Book Review: Building a Digital Future by Lipi Sarkar and Vinnie Bansal

Building a Digital Future: A Transformational Blueprint for Innovating with Microsoft Dynamics 365 by Lipi Sarkar and Vinnie Bansal. (Wiley, 2021) Buy on Amazon

Digital transformation has been one of my favorite topics since it emerged as an industry buzzword. Many books and articles discuss digital transformation as an abstract concept, but few of them can cite specific technologies, products, companies and case studies. Building a Digital Future fills this niche with a wide-ranging set of industry examples, all related to Microsoft's platform for digital transformation.

Part 1 sets the stage with an introduction to digital transformation, illustrated with case studies showing how organizations can harness disruptive change to improve themselves. It explains the capabilities of the Microsoft Power Platform, including Dynamics 365, Power Apps, Power BI and other tools. Finally, it covers the rise of low code/no code development along with the citizen developer.

Part 2 prescribes the elements required for success in a digital transformation project, including corporate culture, process re-engineering, governance, and how to organize and execute a project.

Part 3 goes deeper into the roles and responsibilities of project team members, the project charter, and how to measure success.

You could learn about these topics from a bookshelf full of tomes on Agile software development, organizational change management, and the Microsoft products that make up the Power Platform. This is the only volume I have found which brings all the material together in one place.

If your organization has chosen Microsoft as the platform for digital transformation, this book will speak to stakeholders, project managers, and developers alike. The people cited in the book are a who's who of Microsoft experts inside and outside the company.

Key Concepts for Microsoft Dynamics 365: Tenant, Instance, App and Solution

Updated 8/15/2022 To understand Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Dynamics CRM) and Power Apps, you need to learn some new terms and concepts that may be a bit different from what you know from databases and solutions that are hosted on premises. These concepts also apply to Power Apps. The main difference is that with Power Apps you are not starting with a Microsoft app but more of a blank canvas for your custom apps. This post introduces some key terms and how these concepts are important for planning your implementation. While Dynamics 365 is still available on premises, it is most commonly deployed on the Microsoft cloud. This blog post discusses only cloud implementations. Microsoft has multiple clouds such as commercial and government community clouds in several countries. We start with a Microsoft tenant . A tenant is the account you create in the Microsoft Online Services environment (such as Office 365) when you sign up for a subscription. A tenant contains uni

Understanding Dynamics 365 and Office 365 Admin Roles

Managing Dynamics 365 instances If you run Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Dynamics CRM) in the Microsoft cloud, you need to understand how your Dynamics instances relate to Office 365 and choose which of your administrators receives which roles and permissions to manage Dynamics 365. In on premises deployments, your network administrator would create and delete user accounts. The Dynamics 365 admin would then assign permissions to users in Dynamics 365. This post explains three administrator roles: Office 365 Global Administrator Dynamics 365 System Administrator Dynamics 365 Service Administrator You may think that the Dynamics 365 system administrator would have power to do all the actions needed to manage Dynamics 365, but this is not the case. What's different in Microsoft cloud deployments is that licenses and user accounts are managed in Office 365 by an Office 365 Global Administrator. This role is analogous to a network administrator for an on premises

My Favorite Microsoft Power Apps Bloggers and their Blogs

by James Townsend Updated 7/5/2022 Microsoft Power Apps is one of my favorite subjects, and I enjoy reading blog posts from members of this thriving technical community. Here are some of my favorite bloggers and their blogs: The Official Microsoft Power Apps Blog I have to start with the official Microsoft Power Apps blog. It has many contributors, largely Microsoft program manager, including frequent posters Denise Moran , Greg Lindhorst , Kartik Kanakasabesan , and Adrian Orth . This is the place to go for product announcements, updates and technical how-to for a broad range of Power Apps topics. April Dunnam April Dunnam was formerly focused on SharePoint and now devoting herself to Power Platform. April offers highly understandable explanations of Power Platform, Dataverse and other top Power Apps topics. She joined Microsoft in late 2019 and has a thriving YouTube channel . Carl De Souza Power Apps Blog and eBook This is one of the most extensive and best organized blo

The Townsend Report

Search This Blog