Monthly Archives: February 2020

Where’s the Action? – (Alt+Q) Action Search in D365

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Hotkey Highlight – Alt+Q

We’ve previously covered Navigation search (Ctrl+/) as a way to quickly find and access different forms across D365. Action search is a way to quickly find and access different menu buttons within a single D365 form. This can be particularly helpful if the user is looking for a menu item button, but unsure which tab it is located on.

The Action Pane

Let’s start by quickly reviewing the elements of the action pane (the area at the top of a D365 form). The action pane contains menu buttons, organized into tabs, and groups.

Action search can be activated by clicking the magnifying glass next to the options tab, or pressing Alt+Q.

Action Search (in Action)

Typing in action search returns similarly named menu buttons. The returned results display the menu button name, as well as its associated tab and group. This works for menu buttons across all tabs on the form. If buttons are hidden through a personalization or saved view, they will also be hidden in the action search results.

Room for Search Optimization

Action search is handy functionality for users searching for a button, but unsure of it’s location in the action pane. However, the ordering of the search results can still be improved. In the screenshot below, you can see that the top action search result for “hour journal” does return the button for creating an hour journal (the hour button in the journal group), but instead the top results are taken by hour costprice and hour salesprice. I am hopeful that the action search and navigation search results will improve in future releases.

Want to share this action-packed post on social media? Go ahead, make my day.

Additional reading
Action Search
Navigation Search
100 Best Action Movies Of All Time

D365 Platform Update 33 Preview: It Publishes Default Saved Views?

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The preview release of Platform update 33 for Finance and Operations is now available (general availability is scheduled for March). This is part of a series highlighting features in the new platform update.

Published Views!!!

A quick refresher: saved views enable users to save sets of personalizations on a given form. Forms have a standard “classic” view. When personalizations are made, an asterisk identifies that the classic view has changed, providing the user with the option to save the new view.

In manage my views, users have the option of reordering, renaming, and setting the desired default from their personally available views. Additionally, the publish button in manage my views allows users to share their views with the larger organization by role and legal entity.

(The ability to publish views is limited to system administrators and those with the “Saved views administrator” role)

Publish as Default View

Platform Update 33 extends the publish view functionality, the publish as default view toggle enables a published view to be the first view a user sees when accessing a form – instead of the form opening in “Classic view” and the user having to select the desired view or configure the default individually.

In the example below, I have a “Simple view” for the project form where infrequently used buttons and fields are hidden. I would rather users be direct here first, with the option to view the full “Classic view” information if necessary, so I have published the “Simple view” as the default.

Managing Published Views

All views are visible in the personalization form. Clicking the publish button on a published, unpublished, or personal view allows management of access and presentation of the view.

I would be grateful if you take a screenshot of this post and share it on social media. You’ll be publishing a view – saved from my published, saved view on saved view publishing.

One can only hope that will lead to more views.

Additional Reading
What’s New Platform Update 33
Saved Views
Saved View Feature Details

D365 Platform Update 33 Preview: It Groups!

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The preview release of Platform update 33 for Finance and Operations is now available (general availability is scheduled for March). This is part of a series highlighting features in the new platform update.

It Groups!!!

Grouping brings some pivot table-like functionality to D365 grids. Similar to how numeric columns can be totaled, non-numeric columns can be grouped. Right click on the column and select “Group by this column”

Posted Project Transactions, Grouped by Project Name

Posted Project Transactions, Grouped by Date

Save Groupings as Views

Once grouped, these new grid layouts can be saved as views.

Grouping is a promising UI experience. In the Platform Update 33 preview, users are able to group on a single column. Future plans include the ability to group on up to five different columns, expand/collapse groupings, and group subtotaling.

If You Still Really Want a Pivot Table

If you find yourself in need of the full pivot table experience, remember that grid data can still be downloaded to Excel.

Ctrl+Shift+E, Enter

Our D365 hotkey to download data to excel.

Alt+N+V, Enter

Our Excel Hotkey to build a pivot table.

Then select your fields as desired.

Best of luck, my Excel power-user friend.

additional reading
What’s New Platform Update 33
Grid Capabilities
Grouping With Subtotals in Grid

D365 Platform Update 33 Preview: It Totals!

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The preview release of Platform update 33 for Finance and Operations is now available (general availability is scheduled for March). This is part of a series highlighting features in the new platform update.

It Totals!!!

What’s the sum of this column? No need to dump it to excel anymore – right click and select “Total this column”. D365 will then do the hard work to calculate the total and return the number of rows.

Even Large Totals!

When a grid is so large that all records are not returned at once, a calculate button presents below the total button with dashes at the bottom of the columns pending calculation. Clicking the calculate button processes the totals.

Filtered Totals!

When grid columns are filtered, totaling takes place on the filtered values. This is handy when investigating subsets of form data.

In the example below, the Trial balance form already has summary totals at the bottom as part of its standard design. By adding column totals, I am able to filter for a specific project dimension and quickly calculate the totals for that dimension value.

In sum, this is the total functionality.

additional reading
What’s New Platform Update 33
Grid Capabilities
Total Recall

D365 Platform Update 33 Preview: It Does The Math!

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The preview release of Platform update 33 for Finance and Operations is now available (general availability is scheduled for March). This is part of a series highlighting features in the new platform update.

It Does The Math!!!

The ability to calculate inside of cells (instead of on external calculators) was a handy feature in AX2012 that we were sad to lose in the great D365 migration to the cloud.

Well put your 10-keys back in your deskdrawers because D365 does the math again!

When entering data into numeric cells, start your entry with the equals sign (=) and let D365 handle the rest.

1+1 = 2

(2×3) + (4×5) = 26

It Even Does The Advanced Math!!!

Dynamics recognizes pi, e, factorials, logarithms and trig functions. A complete list of the supported math expressions can be found here.

5! (5x4x3x2x1) = 120

Cos(pi) + ln(e) = 2

The supported math expressions don’t include imaginary numbers (remember i ?). Fortunately, accountants have been handling imaginary numbers on their own for centuries.

additional reading
What’s New Platform Update 33
Grid Capabilities
Supported Math Symbols