Dynamics Introspective: Microsoft Business Apps Summit predictions, guesses, wishes

Microsoft will kick off its inaugural Business Applications Summit this week. The event coincides with the newly published October 2018 Release Notes for the entire business apps suite, from PowerApps and Flow to the various Dynamics 365 products.

The Summit is expected to offer an experience bigger than the previous Dynamics 365 tech conferences, both in terms of product scope and intended audience, but smaller than Inspire or the older Convergence events. The content will dive deep into existing products and feature areas, but Microsoft also appears to have left plenty of room to educate attendees - a combined user and partner audience - on where the products are going in the future, too.

Let's look at some of the products, architectural decisions, and solution ownership considerations that event attendees will be looking for this week.

Laying the groundwork for the next phase of the Common Data Service (CDS)

We know from a temporarily public session recording at Inspire 2018 last week that the Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (D365FO) customer base grew nicely in FY 2018. And more than that, it appears that Microsoft is getting customers - more than fifty at this point - to adopt CDS-based integration mappings for scenarios like "prospect to cash" and "field service to financials". More such scenarios are planned, like one for project service.

But integration between ERP and CRM is a journey, and at Inspire 2018, Microsoft GM Muhammad Alam ...