Skip to main content
Dynamics 365
·
3 min read

Upcoming changes to legacy Adxstudio Portals v7

Microsoft acquired Adxstudio in 2015 for its compelling customer engagement features and, over the last two years, has natively built them into Microsoft Dynamics 365. During that transition, Microsoft continued supporting the legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 product. Because you are a legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 customer, we are providing advance notice of changes to our legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 product lifecycle and support.

We are announcing transition options from legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 to Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals and a formal support channel to assist you with the transition to these new portal options.

Microsoft began the process of ceasing new license sales for the legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 product in late 2016. As a continuation of this effort, formal support for legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 will end on August 1, 2018. We suggest you use this interim timeframe to plan ahead for the August 1, 2018, deadline and determine the best transition path forward for your organization.

Your transition options

With these important changes to legacy Adxstudio Portals v7, there are three options for your organization to consider going forward:

  1. Migrate to Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals – a new service that is part of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 online offering
  2. Use Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals source code v8.3 – a one-time source code release that is customizable, but limits future migration opportunities and does not include support. The source code can be downloaded for free through the Microsoft Download Center­
  3. Continue using legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 – if your organization acquired legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 via a perpetual license, you may continue to use your current legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 product. If you use legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 under a subscription license, please contact adxquest@microsoft.com when your license is up for renewal

Support options

Support options will vary depending on your situation and desired approach.

  1. If your organization chooses to migrate to Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals, we will provide documentation to assist you in migrating your organization, and you can obtain migration support from experienced Microsoft partners (fees may apply). Ongoing product support for Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals will also be available from Microsoft Customer Service & Support.
  2. If your organization chooses to download the Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals source code v8.3, there will be no Microsoft support available for critical bug fixes or security issues.
  3. If your organization chooses to continue using legacy Adxstudio Portals v7, Microsoft will provide support to fix critical bugs and security issues until August 1, 2018.

Product support for legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 is offered through paid support tickets or bundled with various services and entitlements such as MSDN and Premier agreements. Product support for legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 will end on August 1, 2018.

Read more about support for legacy Adxstudio Portals v7 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals here.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals – features

Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals (v8+) includes the following list of new features:

  • Knowledge Management Improvements
    • Support of Knowledge Article entity
    • Support of knowledge categories
    • Product-based filtering
    • Content access level security
    • Faceted search results
  • Customer Support Improvements
    • Case deflection user experience in customer service user experiences
    • Replacing Notes with new portal comments entity
    • Generic Ratings and comments entities
    • New portal: employee self service
  • Online service
    • Automated deployment and management interface
    • Available in all Dynamics 365 data centers, including government cloud and German sovereign
    • Operated and maintained by Microsoft
    • Redundancy built into the service
    • Automatically upgraded when new portal versions are available with new features and bug fixes
  • Accessibility improvements
  • Performance improvements
  • Multi-lingual portals and support of 43 different languages
  • PRM improvements
    • Config-based implementation of Partner portal
    • Field and Project Service integrations
    • Deal Registration
    • Multi-partner collaboration
    • Partner recruitment and onboarding
  • Charts and dashboards
  • Portal activity reporting
  • Chat integration
  • Support for filename and description for web files in search results
  • Content creation wizard
  • Authentication Improvements
    • Single Sign-on configuration
    • Claims mapping to contact records
    • Azure AD-B2C support including multi-tenant authentication
  • Support for date-only and time zone-independent field types

Resources

Documentation to assist with migration to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals is being developed and will be available soon. Microsoft will host a webinar in which subject matter experts will discuss the transition in further detail. Details around the webinar will be available the week of September 18, 2017. Please refer to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Team blog for documentation availability and webinar information. You can find more information on how to administer and manage Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals here.

There are several experienced Microsoft partners who may be able to assist you with answering questions about your migration to Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Portals. Additionally, please reach out to us at adxquest@microsoft.com, or reach out to your Microsoft representative or your partner if you have any additional questions or concerns around this announcement.

Again, thank you for being a valued customer of Microsoft.

Thank you,
Microsoft

365blog

Related posts