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2 prod environments - Share external IDs & allow users to see data on portals in both?

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Posted on 4 Dec 2024 10:44:20 by 6
We have a legacy D365 CE custom portal using B2C for authentication. The platform associated with this portal is coming towards the end of its life and we are planning to move services from it to our new platform, which is also D365 CE and which doesn't currently have an associated portal. 
 
As we are running both in parallel, we are synchronising contacts between the two production environments.
 
We wish to create a Customer Service portal in the new environment to allow creation of new services in the new platform, while continuing to run the old platform and portal so that customers can access existing services there until we are able to migrate them.
 
I have two questions:
 
1) assuming we ensure sync of the External IDs associated with contact records in the old environment, are there any issues with continuing to use our existing B2C for sign up/sign in to the new portal?
 
2) what is the best way of ensuring that customers can seamlessly see all of their previous cases (whether on the old environment or the new one) no matter which portal they actually log into?
 
I appreciate that the most sensible answer may be "don't do it like this". Sadly this is unlikely to be an option.
 
 
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  • DynABC Profile Picture
    DynABC 6 on 18 Dec 2024 at 13:39:40
    2 prod environments - Share external IDs & allow users to see data on portals in both?
    oliver.rodrigues thank you, I will certainly bear that in mind when we get to the point of migrating cases.
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    oliver.rodrigues Profile Picture
    oliver.rodrigues 8,899 on 18 Dec 2024 at 11:55:28
    2 prod environments - Share external IDs & allow users to see data on portals in both?
    I see, I think it all goes back to the data migration strategy here.
     
    You need to make sure the Contacts have a unique identifier, either this is the GUID or an internal ID or the e-mail address.
     
    Once migrating the case records, you can map the Contact to make sure the records will be associated with the correct Contact.
  • DynABC Profile Picture
    DynABC 6 on 18 Dec 2024 at 11:19:58
    2 prod environments - Share external IDs & allow users to see data on portals in both?
    oliver.rodrigues - apologies, I can't see how to reply directly to your comment.
     
    You stated "So what you are telling me now is that the above won't happen at all"
     
    No, I am reiterating what I stated in my original post. There will be a migration and a decommissioning of the old environment, but we are unable to do it now as we have been instructed that the priority is to get the new services running in the new environment with a new portal. A big bang approach where we migrate everything and go live with new and old services in the new environment was one of my suggestions but this was not accepted.
     
    We will transfer old services to the new environment over time, as resource allows.
     
    I understand your scepticism, and understand that it stems from experience (as does mine). I stated in my original post that I realise this is a less than optimal approach. However, it is the approach with which I've been tasked.
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    oliver.rodrigues Profile Picture
    oliver.rodrigues 8,899 on 18 Dec 2024 at 10:03:08
    2 prod environments - Share external IDs & allow users to see data on portals in both?
    2) what is the best way of ensuring that customers can seamlessly see all of their previous cases (whether on the old environment or the new one) no matter which portal they actually log into?
     
    So what you are telling me now is that the above won't happen at all
  • DynABC Profile Picture
    DynABC 6 on 18 Dec 2024 at 09:31:22
    2 prod environments - Share external IDs & allow users to see data on portals in both?
    Fubar - thank you, that's very helpful. I think that answers question 1. Do you have any insight into question 2 - how we make it as seamless as possible for customers to see their cases no matter which portal they happen to be logged into?
     
    oliver.rodrigues - thank you, I appreciate your response. I understand what you're saying about a migration strategy, but that's not the presenting issue. We can't migrate as, for the time being, we are going to operate them both, live, in parallel. So for cases of type lemon, customers will log into Old Portal and create their case there, with Old Dynamics Environment holding the case and all the data, but for cases of type orange, we'll direct customers to New Portal where the data will be held in New Dynamics Environment.
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    oliver.rodrigues Profile Picture
    oliver.rodrigues 8,899 on 16 Dec 2024 at 09:16:52
    2 prod environments - Share external IDs & allow users to see data on portals in both?
    I don't think you need to worry too much about the External Identity record
     
    1 - you need to make sure to use the same B2C
    2 - you need to ensure that your cases and other records have been migrated, this should be part of a Data Migration strategy between your 2 environments and not Portal Identity Provider strategy
     
     
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    Fubar Profile Picture
    Fubar 7,642 on 06 Dec 2024 at 04:02:29
    2 prod environments - Share external IDs & allow users to see data on portals in both?
    The Portal just treats your B2C as another External Identity Provider, so yes you can have 1 B2C user accessing multiple Power Pages Sites (depending on what your requirements are you may need to setup additional B2C Policies for each site)
     
    For migrating Contact's B2C to a different environment you would do one of the following
    • Create the External Identity records (holds the B2C users guid and B2C url) in the new dataverse for each Contact. On the Contact set Login Enabled to Yes, populate the Security Stamp field with a GUID (any guid, but must be a guid), you may also need to populate the User name field also. or
    • Invite the Contact using the out of the box invitations functionalty - when the invitation is redeemed the existing B2C will be associated with the Contact the Inviation is for (behind the scenes creates the External Identity record). or
    • From the Power Pages Designer, in the setup for the External Identites, the Identity Provider has Advanced/Additional settings one of these settings lets you map the B2C to existing contact based on Email Address (for this to work you need unique email addresses for your contacts)

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