Are your attachments eating up too much space in your Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales (CRM) system? It’s something I run into about 95% of the time with my Dynamics clients. Most organizations, when they first sign up for Dynamics 365 online, are given 5GB of space, depending on the number of registered users. This seems like a decent amount of space unless you plan on attaching documents or plan on tracking emails to Dynamics 365 for Sales.
Attachments will eat up your space faster than you think, causing you to spend extra money on storage. However, there are options to solve this issue and save you money.
There are many third-party software options available that work with Dynamics 365 for Sales that allow you to store your documents in SharePoint or Azure. Both SharePoint and Azure have a much lower space cost and by using these add-ins, access is almost seamless. With some of these add-ins, you can pick how long the attachment stays in Dynamics 365 for Sales before they get moved to a storage site and the minimum size of attachment to move.
How much space are my attachments taking up?
Here’s how you can tell how much space attachments are taking up and how to find the apps that can help alleviate the issue.
Create an Email Attachments Report
- Go to Reports in Dynamics 365 click new
- Click the report wizard
- Click Next on Start new report
- Name the report, select Email messages as the Primary Record Type and Attachments (item) as the Related Record Type. Click Next
- Set the criteria to search for any attachment greater than 1 Byte. Click Next. (Dynamics 365 stores the attachments in Bytes, you will have to convert this to MB or GB to see how much space is being used.)
- Add a column to the report for File Size from the attachment record type.
- Click Next
- Select Table Only for the Format. Click Next
- Click Next and Click Finish.
- Run the report and export it to Excel.
- Sum up the file sizes in Excel and convert from Bytes to MB or GB.
Using AppSource to find an add-in to help
In AppSource, you will want to find software titled “Attach Extractor.” To do this in Dynamics 365 for Sales, click on the Apps button. Next, click on Dynamics 365 for Sales.
Click the Get more apps button
Use the search bar to search for ‘attachment.’
This will list the available attachment extractors and you will be able to find the one that fits your organization’s needs.
Once you find one to fit your needs, you can purchase it and install it.
If you have questions or need some assistance, visit our support page for more help.
