Feature Request: Enable Full Attachment Redirection to SharePoint when SSI is Enabled (Dynamics 365 On-Premises)

Additional Recommendation:

Microsoft should require or automatically validate that the SharePoint environment used for SSI is SharePoint 2019 SE. This guarantees modern APIs, consistent behavior, and full supportability. If CRM requires SP2019 SE for attachment redirection, the knife cuts both ways: Microsoft gets a stable baseline to support, and customers get a predictable modern integration path.

1. Summary

Provide a system setting in Dynamics 365 (on-premises) that, when Server-Side SharePoint Integration (SSI) is enabled, automatically stores all CRM attachments (emails, notes, uploads, workflow files) in SharePoint instead of the SQL Attachment or ActivityMimeAttachment tables.

This improves performance, governance, backup speed, storage footprint, and aligns CRM on-prem with the modern cloud architecture used in Dataverse.

2. Problem Statement

Dynamics 365 on‑prem stores attachments as large BLOBs in SQL tables:

- Attachment

- ActivityMimeAttachment

- AnnotationBase.DocumentBody

This creates:

A. SQL database bloat (tens/hundreds of GB)

B. GDPR/privacy challenges in ACPT/TEST environments

C. Inconsistent architecture with SSI

D. Longer backups and restores

E. Poor storage efficiency

3. Functional Requirement

Add a system-level setting:

"Redirect all attachments to SharePoint when SSI is enabled."

When enabled:

1. All new attachments (emails, notes, workflow files, API uploads) are stored in SharePoint.

2. CRM stores only attachment metadata.

3. BLOBs no longer land in SQL.

4. SharePoint 2019 SE is a requirement baseline for this feature.

4. Non‑Functional Requirements

- Backward compatibility: fallback to SQL if SP is temporarily unavailable.

- Folder placement via normal SSI rules.

- SharePoint permissions apply normally.

- Logging in CRM trace logs.

5. Customer Value

- Massive SQL storage reduction.

- Faster backups/restores/migrations.

- Better GDPR compliance.

- Organizational consistency: all files in SharePoint.

- Predictable support baseline via SP2019 SE requirement.

- Aligns CRM on‑prem with Dataverse Online (Azure Blob offload).

6. Why Microsoft Should Implement This

- Low engineering effort.

- High enterprise impact.

- On‑prem CRM remains heavily used for regulated sectors.

- Eliminates 15 years of attachment‑related tech debt.

- Reduces performance incidents and storage escalations.

- Strengthens SharePoint 2019 SE adoption.

7. Proposed UI Location

Settings → Document Management → Server‑Side Integration Settings

Checkbox:

[ ] Redirect all attachments to SharePoint (recommended)

Stores all email and note attachments exclusively in SharePoint using SSI. Attachments will no longer be stored in SQL.

8. Requirement for SharePoint 2019 SE

To ensure consistent API behavior and supported integrations, Microsoft should enforce or validate that SharePoint 2019 SE is used for this redirection feature. This creates a clean, reliable baseline for customers and Microsoft support.