MFA enabled Dynamics 365

Notification Based

Here’s how the notification based authentication works –

When you enter your username and password, you’ll see this on your browser intimating that the Approval request has been sent to your phone.

On the phone, you’ll receive the below

And upon opening the notification, the Microsoft Authenticator App will be opened and the permission to Approve or Deny the authentication request for your account will pop-up.

Once you click on Approve, you’ll be able to login.

Code Based

And when Code based method is selected, you’ll see the below –

On the browser when you enter your username and password, you’ll see the below waiting for you to refer to the Authenticator App and enter the same from your phone.

Once you open the Authenticator App and open the Account which you are trying to log in, you’ll see a code in bold letters which refreshes after a time frame.

Once you enter this code, you’ll be able to log in.

Changing the Authentication Method

Here’s how you can change the type of authentication method when you log into your Office 365 –

Navigate to the menu on the top right.

Now, on the left hand side, look for Security Info.

You can then see the different authentication methods you’ve entered like phone, authenticator app etc.
For simplicity, I only have 1 entered i.e. Authenticator App [Microsoft Authenticator].

And now, since Microsoft Authenticator is set as the default method, I’ll also get an option to change the type of authentication set.

I’ll get two options –
“App based authentication – notification” – This will show a pop-up on the phone in the form of a notification which you can choose to Approve or Deny.
“App based authentication or hardware token – code” – This will need you to open the Microsoft Authenticator Apps in your phone and then look for the code in the account and enter it when asked as seen in this post above.

So, you can select the other method apart from the one you have selected and you should be good to go.

Hope this helps!

Here are some Power Automate posts you want to check out –

Thank you!

It has always been recommended to enable MFA on environments we work on. For developers, it is especially critical that MFA is enabled that developers are also someone who need to connect the https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/ more than ever!

Here’s one of the common challenges in being able to connect to an MFA enabled Dynamics 365 instance using XrmToolBox.

Register the Dynamics 365 environment as an App in Azure

Microsoft has provided a recommended way to register an App with Azure Active Directory and also the same has been mentioned in the XrmToolBox Connection utility. Below is a summary from the original Microsoft Documentation on the same – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/powerapps/developer/data-platform/walkthrough-register-app-azure-active-directory?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5003911

Go to https://portal.azure.com/ and look for Azure Active Directory.
Once you save it, you’ll get the Application (client) ID which which will be needed by the XrmToolBox while connecting.
Go to the Manifest file and make “allowPublicClient” to true and Save it.
Now, navigate to API Permissions from the left side menu.
Now, search for the permission “Common Data Service” under the tab APIs for my organization uses.
Make sure Delegated Permissions are selected and tick mark user_impersonation and click on Add permissions.
Select the same and your permissions should look like below. Once this is the state, you are done on Azure side.

Now, let’s connect XrmToolBox to the Dynamics 365 environment.

Connecting to Dynamics 365 using the XrmToolBox

Let’s see what steps you need to follow in order to connect to the Dynamics 365 instance

Open XrmToolBox and create a New Connection.
Now, since you are aware that the environment is MFA enabled, select MFA/OAuth method.
Enter the URL of the Organization and click Next as shown below.
Now, enter the Application ID which you can copy from the registered App in Azure.
If you click on the “Use development Azure AD App”, the Reply Url will be populated automatically. Before that, you’ll see the message notifying which scenarios this is suitable.
Read below. At this point, I haven’t tried the other method and stuck to the below since I connect XrmToolBox to the Dynamics 365 environment for development purpose.
Once you click OK on the above, the Reply Url will be auto-populated and you can proceed further.
Now, enter the username which you want to connect with. Supposedly, this is the one on which MFA is enabled.
Upon clicking Next, you will be asked the Password of the credentials you are using.
Once you’ve entered the same, it will send a request to your Authenticator on the registered device.
One the device, assuming you have the Authenticator App installed already, you can Approve the same to let the Authentication go through.
Upon Approval, the XrmToolBox will be authenticated and it will be connected to the Dynamics 365 environment. As usual, you can then give it a name and click Finish to save it on your XrmToolBox.