Synergy Software Systems

Malicious tech support ads – Windows 10 users beware.

August 13th, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

1. On Tuesday, Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center announced that it had learned about new strategies to target those using Windows 10 via links that lead to fraudulent tech support sites.
2. Zdnet reports that the scam involves a series of malicious ads that redirect victims to a fake tech-support page, in which Windows 10 users are presented with a display of fake Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) or other bogus Windows security alerts
3. Once users have clicked on the link that leads to the fraudulent website, they are presented with a host of security-alert popups that aim to drive users to contact the bogus support call center.
To report a scam https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/contactus/

To prevent these kinds of attacks, Microsoft’s Windows 10, Outlook.com, Edge, and Exchange Online Protection include security features to block the fake tech support sites and fraudulent emails.

According to Microsoft, Edge users can prevent dialog loops by blocking a certain page from multiplying.
A new Edge feature gives users the ability to shut down browsers or tabs when facing a suspicious-looking popup message.

According to Microsoft,each month “…at least three million users of various platforms and software encounter tech support scams”.
the scam new techniques introduce a different layer to the mix, and embed links in phish-like emails—and represent a step up from the previous methods used by scammers, potentially leading to a wider pool of victims

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Posted in Microsoft, Security and Compliance, Technology

Micorosft CRM 4.0 support ends April 2018

August 12th, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Microsoft Dynamics 4.0 will reach the end of extended support on April 10, 2018.
If you are using this version, then please plan to upgrade to at least Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 or a later version before April 10, 2018 to ensure supportability.

The best way to continue to get full support for Dynamics CRM is to upgrade to the latest versions, now known as Dynamics 365.
The following resources are available to help you upgrade:
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 IT Pro Technical Library
• Upgrade CRM 4.0 Organization to CRM 2011
• Upgrading from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

If you need help to plan an upgrade then please call Synergy Software Systems: 0097143365589

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Posted in Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM

“Outlook add-in” deprecated in July 2017 update for Dynamics 365

August 12th, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Dynamics 365 for Outlook (“Outlook add-in”) was deprecated with the July 2017 update for Dynamics 365.
The Outlook add-in was a legacy feature
What deprecation means
When a Dynamics 365 feature is “deprecated,” it means intent to remove the feature capability from a future major release of Dynamics 365. The Outlook add-in will continue to work and is fully supported until it is officially removed. However, Microsoft will not invest in new functionality for the add-in. After the removal, the Outlook add-in will no longer work.

The add-in is was deprecated with the July 2017 update for Dynamics 365 (online), which was a major release (version 9.0).
The add-in will be removed with version 10.0, .
The removal applies for versions 10.0 and onwards. Microsoft will continue to support the add-in in versions earlier than version 10.0 until the Dynamics 365 version itself is not supported.

Today’s users expect products to be fast, contextual, and easy to navigate.
While the add-in has many capabilities, the user experience is not as up to date as the rest of the Dynamics 365 product.

COM add-ins (on which Dynamics 365 for Outlook is based) are older, slower, technology which is supported only in limited versions of Outlook.
In recent years, Office has released “Office add-ins,” which, unlike COM add-ins, don’t have any code physically installed on the user’s device or Outlook client, and thus result in better maintainability and reliability.

The new add-ins are not limited to Outlook running on Windows; they also run on: Outlook Web App, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook for mobile.

With the latest Dynamics 365 enhancements, improvements to Dynamics 365 App for Outlook, and with enhancements on the roadmap, users will both have a better experience while using Dynamics 365 App for Outlook and get the functionality they need to run their businesses.

The combination of the new Office add-ins, enhancements to Dynamics 365 App for Outlook, and the long time provided to prepare for this change is the reason for announcing the Outlook add-in deprecation at this time.

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Posted in Dynamics 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.7 – Ask Synergy Software Systems

August 12th, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.7 is ready and will be released in August 2017.
New and updated features
Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.7 introduces the following features:

Listening and engagement on YouTube
• Get in touch with your audience on YouTube directly from within Social Engagement.
• Users with at least a Responder interaction role can now rate and reply to videos and comments on YouTube.
• Add a social profile for YouTube under Settings > Social Profiles, or get a YouTube profile shared with you before you can interact on this source.
• Additionally, Social Engagement extended the listening capabilities and is now capable of acquiring video posts and comments on YouTube channels.
• Any user with permission to create search rules can create YouTube rules under any search topic and add YouTube channels to gather posts and comments from.
• Keyword-based searches on the video source continue to reside under the keywords rule and now also contain comments for actively discussed video posts.

Resolved issues
In addition to the new features, Update 1.7 addresses the following issues:
• Fixed an issue in the Social Engagement content pack for Power BI that was causing the content pack installation to fail when the Social Engagement solution has no name set (found in Settings -> Global Settings -> Default Preferences). Please download the latest content pack from AppSource to avoid this issue
• Fixed an issue in Social Profiles displaying the wrong icons regarding acquisition usage.
• Fixed an issue for Surface Hub devices where the on-screen keyboard wasn’t shown when defining keyword filters.

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Posted in Dynamics 365, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Dynamics 365 Enterprise Finance and Operations – G.C.C. HR and Payroll from Synergy Software Systems

August 10th, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Our Ax 2012 R3 popular HR and Payroll software was implemented in more than 40 companies.
It is now available in Dynamics 365 Enterprise Finance and Operation, with the first implementation already started.

The product includes comprehensive payroll features as well as automation of many day to day processes for HR and PRO staff.

Extensive Power BI analysis, T@A integration, and mobile approval are additional features

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Posted in Dubai and regional news, Dynamics 365, General Synergy News

August 7th, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

The latest upgrade of Dynamics 365 Enterprise for Finance and Operations was more than just a name change.
A major are of enhancement is embedded Powwr BI analytics.

Analytical Workspaces and Business Intelligence Reports (via Power BI) are now directly embedded into the ERP. With these tools, users are able to access powerful, data driven reports without having to leave the Dynamics 365 interface thereby delivering a seamless experience.

Some of the benefits of embedded Analytical Workspaces include:
• Power BI readily available without navigating away from Dynamics 365
• Service Licenses already included in the purchase price for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
• Ability to drill-down past visuals for more in depth data analysis
•Role and task based security for all reports
• Ability to personalize workspaces with a variety of Power BI tiles

With Power Apps you can also view Power BU reports on your mobile devices.

The term embedded business intelligence (BI) refers to experiences that use highly intuitive and fluid visualizations to provide insights that are relevant to a task, so that user is more informed and can make better choices. Embedded BI is used throughout the user interface. At a technical level, building rich visualizations requires a powerful charting framework, and also an efficient way to access aggregated data that enables the display of fluid visualizations. Finance and Operations meets both of these requirements, so that application developers can build rich and deep embedded BI–enabled scenarios.

In Finance and Operations, perspectives reside within the analytics collection in the Application Explorer. Perspectives have undergone a major upgrade and now incorporate the following improvements:
• Model new aggregate models and customize existing aggregate models as a star schema within Application Explorer.
• Modeling for key performance indicators (KPIs) in Application Explorer is supported.
• Model data entities by referencing aggregate models and expose those models to external reporting tools, such as PowerBI, as OData endpoints. Data entities canbe consumed within Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.
• Consume aggregate models directly in the programming model by using X++ or C# code. You no longer have to write MDX code to consume aggregate data.
• Aggregate data is similar to the behavior of detailed data. For example, aggregate data can be enriched with extended data types (EDTs) and enumerations, and you secure these by using Finance and Operations security concepts.
• By default, aggregate measurements are real-time. A system administrator, can manage the latency of aggregate data and controls based on available resources and business needs, without having to deal with the complexity of scheduling and external tools.
• Finance and Operations perspectives enable easier and more predictable modeling that takes advantage of business concepts that are already available throughout Finance and Operations. This lets developers re-use existing business models, and thus makes the modeling process quicker and easier.

Projects that were generated by using perspectives from Dynamics AX 2012 and later can be upgraded to Finance and Operations metadata equivalents.

Measures are aggregate numbers, such as Total Sales or Number of Orders.
Dimensions are slicers, such as Product, Vendor, or Customer, that help you analyze the measure.

For example, the measure of Total Sales isn’t useful unless it can be sliced by Product, Region, and Customer. Aggregate measurements are the evolution of AX 2012 analysis cubes.
Whereas a cube was based on a multidimensional online analytical processing (OLAP) technology, an aggregate measurement abstracts the underlying technology. Therefore, you no longer have to know about the underlying implementation technology. The underlying technology infrastructure now also takes advantage of improvements with in-memory real-time technology.

The integration of Finance and Operations and Power BI enables data mash-up scenarios that require access to external data sources that are supported through Microsoft Power Query for Excel.

Users can personalize workspaces by embedding tiles that are hosted on PowerBI.com.
Users can also add direct links to reports that are hosted on PowerBI.com.
In this way, users can access and interact with the reports without leaving the application. Power BI content (PBIX files) that partners and ISVs develop can be embedded directly into the application.
PBIX files that are associated with a model file are automatically published in Power BI Embedded as part of the application deployment process.
Additionally, add X++ extensions for embedded reporting scenarios that require the following functionality:+
• Drill-down navigation into detailed pages in response to user interactions
• Report filters that are based on user and session context information, such as company or date range
• The ability to navigate directly to a specific tab on a Power BI report via menu items

If you’re using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition July 2017 update, the following Power BI content is available:
•Actual vs budget Power BI content
•Benefits Power BI content
•Cash overview Power BI content
•CFO overview Power BI content
•Compensation Power BI content
•Cost accounting analysis Power BI content*
•Credit and collections management Power BI content
•Employee development Power BI content
•Financial performance Power BI content*
•Fixed asset management Power BI content
•Learning Power BI content
•Practice manager Power BI content
•Production performance Power BI content
•Purchase spend analysis Power BI content
•Recruiting Power BI content
•Sales and profitability performance Power BI content
•Vendor payments Power BI content
•Warehouse performance Power BI content
•Workforce metrics Power BI content

We have great response from customers to Power BI- and yes it also works with Ax 2012 and other data sources. If you would like to book a place on one of our Power BI training courses then contact us on 0097143365589

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Posted in Corporate Perfomance Management, Dynamics 365, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics Ax, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Technology

Docs.com – New Microsoft documentation portal

August 6th, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Microsoft Corporation has provisioned a new portal for all their application/framework documentation and are also placing the ability to add to that content.

The new docs.microsoft.com rolled out recently for their documentation for each of the following topic groups arranged by product line/focus:
• SQL
• Windows
• Microsoft Azure
• Visual Studio
• Office
• .NET
• ASP.NET
• Dynamics 365
• Enterprise Mobility + Security
• nuget
• Xamarin

So no longer navigate to msdn.microsoft.com. The central portal leads to additional functionality and information sharing not previously offered.

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Posted in Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics Ax, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Security and Compliance, SharePoint and EPM, SQL, Technology

Critical issues from Microsoft July 2017

August 6th, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Issue Alerts:
Critical: Do NOT delete files from the Windows Installer folder.
C:\windows\Installer is not a temporary folder and files in it should not be deleted.
If you do it on machines on which you have SQL Server installed, then you may have to rebuild the operating system and to reinstall SQL Server.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlserverfaq/archive/2013/04/30/do-not-delete-files-from-the-windows-installer-folder.aspx

Critical: Please be aware of a critical Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 runtime pre-requisite update that may be required on machines where SQL Server 2016 will be, or has been, installed.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlcat/2016/07/28/installing-sql-server-2016-rtm-you-must-do-this/
If KB3164398 or KB3138367 are installed, then no further action is necessary.
To check, run the following from a command prompt:
powershell get-hotfix KB3164398
powershell get-hotfix KB3138367

If the version of %SystemRoot%\system32\msvcr120.dll is 12.0.40649.5 or later, then no further action is necessary. To check, run the following from a command prompt:
powershell “get-item %systemroot%\system32\msvcr120.dll | select versioninfo | fl”

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Posted in Microsoft, Technology

Power BI updates July-August 2017

August 6th, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Power BI Desktop July Feature Summary
New table & matrix visuals are now generally available;
Easier to drill on either the rows or columns;
Power Bi now honours new lines in content, either when it’s in the data you load from source or when you specify it in a DAX function.
Custom visuals store is brought into the Power BI Desktop. From the Home ribbon, open the store, to browse visuals and add those to your Desktop.
◦ Responsive layout for visuals (preview)
◦New waterfall chart option – breakdown
◦ Bidirectional cross filtering for DirectQuery is now generally available
◦ Quick measures from the community: Star rating, Concatenated list of values
◦ Add Column from Examples enhancements
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-desktop-july-feature-summary-2/

Responsive visualizations are also coming to Power BI
Power BI responsive visualizations change dynamically to display the maximum amount of data and insight, no matter the screen size.
As a visualization changes its size, Power BI prioritizes the data view, for example removing padding and legend tweaks such as moving the legend to the top of the visualization – automatically, so the visualization remains informative and beautiful even as it gets smaller.

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Posted in Corporate Perfomance Management, Microsoft, Technology

Microsoft 365 – August 2017 – ask Synergy Software Systems, Dubai

July 31st, 2017 by Stephen Jones No comments »

At Inspire, earlier this month Satya Nadella unveiled Microsoft 365, which brings together Office 365, Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security, delivering a complete, intelligent and secure solution to empower employees. It represents a fundamental shift in how we will design, build and go to market to address our customers’ needs for a modern workplace.

Microsoft introduced Enterprise and Business editions. It’s in public preview on 2nd August 2017, and will. generally available in autumn 2017, priced at $20 per user per month.

– Enterprise edition replaces Secure Productive Enterprise and will be available as an E3 or E5 plan from 1st August 2017.

– Business edition is new, and is aimed at organizations with less than 300 users who want Office 365 Business Premium with security/management features from Windows 10 and EMS, as well as some new applications such as Microsoft Connections.

The workplace is transforming—from changing employee expectations, to more diverse and globally distributed teams, to an increasingly complex threat landscape. A new culture of work emerging as companies look to empower their people with innovative technology. Think of Dubai’s ‘smart government” and trends like SMAC and BYOD.

Think also of the challenges for security in this ‘brave new world’ of organised ransomware and phishing attacks. With more than 100 million commercial monthly active users of Office 365, and more than 500 million Windows 10 devices in use, Microsoft 365 helps companies to empower their employees, to unlock business growth and innovation, while keeping the enterprise secure.

1, 2017.

Microsoft 365 Enterprise is built on the foundation of the highly successful Secure Productive Enterprise, which grew seats by triple digits in the last year.

Microsoft 365 Business is designed for small- to medium-sized businesses with up to 300 users and integrates Office 365 Business Premium with tailored security and management features from Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security. It offers services to empower employees, safeguard the business and simplify IT management.

Microsoft 365 Business:
• Helps companies achieve more together by better connecting employees, customers and suppliers.
• Empowers employees to get work done from anywhere, on any device.
• Protects company data across devices with always-on security.
•Simplifies the set-up and management of employee devices and services with a single