Implement Business document management
Business document management in finance and operations apps allows you to set up business documents, such as invoices within the web client. With the Business document management feature, you can edit business document templates by using the Microsoft 365 service or an appropriate Microsoft Office desktop application. Edits to the documents might include changing business document designs and adding placeholders for extra data, without you needing to complete source code changes and new deployments. The tool is dependent on the Electronic reporting framework for setting up the document, and it uses the Print management framework to link the custom document to the printing option.
Business document management allows users to create and modify output documents, without relying on SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) report development. Business document management currently supports output to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and PDF.
You can enable the Business document management feature from the Feature management workspace.
Set up parameters
Before setting up Business document management, you'll need to set up the required document type in the Document management framework. Use the Template document type to specify a temporary storage of documents in Office formats (Excel and Word) that are used as templates for Electronic reporting reports. Then, make sure that you provide the SharePoint address for the temporary storage. You can edit the temporary storage template by using the Office desktop applications.
You can set up basic Business document management parameters on the Business document parameters page. Only specific users can access the page. On the Attachments tab of the Business document parameters page, you'll need to define the document type in the SharePoint document type field. This document type is the one that you should use to temporarily store templates in Office formats while they're edited by using the Office desktop applications. The selected document type is company-specific and will be used when the user is working with Business document management in the company for which the selected document type is set up.
Use Business document management to edit a template
Business users can access business document templates for editing in the Business document management workspace.
Follow these procedures to edit a document template in the Business document management workspace. For the initial setup, you can import the template from Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services, such as Electronic reporting. Additionally, you can create a new template by selecting Create template. The selected template is then imported from the global repository and created in the Business document management workspace. When you import the template, you will see a list of templates that are specific to your user role. The system will not download the templates that are not applicable to your assigned role.
The Business document management module works with the tags functionality to structure documents, which is expanded with a new tag called Business Document Type. The Business Document Type tag determines the output document for which current configuration will be used. After you've added this tag, you can link the document to Print management.
You can edit a business document from the Business document management workspace when it's set up with Electronic reporting. You can edit Excel and Word files directly from the workspace.
Set up access permissions
By default, when access to Business document management permissions isn't enabled, every user with access to the Business document management workspace can view all Electronic reporting solution templates that are available. The Business document management workspace will show only those templates that reside in Electronic reporting format configurations and that are marked by a Business Document Type tag.
You can restrict the list of available templates in the Business document management workspace by setting up access permissions. This approach might be beneficial when different templates are used to produce business documents for different business domains (functional areas), and when specific user access is allowed to different templates for editing in the Business document management workspace.
You can set the Business document management access permissions to Configurator of access permissions. Only the following users can access the page:
- Users who are assigned to the System administrator role.
- Users who are assigned to any other role that is set up to perform the duty Configure permissions to access Business document templates for editing.