Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator: IATI interoperability alignment, Membership, Volunteer, and Project management integration with the Common Data Model

Microsoft Philanthropies Tech for Social Impact team is dedicated to bringing the power of digital technology to every nonprofit and humanitarian organization to accelerate their social impact.  As part of this commitment, the Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator was built and launched in November 2018.  This includes a purpose-built nonprofit common data model (CDM) published on GitHub and templates and sample apps available on AppSource which encourage interoperability, best practices, development of turnkey solutions and deep analytics for nonprofits.  The initial solution addressed core CRM workflows - constituent management, donor management, fundraising, grant/award management, and program delivery. 

Microsoft has continued to partner with a globally diverse Customer Steering Team and partners and in March 2019 created V2.0 of the Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator.  The focus of the V2.0 release includes:

·        Improving the flow of funds through the Common Data Model by connecting Fundraising to Program Delivery

·        Establishing a common data model for Beneficiary management by linking Program Delivery and Constituent components of the model

·        Extending the accelerator's alignment to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) Organization and Activity Standards

·        Enabling membership management by extending the CDM with Membership entities

·        Improving constituent engagement by extending the CDM with Volunteer preferences, skills and availability

·        Improved documentation, how-to guides, sample data and mapping templates to industry leading solutions

·        Improving interoperability of ecosystem solutions by supporting partners who are aligning their solutions with the Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator and Common Data Model for Nonprofits

The V2.0 release includes new entities and data attributes in the Common Data Model for Nonprofits, enhancements to the sample application, updated sample data, and documentation as detailed below:

Common Data Model for Nonprofits

The V2.0 release includes the following CDM changes:

• 37 Entities – 2 Nonprofit, 25 IATI, & 10 extensions to existing CDS Core and First Party Application Entities
• 444 Nonprofit and IATI data attributes 

The total number of entities and data attributes that are part of the Common Data Model for Nonprofits includes:  

• 75 Entities – 34 Nonprofit, 25 IATI, & 16 extensions to existing CDS Core and First Party Application Entities
• 1193 Nonprofit and IATI data attributes 

For the full list of the entities and data attributes, see the Nonprofit Reference document on GitHub or the Visual Entity Navigator.

In order to further accelerate your data integration projects and continue to align with the vision of the Common Data Model, we also published the Microsoft Nonprofit CDM as a JSON file that can be used to create CDM Folders in Azure Data Lake Storage gen2. The model.json nonprofit template along with the setup instructions for creating the CDM Folder can be found in GitHub.

Sample App Enhancements

The Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator V2.0  published in AppSource contains 6 separate applications that can be accessed via the App Switcher within a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement instance. The solutions included in the applications are loosely coupled; as a result, they can be consumed and installed independently in AppSource via a guided experience.

In order to showcase the integration between the different Microsoft offerings for Office 365, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Azure Cognitive Services, IoT Hub, Mixed Reality, Virtual Assistance, we are actively working on new sample applications with a focus on “Connected Scenarios” – stay tune for more info on the scope and release timeline.

Sample Data  

Sample data is available on GitHub that includes the following:

·       Update for various entities and attributes in the Nonprofit CDM

·       New data package for IATI Organization and Activity Standard Extensions

·       New data package for Volunteer Management Extensions

Documentation Enhancements

Documentation is available GitHub that includes the following:

·       New Mapping Guide (helps ISV with data mapping from common data integration services)

·       Updated Metadata and Nonprofit References

·       New IATI Metadata Reference

·       Additional “How to Models” that describe the version 2 release and additional Nonprofit CDM data scenarios (samples below)

Sample App

The following Sample App Sitemap highlights the nhancements to the Nonprofit Accelerator V2.0