How to Create a Workspace in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations

Workspaces in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations are a great way to simplify navigation within the system.

Finance & Operations comes with several default workspaces, which you can modify. However, it is often best to make new, custom workspaces, especially if

• You want users to see only the data that’s relevant to their responsibilities.
• You or your team find yourselves navigating to the same form multiple times a day.
• There are transactions that users need to monitor but not necessarily review on a regular basis.
• You want to customize the interface for a team or any other group of users.

In this article, I’ll explain how to create Workspaces, what display options to choose, and how to get filtered data as well.

Once you’ve finished the steps in this article and created your workspace, you may need a sysadmin to push the workspace to other users.

Note: Even though most customers, commentators, and consultants still call it Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations, Microsoft now technically licenses it as Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.

Create a Custom Workspace

1. From the home screen, right click in the ‘workspace area’ and click Personalize.
2. Click Add a Workspace
   A new Tile will appear on the Home screen. By default it will be called Custom Workspace. Rename the workspace by right clicking on the workspace tile, and selecting Personalize.
   Now you can add content to the workspace.
    
3. Navigate to the grid that you want to add to the workspace. For this example, we are going to add the Production Orders List to the Custom Workspace.
    
4. Navigate to Production Control > Production Orders > All Production Orders.
    
5. Click on the Options Button in the Top Menu ribbon. In the personalize section, click Add to Workspace.
6. Select the newly created workspace from the drop down menu.
   
7. Choose your presentation option (Tile, List, or Link) from the Presentation drop down.
   

These three presentation options are each best for a different use case:

Tiles are useful for grids or data that need to be monitored on a regular basis. Below is an example of what a Tile in the workspace looks like:

Lists are useful for data that needs to be regularly referenced, such as Customers, Vendors or Sales Orders. Below is an example of what a List in the workspace looks like:

Links are useful for large data sets or for quick references that don’t necessarily need to be used frequently. Below is an example of what a Link in the workspace looks like:

Specific Instructions for Tiles, Lists, and Links

Tile

When selecting the Tile option, a window will pop up. From here you can change the name that appears on the Tile, and specify whether or not you want to show the count on the tile.

Click Ok. The Tile will appear in the workspace as a colored box and serve a quick link to the grid.

List

When selecting the List option, a window will pop up asking which columns you wish to display in the workspace data list. You can also change the name of the list in this pop up.

Select the columns for the workspace using the checkboxes on the left side of the list. And click Ok.

The list will appear in the workspace as a mini grid of the data, using just the columns selected. You can filter and sort any data within a workspace list. Data can be drilled into from here as well as by using the blue hyperlinks.

Link

When selecting the Link option, a window will pop up allowing you to change the name of the link displayed in the workspace.

Once you’ve entered a name, click Ok. The Link will appear in the workspace as a blue hyperlink on the righthand side. This serves as a quick link directly to the data.

How to Get Filtered Data in a Workspace

In order to get filtered data within a workspace, you need to prefilter the dataset before you add it to the workspace. That way, each time you access the data from the workspace, you don’t need to reapply the same filters. Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the top of the data grid you wish to add to the workspace. In this example, we will use Production Orders.
    
2. Apply desired sort and filters. In this example, I’ve sorted the Production Orders by Delivery Date, and filtered on Status ‘Started.’However, you’ll notice that when you’ve filtered a data grid, the Add to Workspace button is no longer available.That’s because, in order for the filtered data to be added to a workspace, it needs to be saved as a personalized view.
    
3. Select “Save As” in the View drop down in the upper left corner.
4. Enter a name for the view in the pop-up window and click Ok. You also have the option to set this view as your default view each time you navigate to this grid if need be.

   Once you click Ok, the Add to Workspace button will become available again.

5. Select your workspace and preferred display method and click Configure. You will now be able to view this data, already filtered, in your Custom Workspace.

Make Daily Tasks Easier in Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations provides a number of tools to help users navigate the system and make your daily tasks easier. Workspaces are just one of those tools.

You may also want to learn how to save queries, save and share views, use the security diagnostics tool, or use the new grid control features.

If you’d like support to help you and your team become more productive in Dynamics 365, please contact us.