Sending an email is a no-brainer, you add the recipient, type the subject (the more confusing the better 😆), and of course type the contents in the email body. I won’t judge if you want to send the attachment, but forgot to attach it. I’ve been there myself too many times. This process seems simple, right? Let me guide you through the interesting and ongoing journey of one Email body editor within D365 for Finance & Operations.
Who, What, and Where?
D365FO is big, but regardless, if you had any work related to reports, the chances are that you came across Print management. This framework is used to configure print settings for various business documents. One of the available Print destinations is an Email print destination. It really does one thing: sends an email to the specified recipient with the business document or report attached. This is where it gets interesting.
How it used to be
It is a pleasant day in February, and Mark is happily configuring D365FO to send invoices to customers using email. He already planned everything. He would go with standard Print management purpose email tokens to address the emails to the Business email addresses of each customer. ‘PDFs are also really nice, ’ he whispers, while selecting the format of the report attachment. ‘Let it be PDF!’ He said in a slightly louder, triumphant voice. ‘Now I only need to think about what to write to each customer. Should I start with Hi or Hello? Choices.’ As he was finishing this thought in his head, he stopped and saw that there wasn’t any place to insert a body in the form. It looked like this:
That was February 2024.
Release 10.0.39
Of course, the engineers at Microsoft listened to what end-users craved for and implemented the Email body editor in 10.0.39 (GA March 2024). In the aforementioned version, the addition could be used only after being enabled from Feature management as a Document report email body feature. Following the standard path of the features kept in the ERP, it will be set to On by default and later on included as Mandatory. So, what did this late addition really bring to the table? Let’s see what it looked like:
From the looks of it, it is decent, has a nice range of controls ranging from text formatting, alignment, undo&redo, tables, images, and HTML Source editor. This meant that you could create a nicely looking template in HTML and insert it using the provided HTML Source editor. But it was still lacking some often-requested capabilities. End-users mostly pointed a finger towards Microsoft for not providing any way of inserting dynamic data via placeholders, for example. Without dynamic data, users were destined to either create a globally acceptable template with generic wording or create a large number of Print management settings targeting each customer. Even then, there wasn’t any way of inserting actual numbers from invoices, statements, or similar documents. Another drawback was a small frame. Unless you are copying and pasting content and not editing it directly inside the form, the small frame makes it difficult to edit and maintain email bodies.
In the heart, this was a third-party library - CKEditor. More precisely, version 4, as Microsoft used versions 4.16 to 4.25 from 10.0.39 to 10.0.43. CKEditor is a well-known, feature-rich JS editor used in many Enterprises and Enterprise-grade applications. Obviously, when a giant like Microsoft decides to include a third-party library, it needs to come from a respectable source and with the agility to update regularly in response to today’s world of security breaches and malicious actors.
Then 10.0.44 came
Microsoft introduced ‘Upgrade to the HTML editor control’ in 10.0.43, but made it On by default later in 10.0.44, which made it visible to those of us who sometimes were not as diligent as we should be in reviewing all newly added features in feature management. This feature upgraded the version of CKEditor used by the HTML editor control to version 5. This was made to align the versions in other D365 products.
So upgrading to the latest version is a good thing? Mostly yes, if done right. Upgrading to the latest version brings the latest security patches, more features, and, of course, a modern look. I must also say that CKEditor brags with the ability to customize the editor that you embed to your applications, websites, etc.
After so many years without any email body editor, Microsoft, in my opinion, went a step back, as the editor that is currently in 10.0.44 lacks quite a few features (spoiler alert: it is still missing all the big things I mentioned earlier). This is the way it looks now:
As you can see, the look is more modern, since it is coming from a modern CKE Version 5. It also comes with collapsible controls, where you can get more area to work with. When the controls are expanded, we can see that the number of actual items is very small. The first thing that I noticed is the lack of HTML Source. This means that you are limited to typing the text and formatting it, again using a limited set of controls.
Not a Conclusion
I was quite surprised when I saw the decision made on the controls in the standard Email body editor. It can obviously be changed and enhanced, but the email being such an important business correspondence tool, I don’t see how this reduced version could get through to the PROD status. Whether we will see some changes in future releases remains to be seen. I didn’t find anything in the Changelog for the 10.0.45 (planned to be released in September 2025). I am curious to see if Microsoft will, in fact, enhance the editor in any way. Since the first inclusion of the email body editor came roughly a year and a half ago, the topic might still be fresh in the MS backlog.
Care for a cup of ISV?
The truth is, the ISVs are working smart and hard in enhancing parts of D365FO so business users can be empowered to do more and to do better. I will just mention one ISV that I know very good related to the enhancements done on the Email print destination. While this content is not sponsored by Docentric AX in any way, I need to note that I am currently employed there, so from that point of view, I know how many pain points Docentric AX enhancements solve. Some of the capabilities Docentric AX has to offer:
- Use of predefined email templates on the report level
- Use of dynamic data through Standard, Custom, and User-defined placeholders in Report file name, Subject, and Email body
- Use of HTML in Email body editor
- Ability to expand the editor canvas to almost full viewport width and height
- Ability to add additional attachments from a selection of locations/records
- Ability to use additional SMTP sender accounts
- Ability to use BCC