How a Simple PCF Component Can Transform Document Processing in Dynamics 365 with AI
🤖 How a Simple PCF Component Can Transform Document Processing in Dynamics 365 with AI
A proof-of-concept showing how anyone can expand this idea to save document data to entities with less effort using AI
The Challenge Every D365 User Faces
If you've worked with Dynamics 365, you know the drill: invoices come in, receipts pile up, forms arrive by email, and someone (usually several people) spends hours manually entering data from these documents into CRM fields. It's tedious, error-prone, and frankly, a waste of human talent.
What if I told you there's a way to automate this entire process using AI, and it takes less effort than you'd think?
The Solution: A PCF Concept That Changes Everything
I recently built a Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) control that proves a powerful concept:
With AI and minimal code, you can extract data from any document and save it directly to Dynamics 365 entities.
This isn't just theory—it's a working proof-of-concept that demonstrates how:
- Drag & drop a document image (invoice, receipt, form, business card, ID)
- AI instantly extracts all the important fields using Azure OpenAI Vision
- Data appears in a clean, editable interface with confidence scores
- One click and it's saved to your entity
The Simple Workflow
No templates. No training data. No complex setup. Just works.
Why This Concept Matters
🧱It's a Foundation
This is a concept you can expand. The core is proven—anyone can extend it to automatically map fields and save to entities.
⚡Less Effort
Traditional solutions need complex OCR setup, templates, and training. This needs an Azure OpenAI endpoint and basic PCF knowledge. That's it.
🤖AI Heavy Lifting
Azure OpenAI's Vision model already understands business documents. No custom training required—it just works.
🌐Vendor-Agnostic
Works with any document from any vendor. No need to create templates for different formats.
👥User-Friendly
Non-technical users can upload, verify confidence scores, edit if needed, and save with one click.
🏢Enterprise-Ready
Includes environment variables, retry logic, error handling, and security best practices built-in.
How It Works (The Technical Concept)
1️⃣User Uploads Document
The user drags an invoice, receipt, or any document image into the control.
2️⃣AI Processes the Image
3️⃣Display with Confidence Scores
The control shows each field with a confidence indicator:
- 🟢 Green: High confidence - probably accurate
- 🟠 Orange: Medium confidence - review recommended
- 🔴 Red: Low confidence - verify carefully
Users can edit any field if needed. Changes are marked as "Edited."
4️⃣Save to Entity (The Expansion Opportunity)
This is where YOU come in. The current concept extracts data, but you can easily extend it to:
- Auto-map fields based on entity schema
- Create or update records via WebAPI
- Handle complex entities with lookups and relationships
- Batch process multiple documents
- Add workflow triggers after successful extraction
Real-World Use Cases
📋Accounts Payable Automation
Scenario: Finance team receives hundreds of invoices per month via email.
❌ Before
- Download each invoice
- Manually enter vendor, invoice #, date, amount
- Takes several minutes per invoice
- Hours of work each month
✅ After
- Drag invoice into D365
- AI extracts all fields instantly
- Verify high-confidence fields
- Click "Save to Invoice Entity"
- Done in seconds
🧾Expense Report Processing
Scenario: Sales team submits hundreds of receipts per month for reimbursement.
❌ Before
- Upload receipt image
- Manually type merchant, date, amount
- Finance reviews and approves
- Several minutes per receipt
✅ After
- Upload receipt
- AI auto-fills all fields
- Employee verifies quickly
- Finance sees clean data with confidence
- Completed in seconds
👤Lead Capture from Business Cards
Scenario: Trade show generates hundreds of business cards.
❌ Before
- Manually type each card into D365
- Name, company, phone, email, address
- Typos are common
- Takes days to complete
✅ After
- Scan cards with phone
- Bulk upload to PCF control
- AI extracts all fields from all cards
- Auto-create Lead records
- Done in under an hour
📄Contract & Form Processing
Scenario: HR processes many employee forms per month.
❌ Before
- Scan/receive PDFs
- Manually enter data from each form
- High error risk with compliance documents
- Tedious and slow
✅ After
- Upload form images
- AI extracts all labeled fields
- High confidence means less review
- Save to Employee entity with audit trail
- Compliance-ready
How to Expand This Concept
Here's how you can take this PCF component and build something even more powerful:
🎯Option 1: Add Auto-Save Functionality
Extend the component to automatically save extracted data to entities when confidence is high.
🎯Option 2: Add Field Mapping Configuration
Create a configuration screen where admins can map AI-extracted field labels to entity columns once, then use automatically.
🎯Option 3: Add Batch Processing
Allow users to upload multiple documents at once and process them all automatically, showing results for each one.
🎯Option 4: Add Smart Lookups
Handle related entities intelligently—when AI extracts a vendor name, search for existing Vendor records and link automatically or prompt to create new ones.
🎯Option 5: Add Approval Workflows
Integrate with D365 workflows—if confidence is low or amount is high, route for approval. Otherwise, auto-approve.
🎯Option 6: Add Multi-Language Support
Azure OpenAI Vision works with many languages. The AI can detect language and translate values if needed, making it globally applicable.
Getting Started with This Concept
Prerequisites
- Dynamics 365 or Power Apps environment
- Azure OpenAI resource with GPT-4o or GPT-4o-mini deployed
- PowerApps CLI installed
- Node.js installed
Quick Setup Process
- Clone the repository from GitHub
- Install dependencies with npm install
- Build the component with npm run build
- Test locally with npm start watch
- Deploy to D365 using PAC CLI
Configure in Dynamics 365
- Create environment variables for your Azure OpenAI endpoint and API key
- Add the control to a form or canvas app
- Map the properties to fields on your entity
- Test with a document - drag and drop!
The Future: Where This is Heading
This PCF concept is just the beginning. Imagine:
🚀AI-Powered CRM
- Documents auto-create records
- Natural language queries
- Predictive field mapping
🔄Intelligent Workflows
- Documents trigger processes
- AI routes to right teams
- Human-in-the-loop when needed
📚Document Hub
- One interface for all types
- Historical search
- Auto compliance trails
📱Mobile-First
- Snap photo → instant processing
- Scan card → lead created
- Capture form → data in D365
The Bottom Line
This PCF component proves a powerful concept:
With AI and minimal code, you can transform how document data enters your Dynamics 365 system.
It's not about replacing humans—it's about freeing them from tedious data entry so they can focus on what matters: analysis, decision-making, and building relationships.
The best part? Anyone with PCF knowledge can expand this idea. The foundation is here. The AI is ready. The possibilities are endless.
Key Takeaways
- AI can extract data from any business document without templates or training
- PCF components make it easy to bring AI capabilities into Dynamics 365
- This concept is expandable - anyone can build auto-save, field mapping, batch processing, etc.
- Cost-effective - minimal API costs vs. hours of labor
- User-friendly - drag, drop, verify, save
- Enterprise-ready - secure, scalable, production-ready architecture
Ready to Transform Your Document Processing?
The era of manual document data entry is over. The era of AI-powered, effortless data capture has begun.
This PCF concept shows you exactly how to make it happen in your organization.
Have ideas for expansion? Fork the repo and build on it!
This is meant to be a starting point, not a finished product.
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