Microsoft Dataverse — What all does it have for you and Why Must you use it?
A couple of days ago Microsoft announced the release of Microsoft Dataverse and Microsoft Dataverse for Teams. So, we expect that you must be excited to know about the same.
Director PM, Power Apps: “We’re happy to announce that Dataverse for Teams is now generally available, along with a suite of embedded Microsoft Power Platform tools that make it easy for customers to build low-code apps, automate processes, and deploy chatbots without leaving Teams.”
While the announcement was clear and crisp, organizations that have been using the Microsoft Power Platform found it confusing and are not clear on what to expect from the same. Keeping this as the core of our discussion, this article will help you understand what Microsoft Dataverse is and how will it improve the offerings of the technology as a whole.
What is Microsoft Dataverse?
In simple terms, Microsoft Dataverse is the new name for Common Data Services. As Microsoft rolled out the power apps platform to the Microsoft teams application, it did some sort of changes, primarily altering the names. Starting with entities to tables, fields to columns, and options to choices, a lot was done to make the platform easier to understand.
Following a similar notion, the name of common data services was changed to Microsoft Dataverse. They believe that this would help them reach out to a wider audience owing to the fact that the name is quite appealing.
At the first glance, Microsoft Dataverse resembles a database similar to that of Ms Access and SQL with rows, columns, and tables. However, it is more than that. As an integral part of Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Dataverse today stands as a central pillar of the power platform.
What’s in the box?
Having said the above, we now move ahead to see what does Microsoft Dataverse has.
Dataverse API
Dataverse in itself is an API that connects with other applications without any hassle. Starting with Power Automate, to Power BI, Power Apps Power Virtual Agents, and AI Builder, all of these can connect and communicate with Dataverse via built-in connectors.
● Model-Driven Power Apps
Regarded as applications, Model-driven power apps present a standard set of dashboards, views, forms, and processes. They are inbuilt and can be accessed directly from the Dataverse platform. The entire interface is simple and easy to use with a user-friendly lookout. Leveraging the said technology, organizations, and enterprises having the Power Platform can easily build custom-fit applications. Also, the technology facilitates the design and development of Dynamics 365 first-party applications with ease.
Read more: An all-inclusive View of Dynamics 365 and how it helps in Boosting Digital Selling
● Dataverse Security
With integrated security at the platform level, Dataverse ensures that all of the applications are protected and free from threats or hacks. What’s best about the security embedded in here, Dataverse ensures that once you have all of the security roles defined for a team or a user, it will apply to the user irrespective of the type of operation he/she intends to perform.
Terminology Updates
● Entity, entities: Table, tables
● Field, fields, Attribute, attributes: Column, columns
● Record, records : Row, rows
● Option set, multi select option sets, picklists : Choice, choices
● Two Options: Yes/No
Why use Dataverse?
One question that arises here is why Dataverse?
Microsoft Dataverse is an all-in-one database that has both custom-designed and standard tables. Using tables, you can easily create, edit, modify, and store your organization data. Besides, it renders a secured, cloud-native solution to store enterprise data without any hassle.
Sounds good?
But that’s not it. There’s more to the Microsoft Dataverse platform than what meets the eye. Detailing on the same, the Microsoft Dataverse platform has the following advantages:
● Easy to manage — First things first. The Dataverse platform is easy to use and process. All of the data along with its metadata is stored in the cloud. All you need to think about is what data needs to be stored, and leave the rest to the platform.
● Easy to secure — As highlighted before, Microsoft Dataverse has built-in security protocols that encrypt all of the data. Under no circumstances would you need to worry about security. Access to any form of data is given only to the approved users. In addition to the above, role-based security empowers you to modify and operate on tables as and when required.
● Access your Dynamics 365 Data — Long gone are the days when you have to retrieve data from the dynamics 365 application. The Microsoft Dataverse will now house all of your data stored in Dynamics 365 applications giving you the ease to not only access them but use it as per your needs when building applications.
● Rich metadata — Microsoft Dataverse has a rich repository of data types followed by their relationships which can then be used within Power Apps for designing and deploying applications.
● Logic and validation — With the Microsoft Dataverse platform, you can easily define workflows, construct business rules, work on calculated columns, and draft business process flows, ensuring the data quality, in a way driving business processes efficiently.
● Productivity tools — Microsoft Dataverse has an array of built-in tools that simplify business processes, ensuring data accessibility, and improving business productivity.
Conclusion
For organizations and enterprises that have been using the Microsoft Power Platform, the release would change the course of business operations on a massive scale. In case you aren’t sure how to move ahead or operate on the new platform reach out to us. We at Stridely Solutions help business organizations with IT consultancy solutions. With registered offices in three different countries and multiple cities, we have a team of skilled professionals.
We are passionate about helping enterprises with all of the IT needs and extend our support to integration, design, development, and deployment of Microsoft Power Platform in the existing infrastructure. Irrespective of whether you have just started and planning to integrate the platform or if you have been using the platform and looking for an upgrade, we will help you with all.
