Why REFRACT Platform for Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a powerful transactional platform for finance, supply chain, sales, and customer service operations. But transactions alone don't solve the compliance and audit challenges that regulated enterprises face: generating complex, data-heavy documents at scale; governing approval workflows with tamper-proof evidence; signing contracts with legally defensible proof; and maintaining immutable audit trails that satisfy external auditors.

REFRACT Platform transforms Dynamics 365 from a transactions system into a compliance-ready, audit-grade governance platform. Every document, workflow, signature, and delivery event generates immutable evidence that can be searched, verified, and produced on demand - all without leaving your Azure environment. This is the foundation for modern compliance: documents as auditable business records, not static artifacts.

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1. REFRACT PDF: Enterprise Document Generation

SSRS works for simple tabular reports and Word templates work for simple mail merges, but neither was designed for the complex, high-volume documents Dynamics Finance and Supply Chain produce: multi-page customer statements with aging buckets and running balances, remittance advice with hundreds of payment lines, purchase orders with hierarchical line items and cost allocations, and vendor bills with GL coding and dual approval zones.

The failure modes are consistent: SSRS breaks on complex layouts and requires engineering for every format change; Word templates fail on data-heavy content with unpredictable pagination. REFRACT PDF replaces both with a schema-driven rendering pipeline. Templates are JSON definitions; the same payload always produces the same output. Complex constructs that are impractical in SSRS or Word are first-class rendering primitives in REFRACT PDF.

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2. Delivery: Batch Document Distribution at Scale

Generating the document solves half the problem. Dynamics Finance customers who run monthly statement cycles, weekly remittance runs, or daily invoice batches need a way to get hundreds or thousands of documents to the right recipients reliably, with a delivery record for each one.

Standard email-from-a-flow approaches do not scale to this. There is no per-document audit trail, no portal access for recipients who did not receive the email, no token-gated download link, and no way to know whether a specific customer actually opened their statement.

REFRACT Delivery handles batch distribution from a single API call. Each document in the batch is associated with a recipient, a correlation ID, and a delivery record. Recipients receive a branded notification and access their document through a secure, time-limited portal link. Every delivery event is logged to an immutable audit archive.

Batch delivery covers the core Dynamics Finance document types:

• Customer statements (AR)
• Invoices and credit notes
• Remittance advice (AP payment runs)
• Purchase orders dispatched to vendors
• Goods receipt confirmations

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3. Workflows: Governance and Data Collection

Two workflow patterns dominate in Dynamics Finance and Supply Chain.

Governance workflows validate structured data against a rule set and route to an approver. The AP 3-way match is the canonical example: purchase order, goods receipt, and invoice are compared against tolerance rules before the payment is approved. REFRACT Workflow runs that validation automatically on the data payload and routes to Finance Director or AP Manager based on invoice total. The result is a sealed PDF with a Governance Validation page showing every rule, its result, and the approver's decision. The full audit trail is written to an immutable archive.

Data-collection workflows gather structured information from an external participant across multiple steps. Vendor onboarding is the canonical example: the new vendor fills in contact details, compliance declarations, and file attachments through a hosted portal, then the submission routes to Procurement for approval and seals into a governed onboarding record.

Both workflow types produce an Electronic Evidence Appendix in the sealed PDF, recording the Workflow ID, Correlation ID, approver hash, and seal timestamp.

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4. eSign: Controlled Electronic Signing

The final layer covers documents that require a legally binding signature before they can be acted on: vendor contracts, NDAs, master service agreements, and approval documents that must be countersigned before processing.

REFRACT eSign provides a signing workflow built on the same governance architecture as REFRACT Workflow. Signatories receive a notification and complete signing through the centrally hosted REFRACT PDF portal. Sequential and parallel signing orders are supported. The final signed PDF includes an evidence certificate recording each signer's identity hash, signing timestamp, and IP address. The document is sealed and written to the immutable audit archive.

For Dynamics CRM customers, REFRACT eSign maps directly to the contract and agreement lifecycle in Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service.

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5. REFRACT Lifecycle: Cross-Document Visibility and Audit

Every document, workflow, delivery, and eSign session produced on the REFRACT PDF platform participates in REFRACT Lifecycle automatically. No additional configuration is required.

Lifecycle Search provides a single search surface across all REFRACT Platform activity for a tenant. Operators can search by Correlation ID, Document ID, email, signer, Batch ID, Workflow ID, or customer reference. Results are filtered by status (Pending Approval, In Progress, Completed, Failed/Rejected) and type (Document, Workflow, Delivery, eSignature), with date range filters and saveable search presets.

Every record in search results opens a document lifecycle workspace containing:

• Audit Timeline. A chronological, tamper-evident event log for the document. Every system event (Document Generated, Integrity Validated, Accessibility Checked, Delivery Sent, Signature Captured, Workflow Sealed) is recorded with the event timestamp, performing system, and expandable detail.
• Integrity status. A SHA-256 document hash is computed at generation time and displayed as Verified against the stored hash. The hash covers the complete document output.
• Download Evidence Bundle. A single download that packages the document, its audit timeline, and all associated evidence artifacts for external audit or legal hold.
• Signatures, Deliveries, and Related Files. Tabs showing the full signing history, delivery events, and all files associated with the document lifecycle.
• Actions. Recreate PDF, Verify Integrity, Download Certificate, Send for Signature, and OTC Signature are available directly from the workspace without leaving the lifecycle view.

For Dynamics Finance customers, this means every invoice, statement, remittance, and AP document has a permanent, searchable lifecycle record. Support and audit teams can locate any document by Correlation ID (the Dynamics record reference) without needing direct database access.

Lifecycle Workspace: Jump Directly From Dynamics to Evidence

Most document platforms treat audit history as a separate system that users must search manually. REFRACT Platform takes a different approach.

Any source system - including Dynamics 365 Finance, Business Central, and Dynamics 365 Sales - can launch REFRACT Lifecycle directly using a Correlation ID, Batch ID, Workflow ID, or Document ID. The Lifecycle Workspace automatically loads the relevant records and presents the complete document history in context.

For Dynamics 365 users, this means an invoice, statement, contract, workflow, or signing request can open directly into its lifecycle record without additional integration logic.

No custom audit APIs. No manual searching. No system switching.

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6. Accessibility: Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance

When accessibility is enabled, every document rendered by REFRACT PDF undergoes automated PDF/UA validation immediately after generation. The validation is performed by the Accessibility Service and recorded as an Accessibility Checked event in the document's Audit Timeline. No manual step or post-processing is required.

Rendered documents with accessibility enabled are Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 AA compliant. This covers proper heading structure, tag tree, reading order, alt text for images, and table accessibility markup in the PDF output.

For Dynamics customers serving US federal agencies, state and local government bodies, or healthcare organizations subject to accessibility mandates, this eliminates a class of compliance risk that SSRS and Word template output routinely fails to address.

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7. Evidence: Governance-Grade Audit Artifacts

REFRACT PDF produces a structured evidence record for every document lifecycle, not just workflows and eSign sessions.

At generation time:

• A SHA-256 hash is computed over the complete rendered PDF and stored in the immutable audit archive.
• An Integrity Validated event is written with the hash value and timestamp.
• An Accessibility Checked event is written recording the PDF/UA validation result.

At any point after generation, the document's integrity can be re-verified against the stored hash. A failing verification indicates the file has been modified since generation.

The Download Evidence Bundle action in the lifecycle workspace packages the document, the full audit timeline, the document hash, and any associated workflow or signing evidence into a single downloadable artifact. This bundle is suitable for external audit submissions, legal hold responses, and regulatory inspection.

For Dynamics Finance customers under audit, this means every AP document, signed contract, and governed workflow has a downloadable evidence package that can be produced on demand without involving engineering.

The REFRACT Platform Capability Stack

All platform capabilities are active for every tenant. Most Dynamics Finance customers start with rendering and delivery, then expand into workflows, eSign, and lifecycle audit as the platform proves out.

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Business Impact for Dynamics Organizations

Accelerated Compliance and Audit Readiness
Audit investigations that typically span weeks of manual document reconstruction - locating invoices, retrieving approval chains, reconstructing delivery logs - now take minutes. REFRACT Lifecycle's searchable audit timeline and downloadable evidence bundles turn compliance from a reactive burden into a demonstrable, automated capability.

Operational Efficiency
Template versioning, batch delivery, and automatic workflow validation eliminate manual document management overhead. Finance teams spend less time on document hygiene and more time on strategic analysis. Support teams resolve customer delivery issues instantly through the audit workspace rather than submitting database queries.

Audit and Regulatory Confidence
Regulators and external auditors see a cohesive, compliant platform. Document integrity is verifiable, workflows are sealed with evidence, and every decision is recorded in an immutable timeline. This eliminates a class of audit risk that disconnected point solutions or manual processes cannot address.

Reduced Compliance Risk
Immutable audit trails and integrity verification protect against accusations of document tampering. Every AP invoice, signed contract, and approval workflow has cryptographic proof of its lifecycle. This is the foundation for defensible audit positions.

Data Sovereignty and Regulatory Control
All documents, workflows, signatures, and audit events remain within your Azure subscription. This enables compliance with data residency mandates (e.g., sovereign data requirements, GDPR, HIPAA) that forbid third-party SaaS data egress.

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Dynamics 365 Sales Integration

REFRACT Platform integrates natively with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, adding document generation, SharePoint storage, e-signature routing, and workflow enforcement directly from CRM records - with no Power Automate flows required.

If you are deploying REFRACT PDF on Dynamics 365 Sales (rather than Finance or Business Central), see the dedicated guide:

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Dynamics 365 Business Central Integration

REFRACT Platform integrates natively with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, enabling on-demand PDF generation, SharePoint storage, e-signature routing, and audit trails directly from your Business Central documents.

If you are deploying REFRACT PDF on Business Central (rather than Finance, Supply Chain, or Sales), see the dedicated implementation guide:

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Power Platform Integration

REFRACT Platform integrates with Microsoft Power Platform (Power Automate and Power Apps) through the REFRACT Platform Connector. Connect cloud flows to your customer-hosted Dispatcher to generate PDFs, send documents for signature, trigger approval workflows, and track document status - all without custom code.

See the dedicated connector documentation:

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