How to pin the Session date information in your Dynamics 365 client

Recently, I got triggered by a question on the Dynamics community where someone asked if the Session date feature could be made visible continuous in the Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations client. In this post, I will share an example how to achieve it with a simple custom extension.

Session date

The session date feature is in my experience an underrated feature in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. About 4 years ago, I already spent another blog on this feature. Using the session date, you can change a default date for faster data entry. This could be helpful when you want to make month end closing transactions on a specific date. I’m not going to repeat my blog from about 4 years back. Good news is that the bug for changing a session date to a previous year has been solved. Also note the difference in the user experience we had in 2016 and the one we have now.

There is a downside of using the web browser as client for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. If you refresh the web page with the F5 function key, the session data information will be lost. If you are aware of it, you can set the session date to the correct value and continue working. However, when you are working with another session date and you work on different forms, there is no indication of the current session date. In Dynamics AX 2012, there was a status bar where the information could be pinned for your reference.

Pin your session date

For the purpose of having the session date visible while you are working, I created a small customization which can be downloaded from GitHub. The details can be found below. To show you how it works and what would be your advantage, I created a small demo movie for this.

Short summary of the demo video: You can use the setup wheel at the top right side to open the session date pane. The pinned session date can be used for changing the session date to any given date at any moment. However, there is feature wise one restriction. The session date will be loaded when opening a form. So, if you want to change the date, first change it; then open the form where you want to use it. If you are already on the desired form, just close and reopen it to have the session date set correctly on the form.

GitHub project

If you want to use the pin option for the session date calendar, you can get a free version and the source code. I have released the features on GitHub. Feel free to download and use it where-ever you want to install it. There is only one restriction. It is not allowed to commercially use the software and earn money by selling it to customers. The GitHub project can be found here: https://github.com/Dynamicspedia/Pin-session-date-Microsoft-Dynamics-365

Within the release, you will find three different options to deploy the solution. You can use a deployable package, model or project installation. All options will give you the same functionality. If you have suggestions or feedback, please comment below or use the contact form on this website.

Security details

The pin session date feature has a new privilege and duty which has been added to the System user security role. This means that every user in Microsoft Dynamics 365 would be able to use this utility. If you want to restrict this, you can use the security configuration form to change it or have a developer changing the source code in Visual Studio. This information is also important for your security compliance when you need to report changes to auditors.

Disclaimer

The software is provided as-is. You may freely use and modify the utility to your needs. The use and installation of this utility is at your own risk. I cannot be held liable for any error or damage in your environments. For this reason, please first deploy it on a test environment which is not important in your project. Test it carefully before using it eventually in a customer production environment. I have only tested it on my own sandboxes.

I do hope you liked this post and will add value for you in your daily work as a professional. If you have related questions or feedback, don’t hesitate to use the Comment feature below.


That’s all for now. Till next time!