Microsoft flow and Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX

A few days ago Microsoft made the Flow connector available for preview, and you can read more about it here.

Here is a very simplified flow, where a customer is created in CRM, and is then transferred to Dynamics AX.

The flow therefore consists of the following steps, when a record is created in CRM, a customer is created in AX. After that, I want an email to be sent to me.

To test this flow, create a Customer in CRM online.

Then wait for a few seconds, and then the customer is visible in AX. So very impressed.

I also received an email, telling me that a new customer was created in AX from CRM,.

You can trace the entire integration in Flow, and also see how much time is spent on processing each step.

In this case, AX used 10 seconds to process the JSON/ODATA message, and spent 3 seconds to send an email that the record was created.

 Here are the steps to create this flow.

Select the Flow action “Dynamics CRM Online – When a record is created”.

Then specify the organization and the entity name: Accounts

Next add the action Dynamics AX Online – Create a record

select the instance, and with what user to log in. Select the entity name: Customers, and select to only transfer the Account number and Account name into the AX entity. Some of the other fields, I chose to hardcode for simplicity reasons.

The last step is to send an email to myself

Some summary.

Using Dynamics AX with flow will certainly be the way forward on how we integrate AX with CRM and all kinds of other 3’rd party systems. It is still in preview, and the next thing we are waiting for is that Dynamics AX can get reactive, and then when a record is created or modified inside AX, this can trigger a flow. But Microsoft have promised that this is on its way. Also remember that this tool has its current restrictions and that we need to be patient and let Microsoft further develop and improve its capabilities. But for easy and simple integrations I would call this as a unique opportunity to get rid of complex and time consuming integrations. As long as you keep it simple it works as intended.