Microsoft offers a portfolio of customer engagement solutions that help companies develop long-lasting relationships with customers through personalized, proactive, and predictive experiences. The portfolio consists of the following: Sales | Dynamics CRM –Microsoft provides a complete and intuitive sales force automation solution that helps salespeople be more productive so they are freed up to focus on what’s most important – delivering amazing customer experiences. With essential insight, guidance, and tools, salespeople stay focused on the right customers and priorities, win faster by collaborating with colleagues to harness the power of the entire organization, and build trusted relationships with customers through personalized and relevant engagements. Service | Dynamics CRM – helps companies build brand advocacy and earn customer loyalty by providing customers with exceptional customer service across all channels, and for all service types – self, assisted, and field service. Dynamics CRM also empowers a company’s agents to provide service on any channel, and provides a comprehensive set of intuitive tools, knowledge, and customer insight to help them deliver world class customer service. Microsoft Dynamics Marketing – is an integrated marketing management solution for marketing operations, planning, execution, and analytics across all channels— email, digital, social, SMS, and traditional. Companies can engage customers one-to-one across channels, build their sales pipeline and demonstrate the impact of their marketing investments in real-time.   Microsoft Social Engagement – enables companies to monitor what is being said about their brand, products, or services across a variety of channels, analyze sentiment, and drive customer engagement. Microsoft Social Engagement is integrated with Sales, Service, and Marketing, providing contextual social insights for all relevant line of business people, not just a few designated social monitoring people in marketing. Now that we’ve covered the current state of customer engagement, the concept of intelligent customer engagement, and customer engagement solutions from Microsoft, let’s take a look at the major themes for our upcoming Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 release. This 2016 release takes CRM to a new level in enabling businesses to have intelligent customer engagements – empowering them to make the most out of data to increase productivity and deliver amazing experiences to their customers.

1. 1
This release takes CRM to a new level in enabling
businesses to have intelligent customer
engagements– empowering them to make the
most out of data to increase productivity and
deliver amazing experiences to their customers.
Select a topic from the right-hand navigation pane
to see the questions addressed by our SMEs
(Subject Matter Experts) during the Autumn Wave
Blitz event.
For the Sales FAQ, see the Microsoft Dynamics CRM
2016 | Sales FAQ.
If you missed the Blitz, want to see the other tracks,
or simply would like to rewatch topics of interest to
you, please go to the Dynamics Learning Portal.
This site offers all the training and resources to help
you get ready for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016!
Table of Contents
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016
Readiness
Licensing and Total Economic
Impact
Sales
 Document Generation
 Productivity Team
Service
 Knowledge Management
 Interactive Service Hub
Marketing
Online
Platform
 Search
 Dynamics CRM Web API
Demonstration Assets
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 | Technical FAQ

2. 2
Question: Where can I find partner readiness for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016?
Answer: Find Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Readiness for Partners on the New Release BOM for Partners
and the Learning Paths on the Dynamics Learning Portal and MPN Learning Paths.
Question: Where can I find field readiness for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016?
Answer: Find Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Readiness for Field on the New Release page and on Learning
Paths on //CRM > click Training.
Question: Where do I find the current Road Map presentation for Dynamics CRM?
Answer: Partner Source
Question: What is the DLP?
Answer: The DLP is the Dynamics Learning Portal. It offers an engaging way for Microsoft Dynamics partners to
consume Microsoft Dynamics E-Learning content. Click here to watch a short video overview of the new format
and functionalities and here to download a .PDF version.
Question: What is the cost of accessing the Dynamics Learning Portal (DLP)?
Answer: Access to the DLP requires an annaul training pack purchase of $1,000 USD unless you have a support
plan already in place. The DLP has hours and hours of training available to partners.
Question: What does ERP stand for?
Answer: ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Program. This term is broadly used for backoffice accounting
solutions like Dynamics NAV, Dynamics GP, Dynamics AX, and Dynamics SL.
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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Readiness

3. 3
Question: Is there a tool available to provide the Total Economic Impact (TEI) of choosing Dynamics CRM Online
vs. an on-premises solution?
Answer: Yes, We’re fortunate enough to have secured the rights from Forrester to share their new tool with our
partners. The tool utilizes their research to provide the Total Economic Impact (TEI) of choosing Dynamics CRM
Online vs. an on-premises solution. This is a great asset to provide to our partners, and we’re excited to begin
getting them enrolled. You can find a whitepaper on the research linked in the tool (you will already have access
to the tool when registering with your MSFT account here), and a prepared to-partner email attached to this post.
Any partner who expresses interest may gain access to the tool, they’ll just need to email the alias:
DynPartnerMkg@microsoft.com
Licensing and Total Economic Impact
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4. 4
Document Generation
Question: Does it work on custom entities?
Answer: Yes, it does work on custom entities.
Question: Export to PDF?
Answer: Not directly, but when using Microsoft Word you can save as PDF so it will just be a 2 step process for
now.
Question: Related entities?
Answer: Yes related entities will work up to 1 extra level deep ( so if I'm on an account I can get all it's contacts
activities for example.)
Question: Can I select a document Template within the record?
Answer: Yes, you can select a document templete within a record.
Question: Can you use FetchXML to describe queries for document generation?
Answer: Today we query relationships directly, so grabbing all 1:n, n:n, n:1 relationships. The template builder
themselves can choose which relationships to expose. There’s no direct FetchXML support for specification of the
queries.
Question: Will it repeat lines such as products on an invoice?
Answer: Yes it will, any related entity can be mapped as a repeating row.
Question: What about sorting rows?
Answer: No, there’s no sorting or filtering of rows in any way. The results in the list may come down a bit random
we don’t have any specific sorting, it also doesn’t respect views, so say you had a subgrid on a form with a specific
view like all activities that are completed, but in the template document that you use to generate, there’s no
concept of view selection. It can only pull down all activities. You can include the status column to see its status
(complete or open) but you can’t filter. Sorting and Filtering is on the roadmap for the future.
Question: Can you handle calculated fields?
Answer: Yes we can handle calculated fields as well but only if its using CRM calculated fields. There’s no runtime
calculations that can be done in word template.
Question: Can you handle field formatting?
Answer: We can handle formatting for date, time and numbers, specifically for format and digits.
Sales
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5. 5
Question: Does this support N:N
Answer: Yes, N:N Is supported
Question: Can the attributes be filtered?
Answer: Attributes are not able to be filtered
Question: Multiple language support?
Answer: There’s actually no concept of languages in a word template since we just provide them with a blank file
with attribute mappings (which are always English). You can build a template using any language. OOB we’ll ship
sample templates for around 5 languages. For now this will be an admin/power user task. In the future we’ll look
into using display names which are localized instead of field logical names which are more used by
developers/admins and always English.
Question: Can you add business rules to the template? For example, show and hide things based on attribute
value?
Answer: The template is not able to have buinsess rules added.
Question: Where will the document be saved?
Answer: Local download for now, however a user could re-upload and associate with a record and store it in
SharePoint etc.
Question: Can entity image attributes be used in templates?
Answer: Yes, the entity image can be included in templates and the image will show in the generated document.
Question: Is there any enhancement about sending the document by email?
Answer: We wanted to but it wont be done this time around. Something for future.
Question: Can you generate and send docs from workflows?
Answer: Yes, you can generate docs and then attach to a record as a note attachment, but you cannot send as
email directly for now.
Question: Field security preventing attributes from being exported?
Answer: Yes, field security will prevent attributes from being exported.
Question: Can the template use all features of Microsoft Word like pictures, colors, etc?
Answer: Yes, though currently there’s some issues with formatting content controls that you insert as
placeholders as part of the template. As you are building the template, to insert CRM fields/data, you need to
insert placeholders using the xml mapping pane. For some reason currently any formatting done to it causes it to
freeze. There are workarounds, such as defining the format first then inserting the content control, but that can
get annoying. We’re looking into this.
Question: Is there an SDK available for creating documents via the Document Generation feature?
Answer: Not a public SDK for this release.
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6. 6
Question: Could you get product pictures?
Answer: Yes, the entity image can be included in templates and the image will show in the generated document.
Question: Can you generate a document and then upload back to SharePoint/OneDrive associated to the entity?
Answer: Once you generate the document you can do whatever you want with it. It’s just a Microsoft Word doc.
So yes you can upload it to SharePoint if you’d like.
Question: How many clicks to send pdf?
Answer: Click to select record, click to expand commands (or potentially it could be one of the top commands),
click to select word template, click the template to use for generate. Double click to open word, click file, click save
as, click to change options to PDF. Click save. Then some more clicks to send the email. Etc.
Question: Integration to electronic signature?
Answer: No direct electronic signature integration, however the document produced could be re-uploaded and
then used with any document signing integration.
Question: Bulk automation?
Answer: No there is no bulk automation.
Question: Are those content controls?
Answer: Yes, they are content controls.
Question: How dynamic could you make the template? For example, if a piece of data equals X shows this
section but hide another section?
Answer: There isn't any support for dynamic templates.
Question: If a table spreads through pages, do you repeat the header?
Answer: Cannot repeat table headers for this release.
Question: Can you populate metadata into the document properties based on attributes on the related record?
Answer: Not yet though we’ve heard of this one before and are considering for future roadmap.
Question: You can't use standard Microsoft Word features to hide a single attribute if it is null? For instance, do
not show the line?
Answer: No.
Question: Is the end goal to always use the XML mapping feature under the developer tools within Microsoft
Word?
Answer: That pane limits us so much. We’ll never get in any of the customizable template logic if we do.
Question: Is there a relationship between the record and the created document?
Answer: There’s no relationship between the doc you generate and the record.
Question: Is XML mapping using display names or logical names?
Answer: It uses logical names so no, not end-user friendly.
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7. 7
Question: For quote submission, should we use document generation or continue with mail merge?
Answer: Either is fine depending on what you want. Document Generation will generate quotes in 1 click, much
better experience, while Mail Merge will allow better inline editing experience since you are given all CRM fields
available and can insert new CRM data easily. But it’s a heavier experience. Document generation feature once
exported no longer has any connection to CRM so you’ll need to resort back to copy and pasting if you still want
CRM data.
Productivity Team
Question: Office 365 Groups - What controls what entities are enabled?
Answer: There’s a configuration page in which you can enable Office 365 Groups for any entity, even custom
entities. 1) A fixed set of OOB entities, 2) all custom entities can be enabled.
Question: Can a custom activity entity be enabled for Office 365 Groups?
Answer: No you can’t have a group attached to a custom activity, only full entities.
Question: Are form customizations done as unmanaged?
Answer: Modifications are made to the form definition to add that to the record.
Question: Is there support for moving the configuration from test to production?
Answer: There is no support for moving the configuration from test to production.
Question: How do you uninstall Office 365 Group integration?
Answer: Remove all entities from configuration page then publish, Then remove the solution.
Question: Do the entities created when the solution is install count against entity limits?
Answer: Yes, there are currently about 15.
Question: CRM App for Outlook : Will authentication be maintained across e-mails?
Answer: Yes it will be maintained across e-mails.
Question: OneDrive: Can you disable the integration after enabled?
Answer: Yes – single checkbox.
Question: How does OneDrive integration handle multiple CRM organizations
Answer: Same behavior as the SharePoint integration.
Question: How are folder or document renames/deletes in OneDrive handled in CRM
Answer: Same as SharePoint integration.We do not support renames from OneDrive side – although file name
renames should work.
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8. 8
Question: Excel Templates : Can these be packaged up in a Solution?
Answer: No these can not be packaged up.
Question: Are there any geographic restrictions to using this feature?
Answer: For Office 365 Groups and CRM App for Outlook, no.
Question: Are there any language restrictions to using this feature?
Answer: For Office 365 Groups and CRM App for Outlook, RTL languages are not supported.
Question: Are there any limitations for this feature based on browser? OS? Device?
Answer: For Office 365 Groups, it’s only available on CRM web client, any browser. For CRM App for Outlook, it’s
to be available on Outlook 2013, Outlook 2016, IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari on Mac, and Outlook for Mac as well as
Android phone, iPhone, and Windows Phone internet browsers.
Question: This new discounted Sales Productivity SKU won`t require a promo code - will it just be in the product
catalog?
Answer: Yes, it will be on the price list SKU.
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9. 9
Knowledge Management
Question: Will the WYSIWYG editor be available in other parts of CRM?
Answer: Only available in the Service Desk UI, this includes Knowledge Articles and emails sent from here.
Question: How are existing KB articles handled?
Answer: They are independent to the new Knowledge Articles and can run in parallel.
Question: Are certain steps required or can a user with the correct approval permission simply publish an article
without going through the motions?
Answer: Knowledge Articles can use Business Process Flows. We are shipping 3 Business Process Flows out of the
box, all of which can be customized.
Question: How are publishing conflicts handled? When two users with permission try to do different things with
the same article?
Answer: Publish is an update action, therefore conflicts are handled the same way CRM handles this scenario for
any record type.
Question: Can the approval process be configured?
Answer: Knowledge Articles can use Business Process Flows. We are shipping 3 Business Process Flows out of the
box, all of which can be customized.
Question: Can the approval process trigger workflows?
Answer: Yes, approval process is just part of the active Business Process Flow.
Question: Can you schedule publishing at a specific time?
Answer: Yes to can schedule publishing at a specific time.
Question: How are changes managed to published articles?
Answer: There are a couple options: 1) Unplublish the article, make the change and republish, 2)- a new versionm
of the article can be created- make the changes in the new version and then publish the new version. Only one
version can be published at a time.
Question: Will the current security roles/settings work for the new KB process or will there be new roles to
accommodate for this?
Answer: Yes, new permissions and new roles will be introduced.
Service
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10. 10
Question: Are there any limitations for this feature based on browser? OS? Device?
Answer: No, there are no limitations for these features.
Question: Do the Knowledge Article entities count against custom entities?
Answer: No, they don't count against custom entities.
Question: Is the new KB also included in pro?
Answer: Yes it is included in Pro.
Question: If I want to show only one translation in the current user language? I have to set root to no and
primary?
Answer: Language is a field on the article, you can define criteria to return in certain languages. Article languages
do not map 1:1 to user language.
Question: Can I create an article translation for a non-activated system language? Or is this UI language
independent?
Answer: Article language is independent of CRM languages. A new Language entity is being introduced to define
the language of the article.
Question: Any info when the primary article is update that the translation was not updated afterwards? Besides
modification?
Answer: No.
Question: How is Parature's KB features linked to this? Or: what should I advise our customers to go for in the
future? (Parature KB or CRM KB)
Answer: There is no relationship between CRM Knowledge Article and Parature KB.
Question: Where is the parature portal?
Answer: Parature Portal still exists, it is an independent system. There will not be any out of box integrations
between Parature Portal and CRM.
Question: Can you show embedded images?
Answer: Yes embedded images are able to show.
Question: Is this HTML editor also available for marketing campaigns?
Answer: No.
Question: is this WYSIWYG editor coming into email or other custom entities?
Answer: No, it is only available in the Service Desk UI.
Question: What are the scenarios supported by translation in articles? To help internal team members and /or to
send those articles to your customers?
Answer: Translations are just another article – they have their own Business Process Flow and versioning. The only
difference is that they must be related to another article.
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11. 11
Question: Will review and publish controlled by the former security concept or is there a new concept
introduced?
Answer: Yes, new permissions and new roles will be introduced.
Question: Can you configure multiple levels of review?
Answer: Knowledge Articles can use Business Process Flows. We are shipping 3 Business Process Flows out of the
box, all of which can be customized.
Question: Can translated article be edited and published separately from the primary article, e.g, to clean up the
translation?
Answer: Yes translated article can be edited and published.
Question: Does the new Knowledge Article have the concept of templates?
Answer: There is no concept of template with this feature.
Question: Is the primary attribute always used for search for the search?
Answer: yes, always uses the primary attribute.
Question: Can you link them to custom entities?
Answer: yes, these are able to be linked to the custom entities.
Question: Is there a mixed scenario-using both Parature KB and CRM KB?
Answer: No, there is no mixed scenario.
Question: Is Parature integrated into CRM Online?
Answer: In CRM 2016, Knowledge will be fully integrated with CRM. Parature powers self-service and chat.
Question: Will all the Parature KB capabilities be available in CRM as well?
Answer: Knowledge Management will be fully integrated and managed in CRM in 2016, including workflow,
versioning, translation support and feedback.
Question: Is there an Employee Self service capablity OOB?
Answer: There is no employee self-service OOB product for this release. This is a roadmap item. Additional work is
required by the client to enable Parature Portal, Adxstudio Portal or other Portals to integrate with CRM.
Question: Are Case form updates applied to existing forms - what is the upgrade experience?
Answer: A new form type will be introduced for the Service Desk.
Question: Topic Analysis, can any influence happen on what is included/excluded?
Answer: there can not be any influence.
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12. 12
Interactive Service Hub
Question: What happens to current case management on upgrade?
Answer: The interactive service hub is a brand new client that will be available in addition to the existing Web
Client to access Case Management and other CRM functionality. Customers can continue to use the existing Web
Client on upgrade without any extra work. However, to use the interactive service hub additional work would be
required. The interactive service hub uses the new interactive experience dashboard types and main forms. This
implies that existing dashboards that are visible on Web client will not be visible on interactive service hub and
customers will have to create new dashboards to meet their requirements. Also, any customizations on the main
form will also not be applied to the new interactive main forms. These will have to be manually customized again.
Question: Can we trigger workflows off of dashboard items and actions?
Answer: The dashboard actions uses the same command bar infrastructure available in CRM which supports
triggering workflows.
Question: Is there any impact on current case forms and use of service in CRM?
Answer: No, this is an additional client we are providing. The existing Web Client functionality will be unaffected.
Question: Can you have multiple single and multi-stream dashboards assigned based on roles?
Answer: Yes, these dashboards can be assigned to one or more roles. You can do this by going to Settings >
Customization > Dashboards > select a dashboard and click on Enable Security Roles to assign the roles who
should have access.
Question: When will Interactive Service Hub be available for on-premises?
Answer: It is an Online and On Premise release. So, it will be available as part of this release.
Question: Service Hub Dashboards - can you change the background color from black?
Answer: No, we will consider it for a future release.
Question: Service Hub Dashboard stream - how many records will show in stream?
Answer: The stream shows all the records based on the View or Queue that is configured.
Question: Can I control the default view/sorting of the streams?
Answer: The default sort is always “Modified On” ( latest to oldest).
Question: Will this run on Mobile?
Answer: No it’s browser based only. It is a browser based application that is optimized for desktop / laptop form
factor. We don’t support opening this on mobile browsers in this release.
Question: Does it run on mobile browsers?
Answer: We don’t support opening this on mobile browsers in this release.
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13. 13
Question: Are the dashboards solution aware?
Answer: Yes. However, if the streams or tiles are based on Queues, then additional work would be required to
migrate to another system. This is because Queues are data in the system and not metadata. So, the Queues used
in the dashboard will have to be created in the target system before we import the exported dashboard into that
system.
Question: How customizable are the dashboards?
Answer: Is it only customizable for an admin or do users/consumers of the dashboards have options to configure
their own? It is customizable by administrators. They can modify the OOB dashboards or create new ones. End
users cannot configure their own.
Question: Is there a separate url for this functionality, what does that mean and how must I accommodate for
that?
Answer: It is a new client with its own URL. An end user will have to use that URL to access the application. We
will also have a yellow notification visible to administrators to access service hub from Web Client.It would read
See how the interactive service hub can make you more productive. Experience it now, Clicking in Experience it
now (button) would open the service hub application.
Question: Is there CTI integration?
Answer: Not in this release. We are targeting service desk users in this release and not large call center users.
Question: Are all streams defined only using queues?
Answer: Streams can be based on queues or Views.
Question: How often to the contents of the streams refresh?
Answer: When the dashboard loads the streams show real-time data as of that point. They don’t auto refresh
after that. There is a “Refresh All” button available on the dashboard which can be used to update all the
dashboard data including the streams.
Question: Would search be based on quick search view?
Answer: Yes, the global search is based on the standard Multi Entity Quick Find.
Question: Is article search linked to Parature?
Answer: No it uses the new CRM Knowledge Management we are releasing in Dynamics CRM 2016.
Question: Is this feature available both in Online and On-premises?
Answer: Yes this feature is available both on-premises and online.
Question: Can we use all OOB entities? Custom entities? Activities? Custom activities?
Answer: There are a fixed set of OOTB entities (captured in the Airlift deck) and Custom entities / Activities that
are supported.
Question: What commands are available for a stream? Is this customizable?
Answer: The stream shows the grid commands using the standard ribbonxml infrastructure available in the
mobile platform. We have removed a few commands that don’t make sense for Service Hub like “Open browser”
but broadly we support the same capability as supported by the mobile platform.
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14. 14
Question: The visual filters that are shown in screen shots look to be a totally new way to show things, can I
leverage these new visualizations elsewhere in CRM?
Answer: No, they are tied to the new interactive dashboards.
Question: What are the limitations for what is in the reference panel? Can I mix resources? CRM feed, legacy
system feeds, external news feeds?
Answer: The reference panel can only show Quick View Forms and Sub Grids in this release. Web Resources and
iFrames are planned for a future release.
Question: Can I customize the filters on the streams?
Answer: The Visual filters and the Global Filters are customizable.
Question: Are there any geographic restrictions to using this feature?
Answer: No, there are no geographic restrictions to using the feature.
Question: Are there any language restrictions to using this feature?
Answer: We support the languages that the CRM mobile platform supports.
Question: Are there any limitations for this feature based on browser? OS? Device?
Answer: We don’t support mobile devices. There are browser limitations. A supportability matrix will be available
closer to release.
Question: Interactive service hub replaces or is next to Unified Service Desk?
Answer: The interactive service hub is an online UI for agents. It does not replace the USD, which is for complex
Service environments where you are integrating data from multiple systems.
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15. 15
Marketing
Question: Are there any increases in space allowed or better versioning/delete functions than before?
Answer: No, there are no increases in space allowed.
Question: Any plans for SharePoint asset integration?
Answer: There are not currently any plans.
Question: Are there any plans to bring SMS feature to CRM without having full Dynamics Marketing?
Answer: This is the first version of SMS services, and we want to carefully and gradually learn and grow. We are
open to customer suggestions.
Question: Can I bring my own shortcode I already have?
Answer: The customer can do so in US, UK, Singapore, Canada (our pilot markets). Kindly get in touch with the
enterprise account manager or Microsoft Support for further information.
Question: Are there any language restrictions to using this feature?
Answer: We did not add new languages for Autumn wave release. Microsoft Dynamics Marketing offers 17
languages.
Question: Are there any limitations for this feature based on browser? OS? Device?
Answer: As Microsoft Dynamics Marketing is an online service, the supportability matrix is same as that of Office
365 online.
Question: When is Microsoft Dynamics Marketing going to be available for LATAM. What if we are working
already with prospects and are interesting in buying Microsoft Dynamics Marketing?
Answer: Dynamics Marketing is already available in many (most) LATAM countries - see the Dynamics CRM
International Availability PowerPoint on Infopedia. This should cover the geographical scope of Microsoft
Dynamics Marketing. We did not add new countries for Autumn wave release.
Question: If Microsoft Dynamics Marketing is integrated does it mean that it will available in all countries where
CRM Online is currently present?
Answer: No. There is a separate list where Microsoft Dynamics Marketing is available.
Question: What are the locations for SMS functionality in the initial release?
Answer: US, UK, Singapore, Canada.
Marketing
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16. 16
Question: when are we going to see SMS messaging in other markets?
Answer: We are testing in 4 markets and will expand from there. We are offering pilot with first version of SMS
marketing in these 4 markets. We are planning to observe the progress for a few months and then gradually grow
into more markets.
Question: Any plans for SMS support in Western Europe markets?
Answer: We are testing in 4 markets and will roll out from there.
Question: Is Microsoft Dynamics Marketing integrated into CRM Online too?
Answer: Yes, we offer a connector tool to sync certain type of data between CRM (Online, On-Premises) with
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing.
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17. 17
Data Performance
Question: Do you need to enable Data Performance Logs or is it automatically enabled?
Answer: Data Performance page in online will be available by default once it is released.
Question: Can Read Committed Snapshot Isolation (RCSI) be enabled on-premises also and be fully supported?
Answer: RCSI is a supported configuration in on-premises as of the fall 2015 release. Admins enable directly in
SQL
Online
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18. 18
Search
Question: Can search be disabled after initial enablement?
Answer: Yes. It’s an admin option in the System Settings UI.
Question: If search is disabled is data removed from external system?
Answer: We delete the external index within 24 hours as a maintenance operation. This is communicated to the
admin when they turn off search in the UI.
Question: Is there a limit on the number of entities that can be enabled?
Answer: No. There is only a limit on the number of total fields in the index for the entire org. We’ll target 1000
total fields per org.
Question: What entities are not available for search?
Answer: All custom entities can be enabled for search. System Customizers can use a new managed property,
CanEnableSynctoExternalSearchIndex, to indicate that they don’t want the entity enabled for search. We’ll
enable a set of OOB entities for search by default and customers can add or remove these entities from search as
desired.
Question: Can the search index be queries via the CRM SDK APIs?
Answer: In Dynamics CRM 2016 the search API is internal. We do plan on making it available as a public API for
customers in a future release.
Question: Will my search data exist in the same data center as my CRM data?
Answer: We can’t guarantee the exact same data center as the primary CRM org DB since Azure expands and
moves things around at will within a region. In most situations, the search index will be in the same Azure region
as the CRM organization. In some situations, it may end up in a different region, DR for example resides. Data for
search will never leave the Geo.
Question: Are there any geographic restrictions to using this feature?
Answer: Government cloud customers can’t enable search until it attains a level of compliance parity with CRM
Online. This will be reflected in the search admin UI. Availability will follow the availability of Azure Search in
regions currently.
Question: Are there any language restrictions to using this feature?
Answer: We’ll index using an analyzer with the same language as the base language of the org. Azure Search and
CRM are pretty close in parity with one another as far as language support goes. In some cases, we’ll use a close
alternative or default to English.
Platform
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19. 19
Question: Are there any limitations for this feature based on browser? OS? Device?
Answer: Web Client support only during the preview. Tablet and phone support by search GA.
Question: When will the Search feature be available for my organization?
Answer: Search will be slowly rolled out over the first several months of the fall 2015 release. We’ll be available
as a private preview to start and then as a public preview in March assuming all goes well. Our current target for
general availability for production, and fully supported, use is end of April 2016.
Dynamics CRM Web API
Question: Is there support for headless oAuth?
Answer: We support only access tokens for users today. Client (App) credentials support is not yet available but
we will come in a future release
Question: Can you authenticate with a user and password to the new CRM Web API?
Answer: Azure Active Directory (AAD) provides support for user credentials flow in CRM Online. Client App must
still be registered in AAD. On-premises via standard Windows Auth.
Question: How does performance compare between new Web API and Organization Service calls?
Answer: Uses same platform underneath. In general same or slightly better, especially where the more efficient
json parsing adds benefits on large requests and responses.
Question: Is there any documentation on what to change to upgrade from V2 to V4 of the API?
Answer: No, This is an entirely new API with very little in common with the old one.
Question: Are there any differences between on-premises and CRM Online for the CRM Web API?
Answer: On-Premises, we support Windows Auth. CORS is not supported for Windows Auth deployments.
Question: Are there any limitations for this feature based on browser? OS? Device?
Answer: No, there are no limitations for these features.
Question: Is there any ability to disable CORS for an organization?
Answer: No.
Question: Are there any parts of the OData V4 specification not implemented?
Answer: No search, $all, $crossjoin. No async requests. Only a subset of the standard filter expressions are
supported (startswith, endswith, contains). No $metadata as a service (supporting $metadata query) yet. Not yet
support for Prefer return=representation. No support yet for expand on data entity queries (only supported on
individual entity retrieve) ChangeTracking is limited to simple entityset retrieves with $select. no $filter or $expand
supported.
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20. 20
Demonstration Assets
Question: Where can I find the roadmap deck?
Answer: The roadmap deck is on partnersource here:
https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/northamerica/sales-marketing/marketing-
collateral/presentations/msdcrmroadmapnda.
Question: What is the process of translating the demos into actual production templates for our clients?
Answer: After a demo is completed and accepted, you can export all the customizations and import them into the
customer's CRM Online instance.
Question: Does full copy include data and customizations?
Answer: Full copy is the entire database so it would include customizations and data.
Question: Is there any sample Dynamics Marketing data and demos that are available for partners?
Answer: You can sign up here for a free 30 day trial that includes some demo data:
https://portal.microsoftonline.com/Signup/MainSignUp.aspx?OfferId=7DDD3A9B-6135-4F43-A932-
07D6445FA069&pc=ff7010ce-795f-4179-9b77-cf0a7be2be69&dl=DMENTERPRISE.
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Demonstration Assets