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About the business process catalog for Dynamics 365 apps and services

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Microsoft has established a business process catalog of standard business processes across Dynamics 365 apps and services. Read on to learn how to navigate and learn from the catalog.

Tip

The term business process covers a wide range of structured, often sequenced, activities or tasks to achieve a predetermined organizational goal. The term can also refer to the cumulative effects of all steps progressing toward a business goal. Business processes are particular to solutions that include Dynamics 365. We believe this new content type creates a structure that helps customers and partners be better prepared to adopt Dynamics 365. Each business process includes a diagram of a standard business process flow. Sections of the document outline configuration steps and the data entities used in each one. Each step links to the relevant page in the product documentation, and all documents have links to next steps and related resources to help readers along their learning journey.

What is the catalog?

The business process catalog is an Excel workbook that we at Microsoft use to organize and prioritize our work on the business process documentation. The format is Excel because it makes it easy to sort and filter the entries. We also believe our partners can use the Excel workbook to organize their onboarding journeys, their implementation projects, and their own business processes. Learn more about the content in the What's in the catalog? section.

The business process catalog assigns unique IDs to each end-to-end scenario and the business process areas, business processes, and patterns that support that end-to-end scenario. On the Microsoft Learn site, we use the IDs to list the end-to-end scenarios, but we do not use the IDs of the related business process areas, business processes, and patterns. Learn more in the Catalog IDs section.

Download the latest version of the catalog from https://aka.ms/BusinessProcessCatalog. We update the catalog at least four times each year. Learn more at Business process contributions.

What's in the catalog?

The catalog defines four levels of content:

  1. End-to-end processes

    We've identified 15 end-to-end scenarios. We describe the scenarios in business terms, not in terms of software technology.

    For each end-to-end process, the introductory article describes how we think about the end-to-end process. We list the key stakeholders and how Dynamics 365 helps the end-to-end process. We also provide an overview, along with a business process flow diagram, of how the end-to-end process interacts with other end-to-end processes. The introduction lists the prerequisites for implementing a solution to support the end-to-end process.

  2. Business process areas

    Each end-to-end scenario covers two or more business process areas. This level is just a way to group the business processes for easier searching and navigation. In most cases, the business process areas are separated by major job functions or departments in an organization. Currently, the catalog defines more than 90 business process areas.

  3. Business processes

    The term business process covers a wide range of structured, often sequenced, activities or tasks to achieve a predetermined organizational goal. The term can also refer to the cumulative effects of all steps progressing toward a business goal. Each business process describes a function or process that Dynamics 365 supports. So far, we've identified nearly 700 business processes. Some apply to a single Dynamics 365 app, and the documentation for the app might already describe the process. By collecting all business processes here in the guide, we hope to provide a single entry point with links to relevant product-specific content.

  4. Patterns

    In Dynamics 365, patterns are repeatable configurations that support a specific business process. They include the most common use cases, scenarios, and industries. Often, there are many ways to implement Dynamics 365 to meet your business requirements. Our goal with patterns is to provide a baseline for your implementation. We've identified more than 2000 patterns, and we expect that number to grow significantly over time.

We plan to cover each level of the catalog. The result will be guidance about how to configure Dynamics 365 to meet most use cases and scenarios. Our goal is to help our customers and partners define the scope of their implementation projects. Start from our standard business processes, and accelerate your success and implementation. We hope you can then focus on the processes that make your business unique. Work with your implementation partner to identify which business processes and patterns are relevant at the beginning of your project. Also, review the Processes solution architecture design pillar.

New and updated content publishes to Microsoft Learn every two weeks.

How to read the business process descriptions

The business process articles contain abbreviations that you won't see anywhere else. The abbreviations represent the different Dynamics 365 apps, services, and related portals. We hope they make it easier to quickly scan the various tables. Get an introduction to this type of shorthand at Business processes, steps, and how to find things.

Tip

Find definitions of business terms at Glossary of terms.

Business process flow diagrams

Each article, be it for an end-to-end scenario or a pattern, includes a diagram that shows how that business process fits into the work of a typical organization. We share the diagrams as Visio files or PowerPoint presentations in a GitHub repo so that each organization can choose to download a flow diagram and customize it to fit their particular workflow.

Find the source files at https://aka.ms/businessprocessflow.

Note

When you navigate to the specified link, you can't view the .vsdx or .pptx files in GitHub. Instead, you can download the files by opening the file's page on GitHub, then selecting the View raw or Download raw file option.

Catalog IDs

The business process catalog assigns unique IDs to each end-to-end scenario and the business process areas, business processes, and patterns that support that end-to-end scenario. On the Microsoft Learn site, we use the IDs to list the end-to-end scenarios, but we do not use the IDs of the related business process areas, business processes, and patterns.

But when you download the business process catalog, you'll find each entry assigned a unique ID. The IDs start with a number for each end-to-end scenario. Each level below the end-to-end scenario has an ID that starts with the ID of each parent entry.

For example, let's look at the administer to operate end-to-end scenario. The following table provides a quick introduction to how IDs are generated based on four entries in the business process catalog from May 2024.

Level ID Description
End-to-end scenario 99 ID for the end-to-end scenario, administer to operate.
Business process areas overview 99.10 ID for the business process area Define business continuity plan that is part of the administer to operate end-to-end scenario.
Business process 99.10.010 ID for the business process Define business continuity objectives that is part of the Define business continuity plan business process area.
Pattern 99.10.010.100 ID for the pattern Understand Dynamics 365 RTO and RPO that is part of the Define business continuity objectives business process.

The IDs of the end-to-end scenarios are similar to the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes that the U.S. government assigns to business establishments to identify the primary business of the establishment. The first two digits of a SIC code defines the major industry group that a business belongs to. Learn more at What is a SIC Code?.

For industries across the world, the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) is the international reference classification of productive activities. It provides a set of activity categories that can be utilized for the collection and reporting of statistics according to such activities. Learn more at Department of Economic and Social Affairs at United Nations.

But an end-to-end scenario can apply to businesses across two or more industries. So the IDs are not the same as SIC or ISIC codes. It's the system of hierarchies of unique IDs that we have loosely based on the ISIC and SIC categories. The only exception is the Administer to operate end-to-end scenario that got its ID 99 from the SIC code for Administration of Nonclassifiable Establishments.

Get notified about changes through an RSS feed

To subscribe to a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed of all updates to the Dynamics 365 guidance content, use the following link:

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Note

The RSS feed returns a list of the 100 articles most recently updated. The list is sorted by date, but it can take up to a week before the most recently updated articles make it to the list.

Contribute

Internally at Microsoft, we're working hard to convert internal notes, years of experience, and various documents into business process guidance. We very much welcome contributions from the community. Help us establish patterns, identify business processes, or provide alternatives.

If you want to contribute to the business processes, register your work before you start to reduce the risk that someone else is working on the same business process. To register your work, submit a GitHub issue at https://github.com/microsoft/dynamics365patternspractices/issues.

The GitHub repo contains Word templates that you can use to capture your contribution. All Word templates are in the /templates/business-processes folder. The folder also contains a PowerPoint template that can help you design the diagrams you need. Alternatively, use Visio or another designer.

When you're ready to submit a new article, fill in our submission form and attach your file or files.

Optionally, add your LinkedIn profile so that you can be listed as the original author.

Learn more at External contributions to Microsoft's documentation.