Alan Mervitz

Specialist in .NET, Dynamics 365 / Portals, Azure, web development, and programming. Always exploring something new.

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@goincase when will you start selling the Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard?

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@UlrikkeAkerbk I just refer to it as 'portals', and ignore the extra words associated with it.

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@RajYRaman @koolin_ "Also, sometimes, it might be much simpler to do something in code, rather than build a 40 step multi-branch Flow or a canvas app with duct-taped Power Fx expressions"

Duct-taped Power Fx expressions are going to ensure developers have a future!

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@BrahmeiroDiary @UlrikkeAkerbk @readyxrm That's possible, but I think it's still there given:

"Updates from Dataverse are communicated to the portal in asynchronous mode, so there might be a lag between the time data is updated in Dataverse and the time that updated data appears on the portal."

https://t.co/4t8dYR78d8

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@UlrikkeAkerbk @readyxrm @BrahmeiroDiary The 15 minute time interval is due to the SLA of the cache invalidation mechanism, when data changes in the CRM the portal web app is notified (via Azure event hub?) and that can take up to 15 minutes.

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@UlrikkeAkerbk @rulesrchanged Docs say it's still in preview.

https://t.co/NPgWw8EYV4

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@UlrikkeAkerbk I would provision a trial instance and portal app, and use the trial as a base reference from which you can copy over web templates and other elements to that you want to redo from the base starting point.

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

Exporting the default solution used to be possible, now it's a feature limitation. This makes me sad.

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@UlrikkeAkerbk They're definitely up to something, never seen "basic" or "advanced" namels used to refer those features. You can see the old names still in Adxstudio documentation.

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

It looks like this is a known limitation. Here's an existing idea where a json filter has been proposed (from 2+ years ago! 😥)

https://t.co/1kA8VbZKeL

Please up-vote the idea so that msft actually pays attention to this.

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

I think I've just found a gap in the liquid filters in portals. There isn't a filter that will properly escape text for use in JSON. There's escape (i.e. HTML escape), xml_escape, and url_escape, but no json_escape.

Someone please prove me wrong!

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

The web interface for reviewing pull requests in Azure DevOps has two user interfaces for comparing files. You could be unintentionally allowing undesirable changes to get introduced.

Please mind your white space in Azure DevOps pull requests https://t.co/P91BskLFKX

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@koolin_ I'm moving towards PowerShell modules being a thin wrapper on top of .net class libraries, with a long term goal using the libraries in additional types of apps (.net tools, DevOps tasks, GitHub actions, XrmToolBox plugins, web services, etc.)

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@koolin_ Glad to hear there's some interest still 🙂 I want to rethink how the filters in those functions are defined so that they're not reliant on PowerShell syntax. They might also live in a different specialized PowerShell module.

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

Sending and receiving emails from Dynamics 365 has always been something I’ve found to be a challenge to setup. I was able to accomplish this using a Dynamics 365 queue.

Email Setup for Dynamics 365 Queues using IMAP/SMTP https://t.co/ituGONn7jt

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

It was a long 3 months waiting to find out the results because I took it as a beta exam, but thankfully I passed! https://t.co/kczZYl0RS7

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

@UlrikkeAkerbk Oh yes, I have a 17 year relationship with it and its predecessors. it's part of my DNA at this poInt.

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

I read this promising blog post:

Source code files for Canvas apps https://t.co/nnB2Bl5nMo.

My feedback with ideas are here: Ideas to make .msapp files 'source code' (i.e. developer) friendly
https://t.co/VMzWVesELI.

Thumb up my GitHub issue if you agree with what I've said 😀

[Alan Mervitz @amervitz]

This seems like a variant of tasks in a backlog, but for business users. Key takeaway, take something developers do, enhance it with a few social features, and you have your next software product 😛

Use the Innovation Backlog to manage app and flow ideas https://t.co/JTV8PGHAJG