From the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Blogs: Form fields; Workflow security; Automating business processes; Dates & voucher numbers

This week on the Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations blog roundup:

• How to secure form fields populated by data methods in Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations
• Workflow security in D365FO
• Automating and improving business processes when you move to D365FO
• Update your dates and voucher numbers with Excel in D365FO

How to secure form fields populated by data methods in D365FO

Writing on his Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations blog, Alex Meyer noted that he had previously written about using field level security to help secure sensitive information within your D365FO environment. But what if the field you want to secure doesn’t correlate directly to a SQL table field and instead is populated by a data method?

He stated that if he wanted to secure the bank account number field on the vendor's form by using the normal field-level security techniques of securing this field, he couldn't do it because the field isn't available to secure. He then provided screen shots to illustrate his statement.

We can see the type is a Form String Control and that there is no 'data field' listed. Instead a Control is listed (Payment_M_bankAccountNum).

In the post, Meyer then offered information about the process to secure a form field that isn’t directly populated from a table field but instead from a data method.

Workflow security in D365FO

Writing on his Dynamicspedia blog, André Arnaud De Calavon explored the proper permissions to be able to approve as well as submit documents to the workflow in D365FO. Arnaud De Calavon noted that there's no simple guidance on which roles, duties, or privileges you should use to ensure you have the correct permissions.

In case you build up privileges from scratch, you might have questions about how to include the correct permissions for the workflow.

In his post, Arnaud De Calavon provided information about the security architecture for workflows and shared some tips. He first talked about some potential security issues users might have and then stated that with the correct security, users can prevent security-related errors. However, he noted that it's not easy to know what to add to your security objects.

There is no security diagnostics tool for workflow elements in the application. You can try assigning more roles to a user or add standard duties and privileges until you get the desired outcome. However, then there is a high chance that you added too many permissions to a user and you still don’t understand the workflow security architecture.

Arnaud De Calavon then discussed generic and workflow-specific permissions to manage and take care of in D365FO as well as how to find and reuse standard security objects.

Automating and improving business processes when you move to D365FO

Writing on the Encore Business Solutions blog, Kailey Acuña stated that when a user migrates from Microsoft Dynamics AX to D365FO, they may wonder if they should change any of their regular business processes. She noted that maybe some manual processes should be automated and some should be redesigned to become more efficient.