What is actually in your environment? Inventory in CRMBix
You inherit a Dynamics 365 environment, or you have run one for years, and someone asks a simple question: what is in it? Which solutions, which versions, who supplied them, and what would break if one went? Answering usually means days of clicking through solutions. Inventory keeps a Dynamics 365 solution inventory for you, so the answer is a list you can open.
Sample dataInventory in about a minute, narrated.
- Sound familiar?
- How it helps
- See what you have
- Choose what is tracked
- Spot what has gone
- Why it matters
- Good to know
Sound familiar?
- There are solutions nobody dares remove, because nobody knows what they do.
- You can't say which solution a flow or a table belongs to.
- Something disappeared after a deployment, and nobody noticed for weeks.
- A supplier asks which version you are on, and you have to go and look.
How Inventory helps
The inventory is a record of what your environment contains. CRMBix takes it at setup, again every day, and whenever you choose Refresh inventory on the Home page.
| List in the menu | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Environments | This environment, with its type and when the inventory last ran. Add your other environments here so deployments can name where they went |
| Solutions | Every solution: name, version, publisher, managed or not, and when it last changed |
| Components | Every table, flow, app, security role and other component in your own solutions, with when it was first seen, last seen and last changed |
How to see what you have
- Open the Home page. The Inventory panel shows how many solutions you have, how many are unmanaged, and your components by type.
- Choose All solutions for the full list, with each solution's version and publisher.
- Choose All components to see every table, flow and app, and when each last changed.
Every list can be exported to Excel, which is handy when someone asks you to document the environment.
How to choose what is tracked
CRMBix lists the components of your own solutions. That means every solution except Microsoft's: your unmanaged solutions, and managed ones from other publishers. Microsoft's solutions get a line under Solutions, with their name and version.
To switch tracking on or off for one solution:
- Open the solution under Solutions.
- Change Track Components.
- Choose Refresh inventory on the Home page.
A solution you switch on is taken as a starting point. Its components are listed without being logged as changes.
How to spot what has gone
A removed component is kept on the list and marked Removed, so you can see what used to be there and when it was last seen.
Why it matters for Change Control
Each inventory is compared with the one before. Anything added, modified or removed goes into the change log, where CRMBix checks it against your approved change requests. That is how it finds the changes nobody approved. Change Control explains the rest.
Good to know
- The inventory runs every day and when you ask. It is not real time.
- A table counts as changed when columns or relationships are added or removed, a form is published or a view is changed. An edit to an existing column is not picked up yet.
- The inventory does not record who made a change. Microsoft gives the date but not the person.
- Only people with the CRMBix Administrator role see Refresh inventory.
New to CRMBix? Start with the tour.
