Since we started developing DocDrive there was always a challenge to how quickly we can install and release to a Customer.

We wanted to get away from the bad old world of ‘big integrations’ that could cost a large chunk of Consultancy Time and limit the agility for how a Customer’s handles their Document Management.

We aimed to deliver half of this requirement by building a very flexible rules engine that would allow any Entity in Dynamics to work with any SharePoint Structure of Site Collections, Sites. Libraries and Folders.

The other half was building a quick way a Customer could plug their use of Dynamics into DocDrive and start using SharePoint for Document Management in minutes rather than Hours or Days.

It takes time, effort and dedication to build this type of ‘self sign-up’ wizard, and a good infrastructure behind the scenes, but we’ve launched our DocDrive365 Wizard recently to go alongside our promotion of DocDrive in the US.

We can open the DocDrive365 Wizard here, and use the following steps to add DocDrive to a Dynamics 365 Tenant.

Step 1 – Tell us a bit about yourself

As a starter for ten, we ask a new Customer for their Name, Company and Email Address.

With these details supplied, we can click NEXT.

This is used to create the main Connection Record in our Multi-Tenant Tracking System. (which is itself stored using the Microsoft Common Data Service)

Step 2 – Authenticate your Azure AD with DocDrive

Your using Dynamics 365 in the Cloud, then you are using Azure Active Directory to manage your Users and Permission Levels.

DocDrive is a multi-tenant App within Azure that needs your permission to connect to your Company’s Azure AD and use this for Authentication.

Clicking into Step 2 will redirect to a page in Microsoft Azure asking you to authenticate the DocDrive 365 App with your Azure AD – and this will require you to log in to your use of the Microsoft Cloud as an Admin User. (or at least a User with sufficient rights to grant your Organisation to communicate with the DocDrive App)

Once done, you will be taken back to Step 2 of the Wizard and able to click NEXT.

How does this work?  Well there is a great article here on building a new Azure AD Multi-Tenant App – and the DocDrive Service then uses this to manage the requests between your use of Dynamics and SharePoint in the Cloud.

Step 3 – Service Account to communicate with Dynamics and SharePoint

Here we supply the URL for our instance of Dynamics, alongside a Username and Password for how DocDrive will communicate with Dynamics – and, crucially, how it will deploy the Managed Solutions that make up the DocDrive Customisations.

To obtain our Dynamics URL, we can copy and paste the URL for how we access Dynamics 365.

NOTE: We don’t need to worry about whether we include the /main.aspx or any here Request String Details – the wizard will chop out what it needs.

We advise doing this for a Sandbox or UAT Build of Dynamics initially so you can trial and evaluate the DocDrive way of integrating Dynamics and SharePoint before adding into your Live Environment.

Clicking NEXT here will then run a Test Connection to check we can communicate with Dynamics and then move on to handling SharePoint.

Why do I have to supply an Account here?  As an App, DocDrive can create a brand new Application User Account in your Azure AD, however this is currently not as automatable as we would like – so we instead opt to use a particular User or Service Account to deploy the Managed Solutions and App into your use of Dynamics.

Step 4 – Pick SharePoint

The Wizard will read Dynamics to look at which SharePoint Site is potentially already configured to work with Dynamics,

Often your Subscription to the Microsoft Cloud will include a Subscription to SharePoint and this will already be setup in Dynamics as a Default SharePoint Site.

If so, then you will see the Default Site listed here and can simply click NEXT to continue.

If not, the Wizard will offer you the option to supply your SharePoint URL and will set this up in Dynamics – this can be any SharePoint Top-Level or Individual Site URL.

This is being read from the list of SharePoint Sites stored in the Document Management area of the Dynamics 365 Settings – for convenience, the wizard is simply defaulting to the SharePoint Site setup as your default in Dynamics, however DocMan presents a range of options for what is possible here, including the ability to bring multiple Sites or Site Collections together.

Step 5 – Deploy and Finish

The next step will start deploying the Managed Solutions and Default Configuration into your instance of Dynamics to get started.

This takes place in the background via our Release Management Engine – and so we can either simply close the Wizard, as we will receive an email when the deployment is complete, or we can click REFRESH to see updates on the Deployment.

Once the Deployment has finished, you will receive an Email stating that DocDrive is ready for use in your instance of Dynamics.

As part of the Deployment, we add a new PowerApp to your use of Dynamics that gives an initial tour of DocDrive – the Email will contain a link to open this App and start evaluating your new Integration from SharePoint to Dynamics.

That’s it, all done – as next steps, we have a number of guides and videos on how to start reviewing or using DocDrive , which we can start here with our Day 1 Guide on Accounts and Folders.