If you’ve been working with Axapta, Dynamics AX, or the latest and current iteration of the product, Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, you are already familiar with how changing the default behavior of the system when adding new functionality is done. It will probably involve a developer making changes or creating new objects.

And, if you know how the current development and deployment workflow is done, you must be aware that it’s a time-consuming process. You need to have developers available, they must make changes or create a new feature, and once it’s tested, you need to promote the changes to a sandbox environment and, finally, to your production environment. Deploying to production will require scheduling downtime, which can be inconvenient and must even be planned with enough time depending on your, or your customer’s, business.

What can we do to minimize production downtime?

In an ideal world, the answer...

I’ve already mentioned Dataverse a few times, and now we’re going to learn more about it. First of all, regardless of what we may think upon seeing its name, Dataverse is not a database, which is a common misconception.

Dataverse originated from the Dynamics CRM product as the XRM platform. In 2018 with the release of Power Apps, its name was changed to Common Data Service (CDS), and after some more name changes, it became the Dataverse we know today.

If not a database… what is a Dataverse?

Dataverse uses relational databases such as Azure SQL to store structured data, but it also uses unstructured databases such as Cosmos DB for logs, and it also has file storage.

Data and access are secured thanks to security roles to control access to environments, and of course, you can manage users and user groups in your Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tenant for authentication. It also has audit capabilities...

We’ve already learned about Dataverse, the platform on which Power Platform is built, and now we’ll delve into its different components.

Power Apps

Power Apps is probably the most known of Power Platform’s products. It is a low-code platform used to create custom applications that can be run on a phone or a tablet thanks to the Power Apps app (see Figure 1.4), or a computer using a browser:

Figure 1.4 – iOS Power Apps player

Thanks to the Power Apps editor we can quickly, and without any programming knowledge, create a canvas app. Thanks to its intuitive UI (see Figure 1.5), you can drag and drop the controls you need to the app and customize its design to fit your requirements:

Figure 1.5 – Power Apps editor

You can see this editor is a bit similar to what we have in Visual Studio for F&O. On the left, you can find a toolbox with the different controls...

In this chapter, we learned what low-code and no-code tools are. Then, we dived into Microsoft’s own low-code platform – Power Platform – and we looked into how it has introduced new ways of speeding development and enhancing maintainability in F&O.

We had an overview of Microsoft Dataverse, the platform on which Power Platform is built, and where it comes from. We also looked at the convergence plan, which will bring Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Apps and Power Platform closer together, improving the integration experience and creating a more consistent user experience.

Finally, we learned a bit about the different tools in Power Platform: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and AI Builder, which can be used alongside Dynamics 365 F&O without replacing X++ development.

In the next chapter, we will look into Dual-Write and F&O Virtual tables. One of the primary functions of these tools is to get our Finance and Operations data...

Here are some questions to test your understanding of the chapter. The answers to the questions are given at the end.

1. Used along with Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, what is the main advantage of low-code tools from Power Platform?
   1. Replacing all X++ developments
   2. Faster delivery of customizations
   3. Eliminating the need for developers
   4. Replacing Dynamics 365 F&O completely
2. What is Power Platform built on top of?
   1. Microsoft Access
   2. Microsoft Dynamics CRM
   3. Microsoft Dataverse
   4. Microsoft SQL Server
3. Which Power Platform component is used for creating low-code custom applications?
   1. Power BI
   2. Power Automate
   3. Power Apps
   4. AI Builder
4. What does Power Automate allow you to do?
   1. Create chatbots
   2. Build custom applications
   3. Create BI reports
   4. Automate processes
5. What is the primary purpose of Microsoft Dataverse in the context of Power Platform and Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations?
   1. It acts as a relational database for storing all Dynamics 365 F&O data.
   2. Dataverse is primarily a development...

If you want to learn more about Dataverse, the Power Platform or low-code you can visit these links:

Official Microsoft Learn documentation for Dataverse: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/data-platform/

Official Microsoft Learn documentation for Power Platform: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/

What is Low-Code Development?: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/what-is-low-code/

What is Power Pages?: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-pages/introduction

The following are the answers to the preceding questions:

1. b. Faster delivery of customizations
2. c. Microsoft Dataverse
3. c. Power Apps
4. d. Automate processes
5. c. It is a data platform underpinning Power Platform, providing database, security, file-hosting, and other services.