Dynamics 365 is without a doubt one of the biggest and most popular business solutions in the market today. When Dynamics products were introduced, a major selling point was the level of customization achievable within a solution that meets all the customers’ requirements.
One unique customization is the integration with other systems. Even with all the out-of-the-box features, sometimes integrating with different solutions can make Dynamics 365 much more powerful.
Microsoft is a giant in the industry, so it makes perfect sense that they integrate Dynamics 365 with the rest of their products to make use of the vast ecosystem they’ve built. We’ve seen integrations with SharePoint for Document Management, Word and Excel in templates, and Outlook for emails. Today, we’re going to see how Dynamics 365 integrates with Microsoft OneNote.
For those who don’t know, OneNote is an app that comes as part of the Microsoft Office suite. It became very popular for its sharing capabilities and support for various formats.
What are the benefits of a OneNote Integration?
Taking notes is an essential part of any business. Regardless of the type of industry, employees need to take notes at some point. Could be the minutes of meetings, maybe updates of a site visit, or it could be some comments on a specific product or issue.
Dynamics 365 provides the “Notes” functionality on the entity level which proves to be quite useful. But if we strip it down a bit, it’s just giving us the option to either write a note or attach a document.
Here’s what OneNote brings to the table:
Supports photos inside the document
Say you want to include photos in your notes for a site visit or a work order. They can be added in-line with your notes.
Easily copy and paste from other Office applications like Word and Excel
At times you may have data in existing documents that you want to include in your notes. Instead of attaching these documents to the CRM database, they can be copied directly in the record’s notebook.
Spellchecking out of the box
No need to call a web service; spellchecking is out of the box to make sure your notes are mistake-free.
Works on any device (Mobile, Tablet, PC)
OneNote, like most other Microsoft office apps, support all devices. There is also OneNote online that can be accessed from any browser with an internet connection.
Supports Drawing
OneNote supports drawing and highlighting to help emphasize important parts of the notes.
Notes are stored in SharePoint (no effect on the Dynamics 365 Database size)
Out of the box Notes in Dynamics 365 are stored in the Dynamics 365 Database along with the attachments which will increase storage space. OneNote notebooks are stored separately in your SharePoint instance.
Supports Rich Text Format
Many customers used to include their own custom web resources to support Rich Text Format. OneNote can take care of that for you effortlessly.
Voice integration (ability to include voice notes or recorded meetings)
Dynamics 365 does not support audio recordings on the entity record level out of the box. OneNote notebooks support this functionality.
Better structure
OneNote allows users to create sections. Each section can have several pages to organize your notes better.
Easily share your notes
You can seamlessly share notes with users that have access to your SharePoint instance. This allows people to collaborate and keep all the changes synchronized in one place.
Print out with a click of a button
As basic as this sounds, this is not supported by Dynamics 365 notes out of the box. However, this comes as a no-brainer with the OneNote integration.
Support for handwriting
No matter how advanced we get, there’s no denying that handwriting is still arguably the fastest way of taking notes. OneNote supports handwriting input and goes one step further to transform handwritten text to printed text without even leaving the app.
Find out how Sherweb can help you manage your business with our Dynamics 365!
How to integrate OneNote with your instance of Dynamics 365
Microsoft is streamlining its internal integrations to make them more accessible with every version of Dynamics 365. The same applies to the OneNote Integration.
As mentioned before, OneNote uses the SharePoint integration to store your notes. To enable OneNote in your organization, you need to:
Enable Server Based SharePoint Integration
- Go to Settings
- Choose Document Management
- Click Enable server-based SharePoint integration.
- Follow the wizard (you’ll need to have the SharePoint instance URL)
- When the site is validated, click Enable
- Finish
Add the entities that will be used for Document Management
- Go to Settings
- Choose Document Management
- Click Document Management Settings
- Follow the wizard and select the entities you want to integrate with SharePoint
- Finish
Enable OneNote Integration
There are two ways to enable OneNote Integration for entities
I- Enable OneNote for multiple entities
- Go to Settings
- Choose Document Management
- Click OneNote Integration
- Follow the wizard and select the entities you want to integrate with OneNote
- Finish
II- Enable OneNote for a specific entity
- Go to Settings
- Choose Customization
- Click Customize the System
- Navigate to the entity you want to enable OneNote for
- Make sure ‘OneNote Integration’ is checked
Add the social pane to the entity’s form
If you don’t have the social pane already added, it can be added to the form by choosing Insert à Notes.
When you go to an entity record, a notebook is automatically created the first time you click on the ‘OneNote Tab.’
Conclusion
As notes are an integral part of any business, it is important to have a robust note-taking tool included in your business solution. While Dynamics 365 notes do provide basic functionality, it still leaves much to be desired. This is where OneNote integration comes to fill in the gaps.
Microsoft is on the right path by integrating all its services together bringing all the needed functionality under the same platform.
