Dynamics 365 TechTalk: Unified Admin Experience for Finance and Operations

Introduction

• Speakers: Lane Swenka, Saurabh Kuchhal, moderated by Andreea Bunduc
• Platform: Microsoft Teams Town Hall
• Session: Recorded by Microsoft Corporation
• Series: Focus on admin experience; future sessions will cover developer environments and build/release management

Overview

Introduction to Unified Admin Experience

• Unified admin experiences for FNO (Finance and Operations)
• Admin experience for customers and partners
• Upcoming sessions: developer environment, build and release management

Agenda

• Power Platform Admin Center (PPAC) overview
• Licenses, roles, and permissions
• Environment and application management
• Q&A session

Power Platform Admin Center (PPAC) Overview

Introduction to PPAC

• Evolution from lifecycle services (LCS) to PPAC
• PPAC: a container with Dynamics 365 apps, Power Apps, Flows, etc.
• Unified environment simplifies IT administration
• Single admin portal for business applications and low code platform

Features of PPAC

1. Critical Notifications
   • Business app-related notifications (releases, hotfixes)
2. Environment Management
   • Tenant-level view and actions
   • History and audit logs
3. Advisor Tab
   • AI-powered recommendations (performance, cleanup)
4. Billing Section
   • Monitor license utilization and compliance
5. Resource Management
   • Capacity management and storage entitlements
6. Help and Support
   • Issue search, ticket creation, known issues tab
7. Policies
   • Data policies, connector control

Tools for Admins

• Power Platform API: Unified API surface
• PowerShell: Admin utility
• Power Platform CLI (Pac): Developer/admin tool
• Connectors: For automation and flows
• Service Principal Support: Encouraged for better workflow management

Roles and Permissions

Environment Creation in PPAC

• Default: Anyone can create environments for low code
• Restriction: Limit to specific admins via tenant settings

Service-Level Admins

1. Dynamics 365 Admin Role: Manage everything, including trial management, sandboxes, etc.
2. Power Platform Admin Role: More comprehensive control, governance, billing policies

Project Level Admin (Environment Admin Role)

• Assignable through Dataverse System Administrator
• Scoped access to specific environments

Environment Creation and Management

Environment Templates

• Pre-defined bundles (Finance, Supply Chain, etc.)
• Benefits: Efficiency, ready-to-use features

Capacity Management

• Storage entitlements based on licenses
• Reporting and trending analysis
• No specific limits on numbers of environments, but capacity constraints

Environment Operations

• Automation: Use of PowerShell for bulk environment creation
• Trial Environments: Easier subscription and deployment
• Sandbox/Developer Environments: Simplified process via PowerShell
• Copy Operations: Full copy (code and data), transactionless copy (configurations, masters)
• Administration Mode: Equivalent to maintenance mode in LCS
• Backups and Restores: Manual backups, system backups, point-in-time restores
• Environment Deletion: Simple UI for deletion

Application Management

Dynamics 365 App Installation

• Install FNO apps on Dataverse environments
• Select versions during installs
• Add-ins: Install additional functionality

Quality Updates

• Update existing environments via the manage button
• Review update logs through Finance and Operations Package Manager

Resources

• Links to Yammer group, weekly office hours
• Encouragement to join community discussions

Q&A Summary

• No tiers for environments; based on available capacity
• Multi-instance management via PPAC
• Partner access via delegated admin requests in Partner Center
• Monitoring with Application Insights
• Roadmap: Upcoming features and more detailed release plans

Conclusion

• Session wrap-up
• Encouragement to stay tuned for upcoming TechTalks on developer environment and build/release management processes