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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Apply cutting-edge AI techniques to your Dynamics 365 environment to create new solutions to old business problems In Machine Learning with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform: The Ultimate Guide to Apply Predictive Analytics, an accomplished team of digital and data analytics experts delivers a practical and comprehensive discussion of how to integrate AI Builder with Dataverse and Dynamics 365 to create real-world business solutions. It also walks you through how to build powerful machine learning models using Azure Data Lake, Databricks, Azure Synapse Analytics. The book is filled with clear explanations, visualizations, and working examples that get you up and running in your development of supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning techniques using Microsoft machine learning tools and technologies. These strategies will transform your business verticals, reducing costs and manual processes in finance and operations, retail, telecommunications, and manufacturing industries. The authors demonstrate: * What machine learning is all about and how it can be applied to your organization's Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Projects * The creation and management of environments for development, testing, and production of a machine learning project * How adopting machine learning techniques will redefine the future of your ERP/CRM system Perfect for Technical Consultants, software developers, and solution architects, Machine Learning with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform is also an indispensable guide for Chief Technology Officers seeking an intuitive resource for how to implement machine learning in modern business applications to solve real-world problems.
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Seitenzahl: 304
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
Preface
WHY DID WE WRITE THIS BOOK?
WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THIS SUBJECT?
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
CHAPTER 1: Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Machine Learning
INTRODUCTION TO DYNAMICS 365
INTRODUCTION TO POWER PLATFORM
WHAT IS MACHINE LEARNING: HOW HAS IT EVOLVED?
DEFINITION OF MACHINE LEARNING
CHAPTER 2: Artificial Intelligence and Pre‐Built Machine Learning in Dynamics 365
AZURE AI PLATFORM
AZURE MACHINE LEARNING SERVICE
KNOWLEDGE MINING
CHAPTER 3: ML/AI Features and Their Applications in Dynamics 365
VIRTUAL AGENT FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE IN DYNAMICS 365
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN POWER APPS WITH AI BUILDER
WHAT IS MIXED REALITY?
CHAPTER 4: Dynamics 365 and Custom ML Models Using Azure ML
CHAPTER 5: Deep Dive in Machine Learning Custom Models
Chapter 6: Machine Learning with Dynamics 365 Use Cases
ML FOR FINANCE
DEMAND FORECASTING
CONNECTED STORE
ML FOR HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
MACHINE LEARNING AT THE WORKPLACE
Afterword
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 4
TABLE 4.1 Data guardrails.
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
FIGURE 1.1 Understanding the three tools of the Power Platform.
FIGURE 1.2 Evolution of machine learning.
FIGURE 1.3 Machine learning lifecycle.
FIGURE 1.4 Data preparation process.
FIGURE 1.5 Machine learning algorithms.
Chapter 2
FIGURE 2.1 Azure Cognitive Services.
FIGURE 2.2 Types of vision APIs.
FIGURE 2.3 Types of speech APIs.
FIGURE 2.4 Speech services.
FIGURE 2.5 Language services.
FIGURE 2.6 Knowledge services.
FIGURE 2.7 Bot building stages.
FIGURE 2.8 Three phases of knowledge mining.
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3.1 Artificial intelligence capabilities within Customer Insights.
FIGURE 3.2 Five elements of the card.
FIGURE 3.3 Timeline of Dynamics 365 Sales.
FIGURE 3.4 Untracked email with tracking link on right.
FIGURE 3.5 How Power Apps can help organizations.
FIGURE 3.6 Mixed Reality component.
Chapter 4
FIGURE 4.1 Select dataset.
FIGURE 4.2 Upload your data file.
FIGURE 4.3 Configure run.
FIGURE 4.4 Select task and settings.
FIGURE 4.5 Additional configurations.
FIGURE 4.6 Pipeline.
Chapter 6
FIGURE 6.1 Automatic receipt recognition.
Guide
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Begin Reading
Afterword
Index
End User License Agreement
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Machine Learning with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform
The Ultimate Guide to Apply Predictive Analytics
AURELIEN CLERE
VINNIE BANSAL
Copyright © 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per‐copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750‐8400, fax (978) 750‐4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748‐6011, fax (201) 748‐6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
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Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic formats. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Clere, Aurelien, author. | Bansal, Vinnie, author.
Title: Machine learning with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform : the ultimate guide to apply predictive analytics / Aurelien Clere, Vinnie Bansal.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2022] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021040966 (print) | LCCN 2021040967 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119771296 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119771319 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119771302 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Microsoft Corporation. | Machine learning.
Classification: LCC Q325.5 .C54 2022 (print) | LCC Q325.5 (ebook) | DDC 006.3/1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021040966LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021040967
Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © Immersion Imagery/Shutterstock
Foreword
YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING what machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) along with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Microsoft Power Platform have in common or even what they have to do with each other. But I might challenge you to think bigger and ask not what they have to do with each other; rather, ask how they can work together.
It is not enough these days to just implement your enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) system and walk away. Sure, you can optimize and improve business processes with a new system, but if you really want to digitally transform and reduce your operating costs to see the full return on investment, then you will need to look beyond just moving your basic business processes into a new system. This is where ML/AI can come into play.
Most organizations don't choose to replace their ERP system for the sake of replacement. Instead, ERP systems are replaced by necessity and a culmination of events and circumstances that usually require a system to be replaced. Replacing an ERP is a difficult and time‐consuming process in and of itself, but you would be remiss to not consider how you can leverage emerging technologies such as ML/AI in this process to get more value out of your investment. Whether you are considering a new ERP, or you have been running Dynamics 365 for some time, this book offers practical advice for leveraging ML/AI to achieve more with your solution.
There are tons of books out there that can give you all the technical and mathematical theory that goes along with ML/AI, but this book is the first to bring real‐life examples and experiences that show you how to apply ML/AI to your Dynamics 365 and Power Platform projects.
In my 12‐part TechTalk series on using the Power Platform to extend Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations apps, one key message throughout is about using the technologies together to bring more value at a faster pace. The authors of this book capture this essence and take it three steps further by giving you all the details you need to be successful in making your solution come to life with Dynamics 365, the Power Platform, and ML/AI.
What I like about this book is that the authors really showcase their expertise. They provide not only real‐life examples to help you relate to your business, but they also provide the details and technical advice required to achieve similar results in your own organization. I can recall the first time I worked with Aurelien to co‐present at a virtual conference on the topic of virtual entities with Finance and Operations apps. His passion for adopting and using hot new technology was evident. The passion shown by Aurelien and Vinnie for helping the community with their knowledge and expertise has always been evident, and this book is just another great example. I believe that when you combine the passion for the technology with the passion for the community, the reader can only benefit from the knowledge and experience of the authors.
I recommend that you read this insightful book, full of practical advice and technical guidance no matter where you are in your Dynamics 365 implementation to help shape your digital transformation.
Rachel Profitt
Senior Program Manager, Microsoft
Preface
WITH MACHINE LEARNING AND artificial intelligence contributing solutions to many sectors from communication and finance to transportation, manufacturing, and even agriculture, enterprises are accelerating their adoption of AI, focusing on those initiatives that can help them achieve revenue growth and cost reduction. In this book, we want to show you how the fusion of the two technologies, Machine Learning and Dynamics 365, can help you to build solutions that can solve real‐world problems. With the knowledge in this book, you can build your own system that can help you make more efficient and intelligent business decisions. There are tons of ML applications in the market today, and the learning is endless; and, considering the intensity with which the data is growing, it's only wise to use this data to make intelligent systems for your business. This book is your companion to machine learning with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. Whether you are a Dynamics 365 and Power Platform developer or a technical consultant or solution architect new to machine learning or someone who wants to deepen your knowledge of the latest developments, this book is the one stop.
WHY DID WE WRITE THIS BOOK?
In the current market, not many books offer information on incorporating machine learning in Dynamics 365 and Power Platform or provide any practical examples. This is the first book focusing on machine learning with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform that provides tips and techniques for organizations that are planning their digital transformation journey.
The book is a practical approach to understanding the concepts of machine learning and deep learning.
WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THIS SUBJECT?
The truth is that developers, technical consultants, and solution architects are constantly being assessed on their knowledge and skills. So how can they stay on top of the game?
Goalposts in the workplace and/or projects keep moving. This might be because of new technologies such as artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), customer demand, or simply because there is a new program director with a different vision. All these changes invariably have implications for us. So, if you want to protect your employability, you need to take charge of your personal development.
No doubt machine learning is a highly trending technology these days for different kinds of business applications and is one of the hottest topics in AI. When combined with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, it can do wonders for its users, which includes getting experimental results and deriving conclusions by utilizing the past data. A blend of machine learning and Microsoft Business Applications Solutions Ecosystem (BASE) and/or Dynamics 365 and Power Platform is beneficial for businesses to make proactive decisions by using predictive data analytics. It also provides businesses the ability to utilize future predictions in order to perform operations more efficiently.
Acknowledgments
WHETHER WATCHING AN AWARD‐WINNING movie in a cinema hall or having the luxury of watching from home in recent times, the audience is left with a lasting impression by the actors. Usually, the actors and directors are awarded, but there is much more to it than meets the eye. There is a huge team of people that supports and contributes to making a movie a success. Until we wrote this book, we didn't realize the amount of effort that goes into the making of a book. We are profoundly grateful for our incredibly supportive, respected, and diligent advisory team who made this dream possible. This book is theirs as much as ours.
The initial drafts of the book have passed multiple hands and undergone several revisions. Each revision provided us with invaluable feedback from the following reviewers. They have been relentless in their contributions, which enabled us to include additional concepts, refine ideas, increase our focus, add clarity, and continuously evolve.
We owe immense gratitude to all our reviewers, who are industry experts and leaders in their own professions and gave their time by providing great input and valuable suggestions, offering insights, and challenging the draft chapters constructively throughout the production of the book. Without their support our work would not have evolved into the book that you are reading now.
We are forever indebted to all of them:
Saurabh Nijhawan—Lead Consultant at Microsoft
Nick Brady—Senior Program Manager at Microsoft
Stefaan Lampaert—Enterprise Solution Architect at Microsoft
Fredrik Saetre—Technology Specialist Manager at Microsoft
Deepak Agarwal—Project Lead at KPMG, Microsoft MVP
Christopher Davis—Technical Strategist at Microsoft
Vadim Korepin—Functional Architect at Microsoft
Markus Turunen—CIO and Business Lead (Machine Learning and Intelligent Automation)
Monika Adams—D365 CE Enthusiast
Manali Tiwari—Technical Writer
Sneh Swaroop—Technical Consultant at Microsoft
Rajkiran Divekar—IT Manager
Fawad Khan—Digital Community and Social Leader for Dynamics 365 at Microsoft
Manish Rajput—AI/ML Practitioner
May Alhajri—Digital Analyst, Microsoft MVP
Anupama Natarajan—Data & AI Consultant, MCT, Microsoft AI MVP
About the Authors
AURELIEN CLERE was a Global Technical Architect in the Microsoft Business Application ecosystem for more than 12 years. Aurelien is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) with more than 15 Microsoft certifications. He started his career in Microsoft Business Applications with Dynamics AX and Dynamics CRM. Following the strategy of pushing his knowledge to have a global overview on Microsoft applications, he joined the Azure side in 2013 with a French start‐up to develop an ISV with Dynamics CRM and all Azure components (Data Platform, Machine Learning).
Aurelien is now working for a French Dynamics Partner called Dynagile Consulting. He's been working for several years on the Architecture side with the conception, integration, and deployment of Dynamics 365 Finance Operations, Power Platform, Dynamics 365 CE, and Azure components (Azure Data Lake, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Azure Machine Learning).
He is also known for organizing the Power Platform French Summit with more than 2,000 participants. With his blog (powerazure365.com) and his YouTube channel, and all his sessions in community events, he shares his knowledge to help with leveraging data in Dynamics 365.
His main focuses are:
Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations
Dynamics 365 AI: Customer Insights with Azure Machine Learning, Finance Insights
AI: All Azure Cognitive Services, Azure ML, AI Builder, Bot Service with PVA
Power Platform (PowerBI, Power Apps and Power Automate, PVA)
Azure Data Lake with Dynamics 365
Data Insights / ML Insights / Predictions / AI Builder in Dynamics365 projects with Azure components + Azure AI Services
Data Platform: Azure Synapse Analytics with Data Lake of Dynamics 365 Data – Azure Purview and PowerBI – Modern Data warehouse
VINNIE BANSAL has passion and expertise for envisioning the big picture by working with the customers of Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to assist the innovation process, end‐to‐end, and to empower enterprises to overcome their biggest hurdles, streamline complex “pain points,” realize their goals, and achieve business transformation.
His deep understanding of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 application and his exceptional professional relations skills have made him a valuable contributor to every customer he has had the privilege to support over the past 14 years.
Realization of functional fit/gap analysis takes on an active functional role during the discovery and implementation process: analyzing and optimizing business processes in order to provide the best functional and/or technical solutions; providing multiple solutions to a problem; and at the same time evaluating the business impact of the solutions.
To give back to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 community and industry, he regularly shares his experiences, customer solutions, and learning in his LinkedIn posts and articles. He believes in staying updated with industry best practices and keeping himself with the best in the domain.
CHAPTER 1Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Machine Learning
INTRODUCTION TO DYNAMICS 365
There was a time when businesses used individual applications to perform several business functions like marketing, field service, project service, customer service, operations, and finance. No one ever imagined how difficult and time‐consuming it would be to navigate from one application to another and maintain large amounts of data that were growing every second.
For digital transformation to happen, we needed an intelligent system that can be molded to all businesses and has the agility to evolve and expand as the business changes. Such a system can consolidate individual apps that you use for customer service, sales, or field service; can be easily deployed and customized; and, most of all, can provide a unified experience.
Here comes Microsoft Dynamics 365. It is a set of cloud‐based business applications, such as components of customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), along with productive applications and artificial intelligence tools, all together in one platform. Dynamics 365 brought an end to information silos between the CRM and ERP, all because of a shared business database known as the Common Data Model, which helps you to overcome obstacles between critical business platforms and make your data work together.
Microsoft Business Applications
Who doesn't want to envision the future of their business? And what's better than relying on customers for the transformation of your business? Understanding what customers want is one of the biggest challenges faced by businesses today. To understand what customers want requires focusing on these four transformational outcomes:
Empowering employees.
Dynamics 365 empowers employees by giving them tools and actionable insights with the knowledge and information required to operate in real time.
Engaging customers.
Dynamics 365 improves customer engagement by enabling employees to connect with potential customers proactively and regularly capture customer feedback to provide a personalized service experience.
Optimizing operations.
Dynamics 365 provides a central source of intelligence that offers instant knowledge of your global workforce and supply chain with the flexibility to collaborate with various devices anytime to manage operations effectively and build innovative products.
Modifying the products or services in the business model.
Dynamics 365 streamlines all your business processes and analyzes your business requirements to help you achieve your desired goal.
These four areas give an organization a comprehensive view to provide a standard rich data model that can consistently work across all your business applications to connect customers, products, people, and data.
Customer Relationship Management
As the name suggests, a traditional customer relationship management system focuses on developing and maintaining relationships by meeting the needs of the customers. It uses advanced technologies to organize, automate, and integrate different business components such as marketing, sales, and customer service. But how is Dynamics 365 CRM different from others?
The significant difference between a Dynamics 365 CRM and the others is that it is a cloud‐based platform that enables users to access it.
All the different kinds of apps are integrated with this system. It supports all Dynamics 365 apps and Microsoft apps, including Office 365, Excel, and Power Board, and enables you to use different apps at the same time without any problems or delays.
Let's move on to the Dynamics 365 CRM applications:
Dynamics 365 Sales
. Dynamics 365 Sales provides data and digital tools to your sales teams to turn relationships into revenue. It empowers the sales team to build relationships; evolves using adaptable, scalable, and easy‐to‐use sales solutions; and maximizes productivity with intelligent automation.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service ensures that your team gets the right tools and streamlined data in a unified platform to intelligently handle requests and complex issues, to deliver authenticated personalized experience, and to earn customer loyalty for life.
Dynamics 365 Field Service.
Dynamics 365 Field Service is a proactive application that enables your technicians to monitor every piece of customer equipment remotely. If any issue arises with the equipment, the technician proactively takes action to resolve the issue by scheduling the appointment with the customer for on‐site service, thus empowering your organization to deliver maximum quality service with a seamless end‐to‐end experience.
Dynamics 365 Marketing
Dynamics 365 Marketing is an application that helps you to plan, automate, and monitor all the prospects that can turn into qualified marketing leads. It enables you to automate marketing processes such as email campaigns, prioritize your leads, design interactive online forms, generate and score leads, share information seamlessly across teams, and much more all in one place.
Enterprise Resource Planning
Businesses need an ERP system to manage core business operations and improve data perceptibility around finance data management and manufacturing. How is the Dynamics 365 ERP system different from others? Dynamics 365 has connected both CRM and ERP systems to reduce information silos. By integrating CRM and ERP systems, it saves employees the trouble of having to make data entries on both systems individually. Dynamics 365 provides connectors that enable both systems to communicate with each other.
Let's investigate Dynamics 365 ERP applications:
Dynamics 365 Commerce.
Dynamics 365 Commerce is an e‐commerce solution that enables you to deliver personalized shopping experiences across various physical and digital channels. It helps you build an omnichannel website that can connect all your stores to understand customer needs by monitoring their behavior. It also improves operational efficiency to upscale your business.
Dynamics 365 Finance.
Dynamics 365 Finance is a tool that automates and unifies all your global financial operations and predicts future outcomes to make data‐driven decisions smarter and faster to drive business growth. It monitors performance in real time to optimize operational expenses with budget control and financial planning and analysis.
Dynamics 365 Human Resources.
Dynamics 365 Human Resources is an application that empowers employees to proactively enhance their careers by landing the best candidates using easy‐to‐use human resources (HR) tools. It helps them in optimizing HR programs, making better decisions using valuable insights, and improving organizational agility for impactful results.
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is a tool that enables you to build a unified and resilient supply chain with the ability to provide business intelligence that can help you to innovate manufacturing operations, extend the life of your assets, improve warehouse management, and enhance workforce performance.
Dynamics 365 for Small and Medium‐Sized Businesses
Dynamics 365 Business Central is an all‐in‐one management solution for organizations across a spectrum of business processes used for managing sales, customer service, marketing, finance, and operations. It helps organizations to stay connected with customers in real time and make smarter decisions faster. It is possible to integrate and adapt business processes effortlessly with Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Common Data Model
Businesses use multiple applications for different business processes, such as marketing, sales, and manufacturing that lead to a poorly planned architecture that holds back organizations from scaling in the long term. The employees are wasting time navigating data from one application to another, which increases manual errors and loss of credibility. The only solution to this problem is an integrated system that empowers employees to share data across the spectrum of business applications. Therefore, businesses are switching to Dynamics 365.
But how does Dynamics 365 connect these applications? The answer is the Common Data Model. It is one of the foundations on which Dynamics 365 is built. It provides a shared data language for all the business processes to use. The Common Data Model metadata system consists of a set of standardized predefined schemas, including entities, attributes, semantic metadata, and relationships, that make it possible to share data across Microsoft Power Apps, Power BI, Dynamics 365, and Azure. Because of this, organizations can achieve semantic and structural consistency across applications.
INTRODUCTION TO POWER PLATFORM
Businesses are harnessing large amounts of data every second from sources such as social media, web, and business systems like Dynamics 365 ERP/CRM. How can this data be used to gain insights and drive intelligent business processes? This is where the Power Platform comes in.
What Is Power Platform?
Power Platform is a collective term for four Microsoft products: (1) Power BI, (2) PowerApps, (3) Power Automate, and (4) Power Virtual Agents.
Now let's understand why it was invented.
Power Platform can be used with Office 365 and Dynamics 365 (as well as other third‐party apps and other Microsoft services) to automate and analyze data easily. It enables end‐users who are not technically sound to access digital information. These are the people who have a vision and are willing to create something better by using a Triple‐A‐Loop – analyze, act, and automate – to derive valuable business outcomes. (See Figure 1.1.)
FIGURE 1.1 Understanding the three tools of the Power Platform.
Power Apps
PowerApps is a platform for nontechnical users to develop user‐friendly and functional apps without writing a single line of code or low‐code application.
It is also known as the Citizen Application Development Platform. The natural connection between Power BI and PowerApps makes it effortless to take actions directly from Power BI reports and dashboards. It increases productivity and makes your work less tedious by avoiding the need to switch between separate apps or copy and paste data from one window to another.
Power Automate
Power Automate is an intelligent process that allows you to automate complex business processes without any technical knowledge of doing so. It has a simple, user‐friendly interface through which users can create automated workflows that can be triggered by utilizing insights from Power BI, apps built with PowerApps, or third‐party applications.
Power BI
Power BI is a self‐service business analytics software solution that pulls data from various business systems with built‐in support by the Power Platform such as Dynamics 365, Excel spreadsheets, the cloud, data centers, and other resources. This data is then analyzed for valuable insights.
Power Virtual Agents
A power virtual agent is a low‐ or no‐code graphical interface that empowers you to create chatbots even if you don't have any prior coding experience. It can be used for engaging customers from different business processes such as human resources, sales, or any social platform like Facebook or Skype.
Cross‐Cutting Features
The key components of the Power Platform that we just talked about are dependent on the following core services:
Dataverse
Connectors
AI Builder
Dynamics 365 Customer Voice (previously known as Forms Pro)
These core services enable the components of the Power Platform to do their work.
Dataverse
Organizations use different business applications for different purposes, and a lot of data is collected from users stored in separate silos. But to automate business processes or build new applications, we need to bring the data from all the applications in one place. This is where Dataverse comes in (previously known as Dataverse).
Dataverse environment is like a secure database system that allows you to store and manage data across business applications. It has a built‐in set of standard entities that are used to store data. It also enables you to build custom entities as per your business requirements that can be accessed using a power query.
Connectors
Dataverse does not exactly have all the data within; the concept of connectors was implemented. As the name suggests, connectors connect different applications or services. For example, imagine the data stored in all of your business applications are in different languages. Then, what do you need here? It would be best if you had a common guide that can translate the language for the system you want to connect to, so the connectors do the work.
It enables Power apps to effectively communicate with data from other systems and services without knowing the APIs or the interfaces involved. Microsoft provides over 300 built‐in connectors, and you can also build custom connectors as per your business needs.
AI Builder
An AI Builder is the new capability of Power Platform that enables you to intuitively add AI capabilities within your business applications to automate processes and predict outcomes. Like the Power Platform, AI Builder doesn't need coding experience to create custom AI solutions. It helps you to create the AI model, which can be used to keep track of all your products by using object detection. It also helps you to predict future outcomes from the data already available in your business apps so that you can make intelligent decisions to drive the growth of your business.
Dynamics 365 Customer Voice
Successful businesses understand that the customer's feedback is a crucial point for the growth of the business. Every business website has a feedback form where you can ask your queries or write your product experience. But Dynamics 365 Customer Voice is providing something more. It provides your organization with some additional capabilities, such as the ability to create a survey and share it with your customers for valuable feedback. Once the responses are received, Power BI analyzes feedback about your products and services to evaluate the information and take actions to transform products and employee experiences.
Unlike the past, people are now connected through social media and communication solutions. Therefore, businesses are beginning to realize the potential of data‐driven decisions, large‐scale coordination, and the efficiency of online tools. Thus, Power Platform tools play an important role in improving productivity and automating business processes. To unlock the true potential of Dynamics 365 and Power Platform tools, this book will show you how you can do wonders in your business by using machine learning with these two technologies. It is an important topic because it will help you to make proactive decisions for your business by using predictive data analytics. It also allows businesses to utilize future predictions to perform operations more efficiently. Now let's look at how adding a layer of intelligence to Dynamics 365 and Power platform using machine learning would benefit the businesses.
Whether it's sending follow‐up emails, similar record creation, or scheduling and managing appointments, isn't it frustrating to do the same task at your workplace every day?
Just imagine that your employee takes 5 minutes for a repetitive task of sending follow‐up emails to all the possible prospects every day. This means he spends 125 minutes, or 2 hours in a month, considering a month has, on average, 25 working days. In a year, that employee will spend 1,500 minutes or 25 hours. If your organization has 100 such employees, imagine how many productive hours your business will lose. Think about how much your business would have achieved if these employees had worked on tasks that demanded their skills. What if you could reduce these numbers by using machine learning in Dynamics 365?
Dynamics 365 has a feature of email engagement in a sales insight suite that sends you an alert when recipients open your email, click a link in your email, open an attachment sent in email, or give a reply. The activities it doesn't do on its own that require manual work are:
It doesn't send a follow‐up email on its own.
It doesn't automatically set a time to send a follow‐up email.
Sure, Dynamics 365 does give you the facility to create an appropriate email template based on your organization's previous email interaction history. But choosing the right follow‐up template and setting time for a follow‐up email is still manual work. These two problems can be solved by using machine learning in Dynamics 365.
Machine learning has an algorithm called a predictive time algorithm that will help you to set optimal open times for every recipient. For this, a machine should have the recipient's past data, including time engaged with opens and clicks on the links sent in previous emails. This way, a machine will learn what's the best time to send a follow‐up email and will set an alert in Dynamics 365.
The second problem can be resolved by a sentiment analysis of email responses by using machine learning (ML) techniques with natural language processing (NLP). ML, if provided with large datasets, can effectively classify the sentiments of email within minutes using precise algorithms. This will help the machine to automatically send appropriate follow‐up emails to recipients on the optimal time already set by the machine.
How amazing it would be if all these repetitive tasks are performed by a machine so that you can channel your energy and time on a more complex and productive task.
WHAT IS MACHINE LEARNING: HOW HAS IT EVOLVED?
“The early bird gets the first worm, but the wisest bird gets the fastest one.”
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Hard work can take you wherever you want, but smart work can make you reach there faster. Let's make our system smart enough to carry out repetitive/mundane tasks. Now, let's understand what machine learning is all about and how it can make a difference.
Machine learning is like a person learning from experience. For example, as the owner of a grocery store, you need to optimize your inventory. The question is, how can ML help you in doing so? ML can predict inventory needs based on the weekday, season, events in nearby locations, customers' behavior, and so on. But for precise predictions, you need to feed your machine with lots of data, so that machine learning algorithms find patterns in the data. Using this data, the ML algorithm can predict sales in advance. Also, if you are using computer vision technology to monitor customer behavior or if you are using a robot assistant like LoweBot in your store, both technologies help ML to keep track of inventory and notify managers if any unexpected pattern of inventory data is found.
