Manage environments
Environment-management operations are a standard feature of model-driven apps in Dynamics 365 (Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Customer Insights - Journeys, and Project Service Automation). Customer Insights - Journeys introduces a couple of additional steps to ensure that you include and back-up data that isn't stored in Dataverse if you're managing across environments.
Customer Insights - Journeys services (including the marketing-insights service) run in parallel with your Customer Insights - Journeys environment, and thus follow their own lifecycle. These services aren't directly accessible to users, and the data they contain isn't included when copying, backing up, or restoring a Customer Insights - Journeys environment. This means that interaction records (such as email clicks and website visits) and files (such as those used in emails and marketing pages) aren't included when you copy, backup, or restore an environment.
Important
This unit provides details about the exceptions that apply when working with environments where the app is installed—for all other management tasks, see Environments overview,but read this topic first.
Tip
If you haven't installed other apps on the Microsoft Power Platform admin center, you'll need to create an environment before you can use the installation management area. For more information, see Create and manage environments in the Power Platform admin center.
Copy or restore environments
Because Customer Insights - Journeys is more complex than most Dynamics 365 apps and interacts with several special services and other components, you must be extra careful when creating copies to and from environments that have this app installed on them.
Warning
You can't do a simple copy of a Customer Insights - Journeys environment like you can with most other Dynamics 365 environments that don't have Customer Insights - Journeys installed. If you do a simple copy without following the steps outlined in the link provided below, the resulting copy won't work and may render the target environment unrecoverable.
Warning
This procedure will completely delete the target environment. If Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys is installed on the target environment, then it'll be completely uninstalled (which will release the license) and all data (including interaction records) will be deleted. Even if you back up the target environment first, the backup won't include interaction data or image files. If you need to preserve interaction data and/or images from the target environment, be sure to back up the database for your marketing services, either to blob storage to some other storage media. For more information about how to backup data to blob storage, see Prepare for analytic reporting with Power BI.
Important
Your copied environment requires its own Customer Insights - Journeys license. If the target environment already has Customer Insights - Journeys installed, the copy will automatically take over that license (you don't have to do anything). If the target environment doesn't have the app installed, we recommend that you have an unused Customer Insights - Journeys license for your tenant before you start the copy, and purchase one if you don't. If you don't have a Customer Insights - Journeys license available before copying, the copy will end in a disconnected state, which means that many key features won't work (relevant error messages will be shown). In this case, you can purchase a new Customer Insights - Journeys license and use the installation management experience to apply it to your new copy.
To create a copy environment, see Copy or restore environments.
Switch an environment between sandbox and production status
Many environment management tasks only allow you to work on a sandbox environment as the source or destination of a copy, backup, or restore operation. However, you can easily switch any environment from sandbox to production, or production to sandbox, at any time. The app doesn't limit this standard platform operation. For more information, see Change the environment type.
Delete or reset a Customer Insights - Journeys environment
For standard Dynamics 365 environments (without Customer Insights - Journeys installed), you can use the Power Platform admin center to delete or reset an environment. However, if you do have Customer Insights - Journeys installed, you should also do the following things:
If the Customer Insights - Journeys environment was integrated with a website, reset it as described in Delete a website. This is important because it will free your portal license to be used elsewhere. After the reset, the portal will still be shown as Configured in the Power Platform admin center, but you'll now be able to select it when you run the application setup wizard to set up a new, copied, or restored environment.
Delete or reset the environment as usual. See Delete environment for more information.
Note
Your Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys license is automatically released when you delete or reset its environment, so you'll be free to install it on another environment.
Warning
When you reset a Customer Insights - Journeys environment, you must choose an app template that enables Dynamics apps. Dynamics apps require a special template that contains prerequisite solutions. If the app template you select doesn't enable Dynamics apps, you'll need to delete the environment and provision the Customer Insights - Journeys app into a different environment.
For more information, see Delete or reset a Customer Insights - Journeys environment.
Change the URL for an environment with Customer Insights - Journeys or outbound marketing installed
For standard Dynamics 365 environments (without any flavor of the app installed), you can use the Power Platform admin center to change the URL of an environment. For more information, see Edit properties of an environment.
Transfer data and configurations between environments using the Configuration Migration tool
You can replicate Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys configurations and data across environments using the standard tools provided for Dynamics 365. Common scenarios where this comes in handy include:
Move validated journeys, emails, and other content from a sandbox to a production environment
Set up a demo with sample data on a trial or sandbox
The process works as follows:
Download the Configuration Migration tool for Dynamics 365 (if you don't already have it).
Make sure your source and destination environments are running the same version of Customer Insights - Journeys.
Use the Configuration Migration tool to generate a database schema based on your source environment.
Export data from the source environment using the Configuration Migration tool together with the schema.
Import the exported zip bundle onto the destination environment using the Configuration Migration tool.
For more information, see Transfer data and configurations between environments using the Configuration Migration tool.
Transfer customizations between environments using solution export and import
Dynamics 365 is highly customizable. You can use its online tools to modify or create fields, entities, business processes, and more. Usually, you'll do your customization work on a sandbox environment, test them, and then transfer the final customizations to your production environments when they're ready. Best practices recommend that you proceed as follows:
Create a copy of your current production environment onto a sandbox environment where you can work without affecting your ongoing operations.
Create a new managed solution on the sandbox and implement your customizations there. This lets you add customizations without affecting the underlying system, and you can revert your customizations at any time by removing the solution.
Test the customized solution on your sandbox until you've confirmed it's working correctly.
Export the custom solution from your sandbox and then Import it on your production environment.
For more information, see Transfer customizations between environments using solution export and import.
Tenant to tenant migration for Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys
Migrating a Customer Insights - Journeys environment between tenants requires assistance from the Microsoft technical support team. To request tenant to tenant migration within the same Azure geographic location (geo), contact technical support and submit a support request.
Note
When migrating an environment between tenants, the support team will advise you about pre-migration and post-migration steps. Familiarize yourself with Customer Insights - Journeys status after migration to determine if migration will be a good fit for your environment.