John Adali

Beginning IoT – Installing Windows 10 IoT Core on an x86/x64 Device

This is the second part in a 2-part series on how to install Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Core on an Internet-of-Things (IoT) device. Part 1 described how to install Windows 10 IoT Core on a Raspberry Pi 3 device. This article will focus on the steps required to install Windows 10 IoT Core on an x86/x64 device.

Beginning IoT – Installing Windows 10 IoT Core on a Raspberry Pi

This is the first part in a 2-part series on how to install Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Core on an Internet-of-Things (IoT) device. This article will focus on the steps required to install Windows 10 IoT Core on a Raspberry Pi 3. Part 2 will focus on installation on an x86/x64 device.

Using IoT on a Beer Kegerator

Being born and raised in the great state of Wisconsin, beer has been a part of most of my adult life. Couple that with my love of technology, I always wondered how I could leverage some cool tech with a beer theme. Since the proliferation of inexpensive hardware and the Internet of Things (IoT), it has now become easy (and cheap!) to provide solutions that can be used to monitor (among other things) beer-related activities. This article will describe and detail the steps I took to create a solution for monitoring beer consumption on a beer kegerator.

Disabling Windows Update in Windows 10 IoT Core

If you’re working with Windows 10 IoT Core on your devices and have wondered how you can disable Windows Update, well wonder no more! This article will detail out the steps needed to disable this service.

Displaying and Automating Legacy Data using PowerBI

One of the more common requests involving business intelligence projects is surfacing data from legacy, line-of-business systems in an automated fashion. I recently was involved with a project where the client was making this exact request. This blog will explain how I tackled the problem and used a number of Microsoft technologies to come up with a solution.

Using TraversedPath with Branching Business Flows

Continue reading “Using TraversedPath with Branching Business Flows”

No-Code Configurations for Dynamics CRM – Part 2

This is the second article on how you can configure Dynamics CRM without writing code. In Part 1, I described the configuration options with System and Custom entities, as well as explaining how to use Business Rules. In this article, I will describe how you can configure Dynamics CRM using Workflows and Dialog, Business Process Flows, and Dashboards/Reports.

No-Code Configurations for Dynamics CRM – Part 1

Microsoft has architected the Dynamics CRM platform to allow administrators to customize the environment to fit business needs, without requiring complex coding skills of a developer. This no-code configuration option is very powerful and allows the CRM environment to be built with a large portion of custom functionality before having to rely on custom scripting or coding practices.

This is the first article (of two) where I am going to detail out the different areas of no-code configurations, to give you an idea of what you can do with this type of customization in Dynamics CRM. Keep in mind that this list is not all-inclusive; I am only covering the larger areas of no-code configurations. I will be covering System and Custom Entities, along with Business Rules in this first part. Part 2 will cover Workflows and Dialogs, Business Process Flows, and Dashboards/Reports.

Customization Options for Dynamics CRM

This is the first post in a multi-part series on how to create customizations in Dynamics CRM. If you’ve ever used Dynamics CRM, you quickly learn that while it’s got a lot of features and functionality out-of-the-box, the system really needs to be customized to your specific environment to fully meet your business needs.

Creating an Audit Report for User Logins in Dynamics CRM

If you’ve ever tried to create an audit report for Dynamics CRM, you may have noticed that you can’t create one with the Report Wizard. The Audit Summary Report in the Settings area gives you some information, provided you enable auditing for the correct entities. However, if you need detailed information on your report, or you wish to share this report to others in CRM, you quickly realize that your options are limited.

Fortunately, there is another option that you can take to overcome these challenges. This option involves writing a custom SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) report that can be uploaded into CRM and shared with others to provide auditing information. I will describe how I created a report to provide detailed login information for CRM users. This article assumes the reader understands how to create a custom SSRS report for Dynamics CRM.