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Introduction
The first review on the blog concerns an application that could be described as a must-have. There are very few apps that can be successfully installed in almost every production implementation. Giving analogies to the mobile application market, in the world of Android and iOS, there is a whole range of applications that constitute the absolute foundation – applications that each of us installed right after buying and launching a new phone. Is Use Dynamics such an extension in our Business Central world? Let’s see.
What is Use Dynamics
Let’s start with some metadata. Use Dynamics is an ISV extension from Partner Abakion, distributed completely free of charge via Microsoft AppSource ↗ for Business Central online. The application supports both licensing editions, Essential and Premium, is available in all countries and regions where BC is supported, and the supported languages are English and Danish.
The Use Dynamics extension adds to BC the quick access to additional help resources for the standard Business Central application functionality. These resources includes video tutorials with text transcripts for these materials and a substantive introduction to the given BC area.
How Use Dynamics works
The videos and transcripts to which the application provides access are not uploaded to the BC database where we install the application. They are located on a web portal, which is also available at usedynamics.com ↗ for everyone from a regular browser. The role of the application is to redirect the BC user to the appropriate resources on the portal by opening the portal’s subpage in a new browser tab (next to BC) or directly in BC in an Page object (based on the principles of the embedded web browser).
Installation process
The installation of Use Dynamics is almost effortless. The only thing we need to do during the installation is to choose the preferred language in which the application should operate (but remember that the supported languages are English and Danish – I have not tested Danish) and wait for it to be installed in the environment.
How to use – menu
After installation, we should notice a few minor changes in the user interface. One of them is a new menu item added to the two standard profiles most often chosen as the default ones, namely: Business Manager and Sales Order Processor.
In the new Use Dynamics menu, we have three items, each of which triggers the opening of the appropriate section of the Use Dynamics portal in a Page object in Business Central (based on the principles of the embedded web browser):
- Basic Training is a shortcut to open the portal’s resource catalog page appropriate for new Business Central users; the videos are divided into 3 chapters: User Interface, Introducing the Functional Areas, Navigation,
- Upgrading to BC is a shortcut to open the portal’s resource catalog page concerning: copying the company, posting opening balances, system parameterization, and assigning permissions and roles to users in the system,
- Business Central opens the main catalog of resources with tutorial videos divided into BC application areas.
For profiles to which Abakion has not added the Use Dynamics menu, each of these items can be searched from the Business Central Tell me search bar (also accessible with the shortcut Alt + Q).
Displaying the portal in the embedded web browser
Opening web pages within the Business Central application is unfortunately not an ideal solution from a UX perspective. Opening a separate web page of the Use Dynamics portal in a Page object can be confusing because, within the BC application window, the user suddenly sees a completely different interface, new navigation functions, an additional content search engine, etc. While the browser’s Back and Forward buttons work in most cases correctly and as expected – first scrolling the history of the embedded page and then the main one – the integration of the page-in-page unfortunately ends there, so the advantages of this solution are simply not many.
If the resource catalog was built in BC, within the Business Central interface, the user would certainly feel more at home and there would be no need to go outside the application, use the embedded web browser, etc. The resources themselves could still be hosted externally. Some more advanced navigation elements (filtering, searching) would certainly be a challenge to build in BC, but I think it would be worth it.
Apart from the obvious drawbacks of displaying portal resources inside the BC application (above), the most persistent issue is the lack of memory support for cookies on the displayed web pages that way. Each time you open Use Dynamics resources in a Page object in BC, the cookie consent window displays with every click / move to another subpage / opening another tutorial video, etc. This happens regardless of whether we actually accepted the cookies and at what level or did not accept them at all. The embedded browser simply does not remember our choice, so the portal shows us the cookie consent window with every page refresh and every move to another subpage of the portal. This problem probably concerns not the ISV extension itself, but the technical limitations of the function to display web pages based on the embedded browser. This issue should therefore be resolved on the portal side in a different way than for a standard web page or give up displaying the portal page inside the BC application.
How to use – action on pages
Fortunately, the menu items (and availability in the Tell me search) displaying the portal content in the BC window are not the only way to access Use Dynamics resources.
A more interesting option in my opinion (and actually the main functionality of the app) is the Use Dynamics action. The extension adds Use Dynamics action to selected Page objects, particularly on selected card pages, documents, lists, worksheets, and some setup pages as well.
Clicking on the Use Dynamics action opens the search results for videos in the Use Dynamics portal for a phrase that matches the name of the BC Page object from which the action was launched. Clicking on Use Dynamics from, for example, a customer card page, will display videos from the Use Dynamics catalog that match the phrase customer card. Moreover, the results are displayed in a new browser tab, so the action no longer uses the embedded browser functionality – and that’s a good thing.
The Use Dynamics action has been placed on selected Pages at the end of the taskbar in the Related actions group, which on heavily loaded Pages makes finding this action very time-consuming, and it can also be frustrating if it turns out that the action is simply not there. Therefore, it is easier to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + U, which has been assigned to the action.
If the action is placed on the Page you are currently on, using the keyboard shortcut mentioned above will open a new browser tab with the search results. However, if the action is not placed on the current Page, the keyboard shortcut will probably open the page source view (shortcut in the Microsoft Edge browser), which can also be somewhat frustrating. You can always use Tell me search (Alt + Q), enter at least part of the phrase corresponding to the action: use dyn and check if the action appears in the search results in the place where actions found on the current Page appear – if so, press Enter to run it.
Quick access actions
I quietly hope that Microsoft will someday allow the placement of action buttons in the quick access action group (currently including the page search bar, analysis mode, and recently Copilot). This would be the perfect place for the Use Dynamics action and a significant improvement for the UX of this extension.
Portal contents
The substantive content of the portal, i.e., the instructional videos, is arranged in the catalog in the most intuitive way from the user’s point of view, i.e., by functional areas. Additionally, the videos are also tagged by content type and user level (content classifications exactly like on my blog! 😀).
There are many materials on the portal (currently over 600 videos supplemented with transcripts or text instructions), and they are high quality. A large portion of the materials was prepared by Sune Lohse from Abakion, whom you might know from speaking at Directions conferences. It is worth noting that the materials are prepared in an accessible language, i.e., they do not always strictly adhere to the terminology known from Microsoft’s documentation. I suspect this is a deliberate move to explain the complexities of a given function in BC more easily, and additionally, they do not duplicate the function descriptions from the official Microsoft documentation. They are more often based on real-life examples and typical use scenarios for setup.
Use Dynamics help resources are not intended to replace the built-in user help functions in the Business Central application (guides, tooltips, help panel with links to official documentation, etc.), but to complement these functions with a catalog of instructional/tutorial videos that explain the principles of operations and capabilities of individual areas of the application in a slightly different way and language.
When we select the material we are interested in, we will see a typical video player for web pages, a transcript is placed below the video, and on the left side, navigation, with the selected video placed on a playlist within the given chapter. In the panel on the left, we can quickly jump to the next video or use the filtering option to highlight only videos of a given type or by the selected user level.
Everything is complemented by a search form (with literal matching of the searched phrase), making navigation through the portal’s resources complete.
If we decide to create an account on the portal, we will be able to manage our own playlists and participate in free online courses (based on the video materials from the portal), which are concluded with exams and Use Dynamics certification (the entire course, exam, and certification program is currently in beta).
Who is Use Dynamics for
The extension may not be necessary for every implementation, but it will certainly perfectly complement the knowledge needs of the client’s users. Especially in situations where the client has underestimated the training needs of their employees or wanted to save money on trainings. A thoughtful consultant would want to leave such a client with as many materials as possible for further self-learning, and the official documentation simply does not convince some users. Installing (reminder – free) Use Dynamics in such a case will definitely be a perfect solution.
It can also be a strong tool in the hands of the client during the onboarding of new employees, as a supplement to project documentation, user manuals, and test scenarios created during the implementation, as well as official documentation. The client can also use the functionality of courses on the Use Dynamics portal to give employees the opportunity to confirm their knowledge.
Summary and evaluation
Is Use Dynamics a “must-have” and an item on the list of absolutely essential extensions for BC? Partly yes, partly no. However, every consultant should know about its existence to be able to propose its installation when we want to equip the client (or rather their users) with all possible tools for self-learning and expanding their knowledge of the system. It will be useful where users are just learning to operate the system and the intricacies of its functionalities. However, in implementations where the group of users is well acquainted with the base application and has been working on BC for many years (and previously on Dynamics NAV), Use Dynamics will not be used often.
Nevertheless, the fact that the application expands the available help resources for users with a full catalog of instructional videos that can help understand how the system or a specific functionality works is great value. We get quick access to a portal with high-quality video materials (both technically and substantively) directly (or rather half-directly) from BC. The topics discussed in the materials, from a different perspective and in a different language than the official documentation, can help break the user’s barrier in wanting to explore additional system functions.
The way the extension serves this knowledge to the user (especially in the form of a window with a embedded web browser) may not be a perfect solution (I guess I’m just not a fan of displaying web content directly in BC Pages), and it can even be annoying (each time asking for cookie consent with every refresh), but still, the substantive content defends the high overall rating for this application.
Moreover, it should be remembered that the application is available for free. Recording over 600 videos from all areas of Business Central is a huge social contribution from Abakion to educating users about standard processes and functionalities in BC. This is appreciated not only by me but also by many Use Dynamics users, as seen in the high application ratings on AppSource ↗.
Use Dynamics app
Description
The extension provides access straight from BC app to high-quality video materials that are additional resources to help the user in the daily use of the BC and its parameterization.Positives
- Easy to install and no configuration
- Large movie library - over 600
- High quality materials
- Completely free!
Negatives
- External UI
- Using the embedded browser
- Cookie consent after page refresh
