Newest Dynamics 365 License Guide raises questions on Power Apps subscription rights

The Power Apps Premium Per-User license gives Microsoft customers a versatile option for building apps that use Dataverse as a back-end data source. And when that same Dataverse tenant is used to power Dynamics 365 CE applications, the organization has even more options on how to augment their business processes and data. 

But the latest Dynamics 365 License Guide for March 2024 has led one analyst to raise new questions about Microsoft’s policies for allowing Power Apps to operate on data in some key Dataverse tables that are also used by Dynamics 365 Sales. 

The main issue, notes Andrew Snodgrass, analyst for advisory firm Directions on Microsoft, is the impact any such policy changes could have for existing customers who have followed Microsoft’s guidelines on Dataverse access for Power Apps.

“If real, this is a significant licensing change that will make it more expensive to use Power Apps applications that work with Dynamics 365 CRM and ERP applications, and it could severely increase budgets for customers who have already written and deployed Power Apps applications that work with Dynamics 365 data.,” Snodgrass wrote in a new blog post. 

The concerns arise from two changes that Snodgrass noticed: new wording in footnotes in the D365 Licensing Guide and wording on the related Dynamics 365 Solution Checker documentation page.