Deploy Office 365 Groups

Applies To: Dynamics 365 (online), Dynamics CRM Online

Office 365 Groups, available with Dynamics 365 (online), provides a new environment for collaboration with Microsoft Office 365 users who don’t use Dynamics 365. For example, use Office 365 Groups when a sales team has a major opportunity requiring input from several people who don’t have access to Dynamics 365. Office 365 Groups provides a single location to share documents, conversations, meetings, and notes. You can enable Office 365 Groups for any entity.

Collaborate with people inside and outside of your Dynamics 365 organization.

Share information in multiple ways.

In This Topic

Requirements

Provision Office 365 Groups

Check required privileges

Configure Office 365 Groups

Use the Office 365 Connectors for Groups

Known issues

Requirements

The following are required to use Office 365 Groups with Dynamics 365:

• Dynamics 365 (online)

• This feature requires that you have an Office 365 subscription or a subscription to an online service such as SharePoint Online or Exchange Online. For more information, see What is Office 365 and how does it relate to Dynamics 365 (online)?

• For full Office 365 feature integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) and Dynamics 365 (on-premises), you'll need Office 365 Enterprise E3 or later. Skype for Business PSTN calling and conferencing requires Office 365 Enterprise E5. Other Office 365 plans are not supported. For more information on licensing and pricing, see: Licensing and Pricing Guide.

• Exchange Online

• To use document storage with Office 365 Groups, you will need SharePoint Online and access to the group OneNote notebook.

Provision Office 365 Groups

Office 365 Groups is a Dynamics 365 solution you provision from your Office 365 admin portal.

1. Browse to the Office 365 admin center and sign in using Office 365 Global administrator credentials.

2. Click Admin centers > Dynamics 365.

3. Click the Instances tab.

4. Choose your instance, and then click Solutions.

5. Select Office 365 Groups and then click Install.

6. Review the terms of service and then click Install.

Once installation of the solution has completed, you can configure Office 365 Groups.

Check required privileges

The security privilege, ISV Extensions, is required to use Office 365 Groups. You can add or remove this privilege from custom or default security roles to meet your business needs. If a user doesn’t have this privilege, they won’t be able to see the Office 365 Groups item in a record’s navigation menu.

1. Go to Settings > Security.

2. Click Security Roles.

3. Choose the security role to check and then click the Customization tab.

4. In the Miscellaneous Privileges section, review the ISV Extensions privilege setting. If the security role doesn’t have the ISV Extensions privilege, select it to set it to Organization.

5. Click Save and Close.

Configure Office 365 Groups

Once you provision Office 365 Groups, you can enable them for any entity. Security group membership is associated with the entity. You configure Office 365 Groups in Dynamics 365 (online).

1. In Dynamics 365 (online), click Settings > Office 365 Groups.

2. On the Office 365 Groups Settings page, click Add entity and choose an entity from the drop-down list. Repeat this step for each entity you want to enable, including custom entities.

3. Optionally, you can click Auto-create for an entity to have a new group automatically created when a new record for that entity is created. However, we recommend you choose this option only for entities that typically require large groups to collaborate.

4. When you have added all the entities you want to enable for Office 365 Groups, click Publish All.

   All of your pending system customizations will be published, including those you may have saved but not published in another area.

You’re now ready to use Office 365 Groups. See Help and Training: Collaborate with your colleagues using Office 365 Groups.

Use the Office 365 Connectors for Groups

Use the Office 365 Connectors for Groups to connect new or existing Office 365 Groups with Dynamics 365 (online) so the group is notified when new activities are posted. To set it up, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your Office 365 Outlook.

2. Create or choose an Office 365 Group.

3. Click Connectors.

   

     

4. Scroll down to Dynamics 365 Online, and then click Add.

5. If you have access to more than one Dynamics 365 (online) instance, choose which instance to connect to this Office 365 Group. If you only have access to one Dynamics 365 (online) instance, this step will be skipped and you will advance to the next step.

6. Choose the Dynamics 365 record you want to connect this Office 365 Group to, and then click Save.

   

Once connected, the Dynamics 365 (online) connector shows up at the top of the connection list with a summary of connected records.

To delete a connected record, click View, and then click Remove.

Known issues

You need to have Dynamics 365 (online) version CRM Online 2015 Update 1 or later, to install Office 365 Groups. If Office 365 Groups appears as an available solution in the CRM Online Administration Center, but you receive the following error when trying to install: "Solution install failed. Please try again later. If the problem persists, contact customer support," you’ll need to update your instance of Dynamics 365 (online) before you can install Office 365 Groups.

Privacy notice

When a user leverages the Office 365 Groups for Dynamics 365 feature to connect an Office Group to Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online), data (including new conversations and documents) will be stored on the Exchange and/or SharePoint system and shared with the members of that Office Group, even if they are not licensed or authorized Dynamics 365 users. Users will only be able to share the data that they have access to, and Administrators can limit the data that is shared by limiting the access privileges of their users.

See Also

Collaborate with your colleagues using Office 365 Groups
CRM Blog: Dynamics CRM Online connector for Office 365 Groups
Set up Dynamics 365 (online) to use Exchange Online
Blog: It's here - Office 365 Groups in CRM Online
Office 365 Groups in Dynamics 365 FAQs

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