Utilizing Power Platform to Create and Manage Vendor Claims in D365

We can all agree that D365 has a ton of functionality, with additional features consistently being released by Microsoft. However, even with all ongoing investments, it is impossible to create an ERP system which meets every organization's need. This is where the Power in Power Platform comes into play. Rather than create extensions in D365, organizations can utilize already connected technologies and create solutions to meet the business requirement. You may be thinking “why wouldn’t organizations just create the extension and move on?” Great question – and I have answers:

1. Both short and long term costs are likely higher with the creation of custom code. Consider the workload associated with extension testing during each upgrade.
2. Depending on the requirement, development cycles may take longer than Power Platform and will always involve environment downtime.
3. Organizations may not have in-house development talent.
4. Power users and/or business analysts can acquire Power Platform skills. This will keep the solution more aligned with business needs and requirements.

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This blog is part 1 of 3 on how Power Platform can be utilized to fulfill requirements, and how organizations can appropriately monitor solutions implemented. Before we go any further, I want to give a huge shoutout to Devon Fitzgerald . Devon is a Solutions Director at Sunrise (as well as an expert user and advocate of Power Platform) and created the solution this blog covers. Thank you, Devon!

Vendor claims functionality is an area many customers and potential customers have asked Sunrise about recently. The ability to create claims against a vendor or invoice, monitor the claim, approve/deny the claim, and have the necessary financial postings occur does not exist in base D365. This functionality does exist and is often implemented on the AR side with the deduction workbench. Rather than creating an extension and adding additional development costs (both short- and long-term), let’s review how this requirement could be fulfilled with Power Platform.

Functionality Overview

To ensure the use case is fully understood, let’s take a few minutes to outline an example the fictitious company, Cameron's Clothing, may need to account for. Cameron’s Clothing received two purchase orders from vendors. One purchase order was delayed and outside the terms agreed upon with the vendor. The second purchase order had damaged items. The Accounts Payable team has full details of issues that occurred, but need a way to properly document the claim and allow for review of the claim by the merchant team before anything can be posting from a financial perspective.

To get things started, a canvas app could be created and opened within D365. (The app can be opened/embedded in a few different ways. A little more on this soon!)

When this occurs, variables can be passed into the canvas app based on the selected record. In the screenshot below the vendor ID is passed into the canvas app where additional information (Invoice, Shipment, Amount, Claim Reason, Notes, etc.) can be added.

Once the claim is saved, a new record is created in the Vendor Claim Dataverse table. (This is the beauty of utilizing forms inside Canvas apps ??). When new records are created, Power Automate Flows can easily be triggered to notify the proper employees at Cameron’s Clothing. (See this previous blog post discussing automating data flows.)

A model driven app now displays the vendor claim records for Cameron’s Clothing. Since this is a Dataverse table, additional fields on the claim record such as timeline tracking and attachments can easily be added for use.

Workspaces are a key concept in D365 and allows users to quickly navigate to commonly used forms or highlight key data points which may need action. Power apps can be embedded directly into workspaces to provide a seamless experience for the user. An end user may not know that the Power App isn’t really part of D365. The image below shows the Claims Workbench Power App embedded within the Vendor Payments workspace. How cool is that?!

Claims will be reviewed by the required employees and approved/denied. Once a claim is approved, a Power Automate Flow will trigger the creation of an invoice journal. The journal will have all details from the entered claim (notes, amounts, vendor, etc.). An additional Power Automate Flow updates the status of the vendor claim record, so it is no longer “Active”.

An invoice journal could then go through the configured workflow within D365 if required. (Potentially the finance team needs to review for audit purposes before posting.)

You’ve now seen the functional flow which proves the use case and want to know more about the technical setup. I’ve got you covered in the next section!

Technical Review

The fascinating part about what was reviewed today is that zero lines of code were written to create and implement this solution. Users continue to work in D365 with each step of the process, and even though portions were created outside of the base D365 solution, they were on a platform integrated so seamlessly that many users would not be able to tell the difference.

?Ultimately in Power Platform there is one solution created which allows this to be exported/imported across environments (dev,test,prod, etc.).?

The main components of the solution are the Dataverse tables which support the vendor claim records, the canvas app to create vendor claims, the model driven app which acts as the claims workbench, and two cloud flows. The cloud flows create the invoice journal in D365 and update the status of the vendor claim once the record creates successfully.

Power Automate Flows are very intuitive to create and use a point and click interface. The below screenshot shows the steps taken in the flow which creates the vendor invoice journal.

Connections to only Dataverse and the appropriate D365 environment are required to complete this solution.

After seeing the technical details behind this solution – what processes in your organization can you see Power Platform helping?

Summary

Power Platform enables organizations to quickly deploy solutions which may not be a part of a system in place today. In this example, Power Platform was utilized to help bridge functionality gaps with D365, but companies use multiple spreadsheets to complete many business processes today. Power Platform can provide a platform for those processes and ensure all work is not lost by the deletion of an Excel document from a SharePoint drive ??

As always, Please reach out to me directly with any questions on this functionality or anything related to Dynamics/Power Platform. My colleagues at Sunrise Technologies and I love discussing potential solutions. Our contact form is always open for business.

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Until next time!