Support in the cloud world is expected to be quick, one-touch enabled, and with minimal impact to operations. However, one needs to know and leverage various tools available for seeking support.

I would like to mention a saying and use it as an analogy for support in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise Edition, It takes a lot of effort to get the top position, it takes even more effort to maintain that position. To provide context with Dynamics 365, you may have successfully gone live, but it takes a significant effort to ensure smooth operations post Go Live. Using the Star Wars analogy in ERP implementation, Never underestimate the force, never under-estimate any issue until its impact and root cause is fully known.

In this chapter, you'll explore various options for seeking support, tools used in support, an end to support lifecycle, and best practices in support.

With a lot of choices, comes a lot of decision-making time; hence, we would like to empower you with various helpful resources to enable you to maintain your Dynamics 365 solution.

One can seek knowledge using a number of options as follows:

• Issue search (LCS):
  • Always search with keywords in LCS for the issue/situation to see whether it's a known issue and for possible solutions/workarounds from the principal
  • Here, you not only search for an issue but also its triage history, fixes, and solution information for resolution

• Microsoft help documentation/wiki:
  • This is a single place for all help content for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition
  • It has several user guides that can help you learn how to make Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition work for your business
  • https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/operations
  • Always make it a point to have explored help documentation from Microsoft
• Forums:
  • Always search whether the issue/situation you are facing was ever faced by someone and whether a potential analysis and solution is available in these forums. These forums include but are not limited to:
    • Microsoft Dynamics Community (https://community.dynamics.com/)
    • MSDynamicsWorld (https://msdynamicsworld.com)
    • AX User Group (D365UG/AXUG) (https://www.axug.com/)
• Blogs:
  • We recommend you to keep a list of blogs of all the MVPs of Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition (AX) to get the latest and greatest information at your fingertips
  • For blogs from Microsoft about Dynamics 365, visit https://explore.dynamics.com/
• Google/Bing search:
  • If nothing can be found, just try searching the entire web using a good search engine to find a solution to your situation
• Advisor/MVP/experts:
  • When a solution is identified and you are unsure whether to go with it or not or a solution is not found, it is best to approach an expert from the area/capability
• Dynamics Learning Portal (DLP):
  • DLP has evolved a lot and is a great knowledge repository for partners to leverage detailed documentation from Microsoft about its product and features
  • This portal is available to Microsoft Dynamics partners only
• Roadmap:

• • We are all curious about the future and what may come next, hence, visiting the roadmap site is going to help you plan your future solution growth
  • Visit https://roadmap.dynamics.com for more details
• Feedback:
  • If you want to help Microsoft in improving Dynamics 365 and its family of products and solutions, you could visit https://ideas.dynamics.com/ideas/ and share ideas, suggestions, and feedback
• Portals:
  • For customers: https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource
  • For partners: https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource

Let's now explore various support tools available in LCS that are recommended in your implementation journey.