As these effectively are part of the very foundation that powers Dynamics 365 first party apps, there are hardly any technical limitations as the tools become more and more natively integrated with one another. (Note: while there is a separate Dynamics 365 Connector, that has been deprecated in favor of the CDS one.) Using Dynamics 365 data in PowerApps for mobile apps and Flows for process automation is a very attractive scenario for many businesses and of course MS wants to promote that. PowerApps license + CDS + Model-driven App = ?Īlthough it may not be obvious, the CDS Connector included in paid PowerApps plans (Per App or Per User in the new world) allows you to connect to CDS environments that have been born from the provisioning of a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement App. You then choose the relevant components in the Model-driven App Designer, arrange them into a nice Site Map for users to navigate through, publish your changes and your App is ready to be used. The process of building a Model-driven app may start from the creation of the required components, or you might reference something that already exists in the CDS environment you’re working in. The solutions are made of components like entities, which have subcomponents like forms and views. Model-driven apps like Sales rely heavily on Common Data Service, because not only does it serve as the single data source for the app, but also the place for all metadata. Yes, it contains much more functionality than what the low-code application platform of PowerApps provides app makers out of the box, but if you would use the SDK to extend it with custom code via methods supported by Microsoft, you could build something similar yourself (given enough development resources). As an example, Sales Enterprise is one type of Model-driven PowerApp, even though it carries the Dynamics 365 branding given to it by Microsoft. No, they didn’t originally start that way, but as the Citizen Application Platform technology from the PowerApps side merged with the former Microsoft Business Solutions product that was originally built to be an extendable CRM system, that is the end result today. Believe it or not, Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement applications from Microsoft are built on top of Power Platform.

Office 365 e3 powerapps include cds