Currently Office E1 (used to be called F1) does not allow for the installation of local copies of Office, including the all important Outlook eMail client.

This procludes users of Dynamics365 Finance and Operations from being able to open Customer Emails attached to a Customer Account or Finance record as the browser does not recognize the .EML extension.

The current design of the D365 F&O document handling downloads the file locally and then the browser looks for an application to handle it. In case of office related files (.xlsx, .docx, .eml etc.) it looks for proper Microsoft Office application and if one is not installed the file cannot be processed. This means that to handle document attachments properly when downloaded locally proper and licensed Microsoft Office product needs to be present on the local PC.

Some retail customers are using Thin clients or Wyse Terminals to provide Users access to D365, this precludes the ability to install Office locally and leads to the use of an Office E1 license. D365 F&O currently stores files and attachments within Azure blob storage by default or alternatively in SharePoint Online.

Both of which require Office licenses locally in order to open eMails which are from customer or supplier communications.