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ReportDynamics 365 under James Phillips announced the Microsoft Power Platform, a connected app platform that unifies access to your data to enable ISVs, SIs, Partners and Customers to build intelligent, data driven, task focused business and analytic applications. Microsoft is focused on enabling a data culture where the Microsoft Power Platform acts as the glue across Dynamics 365 (CE, F&O, Talent), Office 365 (SharePoint, Teams), Power BI, Power Apps, Microsoft Flow, Azure and other 3rd party on-premise and cloud based solutions.
Extending the Power Platform with Industry Solution Accelerators
With the Power Platform providing a unified approach to building data driven solutions, the team is taking it one step further by introducing Industry Solution Accelerators. Accelerators are industry focused base components that enable ISVs, and other solution providers a way to build solutions that are based on industry standards supported by Microsoft. Along with our Health Accelerator that was released during Inspire 2018, which you can read about here, we are focused on delivering accelerators for the following industries and others.
- Healthcare
- Education including Higher-Ed and K-12
- Nonprofit
- Automotive (Private Preview)
- Financial Services (Private Preview)
- Media
Industry Solution Accelerators enable you to build solutions on the Microsoft Power Platform that connect to your existing 3rd party applications, embed new applications on Dynamics 365 and extend existing first party application, such as Sales, Service and Marketing. Resources have been allocated across Microsoft Product Groups, Field, Sales, Marketing, OCP and Industry Vertical Teams to identify Partners, SI’s, ISVs and Customers to partner with Microsoft to shape and deliver solutions on top of our accelerators. Please note that accelerators not intended to be fully baked finished applications but will contain components that will help standardize and accelerate application development within a vertical industry.
Would you like to participate in a vertical work stream or looking for more information? If so we would love to hear from you, please sign up here.
ISV Opportunity View
The Microsoft Power Platform and the Dynamics 365 Industry Accelerators combine to create a unique opportunity for ISV’s to provide solutions for different scenarios and levels of build out. Below is a view of the opportunities for ISV’s who build on top of the platform and the accelerators. For those who are interested in chatting directly, please sign up here, or feel free to provide comments below or connect with us on LinkedIn. We would love to hear from you and listen to your feedback, suggestions and challenges.
The following image represents the pattern and hierarchy of how solutions are delivered.
- First Layer (MPP CDM):
o Microsoft Power Platform – Common Data Model represents the foundation for which the accelerators and other solutions are built on or extended from
- Second Layer (Extend the CDM):
o Industry Accelerators extend the base Common Data Model
o ISV solutions extend the base Common Data Model
- Third Layer (Extend the Accelerator):
o ISV’s extend the Microsoft Industry Accelerator
o Industry ISV’s extend the Microsoft Industry Accelerator
o Microsoft Industry Sample Apps extend the Microsoft Industry Accelerator
- Fourth Layer (Further extend ISV / Microsoft Apps):
o ISV’s further extend Industry ISV solutions that were built on top of the Microsoft Industry Accelerator
o ISV’s further extend Microsoft Industry Sample Apps that were built on top of the Microsoft Industry Accelerator
o Industry ISV’s further extend Microsoft Industry Sample Apps that were built on top of the Microsoft Industry Accelerator
- Fifth Layer (Further extend Industry Apps):
o ISV’s further extend Industry ISV solutions that were built on top of Microsoft Industry Sample Apps
- Sixth Layer (Available on AppSource):
o Accelerators, ISV, Industry ISV and Industry Sample solutions are made available on AppSource
- Seventh Layer (SI Support):
o SI’s provide expertise for Customer, ISV and Industry ISV solutions that were built on top of the Microsoft Industry Accelerators. This enables SI's to create industry vertical solution support and practices that can help customers directly, build their own solutions / tools or support ISV deliveries
As you move up the stack there are multiple opportunities on how ISV’s can deliver industry focused apps and solutions. This can exist whether you are building directly on Power Apps (CDS) or Customer Engagement. As you can see, each level enables the next levels opportunities to extend further. The accelerators provide opportunities to rapidly build vertical industry focused apps as well as enabling SI’s who can help scale and support these new apps and solutions.
Understanding Solution Accelerator Components
Let’s review the some of the components that make up the accelerator and how it looks to ISV’s that would build on top of the Microsoft Power Platform and Industry Accelerators. These components will continue to evolve and expand as more accelerators are released and not all accelerators will contain all components. All accelerators will contain data models, samples forms, samples views and some level of demoware, whether that is direct Power Apps / Flow and/or Customer Engagement, Power BI or other.
Dynamics 365 Common Data Model Extensions
The Power Platform revolves around the Common Data Model. The accelerators provide industry vertical extensions that work in conjunction with the common data model. Solution Accelerators contain models that represent the vertical all up as well as domain specific models which are discussed below:
- Transactional Domain Models: transactional model extensions consist of enhancements to both existing entities and adding new entities. The Power Platform storage uses this model to enable Power Apps, Microsoft Flow, Customer Engagement and other Dynamics 365 technologies to build business applications. In addition, through Power Apps and Power BI Connectors, as well as the CDS API it can be leveraged as a data source for other Microsoft applications such as Microsoft Teams or by 3rd party cloud and on-premise solutions.
- Analytic Domain Models: analytic model extensions consist of entities that exist in the transactional layer, as well as specific industry enhancements to support consolidating large-scale data from Dynamics 365, Office 365, LinkedIn, Azure and other 3rd party cloud and on-premise solutions. These extensions provide a schema for collecting and exposing data to create analytic applications in Power BI, meanwhile enabling cognitive services, machine learning, natural language processing and other intelligence scenarios to drive a holistic data culture.
- Private Model Extension: While not usually provided by Microsoft, private extensions come from further enhancements made by ISVs, Partners, SIs and Customers through solutions that are made available through AppSource or organization internal releases.
Dynamics 365 Connectors
The Microsoft Power Platform comes with a long list of connectors that will allow you to bring data into the transactional and analytic storage layers to unify your data on top of the common data model and vertical extensions. As part of the accelerators we are also looking at adding additional features. Please note that each accelerator’s components will differ, and some components will be included in future releases. As for connectors we are looking at several potential components for each accelerator such as:
- Mapping logic between industry standard data sources and the Power Platform storage layer accelerator schema’s
- Connectors that provide the mapping and logic to bring data into the Power Platform storage (transactional or analytic) mapped to the accelerator schema
- Connectors that allow consumers to retrieve data from the Power Platform storage layer
- Connectors that provide a way to push data back to a consumer or data master
Microsoft is working to produce / partner to build connectors that will support bi-directional data integrations to bring data into the accelerator data model and to push data back to external data masters. We will are partnering with solution providers, data consumers and industry data masters, such as EMR’s, LMR’s, LMS’s and SIS’s to encourage them to create and provide connectors and integrations between the Power Platform and their platform.
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Components
Accelerators enable ISVs and other solutions providers to build net new apps as well as extend existing first party apps that can exist, for example, as part of Dynamics Customer Engagement. To allow for developers, business architects, sales and other personae to see the value and ramp quickly on the accelerators, we will provide a level of “demoware” as part of the accelerator. This can include items such as:
- New or updated legacy forms and views (to support entirely new entities, or extended entities such as contact)
- New or updated dashboards
- Accelerator solution (from AppSource)
- New UCI sample application for basic entity and flow interactions
- Embedded Power BI dashboards examples
- Microsoft Flow and BPO examples
- Updated Sitemap with new areas and icons
These sample components will not only showcase the value of the accelerator but provide a base for which you can learn, understand and then build your own ISV solutions.
Power BI & Analytics
We understand that a powerful analytics story driven by persona-based applications needs a powerful platform. Power BI provides this platform by supporting mass storage for unified data. Rich features on top of that data support modeling, processing, cognitive services and machine learning to drive intelligence into your business decisions. With rich visualization capabilities and app packaging support for AppSource, we are looking across scenarios where we bring together the power of the platform and the specific industry accelerators analytic scenarios:
- Persona based analytic applications: Live and drive decisions from with Power BI Applications that contain ML / AI
- Embedded scenarios with Power Apps and other Dynamics 365 platforms: Reactive analytics based on real world task-based apps
- Hybrid and cross-over applications leveraging Power BI Dashboards: drive workflow and marketing list creation through embedded Power BI
- Industry specific AI & ML driven visualization and application samples: see how cognitive services and machine learning are driving next steps and intelligent business decisions
Each accelerator will drive its own requirements into what samples we provide, and we look forward to feedback from consumers. But we are reviewing each to showcase power analytic intelligence to help drive your business decisions.
Power Apps (Canvas and Model driven)
When using the Power Platform, you are provided more than just apps on top of Customer Engagement. Once you have installed the accelerator from AppSource, you have the option to build apps in the Power Apps UI or from within Customer Engagement. This allows you to build task based, business focused, data driven applications on other platform. For this reason, depending on the accelerator we will be release examples of:
- Canvas based Power Apps focused on specific business tasks
- Model-driven Power Apps built on the common data model
- Apps with Embedded Power BI
- Cross-over applications with Office 365 (see below)
Microsoft Flow
A key component of producing business logic is workflow using Microsoft Flow. Microsoft Flow represents a powerful cross-platform business logic engine. Below are some examples of scenarios that enhance the accelerators:
- Data Integration flows between Power Apps CDS and Customer Engagement
- Power Apps Flows for business applications
- Hybrid flows that are used across Power Apps and Customer Engagement
- Flows connected to Power BI
Microsoft Office 365 (SharePoint and Teams)
Across the accelerators we will be looking at specific scenarios to showcase cross-platform solutions with Microsoft Office 365 for SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.
- Integrations with Microsoft Teams: automation and workflow from within Teams
- Integrations with SharePoint: automation and analytic workflow from within SharePoint
Sample Data
We will be providing sample data for the accelerators that support the demoware included in the accelerators. It will be available as a downloadable solution from GIT, which will import the data into your CDS data store. Sample data will help support the scenarios we will showcase in the accelerator samples.
Documentation
Each accelerator will be backed by a list of documentation items. These items will include but not limited too
- API Reference: enables a clear overview of all primary entities that continues a short description, a list of relationships and some sample code
- Reference Blogs: blogs that cover an overview of the accelerator as well as usage guides, samples and other technical and strategic blog posts
- GIT Reference: the GIT CDM reference articulates the list of entities that exist in the repo
- Reference Materials: as we deliver samples there will be supporting documentation to cover that sample
- User Guides: these will be based on the primary scenarios and details that need can be accomplished with the accelerator and way to ramp up on the accelerator details. This works in conjunction with the API, GIT and Reference Blogs
Accelerator Demoware versus Sample Apps
It is important to note that neither the accelerator demoware, nor any supplied sample apps are intended to be considered “finished” apps. But what is the different between demoware and sample apps?
- Accelerator Demoware: is intended to provide guidance, learning and showcase what the platform + accelerator is capable of. It is a tool to help those who wish to build experience with the accelerator. It is not a completed application, but components tied together in a specific manner for knowledge and understanding. We limit what is included in the accelerator itself so that the releases are more focused on enhancements and extensions and less on fixing bugs based on the demoware components provided
- Samples Apps: as there are multiple teams within Microsoft working on the accelerator, some teams such as OCP or a specific Vertical Team, may decide to build sample apps on top of the accelerator. These sample applications would be installable separately from the accelerator. These sample apps contain more focused business scenario components. However, these are also not intended to be completed first party applications. They are a way to further enhance the process of building full fledged ISV and Partner solutions on AppSource based on specific scenarios.
Summary
The Microsoft Power Platform plus the Microsoft Industry Accelerators provide a unified way to consolidate data both from a transactional and analytic perspective that enable a data culture to enable ISV’s to build industry vertical focused applications. Each vertical industry identified will have its own accelerator and contain a base level of components and demoware that can be further extended. Please sign up if you wish to participate or would like to provide feedback about the accelerators. We would love to hear from you, feel free to look me up on LinkedIn.
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