Formpipe gives you options to control Document Archiving

There are excellent native options for archiving within for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. But could Formpipe’s storage and archiving solution, Autoform DM, be a good fit for your business? Nathan Gould, Business Solutions Consultant at Formpipe, explains why you might want to consider switching to Autoform DM.

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of 'essential business software'? Your project management or CRM platforms, perhaps? While these are, of course, acceptable answers, it’s easy to forget about all the heavy lifting your document archiving and storage platform does. Without it, you and your colleagues would find yourselves knee-deep in document chaos.

Why you need a strong storage and archiving solution

Unfortunately, document disorganisation is all too familiar for many of us, with a 2023 survey finding that 48% of respondents are struggling to find documents quickly and efficiently. Worse still, almost two-thirds of survey respondents said they had recreated documents because they couldn’t locate the original. Think of all that time wasted!

But the need for a strong storage and archiving solution extends well beyond time-saving measures - they’re also necessary for complying with regulations such as GDPR. Not doing things correctly can lead to some serious problems for your business - we’re talking large non-compliance fines. But don’t fret, because with a reliable storage and archiving solution in place, you can sleep better at night knowing you’re doing things by the book.

Azure Storage and Dynamics 365 F&O

To combat the problems that come with document management chaos, many businesses use Azure Storage to store and retrieve their business-critical documents in Dynamics 365 F&O. The storage solution has many benefits for users: it’s durable and highly available, secure, scalable and accessible.

Recently, Microsoft has made some welcome changes to Azure Storage within Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations to make it more secure and resilient. However, the update did cause issues for some workflows. Here’s a quick overview of what happened: Microsoft have removed easy access to the connection strings which are used for accessing storage accounts linked to Dynamics 365 F&O.

Microsoft is now also using Shared Access Signature (SAS) tokens with more limited permissions and defined expiry times This is great for security, giving users more granular control over access to data and reducing the attack surface but has caused issues for many ISV partners who integrate with the storage native to D365.

Even with the best intentions, these kinds of updates can sometimes disrupt established processes. The transition to SAS tokens in Azure Storage, while undoubtedly beneficial for security, can introduce unexpected challenges for users who rely on smooth and uninterrupted access to all of their documents.

If your business is looking for seamless integration and predictable workflows, it’s understandable that you might want to explore other document archiving solutions that offer these capabilities (and more).

Enter Autoform DM for Dynamics 365

While Azure Storage is clearly a powerful archiving and retrieval solution, Autoform DM also has a lot to offer your business. You can manage, store and retrieve your documents instantly and securely without leaving Dynamics 365. Plus, you can allow access to document sets for customers or suppliers outside your domain, import documents quickly and store files such as PDFs, invoices, video files and audio files alongside metadata, and much more.

We may be biased, but our storage and archiving solution is a great fit for businesses across all sectors—especially those looking for software that’s secure, user-friendly, simplifies regulatory compliance and offers granular control. Here’s how Autoform DM does it:

Security

At Formpipe, we’re big on security, and we know just how vital it is to get it right.“Autoform DM gives you the correct security levels and control you need,” Nathan said. “So, if you want to lock it right down, you can. If you want to open it up to more people, you can use single sign-on or we can build integrations directly into different products.”  With Autoform DM, your files and securely stored and compliant with ISO 27001, giving you the peace of mind that your documents are safe from prying eyes.

User-friendliness

One of the platform’s main benefits is its user-friendliness, as you can search for, retrieve and access documents in seconds within Dynamics 365. But that’s not all—Nathan explained another reason why our customers choose our archiving and retrieval solution: “Autoform DM is really easy to integrate with via API. If you’re building customer portals or other processes and you want to get access to that data, it’s really easy to do it through Autoform DM.” So, if you’re looking for a user-friendly platform that allows you to take full control of storage and archiving, Autoform DM might be the way to go.

Granular control

Autoform DM gives you granular control of your data, allowing you to build the governance, rules and structure to suit your business. “With Autoform DM, you get a lot more control over the actual data, so it’s much easier to access it,” Nathan said. “We can also easily update stuff into the Autoform DM archive with the storage that comes with F&O, where there are some restrictions around access that make it difficult to put data there through other processes. Whereas, in Autoform DM, it’s totally up to you how to integrate it. There are no restrictions.” 

By seeing all your important data in one place, you significantly reduce the technical debt associated with ungoverned repositories. With our archiving solution, registered admins have the granular control they need to keep documents in the right place, with the right access restrictions.

Compliance

Then there’s the important matter of archiving and compliance—something we’ve got a lot of expertise in here at Formpipe. “We configure things like retention rules to keep documents for a certain amount of time or, more importantly, to remove documents for GDPR reasons,” said Nathan. With Autoform DM, you can be sure that your business is meeting its regulatory obligations relating to document retention.

Hassle-free document archiving with Formpipe

What if you could streamline file management, reduce costs, and gain more control - all at the same time? Autoform DM gives you these capabilities. Combining user-friendliness, granular control, security and compliance, the intuitive interface gives you the ability to search for, retrieve, view and process documents in just a few clicks.

Interested to see Autoform DM in action? Book a free demo to see more and ask us about how our solution takes the complexity out of document archiving and retrieval.