This blog article outlines how the Cloud service structure for AttachmentExtractor works. AttachmentExtractor will retrieve documents from Dynamics 365 instance, move it to an alternative storage location and deliver it back to Dynamics 365 upon user request.
As you can see the figure below shows the Data Flow of AttachmentExtractor in the Cloud:
Setup:
The AttachmentExtractor Service is hosted in our Azure account and placed in the same datacenter the Dynamics 365 environment is hosted to ensure high performance.
Data flow:
- Document Extraction: Based on configuration, the AttachmentExtractor-service checks for new documents in notes or e-mail attachments every X seconds and moves them to the alternative storage (SharePoint or Azure Blob Storage). At the same time, a 2nd query starts working towards historic entries.
- If an attachment is found, the service moves the file to the corresponding storage location and replaces the reference inside Dynamics 365.
Please note: For users access inside Dynamics 365 is unchanged.
Data flow on Retrieval:
Please have a look at the corresponding blog article.
Security:
All communication between the Dynamics 365 organization and the AttachmentExtractor service is done using the Dynamics 365 web-services and thus is secured communication using https and authenticated likewise to Dynamics 365 itself supporting Server2Server authentification (which prevents you from providing user credentials to us) or access via Office 365 credentials. Documents never get stored on the Service engine.
IMPORTANT:
Customers with security concerns regarding our document generation services are eligible to install AE either on their own Azure VM or on local hardware. Please note that for performance reasons an installation in the VM is recommended.
For Dynamics 365 Online customers the document generation service will be hosted in our Azure account. To ensure high performance it will be located in the same datacenter the Dynamics 365-instance itself is located. The installation can be done directly from our website http://www.mscrm-addons.com.
That’s it! We appreciate your feedback! Please share your thoughts by sending an email to support@mscrm-addons.com.