Dynamics 365 (online) maintenance and update schedules
Applies To: Dynamics 365 (online), Dynamics CRM Online
About
Microsoft regularly maintains and updates Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) to ensure security, performance, and availability, and to provide new features and functionality. From time to time, Microsoft also responds to service incidents. For each of these activities, the Dynamics 365 admin for your organization receives email notifications. During a service incident, a Dynamics 365 (online) customer service representative may also call and follow up with an email.
If you’re not sure who your Dynamics 365 admin is, see Find your Dynamics 365 administrator or support person.
If you want to change who receives email communications, see Manage email notifications in Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online).
If you’re a Dynamics 365 admin, you can also see the latest status of updates and incidents on the Microsoft Office 365 service health page. To learn how to get to the Office 365 service health page, see View the status of your services.
To learn more about each type of maintenance and update activity, as well as the communications your organization receives, click one of the following links, or scroll down to the section:
.jpeg "Down arrow button")
Planned maintenance- Unplanned maintenance
- Security updates
- Service updates
- Service incidents
- Major service incidents
Planned maintenance
Planned maintenance includes updates and changes to the Dynamics 365 (online) service to provide increased stability, reliability, and performance. These changes can include:
Hardware or infrastructure updates
Integrated services, such as a new version of Office 365 or Microsoft Azure
Dynamics 365 (online) service changes and software updates
Minor service updates to Dynamics 365 (online) that occur about 10 times per year
How do I find out about planned maintenance?
Your organization will receive a Maintenance notification through the Office 365 Message Center. Additionally, for maintenance activities that impact your ability to use the service, Dynamics 365 (online) System Administrators will receive an email notification.
You can also view notifications in the Office 365 Admin mobile app on your mobile device.
In addition, you can see the schedule and status of planned maintenance activities on the Office 365 service health page. To learn how to get to the Office 365 service health page, see View the status of your services.
Unplanned maintenance
From time to time, Dynamics 365 (online) inevitably encounters unplanned issues that require changes to ensure availability. Microsoft provides as much notification as possible during these events. Because these events can’t be predicted, they are not considered planned maintenance.
How do I find out about unplanned maintenance?
Your organization receives an “Unplanned Maintenance” email. These emails go out to all Dynamics 365 (online) System Administrators in every Dynamics 365 (online) instance that is affected by the unplanned maintenance.
You can also see the status of current unplanned maintenance activities on the Office 365 service health page. To learn how to get to the Office 365 service health page, see View the status of your services.
Security updates
The Dynamics 365 (online) team regularly performs the following to ensure the security of the system:
Scans of the service to identify possible security vulnerabilities
Assessments of the service to ensure that key security controls are operating effectively
Evaluations of the service to determine exposure to any vulnerabilities identified by the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), which regularly monitors external vulnerability awareness sites
The Dynamics 365 (online) team identifies and tracks any identified issues, and takes swift action to mitigate risks when necessary.
How do I find out about security updates?
Because the Dynamics 365 (online) team applies risk mitigations in a way that doesn’t require service downtime, Dynamics 365 administrators usually don’t receive emails for security updates. If a security update does require service downtime, it is considered planned maintenance.
For more information about Dynamics 365 (online) security, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 Trust Center.
Service updates
Minor updates can occur during the month. These include fixes and updates to the service that don't impact the customer’s database but are necessary to improve the service outside of a major release. Customers can expect to receive information on minor releases through the Admin Message Center and will receive notifications through an email, including when the update will occur. No action is needed for these minor releases.
Monthly updates to current versions occur throughout the year. Monthly updates include fixes to features and possible updates to the database. These releases are outside the biannual major release cycle and are targeted for fixes to existing features or small changes to improve performance and reliability of the service. Customers can expect to receive information on monthly releases through the Admin Message Center as well as through an email alert. The alert will include when the update will occur and links to knowledge base articles explaining what is included in the release. No action is needed from customers for the monthly releases.
Major releases occur twice per year on the current version of the service. These updates provide new features and functionality to Dynamics 365 (online). Major releases are typically communicated through Dynamics Marketing as well as knowledge base articles or through official Microsoft Dynamics 365 blogs.
Improvements in the update process put the power in your hands for scheduling your organization’s service updates. You can choose from a list of available dates. Service updates are only applied after they are approved by the Dynamics 365 (online) admin. This helps you plan well in advance for your upgrade path, while using your sandbox organization to thoroughly test and evaluate the service updates with your existing production code.
How do I find out about service updates?
The Dynamics 365 (online) team preschedules customers for the service update and emails Dynamics 365 (online) admins 90 days before the scheduled update. Dynamics 365 (online) admins receive additional emails at 30 days, 15 days, 7 days, day of, and post upgrade.
In the email, you have the opportunity to either approve the scheduled date or reschedule the update from a list of dates. All customers are updated during the defined service update release period, usually over a three-month window.
To find out more about rescheduling service updates, see Manage Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) updates.
To find out what’s new and how to prepare for the next release, check out the following resources:
Also be sure to watch this video about improvements to the update process.
<iframe width="500" height="364" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7f3KTlFaQ64" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Service incidents
A service incident occurs when your organization is inaccessible or you’re unable to use the service or one of its components. Examples include:
Getting a “page not found” or 404 error when you try to access Dynamics 365 (online).
All of your users are unable to sign in to your organization.
Your users can sign in, but can’t save their changes.
Users can sign in, but see a blank screen.
How do I find out about service incidents?
If you open a case to report a service incident, a Microsoft customer support representative will call your Dynamics 365 admin and follow up with an email when the service incident is resolved.
Major service incidents
A major service incident occurs when multiple organizations can’t access the service.
How do I find out about major service incidents?
Microsoft’s policy is to send email updates to the Dynamics 365 admins of affected customers within 15 minutes of a major service incident, and a final email once the issue is considered resolved.
You can also see the status of major service incidents on your Office 365 service health page. To learn how to get to the Office 365 service health page, see View the status of your services.
In addition, five business days after the incident resolution, the Dynamics 365 (online) team publishes a post-incident report (PIR) to the Office 365 service health page. This report summarizes the following details about the incident:
Description
Root cause
Customer impact
Start date and time
Resolution date and time
Next steps
If the service incident breaches your Service Level Agreement, you can claim a billing credit according to the conditions of your Service Agreement. If you need help with this, see Billing FAQs for Dynamics 365 (online).
Updates video
Schedule updates for a time that works for you. Find out how.
<iframe width="500" height="364" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hnqsc8hGHz8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
To see video captions, click the Closed Caption (CC) button in the lower right corner of the window.