As Dynamics 365 CE has become more app friendly, there are many free apps available on the Microsoft AppSource. In this blog post I have listed out most commonly used free aps and accelerators available.
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Alternative Approach : Can use CDS for reporting or use Flow to push the data. Supported Version : Online Dynamics 365 Only |
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This app can be used to push Email and Notes attachment to an Azure blob storage. The best use of this app will be for customers who use email marketing or store most of their documents within Notes (annotations) of Dynamics 365. Pros:
Cons:
Alternative Approach : Can use CDS for reporting or use Flow to push the data. Supported Version : Online Dynamics 365 Only |
This app can be used to get top news articles related to the customer. It uses Bing News Search API to search for the related content. Pros:
Cons:
Alternative Approach : “Company News Timeline” app is a closer alternative. But its restricted to only Account, Contact, Lead & Opportunity and only works with Unified Interface. With the April 2019 release, this feature is by default available for Marketing. Supported Version : Works on all versions. |
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This app is used to archive Dynamics 365 data to a Azure COSMOS DB. The best use of this app will be for customers who wants to play around with Big Data. Pros:
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Alternative Approach : Can use Data Export Service. Supported Version : Online Dynamics 365/2016 Only |
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This app is used for Sentiment analysis based on email responses. Based on the score, we can perform various operations and even extend it to the related entities. Need to make sure that the Azure Text Analytic services should be hosted/created as part of the same tenancy as Dynamics CRM 365. Pros:
Cons:
Alternative Approach : Amazon or Google sentiment analysis services. Supported Version : Dynamics 365/2016 Online & On-Premise. |
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This app is used to track the customization changes made to Entities, JavaScript, Plugins & Workflows. Pros:
Cons:
Alternative Approach : Need to come up with custom plugins. Supported Version : Dynamics 365/2016 Online & On-Premise. |
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This app is used to generate PDF documents from the word templates on click of a button. Pros:
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Alternative Approach : Flow can be used with some custom development. Supported Version : Dynamics 365/2016 Online & On-Premise. |
This app is used to track entity changes for Create, Update and Delete actions. It is more of like OOTB Audit but the only difference is its captured as part of an custom entity, so users can export or report on this data which is handy. Pros:
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Alternative Approach : None. Supported Version : Dynamics 365/2016 Online & On-Premise. |
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“Dynamics 365 Bot” as the name suggest is a simple bot app. The bot uses Azure LUIS for the Q&A setup. This app can be really helpful for customer care or sales representatives to get quick info from Dyanmics 365 CRM instance. Pros:
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Alternative Approach : LiveAssist. Supported Version : Dynamics 365/2016 Online. |
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This app is used to track the data export via excel. There were many customers who requested this feature as they want to track who are when the business critical data has been exported. Pros:
Cons:
Alternative Approach : Custom plugin. Supported Version : Dynamics 365/2016 Online and OnPremise. |
There are few more available on the app source worth exploring like Azure Cosmos DB for DocumentDB API Data Provider, Smart Email Monitoring, Dynamics 365 Channel Integration Framework, Dynamics 365 Higher Education Accelerator