Charts in Dynamics 365 have remained relatively unchanged for many years, but a new Copilot feature now automatically generates fresh visuals for views.
This new option provides an alternative to Power BI visuals, whereby AI uses the rows and columns in your active view to produce an editable chart.
When AI grid visuals are enabled, the ‘Show Chart’ action is unavailable. In this article, you’ll find an overview of Copilot visuals, current limitations and what to do if you want to restore the legacy charts for Dynamics 365 views.
How it Works
At the time of writing, this preview feature is automatically enabled when the Copilot natural language grid and view search is enabled. See our demonstration of natural language search.
From a grid view, click the Copilot ‘Visualise’ button.
A chart reflecting the current filters and rows is produced alongside your view.
In the example below, the AI visualisation groups open opportunities by rating and estimated close date.
Clicking the ‘Why this Chart?’, explains what Copilot is displaying and why.
You can hover over the chart to explore data points and click to drill into the data. The grid will refresh to apply the selected chart filter. Clicking the same point again will remove the filter.
Click ‘copy’ in the bottom left corner to add a PNG version of the chart to your clipboard.
Editing Charts
The Copilot visual will automatically refresh if you update the current view, such as expanding or narrowing column filters.
You can also personalise the data shown on the x and y axes and legend.
Below, we’ve grouped the chart by the estimated close date, and the y-axis aggregates a sum of the estimated revenue.
The chart type can also be changed to one of seven currently available options.
In the example below, a stacked column is selected, which uses the rating column to help quickly assess the status of these potential deals.
Revert to Legacy Charts
These modern visuals are a welcome improvement, but there are limitations compared to legacy charts in Dynamics 365.
Specifically, you can’t save or reuse these Copilot visuals. Also, you can’t set a default in the current preview release. Copilot determines the best visual for each view, but displays can be personalised as outlined above.
As a result, if you currently interpret your data in grid views using default and other predefined charts, this AI feature may prove restrictive.
Because the legacy charts aren’t available alongside the new Copilot visuals, your administrator will need to turn off this new feature if you want to restore them.
In the Power Platform admin center, go to your Environments > Settings > Product > Features
For the option ‘Allow AI to generate charts to visualise the data in a view,’ set the control to ‘off’, which will allow legacy charts.
