From the Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM Blogs: Virtual entities; Email invoice; Duplicate e-mail signatures; Restrict 'from lookup'

This week on the Dynamics 365/CRM blog roundup:

• Using virtual entities with Dynamics 365
• UWT: email invoice in PDF format
• Preventing duplicate email signatures in workflows in Dynamics 365
• Restrict 'from lookup' in Dynamics 365 email to only queue - without addCustomFilter or unsupported JScript

Using virtual entities with Dynamics 365

On the PowerObjects blog, Joe D365 said that virtual entities let Dynamics 365 users use record information from external data sources and view the information in fields, search results, as well as fetch XML-based reports within Dynamics 365.

A system customizer can configure a data source record to create virtual entities without writing code, he said. But developers can still implement plugins to read data from other sources using the plug-in registration tool and the Dynamics 365 SDK.

The process for defining a virtual entity is like the process for defining a custom entity. However, you have to attach the virtual entity to a data provider to achieve data retrieval. Specifically, the entity and its fields have to be mapped to equivalent data in the external data source.

You can read the rest of the post about using virtual entities with Dynamics 365 here.

UWT: Email invoice in PDF format

On Andrew Butenko's Blog, Butenko said emailing a quote or an invoice to a customer in PDF format isn't a big problem if your CRM app is on-premises.

You develop the report, publish it to CRM, publish it to reporting services, and use reporting services to render the report in PDF format.

But what happens if you're using CRM online? One of new steps introduced in the latest ...