Goodbye Adxstudio, Hello Microsoft Dynamics Portals source code release, new features

Microsoft continues to push forward with Dynamics 365 Portals, and while their focus is on the public cloud, they haven't forgotten about their on-premises customers. But as the end of life for the older Adxstudio Portals product nears, there are some important questions to answer about how to maintain current solutions and plan for future Portals-based projects.

Adxstudio end-of-life

In September, Microsoft announced that as of August 1, 2018, the legacy version of Adxstudio Portals (version 7) will no longer be formally supported.  This means that after that date no updates will be provided, including any security fixes, or support for any breaking changes in the CRM APIs.

Customers who purchased a perpetual license can continue using the product after that date, however they should anticipate that at some point a breaking change will occur that will hinder their ability to upgrade to the latest version of Dynamics 365, or a security concern will be raised that will necessitate looking at another alternative.

For customers who took advantage of the subscription license, they will be issued a key that will be valid until August 1, 2018; after that point they will need to have a new solution in place.

While this news should not have been a surprise to most partners, it's an important development as we now have the line in the sand and can start preparing our clients for what comes next.

Source code release

In a move that should address some of the concerns with the end of Adxstudio Portals, Microsoft released the full source code and solutions for the latest version of Dynamics 365 Portals (v8.3) via the Microsoft Downloads Center.  This allows customers to build and host their own version of Dynamics 365 Portals, and includes support for on-premises ...