applications, an MCT, a CTO, an Azure solution architect, and a long-time expert on different Microsoft technologies. He’s an official trainer for Microsoft IT and WE and has been a speaker at many international conferences.

He has worked with Packt Publishing on many IT books, and he’s the author of some of the most successful books in the Microsoft Dynamics world.

Steven Renders is a trainer/consultant with skills spanning business and technical domains, with more than 20 years of experience. He provides training and consultancy focused on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Power BI.

Steven is a partner at Plataan, Companial, based in Belgium. Plataan is a leading offline and online learning company. It helps organizations and individuals excel through learning and training programs.

On January 1, 2016, Steven received the Microsoft® MVP award. This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high-quality, real-world expertise with others.

Steven is the author of the following books:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009: Professional ReportingMicrosoft Dynamics NAV 2015: Professional Reporting

His specialties include Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and business intelligence and reporting.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1 – Part Fundamentals

1

Business Central and Power Platform – Better Together

Technical requirements

How Business Central and Power Platform are better together

Setting up your development environment

Business use case – the K&S Solutions Inc. company

The Business Central and Power Platform ecosystem

Power Pages

Power Virtual Agents

Power Automate

Power Apps

Summary

2

Getting to Know Business Central APIs

Technical requirements

An introduction to Business Central APIs

How to connect to Business Central APIs

Configuring Azure Active Directory for OAuth use with Postman and Business Central

Adding API permissions

Creating your first GET request in Postman

Exercise 2.1 – using Postman to call an API in Business Central

What are the limits of working with APIs?

Tips and tricks to work with APIs and Business Central

Summary

3

Connecting to Business Central in the Cloud and On-Premises

Key differences between connecting to Business Central versus on-premises

Connecting to Business Central on-premises

Connecting to Business Central in the cloud

Building a Power Automate flow

Summary

4

Working with Virtual Tables and Dataverse

Technical requirements

Introduction to Microsoft Dataverse

Setting up a Power Platform environment

Creating a new table in Dataverse

Integration between Dataverse and Business Central

Understanding virtual tables

Virtual tables – key benefits

Virtual table restrictions and limitations

Setting up virtual tables

Creating a model-driven app

Building the model-driven app

Summary

Further reading

Part 2 – Doing the Work of Designing, Building, and Implementing

5

Best Practices for Building Power Apps for Business Central

Technical requirements

Exercise for creating the Contact canvas app

Citizen developers versus pro developers

Different types of Power Apps and deciding which type of app to create

Data sources and their different types

Repeatable components

Reference apps

Fluent Theme Designer

How to import components

Creating a canvas app

Customizing fields, labels, and descriptions

Summary

Further reading

6

Building Flows for Business Central

Technical requirements

Well-documented business process flows

Triggers and actions for Power Automate

Exercise – creating a flow for a new vendor

Building a Power Automate flow from scratch

Using a Business Event in a Power Automate flow

Inserting a record into BC using Power Automate

Advanced Power Automate setups

Best practices

Summary

7

Delivering Solutions

ALM for admin, citizen, and pro developers

Environment overview

Solutions

Types of solutions

Solution components

Creating solutions

Summary

Further reading

Part 3 – Common Business Cases in Business Central for the Power Platform

8

Automating Approvals and Reducing Manual Business Processes

Technical requirements

Setting up approvals in Business Central

Configuring your environment for approvals

Importing users into Business Central

Configuring the approval process in Business Central

Setting up Power Automate integration

How to enable Power Automate in Business Central by user

How to enable Power Automate permission in Business Central by user(s)

Exercise for setting up purchase approvals using a Power Automate template

Common troubleshooting tips for approvals

Summary

9

Connecting Power BI for Business Central Data

Technical requirements

Exercise for creating a Power BI report and dashboard

Enabling Power BI reports within Business Central

Adding additional Power BI reports to the Business Central home screen

Connecting to data in Power BI using out-of-the-box APIs

Reviewing different visuals and publishing reports

Power BI visuals

Power BI report editor

Publishing the report

Dashboard

Summary

Further reading

10

Extending Functionality by Using Several Power Platform Solutions

Extending functionality in Business Central using several Power Platform solutions

Case study – creating a Power Apps app from Power BI Desktop

Case study – a new item setup

Creating a solution

Best practices to extend functionality in BC using several Power Platform solutions

Summary

Part 4 – Tips and Tricks for Common Issues

11

User Adoption and Licensing Mapping Guide

User adoption

Envision

Onboarding

Scale

Adoption best practices

Power Platform Maturity Model

Microsoft 365 plans and licensing

The Microsoft 365 admin center

Business Central license

Power Platform license

Summary

Further reading

12

Understanding the Center of Excellence and Why It Is a Valuable Tool

Technical requirements

Center of Excellence

Creating a dedicated environment to run a CoE and import a CoE solution

Importing the Creator Kit and CoE solution

Additional admin tools and monitoring Power BI dashboards

Power BI dashboards

Production CoE dashboard

Governance and audit compliance processes

Business Central plus Power Platform

Summary

Further reading

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

We have been in the technology field for a long time and we have seen a lot of changes in technology over the course of our careers. Some of the most exciting changes in technology have been in the last couple of years. The emergence of Business Central as a cloud-based application and the ability to extend it using the Power Platform has opened a lot of opportunities for people like us, who are a little technical and understand the database structure and functionality of Business Central. Over the last couple of years, we have been lucky enough to work with Belinda Allen, who taught us the definition of a citizen developer and mentored us as we explored the Power Platform.

In this book, we are going to show you what your journey can look like to become a citizen developer. We will get you started on your journey with the basics, and then it’ll be up to you to build on top of that.

Power Platform is the next step to learning how to maximize your business’s capabilities by seamlessly integrating it with Business Central on-premises and in the cloud. After that, you will learn how to set up virtual tables and create a simple model-driven application using Dataverse. Your objective is to develop apps based on Business Central processes through Power Apps, including both Canvas apps and model-driven apps. The book also discusses how Power Automate incorporates new processes and automation into business processes, as well as creating or modifying them. As you advance, you’ll connect to Business Central APIs that can be implemented to connect with Business Central data, and finally integrate Power BI natively with Business Central to construct advanced reports and dashboards.

Throughout this book, you’ll gain experience in customizing Business Central with Power Platform to deliver more scalable and maintainable solutions.

Who this book is for

The target audience of this book is Business Central Power Users and technical consultants who want to expand their capabilities using the Power Platform. Basic familiarity with Business Central is needed; however, you need not have any technical expertise in programming or software development.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Business Central and Power Platform – Better Together, provides an overview of how Business Central and the Power Platform can be used to build solutions. This will be an introduction to some core concepts every user needs to know and understand to be able to start working. There has been a fundamental shift in designing solutions for Business Central since the platform moved to the cloud. With the release of Business Central in the cloud, and other low-code/no-code tools, Microsoft created a platform that is more than just an ERP. It is important to understand all the tools in the ecosystem that can be used to create solutions. We provide an overview of the different tools in the ecosystem, including Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, Power BI, Dataverse, Teams, SharePoint, and Office 365.

Chapter 2, Getting to Know Business Central APIs, provides an introduction to Business Central APIs. We will also dive into how you access the APIs in Business Central. We’ll explore what is available as an API, how to know what endpoint to use, and what the limits to using the APIs are. Lastly, we’ll provide some tips on working with APIs.

Chapter 3, Connecting to Business Central in the Cloud and On-Premises, discusses how the first and most critical step of using Business Central with the Power Platform is to understand how to connect the two. In this chapter, we will explore all the ways to do that and what to do if you are running Business Central on-premises versus in the cloud.

Chapter 4, Working with Virtual Tables and Dataverse, provides an introduction to Dataverse and virtual tables. You will learn how to set up virtual tables and use Dataverse to enhance Business Central’s functionality, as well as creating a simple model-driven app.

Chapter 5, Best Practices for Building Power Apps for Business Central, covers the concept of Power Apps, what different types there are, how the different types can be used, and when to use each type. You will learn best practices and examples of how Power Apps can extend Business Central’s functionality.

Chapter 6, Building Flows for Business Central, teaches you about the concept of Power Automate, which uses well-documented business processes and turns them into instant flows. You will learn about flow triggers and actions and how they are used. Finally, key components will be discussed in creating, editing, and managing flows.

Chapter 7, Delivering Solutions, teaches you how to create a solution. After that, you will learn about the managed and unmanaged solution concepts. Lastly, the chapter will discuss application life cycle management for Power Platform.

Chapter 8, Automating Approvals and Reducing Manual Business Processes, teaches you how to connect Business Central and Power Automate and the advantage of combining Business Central workflows with the functionality of Power Automate. We will review what is needed to be set up in Business Central and how it is used with common business processes. Lastly, you will learn about common troubleshooting flow error messages and the Vendor portal.

Chapter 9, Connecting Power BI for Business Central Data, explains how to connect to Business Central and use out-of-the-box APIs. We will review setting up parameters in your BC report to connect to different databases and company portals, along with basic best practices in data modeling. In this chapter, we will use Power BI Desktop and publish it to a workspace and BC. We will review different visuals and give hints about which visuals to use for the story you are trying to tell.

Chapter 10, Extending Functionality by Using Several Power Platform Solutions, uses an example of using BC data, the power of Power BI, and use Power Apps to provide an organization with an easy way to make decisions and update Business Central data using Power Apps. Finally, you will learn how to create a custom API.

Chapter 11, User Adoption and Licensing Mapping Guides, gives the reader a better understanding of the importance of user adoption and licensing guides. The reader will learn what the dual license includes. After that, readers will gain an understanding of when a premium license is required and learn how to get up-to-date license requirements. Lastly, we will provide links to user adoption tools and resources.

Chapter 12, Understanding the Central of Excellence and Why It Is a Valuable Tool, teaches you the concepts and methodology around the Power Platform Center of Excellence. It will cover getting started with the Center of Excellence and how to take advantage of what the tool has to offer.

To get the most out of this book

To get the most out of this book, you will need access to the Microsoft developer environment. This is an environment that will allow you to use a free trial of the Power Platform, Outlook, Office, and other Microsoft services.

The second thing you will need is a Business Central environment. Microsoft enables you to set up a free trial for that as well. We have provided URLs for logging in to the various environments after you have created them. We will assume that you have a basic working knowledge of Business Central for this book and that you do not have a basic working knowledge of the Power Platform.

Software required

Links

Microsoft developer environment sign-up

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/dev-program

Business Central free trial

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/trial-signup

Power Platform login

https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/

Power Automate login

https://powerautomate.microsoft.com

Power BI login

https://powerbi.microsoft.com

Power App login

https://powerapps.microsoft.com

Business Central

https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/

We will cover signing up for a free trial of the developer environment and Business Central in the first chapter of the book.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book’s GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Extending-Business-Central-with-the-Power-Platform. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “Log in to Business Central and search for Purchase.”

A block of code is set as follows:

SubmitForm(frmEditCustomer); Navigate ('Home Screen'); 'PowerApp->Refreshadataset-2'.Run()

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “Select Licenses and then Dynamics 365 Business Central for IWs.”

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

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Part 1 – Part Fundamentals

Welcome to our comprehensive guide exploring the powerful collaboration between Business Central and Power Platform. In the following chapters, we will dive into the fundamentals that make these two tools work seamlessly together, optimizing your business processes and efficiency. From understanding the Business Central API and its capabilities to harnessing the potential of virtual tables and Dataverse, we will equip you with the knowledge needed to connect to Business Central in both the cloud and on-premise environments, unlocking the true potential of your organization’s initiatives.

This part contains the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Business Central and Power Platform – Better TogetherChapter 2, Get to Know Business Central APIsChapter 3, Connecting to Business Central in the Cloud and On-PremisesChapter 4, Working with Virtual Tables and Dataverse

1

Business Central and Power Platform – Better Together

This chapter will provide an overview of how Business Central and Power Platform can be used to build solutions. This will be an introduction to some core concepts each user needs to know and understand to be able to start working. There has been a fundamental shift in designing solutions for Business Central since the platform has moved to the cloud. With the release of Business Central in the cloud and other low-code no-code tools, Microsoft created a platform that is more than just an ERP. It is important to understand all the tools that are in the ecosystem that can be used to create solutions. We will provide an overview of the different tools in the ecosystem, including Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, Power BI, Dataverse, Teams, SharePoint, and Office 365.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

How Business Central and Power Platform are better togetherThe Business Central and Power Platform ecosystemPower Virtual AgentsPower AutomatePower Apps

Technical requirements

Here is the link for the Microsoft 365 Developer Program for Power Platform: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/dev-program.

Go to this link to get a free trial of Business Central: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/trial-signup.

How Business Central and Power Platform are better together

When Shawn and I started our careers in information technology over 25 years ago, Business Central was a little-known ERP that was starting to gain traction. Back then, there was a very limited toolset that we had to work with. We had to build all the customizations into the ERP code, and it was a crazy time. Often, these customizations would be built by different developers with very different approaches, and you would end up with what we would refer to as spaghetti code. The resulting code would often lead to people not being able to upgrade promptly or force people to re-implement it. With the move to Business Central and the cloud, the architecture and solution design has changed and provided us with a toolset that’s unlike anything we have ever had before.

In this chapter, we will explore why Business Central and Power Platform are better together, and we will begin to learn more about the different components that comprise it. The latest releases of Business Central provide a robust set of technology that many businesses are using to run their day-to-day operations. On its own, there is a great deal of functionality that Business Central provides, such as financials, purchasing, sales, manufacturing, and warehousing. However, it is impossible to anticipate every business need, so there are gaps in the software that most companies will find while evaluating it. This is not unexpected, and this is where Power Platform is often used to extend the software.

On its own, Power Platform provides a tool for building apps, but its real power lies in that it can be used to integrate systems. Before, we had to build the functionality inside the ERP; now, we can connect to it. Building solutions this way makes upgrading and using a cloud model for an ERP more sustainable for a company.

As we mentioned earlier, Business Central is a solid ERP that allows a company to run its operations. However, there are always scenarios that create use cases for extending it to meet a business’ needs. Microsoft’s message has always been that it is meant to be extended. They will admit they did not build Business Central to provide expert-level manufacturing or warehouse functionality. What they did was build it to provide a base of manufacturing functionality; they expected ISVs or partners to extend it further to meet customer requirements. The requirements to manufacture food differ from the requirements to manufacture auto parts. The process may be the same but certain things are required by the FDA to be captured in the process. One of those is the quality measurements during the production process. This would be an example where a Power App extends Business Central and allows the functionality to capture the quality measurements and tie them back to the production order and to the item and lot that was produced. Before Power Platform, this would have been built inside the ERP and would have been something that only a developer or your partner could do. It may have also been part of a bigger solution from an ISV, and it may have required purchasing a lot of functionality you wouldn’t need when you only needed one small part. Now, with Power Platform, we have the option to be minimalist and only build small pieces of functionality that are needed.

Power Platform was also designed to provide a set of tools that work better together. Each piece is designed to provide a certain set of tools that work well together. This toolset enables you to interact, create, and analyze your data in different ways.

In the next section, you will set up a development environment. You will use this environment in the exercises in the following chapters.

Setting up your development environment

As you get started on this journey, you should know that there are a couple of resources that will make it easier. Microsoft has a website dedicated to learning about these different productions. This is a resource that we use all the time and you can find it at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/.

Microsoft has provided an easy and free development environment that you can use to begin your learning journey with Business Central and Power Apps. By using the following link, https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/dev-program, you can set up a developer environment with an E5 license and have 25 users. The E5 license provides you with access to the following programs:

WordExcelPowerPointOutlookOneNoteSharePointOneDriveMicrosoft Teams

This license provides you with the access you require to build solutions and test them with multiple users.

To set up a developer environment, follow these steps:

Go to https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/dev-program and click Join now to create your environment:

Figure 1.1 – The Microsoft Developer Program setup screen

Once you select Join now, you will be prompted to log in. Click Create one! to create a new account to be used for this environment and then click Next:

Figure 1.1a – Microsoft Developer Program – Sign in

The Create account screen will open. Click Get a new email address and then Next:

Figure 1.1b – Microsoft Developer Program – Create account

The Create account screen will open. Here, you can enter an email address to use for your environment. Enter a new email address and click Next:

Figure 1.1c – Microsoft Developer Program – entering an email address

The next screen will prompt you to select your Country/region and enter your Birthdate. Once you’ve done this, click Next:

Figure 1.1d – Microsoft Developer Program – Country/region and Birthdate

The next screen will prompt you for your password. Enter the password you would like to use and click Next:

Figure 1.1e – Microsoft Developer Program – Create a password

The next screen will verify that you are not a robot. Click Next:

Figure 1.1f – Microsoft Developer Program – verification screen

Once you’ve done this, you will see the Join the Microsoft 365 Developer Program! screen:

Figure 1.2 – Join the Microsoft 365 Developer Program!

Fill in the required fields – that is, Country/Region, Company, and Language preference. Make sure you select a country region code; it should be the same one you picked when you created your email. Once you’ve done this, a screen will appear where you can choose how you would like to configure your sandbox. It will default to Instant sandbox; leave it as is and click Next. You will see the following screen when you’re configuring the sandbox:

Figure 1.3 – Set up your Microsoft 365 E5 sandbox

After clicking Next, a screen will open and prompt you to set up an admin username and password. At this point, you can also add an alternative password for the other 16 users that will be created in the environment. We recommend setting up two different passwords so that when you start testing, you can log in as different users with different permissions. The following screenshot shows where you can add the admin user and set up passwords for additional users:

Figure 1.4 – Setting up an admin username and password for your Microsoft 365 development environment

Once you have set up these passwords, you will be prompted for your phone number to complete the setup process. Once the development environment has been created, check out everything under the Home menu to see what is available. The first exercise in this chapter will involve using Image (preview). You’ll also notice that each choice for building an app has an accompanying video that you can watch and learn about the functionality.

There are multiple ways to learn about Power Platform from the Home menu. Here, you will find announcements and links, but also a whole menu item devoted to learning about Power Platform. The Learn menu contains courses, articles, and communities where you can enhance your skills with Power Platform. This is where Shawn and I started, and it will help you with your journey as well.

The following screenshot shows the different options you have for learning about Power Platform. From the menu at the top where the first arrow is, you will see that there are Overview, Courses, Articles, Community, and Support options that you can access. The other arrows highlight different learning videos and modules you can use:

Figure 1.5 – Developer Program for Power Platform – Guided learning options

The other environment you’ll need to sign up for is a free Business Central trial. Once you’ve signed up for it, you will need to link your Business Central environment to your Power Platform development environment by logging in to your Business Central environment with the same login you used to set up your Power Platform environment. This will provide you with a copy of the CRONUS database, as shown in Figure 1.6. Go to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/trial-signup to set up your Business Central environment:

Figure 1.6 – CRONUS in Business Central

Now, let’s take a look at a use case.

Business use case – the K&S Solutions Inc. company

For the examples in this book, we will use the following use case, which is a combination of all the different companies and solutions that Shawn and I have worked on over the last 25 years of our careers. This is a fictitious company; any similarities to another company are unintended.

K&S Solutions Inc. is a rapidly growing company that offers a couple of different services to its clients. They have outgrown their current solution of a homegrown warehouse management and manufacturing system and QuickBooks and need to switch to something else that can support their growth. They also do a lot of their financials and reporting in Excel, not in their current systems. Their goal of finding a new system such as Business Central is to move all their transactions and reporting to one system. They would like to use Business Central to manage their financials and inventory in one system. They are a 150-million-dollar company with 75 users, and they provide their customers with the following services:

Division A provides 3PL services for 20 different customers out of a warehouse in Reno, NV. They also have a second location, which is a refrigerated storage unit that stores food-related items.Division B manufactures and sells packaging machines and distribution-related equipment.Division C provides fulfillment and kitting services for a large food manufacturer.Division D provides a call center for this large food manufacturer.

The company is experiencing 25% growth year over year through acquisitions and sales. They must find a new solution to replace the current system. They have a detailed outline of their requirements; we will show possible solutions as examples in this book.

The Business Central and Power Platform ecosystem

In this section, we will look at the pieces that make up the Business Central and Power Platform ecosystem. Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages, and Power Virtual Agents are the four products that make up Power Platform. Each of these products provides a different option and tool for integrating with Business Central. All these apps can be accessed from the App menu within your development environment:

Power Apps is one of the most exciting tools that can be used to extend Business Central. We have been using apps for years and now, we can use them at work as well. For a solution architect, this is an excellent tool that acts as a rapid low-code development environment where we can build a quick solution when needed. Power Apps enables us to utilize Business Central as the data source for applications that allow workflows and business logic to be extended. The advantage for the person developing the Power App is that you do not have to be a developer. This allows people who may understand the business process but are not necessarily a developer, before a tool is completed, to build a solution that they couldn’t in the past. Here is a screenshot of the home screen of Power Apps:

Figure 1.7 – The Power Apps home screen

Power Automate is also an exciting tool because it allows us to create automated workflows inside Business Central and build flows from Business Central to other applications. This is one area that Business Central’s predecessor, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, always struggled with. Power Automate is frequently used to extend Business Central with approval workflows, but there are many other things that it can be used for. We’ll explore these options later in this book. The following screenshot shows the home page for Power Automate:

Figure 1.8 – The Power Automate home screen

Power Virtual Agents are chatbots that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to answer questions that are both internal and customer-facing. When it comes to Power Platform, Power Virtual Agents is probably the one that is used the least to extend Business Central. Later in this book, we will explore how we can use this feature. It is a powerful tool that can be used with many connectors and in tandem with Power Automate to build some powerful solutions. The following screenshot shows the home screen for Power Virtual Agents. It contains learning resources such as all the other pages you can use. We will look at these when we cover how Virtual Agents work:

Figure 1.9 – The Power Virtual Agents home screen

Power BI enables you to connect to data sources so that you can model data and create reports and dashboards that allow your users to analyze and interact with your companies’ data. Power BI provides several tools for transforming and modeling data. This puts the power of building datasets into the hands of subject matter experts, not just in the hands of a developer. It allows a user to model a dataset from a data warehouse and refine it further, depending on the report they are trying to build. The following screenshot shows the home screen for Power BI online. You can see the different menu options on the left-hand side:

Figure 1.10 – The Power BI home screen

While this screenshot is of Power BI online, this is not the client you will use to build Power BI reports. We will talk more about using the desktop client to build Power BI reports later.

Now that we have a good overview of the different pieces of the Power Platform, let’s look at each of these pieces in more detail. There is a lot to explore regarding the different Power Platform solutions.

Power Pages

Power Pages is the newest addition to the Power Suite. Microsoft Power Pages is a reliable and flexible low-code Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. It allows users to create, host, and manage modern external-facing business websites effortlessly. With Power Pages, you can quickly design and configure websites that are compatible with various web browsers and devices. Its enterprise-grade security ensures your data is protected while providing the convenience of a user-friendly interface.

Power Pages replaced Power Apps and Dynamics 365 portals. This is a recent change and there is no migration or upgrade process you can use within the Power Pages design studio to edit your existing sites and create new ones.

What is Dataverse and what does it have to do with Power Platform?

Dataverse is a powerful and versatile data service provided by Microsoft. Formerly known as the Common Data Service (CDS), it serves as a secure and scalable storage platform for a wide range of business applications and data solutions. Dataverse allows users to securely store and manage data in a standardized format, making it easier to access, analyze, and share across different applications and services within the Microsoft ecosystem. It provides a rich set of capabilities, including data integration, data modeling, security, and business logic customization, empowering organizations to build robust and interconnected solutions tailored to their specific needs. Dataverse is frequently used in conjunction with Power Platform to build well-rounded solutions.

Power Virtual Agents

Power Virtual Agents allows you to build solutions with chatbots that can answer questions from users, but it can also automate activities in Business Central as part of the conversation. Power Virtual Agents is comprised of topics, entities, and actions. Let’s look at each of these in more detail:

Topics: Topics are the building blocks