SharePoint Integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365

If you want to add document management features to Dynamics 365, you can use the standard integration with Microsoft SharePoint. Once you have set up the SharePoint integration, you can link SharePoint folders to a record in Dynamics 365. For example, you can link contract documents to an Account, a resume to a Contact, a quote to an Opportunity, and so on.

In this article, we'll explore the capabilities and limitations of the standard integration between Dynamics 365 and SharePoint. We'll also look at how we can make significant improvements with minimal changes.

Benefits of Standard SharePoint Integration

1. Document Versioning: Every update to an Office document is automatically tracked, and you can always revert to a previous version.
2. Real-time collaboration: You can collaborate with other colleagues on the same Office document, and you can immediately see what your colleague is editing.
3. Cheaper storage than in your Dynamics 365 database: If your files are currently stored in Dynamics 365, they are taking up storage space in your Dynamics environment. It is better to migrate these files to SharePoint and automatically configure the link to SharePoint in Dynamics 365. This can result in significant savings on storage costs.
4. Searching documents using SharePoint Search: You can only search your linked documents if they are stored in SharePoint. We ensure that you can search not only your CRM data but also your linked files directly from the Dynamics 365 interface.
5. More flexible management and migration:  By managing CRM data in Dynamics 365 and associated files in SharePoint, your CRM database is not only lighter, but you can also manage and migrate the CRM data separately from the documents.
6. Through the browser, any user can access the documents: This means that documents are available anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
7. You can make documents available through portal sites:
   If you make CRM data from Dynamics 365 available through a portal, you can also make the associated documents available at the same time. Here are a few examples:
   • For example, on a customer portal, you can set it up so that documents uploaded by your customer are automatically saved to the SharePoint folder linked to that customer’s account record in Dynamics 365.
   • For example, you can make invoice documents that you generate automatically in Dynamics 365 immediately available on your customer portal.
8. Ease of Use of the Dynamics 365 and SharePoint Integration: To the user, it appears as though SharePoint functionality is part of the Dynamics 365 user experience. In other words, the user doesn't realize that they're actually using SharePoint in the background.
9. Viewing and editing files locally: Another indirect benefit is that you can also synchronize SharePoint folders locally, allowing you to access your files even when you're offline.

Disadvantages of the standard integration with SharePoint

A major drawback is that SharePoint and Dynamics 365 have separate security models. The security settings for a record in Dynamics 365 are separate from the security settings for a folder in SharePoint. This means that user access rights for both applications can be managed separately.

Another drawback of the standard integration is that when a record is created, a folder is automatically generated in SharePoint and linked to the CRM record. However, these automatically generated folder names in SharePoint are the GUIDs of the record in D365. In other words, the folder names are not human-readable. This isn’t ideal if you need to be able to use SharePoint independently of Dynamics 365. Because if you search for documents directly in SharePoint, the user will see unreadable folder names. Of course, this doesn’t have to be a problem if users only click through to the linked files via Dynamics 365.

A third drawback is that if you already have an existing folder structure in SharePoint, you cannot integrate that structure with Dynamics 365 using a standard integration.

Possible enhancements to the standard SharePoint integration

1. Automatically generate human-readable folder names.
   How? By using data from the CRM record to automatically generate the folder name instead of using names that consist solely of the GUID, as is the default. This is certainly useful if the goal is to allow documents and folders to be accessed directly in SharePoint. Once the folder is generated, a link is automatically created between the Dynamics 365 record and the folder in SharePoint.
2. Making documents in SharePoint easier to find and more accessible.
   How? By automatically “tagging” documents in the linked folder based on data from Dynamics 365 (such as categorization in Dynamics 365).
3. Automatically generate a complete folder structure in SharePoint instead of an empty folder.
   How? In certain cases, it may be useful to automatically set up an entire folder structure—with or without template documents. For example, when creating an Opportunity in Dynamics 365, you can automatically create an additional folder under the linked Account folder in SharePoint. When a sales representative creates a quote in Dynamics 365, that quote is automatically placed in the correct SharePoint folder. In addition, this quote can then be made available through a customer portal.
   Do you already have an existing folder structure in SharePoint? If so, Net IT can migrate that structure to Dynamics 365, allowing you to build on what you already have.
4. Provide customized security, so that you don't have to manually manage user access rights in SharePoint separately.
   How? Net IT can synchronize security between Dynamics 365 and SharePoint to a certain extent by synchronizing access rights between the two applications. This allows us to ensure that access to the related files is aligned with the access rights on the record in Dynamics 365.