AI-Powered Case Automation with Dataverse Low-Code Plug-ins

If you have spent any time around a support queue in Dynamics 365, you know what a fresh case usually looks like. One long description where the actual problem is buried somewhere between an order number, a list of fixes the customer already tried, and a lot of frustration. The agent has to read the whole thing just to figure out what is going on, pick a category, and gauge how annoyed the customer is before they can even start on a reply. And then the next case comes in and it starts all over again.

AI Builder prebuilt prompts claim to handle that first pass. We were curious whether they actually do, so we took a simple everyday scenario, a faulty product complaint coming in as a new Case, and built the whole thing inside a Dataverse low-code plug-in to see what happens.

Key Takeaways

• Use AI Builder prompts to summarize cases, identify categories, detect sentiment, and draft replies.
• Build the entire workflow with Power Fx in a Dataverse low-code plug-in.
• Trigger the AI workflow when a new case is created, with no manual action.
• Give agents key case details and a suggested response upfront.
• Use AI-generated categories and sentiment to support prioritization and case routing.
• Apply the same pattern to leads, emails, feedback, and other Dataverse records.

What Are Prebuilt Prompts and Low-Code Plug-ins?

A prebuilt prompt is an AI Builder capability that we can call directly from a Power Fx expression without designing a prompt ourselves. We hand it text and it hands back a result. There are six of them: AISummarize, AIClassify, AISentiment, AIExtract, AITranslate, and AIReply.

A low-code plug-in uses Power Fx for server-side logic instead of C#. It runs inside Dataverse itself, so it fires no matter how the record was created, whether that is a form, an integration, or an import. There are two kinds. Instant plug-ins are triggered manually and accept input and output parameters. They are useful when something or someone needs to call the logic on demand. Automated plug-ins fire on a table event such as Created, Updated, or Deleted, with no manual trigger at all. This is what we used, because we wanted the AI work to happen the moment a case lands, without anyone clicking anything.

Both are built in the Dataverse Accelerator App, a Microsoft-provided preview solution that also includes a Plugin monitor for execution logs and an API playground. One thing worth knowing upfront is that Microsoft has already said the Accelerator and its Instant plug-ins are being deprioritized in favour of the newer Functions in Dataverse feature. So it’s better to treat this as a good place to learn the pattern rather than something you’d rely on long term.

Understanding NewRecord and OldRecord

Inside an automated plug-in, two special objects give us access to the row that triggered it.

NewRecord is the record as it stands in the current operation. On Create it is the row being created. On Update it is the row after the change is applied... Read More