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Virtual entities - Next update for Dynamics 365

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Posted on by AKREM

Hi team,

There is a new article (7/18/2017) that talks about a new feature coming for Customer Engagement in the next update called "Virtual Entities":

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/whats-new/customer-engagement/new-in-july-2017-update

(Please see the section Interact with data from external systems using new “virtual” entities).

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"A virtual entity is a custom entity in Dynamics 365 (online) that retrieves data at runtime from an external data source."

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My question is: Can anyone give me an example of when virtual entities are useful? (an example of business need)..

Thanks!

Akrem

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AKREM on at

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RE: Virtual entities - Next update for Dynamics 365

Thank you!
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Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Virtual entities - Next update for Dynamics 365

I could see this being used to retrieve and display patient related data which may not be stored in multiple systems due to HIPAA regulations. It seems like it'd be useful to eliminate data duplication across the enterprise, or for integration with data from outside sources.
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ashlega 34,475 on at

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RE: Virtual entities - Next update for Dynamics 365

Hi Akrem,

I am not sure how it's going to work exactly - we'll have to see.. However, it seems this is all about the integrations. If I can surface external data directly in Dynamics, I don't really need to implement all sorts of integration packages anymore.

For example, a few years ago I had to work on a project where Dynamics had to be integrated with the financial software. We had to synchronize client profile (and some other) information stored in Dynamics with the client profile information stored in the other database. If we were able to simply display that information directly in Dynamics without having to come up with all those proxies/plugins/SSIS packages, it would make it much easier.

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