Exploring new opportunities and challenges

Understanding that Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement can be easily extended with Power Platform opens a range of new opportunities and challenges, both when thinking about a solution for a project and when designing our professional path and evolution.

If we focus on the impact that the design of solutions has by being able to use a no-code/low-code approach to extend applications, we find the following:

• We are not limited to the implementation of the business processes defined by Microsoft in its first-party applications, but we can also think about the extension or creation of new business processes that orbit around the native processes.
• We can extend the solution using Power Platform, not only for the creation and extension of applications, but also to build automation and processes, bots, and control panels. We will go deeper into each of these use cases in the later chapters of the book.
• The deployment and maintenance process of the solution can be simplified.
• We have to keep ourselves updated with the constantly evolving capabilities of Power Platform and Dynamic 365 Customer Engagement.

As we will see later, the challenges presented by the constant evolution of the platform are also an opportunity to develop our professional careers.

Developing our careers

On the other hand, from a career development point of view, this paradigm and how both Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and Power Platform evolve allow us to develop new skills, while we can shape our professional profile by specializing in either a specific Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement application or a non-code type of extension.

To help us enhance the development of our professional careers and to upskill ourselves, Microsoft constantly develops new exams and certifications.

Currently, there are two different types of exams that we can aspire to pass – the MB-XXX and the PL-XXX. The MB-XXX corresponds to the Dynamics 365 exams, both Customer Engagement and other applications, while the PL-XXX exams correspond to Power Platform. Passing these exams will enable us to gain the new certifications of one of its levels – beginner, intermediate, or advanced.

The beginner-level certifications focus on the fundamentals of the platform:

Figure 1.5 – Beginner certifications

The intermediate certifications present more specific specializations, including both functional and technical certifications:

Figure 1.6 – Intermediate certifications

Finally, the advanced certifications are oriented toward architects who will have a wider knowledge and understanding of the platform:

Figure 1.7 – Advanced certifications

As you can see, there are multiple possibilities we have to specialize as Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement professionals, complementing our knowledge of the platform with the capabilities of Power Platform. The multiple exams and certifications allow us to develop a profile that supports our knowledge and experience.

The introduction of Power Platform capabilities for the extension of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, which we will discuss in the next chapter, also presents several challenges for architects, consultants, and developers. This is because the new tools force us to step out of our comfort zone so that we can understand why we should use a no-code/low-code tool instead of a custom development.