Deprecating Basic Authentication for Outlook Integration in Business Central
As announced in the Microsoft Tech Community, Basic Authentication for Exchange Web Services (EWS) will be decommissioned in October 2020. Dynamics 365 Business Central integrates with Outlook and Exchange, and these features allow the option of Basic Authentication with EWS. In response to the change in EWS, beginning October 1, 2020, the option to use Basic Authentication with these features will no longer be available. We will decommission the option as part of the 2020 wave 1 release of Business Central.
Who is affected?
The Exchange team will stop supporting and fully decommission Basic Authentication for EWS to access Exchange Online. The change does not affect any Business Central customers using Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication for Business Central, including Business Central Online. So the customers that the change does affect are those who:
- Use NavUserPassword, Windows, or UserName as the Business Central authentication method, and
- Use Exchange Online.
What features are affected?
Business Central features that use Exchange Web Services and support Basic Authentication include:
- Deployment of the Business Inbox in Outlook.
The option is currently available to deploy the Outlook add-in from Assisted Setup and from Office Add-in Management. If the change affects you, you will need to deploy the Business Inbox in Outlook manually. You can do this either for a single Exchange account for individual users, or using centralized deployment for administrators. Note that this affects only the deployment of the add-in. Using the add-in will continue to work following existing authentication and functionality. - Synchronization of contacts in Business Central with Contacts in Outlook.
This feature requires authentication through EWS, and will no longer be available with Basic Authentication. - Invoicing for Microsoft Bookings in Business Central.
Similar to synchronizing contacts, you can synchronize customers and items with Bookings. The bulk invoicing feature in Business Central for bookings requires synchronization of contacts and items through EWS. So the feature will no longer be available with Basic Authentication.
Next Steps
We understand that decommissioning features can have an impact on your business. If you have comments or suggestions on improving our support of these features, please provide your ideas at https://aka.ms/bcideas.
