How to do Initial set up of CRM Portals

These days with the increasing popularity of Dynamics CRM , We have customers who are looking for a simpler and better UI , Online accessibility with out having to procure a CRM License Key , Online Accessibility for non-organization/external users.

For all the scenarios the D365 CRM Portals are the best fit.

Let us see how to set up portals.

Custom Data Provider for D365 Virtual entities

                

One of the differentiating features in Dynamics 365 9.0 is Virtual Entities, and these are driven by Virtual Entity Data Sources and Data Providers.

Virtual Entities acts as a facade to external data into the system as if the data were present in the CRM.

Currently Dynamics 365 9.0 provides 'OData V4' Web API as one of the data provider and  COSMOS DB Data Provider in the app source. Apart from these Dynamics 365 9.0 gives us the flexibility to create our own data provider using which we can invoke our own APIs.

Below is the step by step approach to create D365 Custom Data Provider

1.     Create an Assembly with Retrieve Multiple and Retrieve Plugins. (Sample code for creating this is shared in the end of this post)

Auto Numbering in Dynamics 365 9.0

With the launch of 9.0 Release along with multiple new features one of the most awaited feature is Auto-Numbering.

What is already available currently ?

By navigating to Settings->Administration -> Auto Numbering , We can configure the auto numbering for few entities as below.

What is available from 9.0 ?