Making toast in the Dataverse with model-driven in-app notifications

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Occasionally during construction or enhancement of a model-driven app there is a requirement to notify users of actions they need to take. You know, something like a message that says "Here are things that need your attention today".  This can be handled with custom code, creating tasks that appear on their dashboard, creating queue items that show up in their todo queue, assigning ownership of records, sending an email etc. There are many options. Now, with the addition of in-app notifications there is another way.  


Image creator Charlotte Kingston Larson

Along comes a toast message

In Fall of 2021 a new modern in-app notification feature debuted. This feature allows for generation of notification messages and display at the user level. These messages display in the modern toast format that many responsive and mobile apps have adopted.


This new feature can be enabled in your D365 instance now. I recommend testing it out in a trial instance of D365 or another sandbox instance first to experiment. In researching how to enable this feature it seems, as of this writing, there is no simple preview switch.  But while researching, I discovered a new plug-in for the XRMToolBox that allows for 1 click enable and disable of this feature.  Well, after you install the plug-in of course. 

If you don't currently use XRMToolBox you should. It has a wealth of tools to simplify task in Dynamics 365.  The new in-app notification plug-in is created by Ivan Ficko. He puts out some great information so check out his content.

Let's take a quick look at how easy it is to use this plug-in to enable in-app notifications.  Note: This is not a lesson on using XRMToolBox so if you are unfamiliar with that tool I suggest you get it and take it for a spin. I can emphasize enough how great the tool is for managing all things Dynamics 365 and older versions.

From XRMToolBox first connect to your D365 instance. 




If you don't have the In-app notification plugin navigate to the tool library.
Search for "In-App Notification Builder". Note: Spelling is important. 
Select Install to install it.



Navigate back to the home page and run the In-App Notification Builder plugin.


Select the model-driven app using the dropdown. This allows you to specify which app will allow notifications, like "Customer Service Hub" for example. Click the red button next to Notification Status. This will enable notifications after answering Yes to the prompt.



After a brief time your notification config install spinner will disappear and you should see the green button now. If not you may need to refresh the display by selecting the app dropdown, changing to another app and changing back.


Use the Test button to send a test notification. You will select a user and click save.
Be sure to use your login name that you normally use for D365. This will allow you to see the notification.


Now login to D365 and after a brief time you should see the notification bell and counter at the top.



These notifications are stored in a notification table in the Dataverse.  What that means is you can easily write to this table to do some of your own custom notifications.  Let's take a look.

Use it in Power Automate


Now let's see how we can automate notifications using Power Automate (flow).  This is not a detailed instruction on using Power Automate. But just a quick overview on how this may work.  At the most basic level a flow consist of a trigger and an action.

Here you can see we have 2 simple flow steps.  1 trigger and 1 action.


Our trigger is on Adding on create of an Account.  The action is to add a new row to the notifications table.


Here is a detail of the Add a new row action. This shows some of the customizable fields.


After creating 2 accounts you can see my notifications here.  The notifications let you control the title, body, icon, and several other items.  You can have informational notifications, warning notifications and a few other icon displays.



In Summary

While the feature is currently in preview I am counting on it becoming a widely used to help with user adoption going forward.  Take a look at this and see how it can fit into your application space in the Dataverse 😉.  Have fun making toast in the Dataverse. 🚀🍞

Thanks for reading!









Location: Annapolis, MD 21401, USA

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