Make your Dynamics Web Client a tile in your Office 365 portal

This post is a simple one so apologies if you’ve already done this but today I’ve again seen a customer not using Dynamics NAV & Office 365 the way I think they should be used. They had done the hard work by setting up the integrated authentication so that their Office 365 username and password work with their Dynamics NAV install and publishing the web client. Trouble is they didn’t add it to the Office 365 portal but were going round setting up different favourite shortcuts for everyone.

That’s crazy – if you ever change the URL (when the next version some along for instance) you’ll have to re-do them all. Use your Office 365 administration console to add it to the 365 portal as shown below. That way you use one login to the portal and can then get anywhere with Dynamics NAV or CRM just being two more options in the 365 family. And it is really easy to do taking just a couple of minutes when you know where to go – do it once for your entire organisation.

 

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Select that Admin square (you need to be an administrator for the organisation) and then select the Company Profile option.  This will take you into an area where one of the options on the left is ‘Custom Tiles’, select this.

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Once in this area click the ‘+’ sign to add a new tile and enter the name of the application plus its URL.  You can even add an image URL as well so it has a nice icon in the portal.

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And as the administrator you’re done. Each user now has to select ‘View all my Apps’ at the bottom of the main Office 365 portal menu and then when you see the custom tiles at the bottom, click the 3 dots symbol next to the Dynamics NAV one and select Pin to App Launcher. 

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Done – and the best thing is you can change the URL whenever you want now from that central admin point. Also, you are training your users to login to Office 365 for their mail and the other Dynamics applications, which are just there.

Author: James Crowter

I’m passionate about how businesses can improve their efficiency by getting process optimal more of the time. For the last twenty five years I’ve worked to help organisations of all sizes and types implement the ERP & CRM software that typically they decide they need when things are going wrong. I’ve seen that work unbelievably well and enabled those organisations to rapidly grow but I’ve also had some hard projects over that time where it’s felt more like warfare at times. Since 1996 (and version 1.01) I’ve been working with a small Danish product called Navision that’s now become Microsoft’s Dynamics NAV and I’ve also been using and consulting around Microsoft CRM since 2005. As managing Director of one of the longest established first Navision and now Microsoft Dynamics partners I’ve been involved in the complete history including numerous product councils and system design reviews. It’s my privilege to know many of the key Microsoft executives and product designers and have insight into both where the products are now and their future direction. So colleagues & clients have asked me to start this blog to share some of the insight that both this knowledge (obviously where not restricted by NDA’s or client confidentiality) and experience can help. Specifically I want to concentrate not on the specifics of how (there are some great blogs already for that) but why. If any user helps their business make better decisions or consultant can give better advice then that will be objective achieved. I founded Technology Management in 1992 and have led from the front ever since. Helping clients use technology to grow their business is my passion through explaining technology in terms that everyone can understand. My interest in computing began at the age of eight, long before my school had the equipment to cope. Throughout school and university I developed software commercially. I hold many IT certifications, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV (for over 17 years), Microsoft Dynamics CRM (for over 10 years), as well as Microsoft Windows Server, Exchange and SQL. In October 2015, I was awarded the title of Most Valuable Professional (MVP), a title given to a select few individuals (31 currently) across the world specifically for Dynamics NAV. After years of working with a range of distribution and manufacturing software for hundreds of organisations, I focus on understanding the business requirements of an organisation, what it will take to deliver the systems required to maximise their potential. Follow me online via my other social channels: - Twitter: @jamescrowter - LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jamescrowter Or email me directly at james[.]crowter[@]tecman.co.uk.

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