Microsoft Dynamics GP Fall 2020 Release New Features: Support for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

This post is part of the Microsoft Dynamics GP Fall 2020 Release New Features series where I am going to echo the posts from the Dynamics GP Support and Services Blog, while adding some commentary, on the new features introduced in the Microsoft Dynamics GP Fall 2020 Release which is now available.

This post is on the Support for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) System enhancement.

The Fall 2020 release adds the ability to use Multi-Factor Authentication for e-mail functionality in Dynamics GP; this functionality uses an App Registration in Azure Active Directory along with Microsoft 365 to provide a second form of authentication.

The process of configuring this App Registration is covered in the What’s New section for the Fall 2020 release on the Dynamics GP Docs site.

The configuration in Microsoft Dynamics GP is done via Company E-mail Setup:

This change will affect the email functionality in which would normally fall under the Exchange or MAPI functionality (for example emailing a report). Similar to the non-MFA Exchange functionality in Microsoft Dynamics GP, once you have successfully responded to the Multi Factor Authentication window once, you should not need to enter a code again within the session. You may see the MFA window open, but if you click on your account it should let you proceed without the repeat authentication.

The other main email functionality in Dynamics GP is workflow notifications which currently uses SMTP from a central setting, but this change will see the notification email sent from the user clicking the workflow button. At that point they’ll receive the MFA prompt, where they’ll need to provide User Name and Password for their account.

I need to test this latter, but I presume the reminder emails will still use the central SMTP settings.