Finance and Operations apps data is described in Common Data Model

Important

This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 product documentation. For the latest release plans, see Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.

Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
End users by admins, makers, or analysts	-	May 1, 2020

Business value

Common Data Model is the data schema that describes all of the data available in Microsoft services including Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations apps. Customers and partners can build downstream applications and extensions using the data model described in Common Data Model knowing that their applications can integrate tightly with Microsoft services. Partners, providers, and industry groups can evolve the core ERP schemas with extensions that are specific to industries and verticals.

AI and analytics tools such as Power BI natively understand the Common Data Model schema. For example, when ingesting external data using Power BI connectors, users can easily store the data in the destination using Common Data Model entities such as Purchase Orders, Inventory, and Ledger. This enables users to create rich applications that combine data from multiple sources without spending too much time transforming and wrangling data from one entity shape to another.

Feature details

All of the data in Finance and Operations apps, including tables and entities, are described in Common Data Model. This makes combining data from multiple applications easy because the destination data is stored in a broadly accepted standard set of entities.