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We need better and more advanced integration to SharePoint from Dynamics 365 for operations:



  • It is not possible to create a new file directly in D365FOE from a template in a SharePoint library.

  • If a user saves a file to a library where there are mandatory metadata columns the user will not be prompted for these metadata. This will make the document ‘incomplete’ and could potentially course errors when trying to edit the document.
    I have not been able to test if metadata that is mandatory on the document can be attached to the document from data within the D365FOE context.

  • Apparently, the users will have to be members of the root SharePoint site(tenantname.sharepoint.com) collection for the Office 365 tenant to have access to SharePoint at all even though they are to save content in a completely different site collection. This is not very good design as the default SharePoint site is often not used or have other rights management settings than in D365FOE. I have not tested what happens in D365FOE if the default SharePoint site is deleted or not existing.

  • When creating a new document type in D365FOE it is not possible to point to a SharePoint location that is generic(like when creating a document based on a template). I could imagine users having a need to attach content to a D365FOE item in a document library not yet defined in the business process. If this option is not possible there will potentially be a lot of work defining document types for each legal entity and each kind of document/save location.

  • It is not possible to add an existing document from a location in SharePoint unless you have synced it or downloaded it first. This could mean that some content is impossible to attach in D365FOE if there is applied Azure Information Protection rules stating that it cannot be downloaded or synced due to sensitivity.

  • It can end up being extremely complex to handle rights management and align permissions across D365FOE and SharePoint.

  • I have not been able to merge data from a D365FOE entity to a metadatacolumn in SharePoint.


Please add in the comments if you have further discoveries or requirements.

STATUS DETAILS
Under Review
Ideas Administrator

This is an interesting collection of ideas. I particularly like the idea of prompting the user for extra information when the SharePoint document library requires it, since that is a non-code customization to AX behavior through  changing SharePoint metadata. We wouldn't be able to get to all of these at once, so please add comments on this idea to provide thoughts on relative priority as well as comments on the original list of suggestions.

Comments

J

Thanks for taking this idea Under Review.


The 3 most important ones IMO are:



  • The ability to add D365FOE data to the document as metadata. Either on a template in Dynamics or at least as a prompt for the user to do so when saving the document if the metadata in the SP list is mandatory. As an example we need the employee ID on documents regarding various HCM processes.

  • The option for users to decide in which library to save the document. We have more than 50 legal entities and we then need to create Dynamics file types for all these to define file locations for them for each type of entity. quite a big task a not very user friendly when users need to decide which one to use in the given context.

  • Add attachment from existing content from SharePoint. We need to be able to choose an existing document in SharePoint as an attachment without having to sync the library first.


 

Category: Office Integration