Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Online) Plan 1 Business Application subscriptions provides 10GB of storage, and provides free additional 5GB for every 20 full users. There is no cap on the amount of free storage that may be earned, it is subject only to the technical limit of 5,000 GB (5 TB). Your storage is shared across all your production and sandbox Dynamics 365 Plan 1 Application instances (Dynamics 365 Operations storage is not shared and not counted toward above mentioned 10GB or additional storage). For more information, please refer to Licensing Guides below.
Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide – Enterprise Edition
Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide – Business Edition
When the storage is approaching the maximum limit (for example at 80%), Microsoft notifies the Office 365 Administrators. In this article, I would like to discuss some tips in managing Dynamics 365 (Online) storage.
Check your storage level
You can check your current storage level from Office 365 Admin portal.
- Navigate directly to – https://port.crm.dynamics.com/G/ServiceHealth/Index.aspx
Note: Depending on your region replace crm value with the correct region value. For example;
North America – crm
South America – crm2
Canada – crm3
EMEA – crm4
APAC – crm5
Australia – crm6
Japan – crm7
India – crm8
North America 2-for Government – crm9
OR
- Navigate to https://portal.office.com/AdminPortal/Home
- Select Admin Centers > Dynamics 365
- Click on Service Health Tab
Turn on auditing only for essential entities
Auditing is a great feature of Dynamics 365 to keep track of the history of records. Auditing can be enabled or disabled entity level. If you have too many entities with auditing enabled, the Audit table can grow rapidly. It is a good idea to turn on auditing only for the essential entities.
- Navigate to Settings > Customizations > Customize the System
- Select the entity
- Check or uncheck the Auditing checkbox under Data Services
You probably should turn off Auditing for all entities in all non-production Dynamics 365 instances.
- Navigate to Settings > Administration > System Settings
- Click on the Auditing Tab
- Unselect Start Auditing checkbox under Audit Settings
Note: You may loose change history data when you disabling auditing.
Only migrate what you need from legacy systems
Your legacy systems may have millions of records and it is tempting to migrate everything. “What if we may need the data from 10 years ago?” you might think. But have the courage to only migrate what you really need. For example, you may not need Contacts and Accounts which are not active for more than 2 years. You may not need Invoices older than 1 year. Each organisations needs are different. Do an analysis of your legacy data and make a decision on what’s in and what’s out.
Clean up your system
If your storage is already filling up and reaching the maximum limits, then it’s time to do some clean up. Microsoft has suggested, 10 methods to clean up your system.
- Delete bulk email and workflow instances using a bulk deletion job
- Evaluate and delete suspended workflows
- Remove email attachments using Advanced Find
- Remove email messages with attachments using a bulk deletion job
- Remove notes with attachments using Advanced Find
- Remove notes with attachments using a bulk deletion job
- Remove bulk duplicate detection jobs and associated copies of duplicate records
- Delete bulk import instances using a bulk deletion job
- Delete bulk deletion job instances using a bulk deletion job
- Delete audit logs
For more detailed information, see below article.
Free storage space in Microsoft Dynamics 365
Configure bulk delete jobs
You can configure bulk delete jobs to clean up data you don’t need after a certain period of time. Discuss with your stakeholders to decide how long a particular record needs to stay in the system. Use following steps to configure and schedule bulk deletion jobs.
- Navigate to Settings > Data Management > Bulk Record Deletion
- Click New to open Bulk Deletion Wizard
- Define Search Criteria
- Configure the scheduling and notification options
Contact Microsoft support
Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 (Online) support team can assist you with identifying which tables include most data, backup and restore databases, and many other administrative tasks. There are no additional charge for these services and covered as part of your Dynamics 365 (Online) subscription.
Buy more storage
Even after you have done all the above to try and reduce some space, you may still need more storage. The good news is you can purchase additional storage from Microsoft. Please see below article for more information.
Manage storage for Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online)
Conclusion
For most organisations, the default storage provided will be more than enough. For others, it’s important monitor and manage the storage of Dynamics 365 (Online). By using Auditing effectively, cleaning up the system, scheduling bulk delete jobs, and migrating only recent records, you can make sure you have plenty of storage for years to come. Even then, if you run out of storage, you have the option to purchase more.
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