Are you unintentionally bloating your Business Central database?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central customers can face challenges when it comes to storing important customer or vendor related documents, some of which may not be obvious but can cause issues which impact across the organization.

If you are storing documents inside Business Central, it’s possible the database is being bloated unnecessarily, which can reduce the performance of your system.

If you are storing documents in more than one archive, then you likely face inefficiencies when looking for specific documents.

In this blog post, we identify a solution.

Instant access to documents across your business

A centralized, electronic and easily searchable archive is essential for any document management solution to avoid wasting time when trying to find documents.

Storing documents in different archives inevitably causes delays when looking for specific documents, given the need to check in different locations. Ensuring people have instant access to documents when needed can help overall team collaboration and the speed at which teams work to resolve customer enquiries or supplier related matters.

A single centralized electronic archive

Zetadocs Delivery & Zetadocs Capture, our document management solutions for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, leverage SharePoint Online for document archiving. This ensures documents are archived centrally, securely and can be made easily accessible to staff across your business – even if they are not licenced for Business Central. For Business Central users, documents are shown in the Zetadocs Documents FactBox for instant access on the relevant list or card page.

If your company uses Zetadocs Delivery or Zetadocs Capture, and has previously used or is currently using the ‘Incoming Document Files’ FactBox in Business Central to archive documents, then you will likely have two separate document archives coexisting – which is usually best to avoid. Migrating all your documents to SharePoint Online is an option to consider.

Why use SharePoint Online (Microsoft 365)?

There are several reasons why centralizing your document archive using SharePoint Online may be the best option for your business, including:

• Avoid bloating the Business Central database.
  • Additional Business Central storage is expensive, as Stefano Demiliani (a Microsoft MVP) has written more about here. Microsoft 365 subscriptions (including SharePoint Online) typically include very large storage allowances to leverage at no extra cost, but either way SharePoint Online storage is cheaper.
  • A huge Business Central database risks impacting the performance of the system for all users and will inevitably take longer to backup & restore, potentially putting your business at risk of longer outages.
• Easily share access to documents stored on SharePoint Online across the business as required, without needing everyone to be licensed for Business Central – with a comprehensive set of access permissions available.
• SharePoint Online provides a secure and easily searchable document archive, independent of Business Central, so you will always retain full access and control of your documents if you ever change finance package in future.

SharePoint Online file migration

Zetadocs now makes it possible to migrate existing documents stored in the Business Central database to SharePoint Online, so that they are then available in the Zetadocs Documents FactBox in Business Central or directly from the Zetadocs document library on SharePoint Online.

The Zetadocs file migration process ensures existing metadata attached to the files in the Business Central database is retained, so that documents are easily searchable on SharePoint Online.

A SharePoint Online file migration typically takes a maximum of two days and is carried out by our technical services team, who work closely with our customers to confirm requirements, implement and test to ensure excellent outcomes are achieved.

More information on the Zetadocs services offered by our services team is available here.

Want to find out more?

If you would like to know more about Zetadocs products and services, including the above, please don’t hesitate to contact us directly or speak to your Dynamics partner.