It goes without saying that your business will at some point reach the maximum limit for your Dynamics 365 database. This could be down to a number of reasons such as your sales team continuing to have outdated data which isn’t required anymore or some income reports that could be moved elsewhere. These are just some of the ways that you could hit your storage limits which could cause your business to suffer some costly disruptions, so you need to keep on top of it.
There is no need to panic though as Dynamics 365 will send you a notification when you hit 80% of your total capacity. The downside is the fact that you might need to pay out more money to increase the storage space for your Dynamics 365 solution. However, it is worth noting that you will only pay for what you use and no more than that as well as the fact that if you are working with a Microsoft Gold partner such as ourselves, they will be able to help you find a way to reduce the size of your database.
Some of the ways of achieving this are undergoing a comprehensive review of your storage capacity, keeping up to date on your Dynamics 365 licensing, performing an audit of your security roles and undergoing a quarterly data cleanup. Now, we know how this can be achieved, let’s dive deeper into these areas and showcase how much time needs to be dedicated to each one.
Review & maintain your storage capacity
Let’s start by asking: do you know how much storage space your business currently uses? If you are nowhere near the capacity you pay for, you could always look to change your plan. If you get close to hitting the capacity, you can scale up your storage space depending on what you feel you need.
The best approach you can take for reviewing and maintaining your storage capacity should also include removing unnecessary files. As well as this, you need to keep an eye on the following:
- Email attachments that you don’t require anymore
- Old audit logs
- Stop workflows you won’t need going forwards
- Duplicate records/files
In light of the above, you could also look to move some of your data from Dynamics 365 to a document management system through one of our third-party solutions such as Continia that may work out cheaper. If you want to stay on Microsoft however, you could also look at implementing Microsoft SharePoint which you can purchase through Advantage.
Assess existing licensing for unused modules
Ask yourself this: does your business use every feature that is included in the license you have? Let’s just say you might not use Microsoft Relationships Sales for example or other products included in your license. Just by removing these products can help bring down your Dynamics 365 costs.
As well as the above, you will need to take a deep dive into your license to assess which modules you aren’t using so make sure your findings are correct. As you don’t want to end up losing features that your team members require to complete their day-to-day tasks.
By thoroughly assessing your licenses you could also find hidden opportunities. In the ideal world, you could find features that you could get added to your subscription by removing unused modules.
How long does this activity take to complete?
Here at Advantage, we could complete a comprehensive licensing audit for your business in a day.
Audit the security roles in your business
You will find that each person who can access Dynamics 365 related products costs the business money. By undertaking a security role audit, you could highlight which accounts don’t require some of your business’s tools and features. In addition to this, it could also stop your colleagues or senior managers from adding large files to your database.
As well as the above, you can gain benefits for security just by auditing account statuses. Just by going down the lines around the principle of least privileged adds to the security in your business by making it much harder for hackers to attack accounts and access sensitive data. Granted it is debatable as to whether or not security role auditing brings down the costs associated with Dynamics 365 storage is another matter, however it is certainly worth investing the time into this activity.
How long does this activity take to complete?
Here at Advantage, we could undertake a specific security role audit for your business in just over a day or so.
Quarterly Data Cleanup
It shouldn’t come as a shock, but your business is almost guaranteed to have files and other data that isn’t needed anymore. It could be vast quantities of data about your customers that are more than two years out of date. If you still have that information on your database, you’re probably paying for it even though you don’t really need that extra storage.
In the vast majority of cases, you could get rid of data that doesn’t apply to the projects you have on the go at the moment. If you are looking to collate information that you have used in the past, then perhaps it may be worth considering using business intelligence software such as the Microsoft Power Platform to highlight the best insights. Granted, you don’t have to remove all irrelevant data associated with a project, but we are sure that there are some irrelevant files that could be removed to make room for fresh data to be added.
You may find that due to your industry, certain stipulations may mean that you need to retain data for longer than you ideally would want. Fully qualified Microsoft Dynamics consultants such as us will fully understand the regulatory requirements whilst at the same time have the ability to remove any unwanted files or data. Undergoing a data cleanup in your business will allow you to maintain access to information you need without wasting any money on storing data you don’t need anymore.
You could also consider migrating data to sources outside of Dynamics 365. Here at Advantage, we are able to review your data, migrate files, products as well as documents through Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft Azure Cloud. Our team of experts in data migrations will be able to work out which options will be best suited for your business and deliver for the most cost-effective price without jeopardising your security or speed.
How long does this activity take to complete?
There is no wrong or right answer when it comes to this as each business is different but typically you can expect a quarterly data cleanup to take at least half a day which can be booked in with one of our team here at Advantage.
Next Steps?
Advantage has worked with hundreds of Dynamics 365 implementations over the years, so our team of fully qualified experts can help you with almost anything from assessing your storage capacity right through to auditing the security roles in your business. It is important to note that you don’t need to complete these tasks yourself, you can seek professional advice from us on the best ways to go about this.
It is worth nothing that being able to cut storage costs is just one of a whole host of advantages that you could get from partnering up with us. We will be able to help you take advantage of data migrations, business intelligence, Dynamics 365 integrations & streamlined implementations that will equip your business with all the tools needed to achieve success.
If you want to discuss you requirements in more detail then please give us a call today so we can help you implement Microsoft SharePoint, migrate data into Microsoft Azure or to maximise your storage in Dynamics 365.
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