Skip to main content

Exploring Analytical Options with Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations: Link to Fabric

I’ve recently been exploring various analytical options within Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, and one that I’ve delved deeply into is Link to Fabric.

There is a walkthrough guide available on the Microsoft Fasttrack Github repo. See Hands-on Lab: Link to Fabric from Dynamics 365 finance and operations apps

This guide is an excellent starting point and should be one of the first things you try out. However, it’s important to understand that there are limitations to this approach that may not be suitable for all real-world scenarios. Lets discuss these items and what I have been exploring ...

Background

I want to join multiple tables to create my denormalised views that I can report on. My goal is to use Direct Lake mode in the semantic model. Specifically, I wanted to avoid the need to reimport data into Power BI for reporting. 

Key Limitations

The first limitation you’ll encounter is:

By design, only tables in the semantic model derived from tables in a Lakehouse or Warehouse support Direct Lake mode. Although tables in the model can be derived from SQL views in the Lakehouse or Warehouse, queries using those tables will fall back to DirectQuery mode.

FinOps is highly normalised and following the Microsoft lab which uses views would not work for me. 

Solutions

A solution to this problem is to create a delta table that I could load from the query/view.

Here are several ways to to do this:

1. Import Data Using a Data Pipeline: This method is easy to configure but can be slow and is not ideal for large volumes of data. Only works within the same workspace.

2. Import Data Using Dataflow Gen2: Also easy to configure, but the limitation is that the copy only works within the same workspace.

3. Import Using a Stored Procedure: Simple to set up but shares the same limitation as Dataflow Gen2, working only at the SQL analytics endpoint level and not across workspaces.

4. Import Using a Notebook: This method has a higher learning curve but offers the best performance and flexibility.


Scenarios

For me, I would lean towards using Notebooks. I have explored Spark SQL option as that was the lowest learning curve for the different languages you can use in a Notebook.

Below is a simple query to get you started. It assumes you have the tables already exporting in fabric.

Select statement with a join

A simple select query to get you started with your first notebook.
%%sql
SELECT 
    party.recid AS PartyId
    ,party.name AS Name
    ,COALESCE(party.namealias, '') AS ShortName
    ,COALESCE(postal.countryregionid, '') AS Country
    ,COALESCE(postal.state, '') AS State
    ,COALESCE(postal.city, '') AS City
    ,COALESCE(postal.street, '') AS Street
    ,COALESCE(postal.zipcode, '') AS PostCode
    ,COALESCE(phone.locator, '') AS PhoneNumber
    ,COALESCE(email.locator, '') AS Email
FROM dirpartytable party 
LEFT OUTER JOIN logisticspostaladdress postal ON postal.location = party.primaryaddresslocation
AND postal.validto > current_date() -- filters only valid(effective) addresses
LEFT OUTER JOIN logisticselectronicaddress phone ON phone.recid = party.primarycontactphone
LEFT OUTER JOIN logisticselectronicaddress email ON email.recid = party.primarycontactemail

You should see a table result showing below your query.




Create table if not exists

Next level is to create a new delta table and copy your selection into it.
%%sql
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS fact_dirpartytable 
USING DELTA AS 
SELECT 
    party.recid AS PartyId
    ,party.name AS Name
    ,COALESCE(party.namealias, '') AS ShortName
    ,COALESCE(postal.countryregionid, '') AS Country
    ,COALESCE(postal.state, '') AS State
    ,COALESCE(postal.city, '') AS City
    ,COALESCE(postal.street, '') AS Street
    ,COALESCE(postal.zipcode, '') AS PostCode
    ,COALESCE(phone.locator, '') AS PhoneNumber
    ,COALESCE(email.locator, '') AS Email
FROM dirpartytable party 
LEFT OUTER JOIN logisticspostaladdress postal ON postal.location = party.primaryaddresslocation
AND postal.validto > current_date() -- filters only valid(effective) addresses
LEFT OUTER JOIN logisticselectronicaddress phone ON phone.recid = party.primarycontactphone
LEFT OUTER JOIN logisticselectronicaddress email ON email.recid = party.primarycontactemail

This is a one of copy and will not copy data if the table exists already.

Next blog post, I will cover a few different scenarios.







Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

AX - How to use Map and MapEnumerator

Similar to Set class, Map class allows you to associate one value (the key) with another value. Both the key and value can be any valid X++ type, including objects. The types of the key and the value are specified in the declaration of the map. The way in which maps are implemented means that access to the values is very fast. Below is a sample code that sets and retrieves values from a map. static void checkItemNameAliasDuplicate(Args _args) { inventTable inventTable; Map map; MapEnumerator mapEnumerator; NameAlias nameAlias; int counter = 0; ; map = new Map(Types::String, Types::Integer); //store into map while select inventTable { nameAlias = inventTable.NameAlias; if (!map.exists(nameAlias)) { map.insert(nameAlias, 1); } else { map.insert(nameAlias, map.lookup(nameAlias) + 1); } } //retrieve fro
Read more

AX - How to use Set and SetEnumerator

The Set class is used for the storage and retrieval of data from a collection in which the values of the elements contained are unique and serve as the key values according to which the data is automatically ordered. You can create a set of primitive data types or complex data types such as a Class, Record or Container. Below is sample of a set of records. static void _Set(Args _args) {     CustTable       custTable;     Set             set = new Set(Types::Record);     SetEnumerator   setEnumerator;     ;     while select custTable     {         if (custTable && !set.in(custTable))         {             set.add(custTable);         }     }     if (!set.empty())     {         setEnumerator = set.getEnumerator();         setEnumerator.reset();         while (setEnumerator.moveNext())         {             custTable = setEnumerator.current();             info(strfmt("Customer: %1",custTable.AccountNum));         }     } } Common mistake when creating a set of recIds
Read more

Approve Workflow via email using template placeholders #Dyn365FO

Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations has placeholders which can be inserted into the instructions. Normally you would want this to show up in the email that is sent. One of the most useful ones is the URL link to the exact record that you are approving. In the workflow configurations use the placeholder and build up your message. Towards the end it has workflow specific ones. The URL token is %Workflow.Link to web% . For the technical people the token is replaced in this class WorkflowDocumentField. This is what I inserted into my email template. <BODY> subject: %subject% <BR> message: %message% <BR> company: %company% <BR> for: %for% <BR> </BODY> Should look like this. The final result looks like this. If you debug these are the place holders that are put together.
Read more