Why you should consider Common Data Service (CDS) when building complex business applications.

1. Why you should use
Common Data Service (CDS)

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Joel Lindstrom • Founder of CRM Audio
• Crmtipoftheday.com
• jlindstrom@hitachisolutions.com
• 12 time Business Applications MVP
• @joellindstrom
Principal Architect and MVP
Speaker

3. What is
Common Data
Service (CDS)
Cloud data service
Includes common business entities and
attributes in Common Data Model
Abstraction on top of
Microsoft’s core data
technologies:
Azure SQL
Azure blob
It’s more than a database

4. Common Data Service Purpose

5. Power Platform and Dynamics 365 Architecture
Power
Platform
Apps Service Finance
Remote
Assist
Sales

6. The origins of the CDS
Database
storage
Past

7. Compute Eventing + ExtensibilityStorage
Common Data Service
Common Data Service. . . On Azure
Today
Storage capacity flavors:
Database Capacity
Relational data
File Capacity
Attachments
Image + File Datatypes
Log capacity
Audit Logs
Trace Logs

8. Common Data Service:
More than a Database
Jobs
Calculated &
Rollup fields
Business
Rules
Data
validation
Duplicate
Detection
Plugins
Workflows
Catalog
and discovery
Modelling
Reporting
Common Data
Model
Relational
databases
Files and
blobs
Log files
Semi-structured
data
Search and
Find data
Data lake
Eventing
Webhooks
Data export

9. Why you should use Common
Data Service (CDS)

10. Security
Security should be handled at
the platform layer, not in the
app
CDS includes user, team, record,
field, and hierarchy security
Business units and teams enable
group record security

11. Bob
• Manufacturing engineer
• Needs to be able to see quality
issues reported by clients
• Should not be able to see the
name of the client
• Should not be able to see issues
for other plants

12. Amy
• Customer Service Rep
• Creates customer service cases
from customer issue complaints
• Should be able to see customer
information and case history for
clients that use her division’s
products
• Should not be able to see
customer data for other divisions

13. Roy
• Sales Manager
• Needs to see his direct report’s
records
• Should not see sales data for other
sales managers

14. Linda
• General Manager
• Needs visibility for all customer
data and related issues
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

15. CDS Security
Linda’s CDS security role gives her
organization wide visibility for data in CDS
Hierarchical security enables Roy to see
records owned by his direct or indirect
reports, but not other users
Business Unit security means that Amy can see
records owned by someone else in her division
but cannot see or edit records in other divisions
Field-Level Security prevents Bob from seeing
sensitive information on a record, and team or
business unit security limits his view to just his
plant’s issues.
Other tools:
Parent/child business units
AD security teams

16. Localization
Multi-language
Multi-currency

17. Data Relationships
• 1:N, N:1, N:N
• Rollup hierarchy and views

18. Calculated
and Rollup
fields
Calculations can include
related entity records
Calculations virtual field
real-time rollup
Rollups of rollups
Default calculation every
12 hours
Can be manually
recalculated
Can be used to avoid
delegation and improve
performance in Power
Apps

19. Exchange and
Outlook
Integration
Synchronizes email,
contacts, appointments
and tasks
Runs asynchronously (in
the background)
CAT created in CRM
synchronize to
Exchange/Outlook.
Emails, Contacts,
Appointments and Tasks
tracked in Outlook
synchronize to CRM
Power Apps App for
Outlook

21. Real-Time
workflows
Synchronous Processes
“all happens or none of it happens”
Real-time record
validation
Example: You want to validate
data is complete before
changing record status
Emails
Power Automate for background
processes, workflow for real-time

22. Model-Driven Apps and
Portals
The other Power Apps

23. Types of Power Apps
Model-driven apps leverage
your data model,
relationships, and business
processes to automatically
generate immersive,
responsive applications
Canvas apps start wih
user experience, with
pixel-perfect control to
build highly customized
task- and role-based apps
that mash up data from
300+ sources
Portal apps are web-
based apps that allow
both internal and
external stakeholders to
view and update CDS
data securely

24. © Hitachi Solutions, Ltd. | All Rights Reserved | us.hitachi-solutions.com
Start with model-driven

25. © Hitachi Solutions, Ltd. | All Rights Reserved | us.hitachi-solutions.com
Start with canvas
Not CDS data driven
Task focused apps
Visual presentation of info
Custom UI
Device integration
Basic offline support
SharePoint or Teams
embedding

26. © Hitachi Solutions, Ltd. | All Rights Reserved | us.hitachi-solutions.com
Start with portals

27. Administration
and
governance
https://aka.ms.ppac
Point-in-time backup
and restore
AD security team
integration
CDS analytics

28. Solutions
• Solutions are a container to track the changes you make to the
Common Data Service, Power Apps and Power Automate flows
• Solutions are how you transport and install changes to target
environments
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 apps are installed using solutions
• 3rd party apps provided by Independent Software Vendors
(ISVs) also use solutions

29. Unmanaged
• Used during development
• Used to transport to other development
environments
Managed
• Used to distribute to non-development
environments

30. Development
Platform
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/powerapps/developer/common-data-service/developer-tools
Developer tools
Web API
Plugins
PCF Controls
Custom interfaces and portals

31. Tools
Since Common Data Service comes from the legacy of
Dynamics, there are many tools that makers and
administrators can use to make their lives easier
XrmToolBox: https://www.xrmtoolbox.com/
Configuration Data Migration Utility:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-
platform/admin/manage-configuration-data
Andrew Butenko’s Ultimate Workflow Toolkit:
https://butenko.pro/category/ultimate-workflow-
toolkit/

32. SharePoint and
CDS can be
friends
• CDS includes SharePoint integration
• SharePoint is great for quickly building apps
• SharePoint is great for apps with few data relationships
• SharePoint is a better choice for collaboration file storage