Security in Dynamics 365 for Financials, Business Edition

  • Article

Hello!

We have had many questions around security in Dynamics 365 for Financials and we wanted to share some details that may help in understanding security and what options are available.

I want to first share a brief description of the different parts that play a role in security in Dynamics 365 for Financials and I will then expand with additional details on each one and will end with some FAQ’s that we have been seeing.

  • Users: Users can be added to Dynamics 365 for Financials through the Office 365 Admin Portal.
  • User Experience: This is a companywide setting that determines how much functionality is visible to you when working in Dynamics 365 for Financials. The options are Basic and Suite, Suite offers all that Basic offers plus additional areas like Purchase Orders, Jobs and Fixed Assets.
  • Role Centers: The Role Center controls the content that shows up on your Home Page.  Your current Role Center can be found in the top right corner, under the Settings menu, choose My Settings.
  • Permission Set: A Permission Set is group of permissions that gives access to various types of tables, pages, and other objects.
  • User Group: A group of Permission Sets that a User can be assigned to in Dynamics 365 for Financials.

USERS:

The Office administrator should use the Admin portal to manage\setup their users, and assign licenses to the users for the products for which they should have access. More information is available here Add Users to Office 365 for business. Once users are created in Office 365, they can be imported using the Users card, where you choose the Get Users from Office 365 action.

USER EXPERIENCE:

As mentioned, this is a company-wide setting which will make a narrower or wider set of functionality available to users. The options are Basic and Suite. The idea is that smaller and less complex companies would use Basic—and have a simplified user experience within Dynamics 365 for Financials. Larger and/or more complex organizations can use Suite and access more of the functionality. Some examples of the differences are that Purchase Orders, Jobs, and Fixed Assets are added in the Suite experience. This means that if the User Experience is set to Basic, a search would not return the pages associated with those functional areas, like Fixed Assets.  The User Experience is selected in the Company Information window under the User Experience fast tab.  To see a list of what's available in Basic and Suite click here.

ROLE CENTER:

Each user has an assigned Role Center. This dictates the layout and menu structure a user sees when they sign into Dynamics 365 for Financials. It does not affect the pages or other objects that users have permissions to access—just what is visible from the navigation and home page KPIs, etc. You can change from one Role Center to another for a given user, under the Settings menu, choose My Settings.

PERMISSION SET:

To recap, a Permission Set is a group of permissions that give access to various tables, pages, and other objects. Permission Sets are assigned to each user in the Dynamics 365 for Financials’ User Card either by directly adding them or by associating a User Group which has Permission Sets assigned.   You can change the Permission Sets that are assigned to a given User or User Group. In Dynamics 365 for Financials, it is not possible to edit or add to the existing Permission Sets.

To access a list of tables and the permission sets those tables are in, see the spreadsheet located HERE. Note: The Role ID column is the name of the Permission Set.

USER GROUPS:

These are set up in Dynamics 365 for Financials and consist of permission sets. Users can be assigned these User Groups to ensure appropriate access based on those Permission Sets. With User Groups you can use the existing User Groups, edit the existing User Groups or you can also create new User Groups. To access User Groups, click on the Search Icon and type User Groups and select the option for User Groups and you will see a list of the current User Groups.  Here you will be able to create new and edit existing User Groups.

FAQ’s

  1. Can I add new Role Centers or edit existing Role Centers?
    • You currently cannot add new Role Centers or edit existing Role Centers.
  2. Can I edit or add to the existing Permission Sets?
    • No, you cannot add or edit the existing Permission Sets.
  3. Can I create new Permissions Sets?
    • No, you cannot create new Permission Sets.
  4. I want to give my user specific access to certain areas of the application, is this possible?
    • It is suggested to give the D365 BASIC Permission Set to all users. This will allow users to get into Dynamics 365 for Financials and open the home page without permission errors. It does give READ (but not INSERT, MODIFY, or DELETE) access to much of the application so they may still be able to see and search for windows you don’t want them to access. Then additional Permission Sets can be assigned to give expanded access (INSERT, MODIFY, and DELETE types) to the users as needed.

If you have any suggestions or feature request for improving Security in Dynamics 365 for Financials, please post them here: https://community.dynamics.com/business/f/758