Dynamics 365 – Important Dynamics 365 Security Changes for TLS

In summary, with the release of the Dynamics 365 v9.0, Microsoft are now enforcing the use of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) v1.2 + only, all older TLS connections will fail.

What is TLS?

TLS stands for “Transport Layer Security,” and is a protocol that is an industry standard designed to protect the privacy of information communicated over the Internet. TLS is used in many web browsers and applications that communicate over HTTPS and TCP

What will happen if I ignore this?

Any connections you have to the Dynamics 365 Online instance of version 9.0 and above will fail if they do not use TLS 1.2 and above security protocol. This does not affect On-Premises installations of Dynamics 365.

How do I find out more?

Microsoft has made some announcements of these changes publically, which can be found at the links below:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4051700

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crm/2017/09/28/updates-coming-to-dynamics-365-customer-engagement-connection-security/

Hope this helps!

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

Dynamics CRM – Preview Features for CRM Online 2015 Update 1

If you are currently using or have access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2015 Update 1 then you have the ability to get access to the latest “preview features” delivered by Microsoft.

What is included in the Preview Features?

• Support for inline frames and web resources with Tablets
• Web API
• App for Outlook
• Office 365 Groups

How do I get access to the Preview Features?

Except for Office 365 Groups and inline frames and web resources with Tablets, you can access the rest of the features by enabling them within your CRM Online instance. This instance must be on the version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2015 Update 1. 

To Enable: Go to Settings > Administration > System Settings then click the Previews tab (as shown below).

 

What is the future of Web API?

Over time the Web API will replace the current CRM Organisation Service (CRM 2011 SOAP endpoint) and the Organization Data Service (ODATA) endpoints.  In order for backwards compatibility, Microsoft will keep these available for some years to come so your existing integration can still operate, but it is best start thinking and working with the new Web API.

Also, the good thing about the new Web API is there will only be 1 endpoint for interacting with CRM, not 2 as we currently have. This will also mean the CRM for Outlook add-on will eventually need to use the Web API in order to talk to CRM.

How do I find out more about these preview features?

I will add some links below about each Preview feature so you can read more about them individually rather than me detailing it here on this blog post.  My favourite (if you haven’t guessed already) is the Web API feature.

• Support for inline frames and web resources with Tablets
• Web API
• App for Outlook
• Office 365 Groups

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 – SDK Solution Packager – The given path’s format is not supported

Using the CRM 2015 Solution Packager within the Bin folder from the latest public CRM 2015 SDK (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=44567), you can extract the contents of a CRM Solution into individual files. I was using this tool with the following run command line option inside a batch file (with a pause to see the outcome):

solutionpackager /action:Extract /zipfile:D:\CRM\Sandbox\Default_1_0.zip
/folder:Sandbox\Solution  

pause

I was then fronted with the following error:

The given path’s format is not supported

 

After looking into the XML files inside the Default_1_0.zip to, it seems one of my Security roles has a colon ( : ) in the name when trying to write the file to disk, which Windows Operating System doesn’t allow colons in the filename. Therefore the Solution Packager aborts with an error.

I thought I would blog this in the unlikely event you also encounter this error. I will be logging it with Microsoft Connect to get their response. I would like to see a mapping of non-compliant characters to be mapped to compliant characters and maybe a log file written to note what files had their name change because of this issue. I haven’t tested the earlier versions of the SolutionPackager.exe

 

Greg Olsen
YellowDuckGuy