Dynamics 365 Monthly Update-October 2017

Featured News

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) 9.0 Release is now available

Microsoft is excited to announce that the Dynamics 365 (online) 9.0 (also known as the July 2017 update) is available for trial and purchase! Stay tuned for information about when you can update your existing organizations.

The main areas of investment in the release are:

• UX enhancements to improve readability and usability of the web apps and to make data entry faster and easier.
• Extensibility and app platform enhancements, including improvements to security and data management.

Additionally, there are enhancements to the in-app Designer tools that allow admins and customizers to tailor apps through a graphical user interface instead of writing code (App Designer, Site Map Designer, and Business Process Flow Designer).

• A new Unified Interface framework used for the Customer Service Hub, Dynamics 365 for phones and Dynamics 365 for tablets, and Dynamics 365 App for Outlook. Unified Interface is also available in the App Designer so that customizers can build app modules using this new look and feel.

For more information, review the following articles:

Dynamics 365 Team blog article

New for Enterprise Edition

New for Developers Enterprise Edition

Online-only features for Customer Engagement (CRM)

Known Issues list

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.2

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online and on-premises) Update 2.2 is now available.

Some issues that have been resolved include:

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 App for Outlook is failing to convert QuickCreate and BusinessLogic metadata.
• Business Process Flow instances are getting recreated on the reload of the record even though they were explicitly deleted via the SDK
• Tracked Email in Outlook fails with the following error: "SYSTEM user account not found."
• The email Description field is not displayed on a Quick View form.
• Performance issues occurred while deleting records associated with a Business Process Flow.
• Ribbon button issues when navigating back and forth between the main form and associated grids.

Knowledge Base Article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4046795/microsoft-dynamics-365-online-and-on-premises-update-2-2

Podcast and Overview: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crminthefield/2017/10/30/podcast-and-overview-microsoft-dynamics-365-on-premises-update-2-2/

Download link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56131

Microsoft Dynamics CRM IP address range updates­

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online users may not be able to access their online environment or CRM outages may occur if certain IP addresses are blocked. To avoid these issues, it is important to make sure the IP ranges identified in this article are available and not blocked by firewalls, antivirus or other network appliances.

Note: The IP address of your CRM Online organization is subject to change without notice to another IP address within the provided ranges so it’s important to make sure the entire range is not blocked.

In addition to the IP ranges, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online requires the IP Ranges of the Microsoft Azure Datacenters. To download the list of IP ranges that need to be allowed, access Microsoft Azure Datacenter IP Ranges.

TLS 1.2 Support

Microsoft’s engineering teams are continually upgrading the cryptographic infrastructure as part of our commitment to use best in class encryption. The team’s current area of focus is rapidly identifying and removing Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol version 1.0 dependencies in software built on top of Microsoft operating systems and migrating to TLS 1.2

Transport Layer Security is an industry standard protocol designed to protect the privacy of information communicated over the Internet. TLS is used in many web browsers and applications that communicate over HTTPS and TCP.

Microsoft’s engineering team has published the Solving the TLS 1.0 Problem whitepaper to aid customers in removing dependencies for TLS 1.0/1.1. Please review for more information.

What is the change for Dynamics 365?

Today, all Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement online versions support TLS 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2, but starting with the release of Dynamics 365 (online) 9.0 of the Customer Engagement platform, we will begin blocking connections to the updated product from clients or browsers that are using TLS 1.0 and 1.1.

Versions 8.x and 7.x of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement will not be affected with this change, and will continue to provide support for TLS 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 as they do today.

Note: This change only affects Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) versions.

How will you or your customers be impacted?

All supported browsers for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (versions 7.x – Version 9.x) currently comply with the TLS 1.2 standards and will continue to work as before. However, if you have disabled the TLS 1.2 protocol on your browser or utilize a custom Windows client built with .NET 4.5.2 you will be affected and lose connectivity to organizations with the Dynamics 365 (online) 9.0.

If you have deployed a non-Windows application that connects to a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement instance you will need to verify that the technology stack you used supports TLS 1.2

To avoid impact:

• Custom Windows clients built utilizing .NET 4.5.2 can be fixed by recompiling on .NET 4.6.2. Versions of .NET 4.6.2 and higher implement a process that will seek the highest possible security transport that the host operating system supports.
  • If you are unable to do this, you can utilize a registry setting on Windows that will force .NET to utilize the highest possible security standard. Please Note: This is a machine-wide setting and may have undesired affects. It is recommended that you or your customer utilize the method of recompiling to .NET 4.6.2 or higher. The registry settings that will force .NET 4.5.2 to prefer TLS 1.2 machine-wide are documented in the article Microsoft Security Advisory 2960358 in the section "Suggested Actions" under "Manually disable RC4 in TLS on systems running .NET Framework 4.5/4.5.1/4.5.2"

• Non-.NET Clients (web and client applications)
  • Please check with the framework or language provider to determine how to configure your application to utilize TLS 1.2

Additional Information from the engineering team can be found on the Microsoft Secure Blog: TLS 1.2 support at Microsoft.

Security Enhancements: User session and Access management

User session timeout: Force users to re-authenticate after a set period, system admins can set a session timeout for their individual Dynamics 365 instances.  Users can only remain signed in to the application for the duration of the set period.

Access Management: Prevent users from sharing credentials to access Dynamics 365. The user access token is validated to ensure that the user who was given access by the identity provider is the same user who is accessing Dynamics 365.

Please see Security enhancements: User session and access management to enable and configure these security system settings for your Dynamics 365 instances. These enhancements will be available for Dynamics 365 (online), Dynamics 365 (on-premises), Dynamics CRM 2016 (online), Dynamics CRM 2016 (on-premises), and Dynamics CRM 2015 (on-premises).

For more information, review this blog post on the Dynamics 365 Team blog.

Updates & Releases

Update Rollup 5 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1

Update Rollup 5 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available.

Some issues that have been resolved include:

• Date format is changed from DD/MM/YYY to MM/DD/YYYY after new records are imported.
• Activities that are converted to Opportunities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 for Microsoft Office Outlook do not show as Completed.
• Fields with field-level security enabled are not visible for new users.
• An error occurs while attempting to insert a template into an e-mail.
• When uploading a file to SharePoint, the window appears to be stuck at “Loading”.
• A “Duplicate Record” error occurs while attempting to add multiple users to a team.

Review the support article for more information and to download the service pack.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.9

Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.9 is now available.

New and updated features include:

• Easy to manage Settings and Search Setup options
• New option control to review details of a post
• Distinguish between child and parent post
• Twitter data use license requirements

Resolved issues include:

• Fixed an issue in the Social Engagement content pack for Power BI that caused some fields in the report to lose their date types

For more information, review the What’s New article in the Dynamics 365 Team blog.

Update for Dynamics 365 Connector for Flow and Logic Apps

Microsoft Flow allows customers to create automated workflows between apps and services to get notifications, synchronize files, collect data and more. Logic Apps provide a visual designer to create complex processes and workflows. Version 2 (V2) of the connector is now available alongside the existing version so the new features can be tested without disrupting business for customers. Customers are welcome to try the new version, but the existing flows will continue to use the current version. The current version will continue to be available for the foreseeable future and currently there are no plans to retire it. Once the features are stable in V2 version, those capabilities will slowly be migrated to the existing version.

For more information, take a look at Dynamics 365 Connector for Flow and Logic Apps: an Update.

Field Service and Project Service Automation update – Universal Resource Scheduling

The Universal Resource Scheduling in Dynamics 365 allows customers to book skilled resources to the right work at the right time, regardless of workstream. Resources can be booked for work orders, cases, projects, leads or any custom entity. The Universal Resource Scheduling now includes some new features and enhancements:

• Schedule Board Extensibility
• Schedule Board Sorting
• Schedule Board Extensions
• Specify a fulfillment pattern on a resource requirement
• See requirement breakdown when scheduling
• Resource Continuity Panel
• Substitute Resource
• Revamped UI for Daily, Weekly, Monthly Schedule Assistant
• Enhancements when creating bookings
• Additional Enhancements

For more information, take a look at Part 1 and Part 2 of the Field Service and Project Service Automation update articles on the Dynamics 365 Team blog and the Release notes for October update for Field Service and Project Service Automation.

Additional News

October 2017 Outlook Security Patch

After installing the October 2017 Microsoft Outlook security updates, customers reported issues with trying to view Dynamics 365 information in the Outlook folder pane of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Microsoft Outlook add-in (Outlook client). The view pane was blank and "Waiting for a page to be retrieved from a CRM server..." displayed, but never loaded.

The Dynamics 365 for Outlook add-in relies on customized roaming home pages to render webpages within Outlook. The October 2017 Microsoft Outlook security update disables roaming home pages in Outlook to address a significant vulnerability with the application, and as such, inadvertently causes the add-in to fail.

Due to this security update resolving multiple significant vulnerabilities within the Microsoft Outlook application, it must remain installed. To re-enable roaming home pages as a workaround while a permanent resolution is developed, a registry key must be added to the local client machines running the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Outlook application. This key must be installed either through direct registry edit or via Group Policy in your organization.

For more information about the specific versions of the Outlook Security Update, as well as the version-specific registry keys needed to temporarily resolve the blank webpages, please review Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Outlook is unable to render webpages after installing the October 2017 Microsoft Outlook security update.

New Automation and Visualization features for Business Process Flows (preview)

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) version 9.0 (also known as the July 2017 update) includes two new features that are available for public preview: Business Process Flow dashboards, grids, and charts and Business Process Flow automation with Action Steps.

For more information, review this article https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crm/2017/10/25/new-automation-and-visualization-features-for-business-process-flows-public-preview/ on the Dynamics 365 Team Blog (includes instructions on how to enable the public preview features).

New from Microsoft Labs: Change Tracking Solution for Dynamics 365

The change tracking solution for Dynamics 365 is a feature that provides the ability to track the changes in Dynamics 365 made by System Administrators/System Customizers. It provides details of changes on who updated an entity, JavaScript, assemblies and processes along with the time of update. The solution is built on Dynamics 365 and works well with Dynamics CRM 2016 (Online/ On premises).

For information and links to download the solution, review this post on the Dynamics CRM in the Field blog.

Dynamics 365 Resource Scheduling Optimization Update

With the goal of continuously improving quality, performance, usability, and responding to customer feedback, Microsoft has released a Resource Scheduling Optimization update (v1.5.17284.2). The updated features include schedule board integration, simulation status for resource scheduling optimization and deployment app enhancements.

NOTE: This Resource Scheduling Optimization update is backward compatible with Dynamics 365 v8.2, and can be deployed on either Dynamics 365 v9.0 or Dynamics 365 v8.2. However, the ‘Schedule Board Integration’ feature is only available in Dynamics 365 v9.0.

For more information, review What’s New for Dynamics 365 Resource Scheduling Optimization v1.5.17284.2 Release and Release notes for October update for Field Service and Project Service Automation.

If you’re new to Field Service and Project Service Automation, then it’s important to start with a pre-configured environment to explore the capability. For more information on how to setup this environment, review Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service and Project Service Automation sample data.

Training Corner

Training Sites & eLearning

Get the most up to date training and eLearning information for Dynamics 365 from the Help Center. The Training & Adoption Kit for Dynamics 365 is also available for download which includes user guides, quick reference cards, eBooks for end users and admins. Feel free to modify the content and distribute to your customers.

Want to know what new features are available for both online and on-prem customers? Then check out What’s new in Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Ignite 2017 Demonstration: PowerShell with Dynamics 365 Online Management API

During the Microsoft Ignite 2017 Conference a demonstration was provided on common scenarios using the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Online Management PowerShell module and how to query and alter data using PowerShell.

A ready-to-run Powershell script that demonstrates some of the Online Management API features in PowerShell and uses an optional module (Microsoft.Xrm.Data.PowerShell GitHub link & PowerShell Gallery link) for reviewing and editing data in a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement instance is now available here on the Dynamics CRM in the field blog.

Watch the on-demand session from Ignite 2017: https://myignite.microsoft.com/videos/57109

CRM and Dynamics 365 Features List

Ever wonder what features are available in the online versus on-prem instances of CRM and Dynamics 365? Take a look at the Dynamics 365 - Online vs on-premises features FAQ page to find out.

How can the new Dynamics 365 web client UI make you more productive?

The Dynamics 365 web client has a refreshed UI in Dynamics 365 (online) 9.0, that increases readability and consequently productivity. The new look and feel has been carefully designed by Microsoft’s UX experts after considering key user feedback and gaps identified after a thorough analysis such as too much of whitespace on forms and long field labels that get cut off.

No layout or functional changes were made to the existing infrastructure, so users can sail through to the new UI with no customization effort or training required.

Some of the updates include:

No more confusing whitespace

Before

After

Clear demarcation of where page header ends and form content begins

Before

After

Word wrap for long field labels and values

Before

After

For more information on the changes, review this post on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Team blog.

Out of the Box: Choosing colors on the Schedule Board

Dynamics 365 offers Theming which allows an organization to modify the color schemes and add a logo to their instance to match their organization’s brand. There are other color controlling features in Dynamics 365. With a Field Service implementation, customers can change colors conditionally on the schedule board. Different colors can be selected for the booking entity to help quickly distinguish between appointments for work orders, leads, custom entities etc...the booking status which can change as the status of the entry is updated and the priority.

To see how to configure the Field Service Schedule Board, review this blog post and this training article.

Handling Business Process Flows on Record Create

This post answers the question: How can I apply a specific Business Process Flow when creating a CRM entity record? The article includes step by step instructions and provides additional information on how to select a default Business Process Flow for a record.

Ideas for Microsoft Dynamics 365

Help us improve Microsoft Dynamics 365 and its family of products and solutions by discussing ideas, providing suggestions, and giving feedback. Use the forums listed on the Ideas page to share your thoughts. Search through the existing ideas, before suggesting a new one, and you can vote on them to help increase visibility.

Go to Top