The Key to Manage Dynamics 365 Storage Cost
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based platform that offers an integrated solution for all your business operations under one roof. It has unique data handling techniques, with more automated features comes more data, which ultimately covers the available storage space. Dynamics 365 offers only 10 GB of storage per instance. For every 20 Professional license users you have, you'll get an additional 5 GB. Depending on your location, you'll have to pay a hefty monthly license cost for each additional gigabyte used. To buy more cloud space, you would have to go over your budget, this is not always a reliable solution, mainly for small or medium businesses. In this situation, you might consider the following cost-effective measures to secure your documents well within your current budget.
Reduce the Storage Space of Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 works as the central location for your most important data and information. It can store customer information, provide leads, track services with real-time updates, manage sales work, etc. All of these performances help your organization to run smoothly, but what happens if the system itself becomes clogged up and becomes unsmooth. Dynamics 365 is not a platform of documentation, therefore monitoring its health is essential to ensure the system's fast performance and enough space for growth. When and if you reach 80% of your total storage capacity, Dynamics 365 sends you an alert for you to take action. It is time to reduce your storage space and to stay within your budget. You can start with Organisation Insights, a feature of D365 which will guide you to visualize and delete your storage in bulk. It shows your storage in detail, where you can choose to delete unused storage in bulk appropriately.
Advantages of Document Management Systems
As we have mentioned before, Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based CRM and ERP system, it doesn't provide space to store extra documents. You have to unclog regularly to keep your system running efficiently. The best option for you right now to avoid the extra cost of buying space is to move your documents to add on document management systems with cheaper storage space. A document management system (DMS) can help you save time and money by streamlining your company's operations. Because there are numerous competing solutions on the market, it's crucial to compare their features and capabilities before deciding which one is best for your company. Among the most popular and reliable DMS are Microsoft SharePoint, Azure Blob, and Azure File storage. This additional storage space offers updated features at a fraction of the cost compared to Dynamics 365. You would need to figure out which storage space works best for your organization. Along with storage, these platforms offer many collaborating opportunities to keep your dynamics 365 runnings smoothly.
Dynamics 365 with Azure Blob Storage
Azure Blob is a cloud-based storage solution provided by Microsoft which stores a large amount of unstructured data. Blob stands for Binary Large Object, which means images and multimedia files. These and images, videos, and multimedia files are known as unstructured because they don't necessarily follow any specific data model. Azure Blob storage allows data transfer to customers through REST-based object storage. REST is an acronym for Representational State Transfer. ReSTful APIs make it simple for apps to handle data and metadata globally without requiring extensive recoding. Therefore, if your organization has to deal with various videos, music, and unstructured data, you should probably go with Azure Blob at a minimum cost. Files (pictures, movies, training materials, and so on) are stored as blobs in containers that behave similarly to directories in Azure Blob storage. The storage account is then linked to these blobs. It will simply connect the storage account and the location of the blob when constructing the address to offer access to a file in Azure data storage. All content assets can be stored in one place making your work easier. To gain shared access to Blobs and Files, both Azure Blobs and Azure Files require Shared Access Signature (SAS). Both Azure AD and shared access token are supported in addition to authorization. Thus, ensuring the utmost security of your files.
Dynamics 365 with Microsoft SharePoint
SharePoint is a browser-based document management and collaboration tool from Microsoft. The content management system from Microsoft enables organizations to create a centralized, password-protected document sharing place. Here, documents can be saved, downloaded, and modified before being posted and shared. Here each article acts as a container for the papers linked to it, a single item can support several documents. It's a fantastic place to save incoming papers like business letters, meeting agendas, and procedures; contracts with extra specifications or appendices; and personnel lists with associated individual data. The capacity to transmit metadata within documents is the major advantage of SharePoint. This is particularly helpful for bulk uploading new documents, such as contracts with appendices or personnel information. SharePoint's storage capacity is sufficient for big companies, with 1TB per organization and more available. In the case of SharePoint Online, the restrictions are based on the plan or subscription. Massive volumes of data, as well as all necessary backups, are stored in such a huge storage area. SharePoint is more flexible than Azure Blob, it enhances collaboration with various platforms and has an updated security system for your protection.