How to Create a Dynamics 365 Customer Portal [5 Steps]

Creating a customer portal for Dynamics 365 (D365) is simpler than you might think, thanks to the Power Platform, specifically Microsoft Power Pages.

If you’re looking to enable your customers to accessing their order information, viewing data, or interacting with your business in real-time within the Microsoft ecosystem, this is the way to go.

Power Pages offers a variety of templates to help you get started quickly, and one of those templates is the Dynamics 365 Customer Portal.

This template is built specifically to work with D365, giving you all the tools you need to create an external website where your enterprise customers can securely engage with data from your D365 environment.

With Power Pages, you don’t need to be a coding expert. It’s designed to let you customize your site easily, from the layout and images to the user experience. Plus, you can use Power Pages templates as a starting point and then tweak them to meet your exact needs.

The Dynamics 365 Customer Portal template makes it easy to connect your D365 data and create a fully functional portal that enhances customer engagement.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to use Power Pages and the D365 Customer Portal template to build your own customer portal. Let’s dive in and get started!

How to Create a Client Portal with Dynamics 365 [From a Template]

Building a Dynamics 365 client portal starts with using the Dynamics 365 Customer Portal template available in Power Apps.

The template is designed specifically for organizations using Dynamics 365, allowing you to quickly create a client portal where clients can securely access their data, such as order information or support tickets, without needing to build everything from scratch.

Here’s how you can use the template in Power Apps to set up your customer portal:

Step 1: Access Power Apps and Select the Dynamics 365 Customer Portal Template

To get started, open Power Apps and navigate to the Create section. From here, you’ll have the option to create a new portal by selecting the Dynamics 365 Customer Portal template.

The template is already configured to connect with your Dynamics 365 environment, so it’s the easiest way to kickstart your portal project.

• Go to Power Apps * Create * Portal from template
• Select the Dynamics 365 Customer Portal template from the available options

Step 2: Set Up Data Connections with Microsoft Dataverse

Once you’ve selected the template, you’ll need to connect it to your Microsoft Dataverse. Dataverse is the system that holds your Dynamics 365 data, such as customer information, order details, and product data.

The template is pre-configured to pull data from Dataverse, but you’ll need to verify and set up the connections to the correct tables that house your relevant data.

• Verify the connection to Microsoft Dataverse
• Ensure the portal is connected to the right tables in Dataverse (e.g., customer profiles, orders, or invoices)
• Adjust the table settings if necessary to display the exact data you want customers to see

Step 3: Customize the Portal Layout and Branding

With the data connections in place, the next step is to customize the portal’s layout to match your company’s branding and user experience needs.

A few things you'll want to do are to: modify the layout, add sections, adjust the color scheme, and insert your company’s logo.

• Go to the Design section to modify the page structure, such as headers, footers, and navigation menus
• Add custom elements like banners or instructional text to guide users
• Adjust the color scheme and fonts to align with your brand identity

Step 4: Add Custom Functionality for Customer Interactions

The Dynamics 365 Customer Portal template provides basic out-of-the-box functionality, but you can easily extend it by adding custom forms and workflows using Power Apps.

For example, you can allow customers to submit new orders, view invoices, or check the status of ongoing support requests. You can also automate responses or updates to keep the customer informed.

• Create custom forms in Power Apps for data input (e.g., order submission, customer feedback)
• Use Power Automate to build workflows that trigger notifications or data updates based on customer actions (e.g., sending an email when an order is placed)

Step 5: Publish and Test the Portal

After customizing the portal, it’s time to publish it. Power Apps makes this straightforward by guiding you through the steps of deploying your portal.

Once it’s published, test the portal to ensure that all data connections are functioning correctly and the user experience is smooth.

• Go to Settings * Publish to make your portal live
• Test key functionalities, such as data syncing, form submissions, and automated workflows, to ensure everything works as expected

How to Use Your Dynamics 365 Client Portal

Once your Dynamics 365 client portal is set up and live, it's time to make sure both your team and your customers know how to use it effectively.

In this section, I'll go over the core functionalities of your Dynamics 365 client portal, and how you and your clients can use it.

Step 1: Logging into the Customer Portal

The first step for customers is logging into the portal. Your Dynamics 365 customer portal is secured through an identity providers like EntraID (Azure Active Directory) so customers can sign in securely using their credentials.

• Direct your customers to the login page you’ve set up within the portal.
• Customers should use their email and password (or other credentials, depending on your authentication method) to log in.
• If necessary, enable features like two-factor authentication for an added layer of security.

Once logged in, customers will have access to their personal dashboard, displaying relevant data such as orders, invoices, or support tickets.

Step 2: Viewing Orders and Account Information

One of the most important features of your Dynamics 365 customer portal is the ability for customers to view and manage their order and account details in real-time.

The Power Pages customer portal pulls data directly from your Microsoft Dataverse and Dynamics 365, ensuring customers see the most up-to-date information.

• From the customer dashboard, customers can navigate to the Orders or Account Information sections.
• Customers can check their order statuses, see expected delivery dates, view previous orders, or track shipment progress.
• If customers need to update their account details (like their billing or shipping address), they can do so directly through the portal, and the changes will automatically sync with your Dynamics 365 system.

Step 3: Submitting Requests and Inquiries

To facilitate better communication between your business and your customers, the portal allows customers to submit various types of requests, such as support tickets or order modifications, directly through customized forms.

• Customers can navigate to the Contact Support or Submit a Request section to raise a query or request service.
• Use custom forms (built with Power Apps) for these interactions, which can capture all the necessary details, such as product type, issue description, or preferred contact method.
• Once the form is submitted, you can set up workflows using Power Automate that route the request to the appropriate team member and send confirmation emails to the customer.

Step 4: Downloading Invoices and Documents

Your customer portal can also serve as a hub for document sharing. If customers need to access important documents like invoices or order confirmations, the portal allows them to download these files at any time.

• In the Documents section of the portal, customers will be able to find invoices, contracts, and other shared files, organized by date or order number.
• The documents are securely stored in SharePoint, and customers can download them directly from the portal.

This not only reduces the need for back-and-forth emails but also ensures customers have 24/7 access to the documents they need.

Step 5: Managing Notifications and Preferences

Your customers can also manage their notification settings and preferences within the portal. This gives them control over how they receive updates from your business, whether it’s order confirmations, support updates, or promotional information.

• In the Preferences or Settings section, customers can opt in or out of various types of communications.
• You can automate these preferences using Power Automate, ensuring that customers only receive relevant updates based on their chosen settings.

Step 6: Monitoring Usage and Customer Activity

As the admin, you’ll want to keep track of how customers are using the portal. You can monitor activity, identify any issues, and adjust the portal’s functionality as needed.

• Use Power Apps analytics and Dataverse insights to track portal usage, such as login frequency, popular features, and common customer queries.
• Based on this data, you can fine-tune the portal’s layout or add new features to improve customer satisfaction.

Extending Your Dynamics 365 Customer Portal with Power Apps

Once your Dynamics 365 customer portal is set up, the next step is to make it more efficient by leveraging automations via Microsoft Power Apps.

Using Power Apps, you can extend your portal by automating data processes, document management, and user role management.

Here’s how you can do that by connecting your portal to Microsoft Dataverse and SharePoint.

Automating Document Management with Microsoft Dataverse

Microsoft Dataverse is where your data is stored within your Dynamics 365 customer portal. If you want to automate how customer data is updated in your portal, Dataverse makes it easy.

For example, let’s say a customer updates their contact information in the portal. To automate this, first ensure that the customer profile data is stored in a table within Dataverse.

Next, use Power Apps to set up a workflow that triggers an update across all systems when a customer edits their information. Here’s how:

1. In Power Apps, navigate to the Dataverse tables that contain customer data.
2. Create a workflow using Power Automate that triggers whenever a customer updates their details via the portal.
3. Set the workflow to update the customer’s contact information in Dataverse and sync it with your Dynamics 365 instance.

This way, any change a customer makes in the portal will automatically update in your main CRM system, keeping everything consistent without manual intervention.

Automating Document Management with SharePoint

For handling documents, Microsoft SharePoint works well with Dynamics 365 and Power Apps to store and manage files uploaded by customers through the portal. Instead of manually tracking and organizing files, you can automate the process.

For instance, let’s automate the process of saving documents uploaded by customers (like invoices or contracts):

1. First, link your portal to a SharePoint document library.
2. Use Power Apps to set up a form on the portal that allows customers to upload files.
3. Create an automated workflow in Power Automate that moves these files to the correct folder in SharePoint based on customer ID or order number.

By automating this, every time a customer uploads a document, it’s automatically stored in the right place in SharePoint, and you can notify your team when new files are available for review.

For more information on the SharePoint integration with Power Pages, check out our guide here.

Managing Users and Permissions with Power Apps

Managing user roles and permissions is crucial when your customer base grows. Instead of assigning roles manually, you can automate user management using Power Apps and Dataverse.

Here’s how you can automate user onboarding:

1. Set up a registration form on your customer portal using Power Pages.
2. When a new customer registers, create a workflow that automatically assigns them the appropriate role in Dataverse (e.g., customer, admin) based on their submission.
3. Configure the workflow to grant or limit access to specific sections of the portal depending on the role assigned. For example, premium customers can gain access to additional features, while standard users have limited access.

This approach ensures that each new user has the right permissions without you needing to manually configure access every time.

Building a Dynamics 365 Customer Portal vs. Using Client Portal Services

While Power Pages and the Dynamics 365 Customer Portal template offer a flexible solution for building a customer-facing portal, there are many reasons why you might want to explore a dedicated client portal service, like Foyer.

Building and maintaining a portal with Power Pages requires significant time and effort for design, customization, and ongoing development, especially if you're not familiar with Dataverse or Power Apps.

Here's why using a ready-made client portal service like Foyer can save you time and effort, and how it stacks up in terms of features.

1. Save Design and Development Time

One of the biggest benefits of using a dedicated client portal service like Foyer is that you don’t need to spend hours designing and building your portal from scratch.

With Power Pages, while the templates provide a foundation, you still need to invest considerable time customizing the layout, configuring data connections with Microsoft Dataverse, and creating custom workflows with Power Apps.

Foyer, on the other hand, comes ready out of the box with an intuitive design and essential features already built in. You don't need to worry about fine-tuning layouts, coding custom logic, or configuring integrations.

The portal is immediately usable, which means your clients can start interacting with it right away.

2. Built-in Client Portal Features and Integrations

When you use Power Pages, many of the features that Foyer provides would require manual setup and configuration.

With a client portal like Foyer, you get everything in one package, including:

• Secure Document Sharing: Foyer makes it easy to securely share files with clients without worrying about configuring file storage or setting permissions manually. Foyer’s document sharing is integrated directly into the portal.
• Custom Forms: Foyer provides built-in custom form creation tools, so you don’t need to design forms from scratch like you would in Power Apps. You can easily create intake forms, feedback surveys, or request forms that are tailored to your business needs.
• Notifications and Automations: Instead of building workflows from scratch in Power Automate, Foyer includes pre-configured automations for tasks like sending notifications to clients when documents are updated or when new content is available.
• Branded Experience: While branding and customization are possible with Power Pages, Foyer allows you to effortlessly apply your branding, including custom domains and emails, without needing to spend time adjusting themes or coding custom solutions.

3. No Need to Learn Dataverse or Power Apps

For those unfamiliar with Microsoft Dataverse or Power Apps, setting up a customer portal through Power Pages can be a steep learning curve. Dataverse is powerful, but requires significant knowledge to correctly configure tables, data flows, and relationships. Similarly, Power Apps requires an understanding of building apps, logic, and integrating various systems.

With Foyer, you don’t need to worry about the technical details.

The portal is fully managed and ready to go, so you can focus on delivering a great client experience instead of spending time learning and managing the underlying technology.

Everything from data management to workflow automation is handled for you, saving you the need to become an expert in Dataverse or Power Apps.

4. Advanced Security Features

Foyer also takes care of the security configurations that would otherwise require manual setup in Power Pages.

While Power Pages offers role-based access controls, with Foyer, advanced security features such as encrypted file sharing, user authentication, and compliance with HIPAA and other industry standards are built in.

This means you don't have to worry about misconfiguring security settings or ensuring compliance—Foyer handles it for you.

5. Scale as Your Business Grows

With Power Pages, as your business grows, you might need to continually update your portal to accommodate more users, documents, or interactions.

This can require ongoing maintenance and adjustments to your Power Apps workflows and Dataverse configurations.

Foyer is designed to scale with your business seamlessly. Whether you're managing 10 clients or 10,000, Foyer's infrastructure grows with you.

You can easily upgrade your plan to accommodate more storage, users, or custom features without worrying about performance issues or technical bottlenecks.

6. Ongoing Support

When you build a portal using Power Pages, you're responsible for all aspects of maintenance and troubleshooting.

If something breaks or if users experience issues, you’ll need to resolve it yourself or engage with Microsoft support, which can take time.

Foyer provides ongoing support, helping you resolve any issues quickly and keeping your portal running smoothly. You don’t have to be the technical expert—Foyer’s team is there to handle technical challenges, updates, and maintenance so you can focus on your core business.

Conclusion

Building a customer portal using Power Pages and the Dynamics 365 Customer Portal template is a powerful way to create an effective customer portal that integrates with the Microsoft ecosystem.

However, if you're looking for a more turnkey solution with built-in features, advanced security, and minimal setup time, a dedicated client portal service like Foyer is worth considering.

Foyer provides a ready-to-use platform that simplifies user management, document sharing, and automations, saving you the time and complexity of configuring everything from scratch in Power Apps and Dataverse.

Whether you need to scale or maintain a secure, branded experience for your clients, Foyer offers a hassle-free, efficient alternative.

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