We’re drowning in data.
Analysts estimate that more than 181 zettabytes of data will be generated in 2025. That represents an increase of about 23 % over the previous year. Every day, roughly 2.5 quintillion bytes of new information is created, much of it in the form of unstructured content such as emails, images and documents. This exponential growth drives up storage costs, making efficient document handling a strategic priority for any Dynamics 365 or Power Platform deployment.
In a recent episode of PartnerTalks, host Rick McCutcheon sat down with Tanja Gföller, sales manager at mscrm‑addons.com, to discuss how mscrm-addons’ long‑running solutions help tackle these challenges. During the conversation, they focused on two products that address today’s data bottlenecks: DocumentsCorePack for document automation and AttachmentExtractor for storage optimization.
Watch their full interview below.
The Storage Challenge Inside Dynamics 365
Email attachments and notes consume a surprising amount of space in Dataverse. The mscrm‑addons team notes that up to 70 % of a Dynamics 365 database can consist of email content and documents stored as notes or attachments.
And storage in Dataverse is priced at a premium.
A recent blog post from Inogic highlights that additional Dataverse capacity costs about $40 per GB per month for database storage, $2 per GB per month for file capacity and $10 per GB per month for log capacity. By contrast, storing the same data on SharePoint or Azure Blob Storage can be as low as $0.20 per GB per month.
Jukka Niiranen’s Power Platform analysis reinforces the point: storing just 1 GB in Microsoft Dataverse costs $40/month, or $480/year. With organizations generating millions of terabytes of data every day, these costs add up quickly. Left unchecked, high consumption triggers capacity‑warning emails, restricts environment operations and forces administrators to purchase additional capacity.
Storage cost comparison
| Storage option | Cost per GB/month | Notes |
| Dataverse database | $40 | Premium storage used for relational tables and critical data. |
| Dataverse file storage | $2 | Used for attachments and binary content. |
| Dataverse log storage | $10 | Stores audit and change‑tracking logs. |
| SharePoint / Azure Blob | ≈ $0.20 | Alternative cloud storage often used for offloading attachments. |
Because attachments are often unstructured and infrequently accessed, moving them out of Dataverse can deliver substantial savings without compromising functionality. This is the economic rationale behind mscrm‑addons’ AttachmentExtractor.
DocumentsCorePack: Automating Document Creation
In her PartnerTalks interview, Tanja described DocumentsCorePack as a “document generation tool based on Dataverse that allows you to generate and deliver professional documents in various ways,” adding that it can be used manually, automated on the Power Platform or via Copilot. The add‑on integrates Microsoft Word templates with Dynamics 365 data to streamline the creation of quotes, contracts and reports.
A post to CRM Software Blog explains that users interact with DocumentsCorePack through a simple dialogue that allows them to select a report, choose an action and preview the output. It supports:
- One‑click actions – preconfigure actions such as sending a PDF as an email attachment or printing and saving to SharePoint.
- Workbooks/document packages – combine multiple documents (e.g., proposal components) into a single package.
- User prompts – collect user input during generation for highly customized documents.
- Power Apps integration – trigger document generation from canvas apps, portals or Power Automate flows.
The template designer extends Microsoft Word, enabling users to map Dynamics 365 fields and embed conditional content or repeating sections. Document generation can run automatically through workflows or Power Automate. That can standardize communications and reduce the manual work users need to do.
AttachmentExtractor: Reducing Storage Costs Dramatically
AttachmentExtractor enables customers to extract email contents and attachments from Dataverse to alternative storage such as SharePoint or Azure Blob Storage, Tanja told Rick. She said that more than 650 AttachmentExtractor services are running actively, delivering an average return on investment (ROI) of about 200 %, with best‑case scenarios reaching 1,000 %.
The mscrm‑addons site provides more context. The tool is, indeed, plug‑and‑play, as Tanja said. There is no installation, and setup typically takes around 30 minutes. The extraction process is fully transparent to end‑users; attachments remain accessible through Dynamics 365, which dynamically loads content from SharePoint or Azure when needed. AttachmentExtractor can even be configured to move only content older than a certain age or filter out irrelevant file types.
mscrm‑addons estimates that moving attachments out of Dataverse can reduce file capacity by up to 80 % and data capacity by up to 40 %. Their online savings calculator uses Microsoft’s add‑on pricing (database capacity at $40/GB/month and file capacity at $2/GB/month) to illustrate potential ROI. In one example, a mid‑sized organization could save $11,520 per year in data capacity and $5,088 per year in file capacity, leading to an overall ROI of 370 %.
Key features of AttachmentExtractor
- Transparent user experience – attachments remain accessible in Dynamics 365 even though they reside in SharePoint or Azure.
- Configurable rules – extract only attachments older than a defined age or exclude specific file types.
- Real‑time retrieval – when users open an email or note, the actual file is loaded back into Dataverse almost instantly.
- Upgrades & migrations – smaller Dataverse databases mean faster backups, migrations and restores.
- Cost savings – offloading attachments to low‑cost storage reduces monthly storage bills; moving data from Dataverse ($40/GB/month) to SharePoint (~$0.20/GB/month) yields a twenty‑fold difference.
Calculating ROI: A Simple Scenario
Consider a Dynamics 365 environment where 50 GB of attachments are stored in Dataverse. At Microsoft’s list prices, the organization pays $2 per GB per month for file storage ($100 per month, or $1,200 per year). If those attachments reside in the Dataverse database, the cost climbs to $40 per GB per month (resulting in an astronomical $2,000 per month). By moving the same 50 GB to SharePoint at roughly $0.20 per GB per month, the monthly cost drops to $10, reducing annual storage spend from $24,000 to $120. Even after factoring in the license fee for AttachmentExtractor, the net savings are substantial. This aligns with mscrm‑addons’ report that many customers see ROIs above 200 %, and sometimes as high as 1,000 %.
The Bigger Picture: Data Growth and Governance
Data volumes are not slowing down. DemandSage reports that the world produced 120 zettabytes of data in 2023, and projections suggest that this will climb to 181 zettabytes by 2025. About 70 % of global data is user‑generated and 90 % of it is unstructured. As organizations adopt AI and Copilot‑powered business applications, the volume of emails, images and generative AI outputs will continue to explode. Without a strategy for offloading unstructured content and automating document workflows, storage bills will balloon and performance will degrade.
AttachmentExtractor and DocumentsCorePack form a complementary toolkit: one cuts storage costs by offloading large files; the other improves efficiency by automating document generation. Together, they allow Dynamics 365 customers to manage the data deluge, control costs and prepare for a data-dense, AI‑driven future.
Meeting the Team and Next Steps
mscrm‑addons will be present at the Nordic Summit in Sweden, Directions EMEA in Poland, Community Summit in Orlando and the Power Platform Conference in Las Vegas. If you are evaluating ways to optimize your Dynamics 365 storage or automate document processes, these events offer an opportunity to see the solutions in action, ask questions and calculate your own potential ROI.
Whether mscrm-addons’ solutions are right for you or not, some type of solution is certainly needed. The ever-growing bulk of data needs to go somewhere, after all. And it’s only by embracing automation and smart storage strategies that we can stop worrying about capacity warnings and get back to focusing on customers and innovation.
