A First Look at the Dynamics 365 Automotive Accelerator

The Automotive Common Data Model (CDM) extends the Microsoft Common Data Model for deals, sales contracts, specifications, fleet, warranties, inspection, test drives, branding, business, customer-vehicle relationship, vehicle and equipment, lead, service and after-sales management, and more. The Automotive CDM came from working with some of our top tier partners such as Annata and Oxlo, sitting with, observing, and learning from many of our automotive customers about their desire to quickly drive digital transformation, starting with consumer experience, and the challenges of managing data across many systems of record.

Our approach includes:

• Create enabling technology that lowers the barrier to entry for vehicle OEMs, mobility providers, dealer groups, and importers, and to introduce standards that make for a richer customer experience.
• Microsoft partnering with leading thought leaders in the automotive industry as well as a Steering Team comprised of global customers and partners to create an automotive common data model (CDM) that reflects the common automotive scenarios.
• Learning from data model challenges of the past and design a streamlined, open foundation for customers and partners to rapidly build applications and connectors.
• Incorporating data standards into the model against widely adopted data standards like STAR.
• Harnessing the power of our partner solutions, along with the Microsoft technology stack - Azure, Office 365, Power Platform, Dynamics 365, Power BI, Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform (MCVP), Virtual Assistant, – focused on delivering omnichannel customer experience and streamlining back office operations.

The Microsoft Common Data Model for Automotive is the first of its kind to provide a model that reflects industry best-practices, insight and integration across existing vehicle retail networks, and also incorporating emerging mobility businesses.

Challenges

Some of the key challenges that were considered while creating the Microsoft Common Data Model for Automotive include:

• Customer Insights: Transform transactional and behavioral omni-channel data into a data estate that enables customer experience management
• Digital Marketing and Customer Engagement: End-to end customer experience management integrating digital marketing, contact centers, loyalty, mobility, shopping and purchase, service, and lifetime engagement
• OEM-to-dealer integration: Enable data insights and managed consumer experiences across franchised dealer networks
• Standards and openness: Establish publicly available standard data schema and integration standards that address the concerns of our vehicle OEM, mobility provider, dealer group, and importer customers, whose legacy systems slow down innovation with limited data transparency and interoperability.

Microsoft Common Data Model and Automotive CDM Integration

Entities within the solution

• 91 Entities (79 new & 12 extensions to existing CDS Core and First Party Application Entities)

Capabilities 

The following represent some sample entity relationship diagrams about how to model key segments of the Automotive Common Data Model.

How to Model Vehicle and Equipment

Vehicles are referred to in the Accelerator as devices, since the accelerator is designed to be more general purpose that simply automotive retail. The device concept is a generic way to capture all the detail of a complex piece of equipment such as cars, RV’s, boats, industrial equipment, and so on. 

The BMW X3 xDrive 30i is an SUV style vehicle manufactured by BMW. The vehicle is one of several available X3 models and this particular model is again available in a number of trim levels, such as the xLine Design. Its design and specifications evolve over time and we are looking at a 2019 model which the manufacturer refers to as the G01 generation.

Example: Technical Specifications of a 2019 BMW xDrive 30i

The BMW X3 xDrive 30i is an SUV style vehicle manufactured by BMW. The specifications for this particular vehicle include engine, transmission, performance and more.

Example: Fleet Management

Contoso has an overview of cars allocated as demos across different locations and groups those cars into fleets with specific purposes. Some of these cars are specifically for test drives and are specified as part of test drive fleets for each location.

How to Model Business

Example: National Sales Company

A national sales company owns two local dealerships, one in New York and the other in Boston.

Example: Dealer group

The Contoso dealer group consists of a two legal entities, Contoso Seattle and Contoso Denver. Contoso Seattle runs business from two locations: Contoso Seattle Downtown which handles all new car sales and Contoso Seattle University handles used car sales as well as service.

How to model Sales and Marketing

Example: Lily Conner is interested in a 2018 BMW X3 xDrive 30i

Lily Conner contacted the Certified Pre-Owned Sales department at Contoso Seattle University because she is interested in a 2018 BMW X3 xDrive 30i. Lily has already booked a test drive for such a vehicle but also indicated that while she is most interested in this particular type of car, she might also consider other options as long as they have automatic transmission and ideally leather interior as well.

Partnerships

We are building a strong eco-system of industry partners to help promote open data and build world class solutions to help our customers with their digital transformation. Below is a snapshot of partner commitments to build on top of the Microsoft Common Data Model for Automotive and share their deep industry expertise to help drive fundamental changes in the industry.

Build with partners

Annata's comprehensive solution for the automotive industry is built to cover a wide range of businesses involved in manufacturing, distribution, marketing, retail and maintenance of vehicles and components in automotive.

Inspire press release

Oxlo offers two main solutions that are built off the automotive accelerator: IntegrateOnce® and GroupManager®. Both solutions leverage the common data model to store common data from multiple areas that enable enterprise business management and business analytics for automotive companies.

IntegrateOnce empowers OEMs and dealers to eliminate the time-consuming and difficult tasks of internally building, maintaining, and monitoring expensive system infrastructure.

Inspire press release

XAPT works with equipment dealers all day every day. This is at the core of our company, employing hundreds of professionals around the globe with one focus: providing the leading dealership solution for industrial equipment dealers and manufacturers.

Inspire press release

Launch partners

In Closing

Our goal is to build a community around customers and partners that want to collaborate and continue to improve upon industry best practices. A goal of the Automotive Accelerator program is to build a "Community CDM", and not simply a "Microsoft CDM".  

We plan to iterate the Automotive Accelerator and Automotive CDM, and look forward to continued engagement with our customers and partners about their unique business processes and about how Dynamics 365 and all of Microsoft’s technologies can support your digital transformation journey.

Resources

• Learn more about the overall Microsoft Dynamics 365 Industry Accelerator Program - link
• Learn more about all the Dynamics 365 Industry Accelerators - link
• Microsoft Inspire blog about the new ISV Connect program and Accelerators - link
• Supported SKUs for the Automotive Accelerator - link
• GitHub Repo for the Automotive Accelerator - link
• AppSource offer for the Automotive Accelerator - link
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Automotive Accelerator First Look – Industry Trends and Value Propositions Whitepaper - link
• Engagement with the Automotive Accelerator Engineering and Industry teams - link
• Learn about the Microsoft Automotive narrative - link