In this video, we look at a simple example of how Power Query can supercharge your reporting abilities for values brought into excel via the data connector.
I’ve found Power Query to be a great tool for efficiently combining data that lives across two different D365 data entities. It is a fantastic tool for data migration or analysis in general.
Some Concepts:
Pivot Tables
Refreshing Data
Connecting Data to Power Query
Merging Two Data Sources in Power Query
D365 Relationship Between Projects, Project Contracts, and Sales Currency
I have a big excel table, how do I find the most recent records by person?
I dealt with this recently. This documentation was helpful, but I still had to reason through some bits. So I put together this video in case you find yourself in the same situation.
Not sure what to get that special D365 accountant in your life? Waited till the last minute and now you don’t have time to buy a gift? Show your appreciation by passing along this list of journal entry tips. Better yet, send a link to our whole series on shortcuts.
#D365Blogs: the gifts that keeps on giving – even during the holidays.
These example screenshots will be from the general ledger journal form, but are applicable across journal types in D365.
Alt+N – Create a new journal
Alt+N can create a new journal header, and also create new journal lines once the journal lines are opened.
“Manual data entry builds character,” –Joel Leichty “Character gives us qualities, but it is in our actions–what we do–that we are happy…or the reverse,” –Aristotle
If you need to paste multiple values into multiple places, WIN+V should be your new best friend. Where regular CTRL+C copies something and CTRL+V pastes that last thing you copied, WIN+V allows you to select from your history if previous items copied.
After years of struggling with timely timesheet entry, I finally found a time entry process that works for me.
(Hello all my former managers! Thanks for subscribing!)
Throughout the day, I enter my time as Outlook events, using a different Outlook Calendar for each customer. At the end of the week, I then transfer those entries into my actual timekeeping system.
My Outlook Calendar ends up looking something like this
Is this the most efficient way to enter time? Well, probably not.
But it does have some advantages: 1) My meetings are already on my Outlook calendar. 2) I’m in Outlook throughout the day, so the friction of switching applications is reduced.
Don’t let Perfect be the enemy of Good. Find a process/system that works for you.
Automatically Dismiss Reminders For Past Events
One issue I had with this system is that entering a past time-tracking event into my Outlook calendar, would trigger a reminder message. But I don’t want a reminder notification…the event entry itself is the reminder for my end of the week timekeeping process.
This is less than desirable. Fortunately, there’s a fix!
In Outlook, click File (top left) then goto Options (Options will be on the bottom left). In Outlook Options, goto Advanced, and then select Automatically dismiss reminders for past calendar events.
Problem solved. No more retroactive reminder reminders😊
A small note for anyone who needs to hear it: If you regularly switch between accounts on the same online services, consider using different browser profiles for your desktop.
Each browser profile will save your cookies and login details separately. This will reduce the hassle of having to regularly sign out of account A to login to account B, or opening an incognito browser and manually re-signing into account B every time you need to do something there.
Some Use Cases:
Switching between Microsoft accounts in different Tenants
Switching between a standard D365 account and a test user account.
Switching from your Twitter main to your burner account to dunk on people who think that Kevin Durant is not as great at basketball as Steph Curry (@KDTrey5 – HMU!)
How To Create Browser Profiles
The process is roughly the same in Edge or Chrome. Click on the circle in the upper right, you can then toggle between existing profiles or create a new profile.
Personalize your Profiles
In your browser settings (click here for Chrome browser settings | click here for Edge browser settings) you can choose unique icons to distinguish your profiles. You can also adjust the appearance (the color of the browser border) to help you easily recognize which browser profile you are using.
Update Profile Icon in EdgeUpdate Profile Appearance in Edge
Pin Browser Profile to Taskbar
This is my favorite feature of using browser profiles. If you have browser windows open for two different profiles, you will notice that there will be two different browser icons in your. Right-click on a particular browser icon and you can pin that browser profile to your taskbar.
Now, the next time you want to work under that profile, you can get there directly from the taskbar icon.
Do you compulsively open new tabs, then leave them open forever because “you might need that later”? Is the top of your browser just a bunch of tiny icons without any context? This shortcut might be for you.
CTRL+Shift+A in Chrome allows you to search your open browser tabs. Recently closed tabs are also visible at the bottom of the list.
Use CTRL+Shift+A to search open tabs
This is probably also a good time to mention that CTRL+W can be used to close your tabs, and CTRL+Shift+T can be used to reopen the most recently closed tab.
And my favorite Chrome shortcut, CTRL+F can be used to search for a term on a webpage, while CRTRL+Enter can be used to click on the found text if it is a hyperlink (this is especially helpful if you are using cloud software like Dynamics 365).
Fun fact: the upper limit on open chrome tabs is around 10,000 tabs.
Juliet Awaits Romeo’s Outlook Meeting Invite Response | James Northcote | oil on canvas | c1790
While my preference in meeting sizes is to abide by the two-pizza rule, sometimes large meetings are necessary. After sending a large meeting invitation, the trickle of meeting responses to my inbox throughout the day becomes an unnecessary distraction.
My solution is to create a new folder for meeting responses, and a rule to sending all meeting responses to that folder. No more distracting inbox pings for every response, though I can see a summary of meeting response activity by looking at the unread messages flag on the folder. At my convenience, I can right-click on the folder and mark all as read if I don’t care about responses, or I can dig into the folder and have an easily filtered view of meeting responses received.
This rule is easy to setup in the Outlook Web App (Outlook.com)
Create Rule for Meeting Responses
Step 1: Create folder for meeting responses.
Step 2: Sign into Outlook.com, Click on settings, Search for rules, Select Inbox rules.
Step 3: Create rule name, Choose Type: Event response for condition, Choose Move to [created folder] for action.
Outlook rules are one of the oldest, most under-utilized productivity hacks in the business applications toolbox. They’re excellent for getting distractions out of your inbox.
Newsletters you only occasionally read? Make a rule to send them to their own folder!
System generated messages you never check? Mark them as read!
Let the computer do your work for you.
Today I want to share a set of rules I create when I start working with new customers to help me manage my inbox. But more generally, I just want to encourage you to use more Outlook rules.
Create Customer Category and Rules
When I start working with a new customer, I like to create an outlook category for that customer, and rules so that all customer-specific emails will be tagged with that category. This works for me because I frequently work across multiple customer projects at the same time, though rarely more than a handful.
Create New Outlook Category
In the Tags group, Under the Categorize button, click All categories
Then click new, and create a category for the new customer
Create Outlook Rules
In the Move group, click on the rules button and select Create RuleA rule to tag email from the customer.A rule to tag email to the customer.A rule to tag email that includes the customer’s name in the subject or body of the email.
OK, What’s the Big Deal?
Automatically categorizing email by customer visually organizes my inbox. I can quickly identify customer vs. internal emails, as well as recognize which customer they pertain to.
It also provides the same visual distinction when looking at meeting invites for the week.
How do you manage your email inbox? Do you use any practices or rules that are exceptionally effective? Let me know in the comments.
iamJoshKnox 