Connect to Exchange Server (on-premises)

Article
10/16/2023

[This article is pre-release documentation and is subject to change.]

With version 9.0, you can connect your customer engagement apps (such as Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Field Service, and Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation) with Microsoft Exchange Server (on-premises). More information: Setup Guide: Server-side synchronization for CRM Online and Exchange Server (white paper)

Prerequisites

Exchange Server. The following versions are supported: Exchange Server 2013 SP1, Exchange Server 2016, and Exchange Server 2019.
Authentication. During installation, Exchange configures Internet Information Services (IIS). To connect customer engagement apps with Exchange Server, you must enable Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) or Basic authentication in Exchange Server. If you configure NTLM authentication, make sure Basic authentication is disabled on Exchange Server.

For more information about authentication, go to:

Exchange Server 2013: Authentication and Exchange Web Services (EWS) in Exchange
Exchange Server 2013: Default settings for Exchange virtual directories
Exchange Server 2016: Default settings for Exchange virtual directories
Exchange Server 2019: Default settings for Exchange virtual directories

ApplicationImpersonation role. You need to create and configure a service account with the ApplicationImpersonation role in Exchange. More information: Impersonation and EWS in Exchange
Secured connection. The connection between customer engagement apps and Exchange must be encrypted via TLS/SSL and current cipher suites.
Exchange Web Services (EWS). Connections to EWS must be allowed through the firewall. Often a reverse proxy is used for the exterior-facing connection. If your EWS endpoint is not exterior-facing, review IP addresses required. Be sure to add IP addresses to the allow list on your on-premises firewall, based on your Dynamics 365 online environment region to allow connections to your Exchange server that is on-premises.

Tip

To make sure you've got a good connection to Exchange (on-premises), run the Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer. For information about which tests to run, see Test mail flow with the Remote Connectivity Analyzer.

For ports required, see Network ports for clients and mail flow in Exchange.

To learn more about the protocols and ciphers used to secure the connection between Dynamics 365 and external email services, see Server cipher suites and TLS requirements.

Preview: Create an email server profile

In the Power Platform admin center, select an environment.
On the command bar, select Settings > Email > Server profiles.
On the command bar, select New server profile.
For Email Server Type, select Exchange Server (On Prem), and then specify a meaningful Name for the profile.
If you want to use this server profile as the default profile for new mailboxes, turn on Set as default profile for new mailboxes.
For Authentication Type, choose one of the following:
- Credential specified in email server profile: The credentials specified in the email server profile are used for sending or receiving email for the mailboxes of all users and queues associated with this profile. The credentials must have impersonation or delegation permissions on the mailboxes associated with the profile. This option requires some configuration on the email server, for example configuring impersonation rights on Exchange for the mailboxes associated with the profile.
  
  Note
  
  To ensure the credentials are secured, SQL encryption is used to encrypt the credentials stored in the email server profile.
- Exchange Hybrid Modern Auth (HMA): To get the information for this option, follow the steps in Hybrid Modern Authentication (HMA) for Exchange on-premises
Expand Locations and ports, and follow these steps:
- If Authentication Type is set to Credential specified in email server profile, select whether Auto-discover server location is Active or Inactive.
  
  If you choose Inactive, enter the incoming and outgoing email server information. Enter the ports for the email server to use for accessing incoming and outgoing email. Select the protocol that will be used for authentication for incoming and outgoing email.
- If Authentication Type is set to Exchange Hybrid Modern Auth (HMA), enter the location and port for the email server.
Expand the Advanced section, and then use the tooltips to choose your email processing options.
When you're done, select Save.

Create an email server profile

Do one of the following:
- In the Power Platform admin center, select an environment.
- In the legacy web client in the upper-right corner, select , and then select Advanced settings.
Select Settings > Email > Server profiles.
Select New > Exchange Server (Hybrid).

For an Exchange email server profile, specify the following details:

Fields	Description
General
Name	Specify a meaningful name for the profile.
Description	Type a short description about the objective of the email server profile.
Auto Discover Server Location	Select Yes (recommended), if you want to use the automatically discover service to determine the server location. If you set this to No, you must specify the email server location manually.
Incoming Server Location and Outgoing Server Location	If you select No in Auto Discover Server Location, enter a URL for Incoming Server Location and Outgoing Server Location.
Credentials
Authenticate Using Impersonation	Enter the credentials for the Exchange service account granted the ApplicationImpersonation role.
User Name	Type the user name for the Exchange service account.
Password	Type the password for the Exchange service account.
Advanced
Additional Settings
Process Email From	Select a date and time. Email received after the date and time will be processed by server-side synchronization for all mailboxes associated with this profile. If you set a value less than the current date, the change will be applied to all newly associated mailboxes and their earlier processed emails will be pulled.
Minimum Polling Intervals in Minutes	Type the minimum polling interval, in minutes, for mailboxes that are associated with this email server profile. The polling interval determines how often server-side synchronization polls your mailboxes for new email messages.
Maximum Concurrent Connections	Type the maximum number of simultaneous connections that can be made by customer engagement apps to the corresponding email server per mailbox. Increase the value to allow more parallel calls to Exchange to improve performance or reduce the value if there are errors on Exchange due to large number of calls from customer engagement apps. The default value of this field is 10. The maximum number is considered per mailbox or per email server profile depending on whether the credentials are specified in a mailbox or email server profile.
Move Failed Emails to Undeliverable Folder	To move the undelivered email to the Undeliverable folder, select Yes. If there's an error in tracking email messages in Dynamics 365 apps as email activities, and if this option is set to Yes, the email message will be moved to the Undeliverable folder.
Email Notifications
Send an alert email to the owner of the email server profile reporting on major events	If you want the email server profile owner to be notified when more than 50% of the mailboxes fail, select Yes.

Select Save.
Select Test Connection and review the results. To diagnose issues, see the following section.

Troubleshooting the Exchange Server (Hybrid) profile connection

If you've run the Test Connection command and have issues with the Exchange Server (Hybrid) profile connection, use the information in the Test Connection dialog to diagnose and fix the connection.

Screenshot of the Test Connection dialog with an issue with "Auto discovering server location" and details about the error in the Failure Details box.

In this example, there was a problem with the auto-discover server location feature. Review the username and password used for Authentication Using Impersonation for the Exchange Server (Hybrid) profile.

You can find information about recurring issues and other troubleshooting information in Blog: Test and Enable Mailboxes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 and Troubleshooting and monitoring server-side synchronization.

Configure default email processing and synchronization

Set server-side synchronization to be the default configuration method.

In the Power Platform admin center, select an environment.
Select Settings > Email > Email settings.
Under Synchronization methods, set the processing and synchronization fields as follows:
- Server Profile: The profile you created in the preceding section.
- Incoming Email: Server-Side Synchronization or Email Router
- Outgoing Email: Server-Side Synchronization or Email Router
- Appointments, Contacts, and Tasks: Server-Side Synchronization or Email Router
  
  If you leave Email processing for unapproved user and queues at the default values (selected), you'll need to approve emails and queues for user mailboxes as directed in Approve email, later in this topic.
Select Save.

Configure mailboxes

To set mailboxes to use the default profile, you must first set the server profile and the delivery method for email, appointments, contacts, and tasks.

In addition to administrator permissions, you must have Read and Write privileges on the Mailbox table to set the delivery method for the mailbox.

Choose one of the following methods: set mailboxes to the default profile, or edit mailboxes to set profile and delivery methods.

To set mailboxes to the default profile

In the Power Platform admin center, select an environment.
Select Settings > Email > Mailboxes.
Select Active Mailboxes.
Select all the mailboxes that you want to associate with the Exchange Server profile you created, select Apply Default Email Settings, verify the settings, and then select OK.

By default, the mailbox configuration is tested and the mailboxes are enabled when you select OK.

To edit mailboxes to set the profile and delivery methods

In the Power Platform admin center, select an environment.
Select Settings > Email > Mailboxes.
Select Active Mailboxes.
Select the mailboxes that you want to configure, and then select Edit.
In the Change Multiple Records form, under Synchronization Method, set Server Profile to the Exchange Server profile you created earlier.
Set Incoming and Outgoing Email to Server-Side Synchronization or Email Router.
Set Appointments, Contacts, and Tasks to Server-Side Synchronization.
Select Change.

Approve email

You need to approve each user mailbox or queue before that mailbox can process email.

In the Power Platform admin center, select an environment.
Select Settings > Email > Mailboxes.
Select Active Mailboxes.
Select the mailboxes that you want to approve, and then select More Commands (…) > Approve Email.
Select OK.

Test the configuration of mailboxes

In the Power Platform admin center, select an environment.
Select Settings > Email > Mailboxes.
Select Active Mailboxes.
Select the mailboxes you want to test, and then select Test & Enable Mailboxes.

This tests the incoming and outgoing email configuration of the selected mailboxes and enables them for email processing. If an error occurs in a mailbox, an alert is shown on the Alerts wall of the mailbox and the profile owner. Depending on the nature of the error, customer engagement apps try to process the email again after some time or disable the mailbox for email processing.

The result of the email configuration test is displayed in the Incoming Email Status, Outgoing Email Status, and Appointments, Contacts, and Tasks Status fields of a mailbox record. An alert is also generated when the configuration is successfully completed for a mailbox. This alert is shown to the mailbox owner.

Tip

If you're unable to synchronize contacts, appointments, and tasks for a mailbox, you might want to select the Sync items with Exchange from this org only, even if Exchange was set to sync with a different org checkbox. More information: When would I want to use this check box?

Test email configuration for all mailboxes associated with an email server profile

In the Power Platform admin center, select an environment.
Select Settings > Email > Server profiles.
Select the profile you created, and then select Test & Enable Mailboxes.

When you test the email configuration, an asynchronous job runs in the background. It might take a few minutes for the test to be completed. Customer engagement apps test the email configuration of all the mailboxes associated with the Exchange Server profile. For the mailboxes configured with server-side synchronization for synchronizing appointments, tasks, and contacts, it also checks to make sure they're configured properly.

Tip