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Working with Microsoft Dataverse

New Worlds

Microsoft Dataverse is a complex but flexible application. Originally used as a database for Microsoft CRM, this technology was formerly known as Common Data Service (CDS) and then became Microsoft Dataverse in the course of Power Platform development. For this reason, Dataverse has a number of special features: For example, the language (i.e., the way in which the artifacts are designated) has changed over time. What is now a table used to be an entity, and a column was formerly known as metadata. Unfortunately, these changes have not yet been fully implemented in the user interface. In some places, you still encounter an entity – for example, when creating a business process rule. Just replace the term "entity" with "table" in your mind.

The interface has also changed several times. For example, if you see a different GUI from the one you currently have in a blog post or video, the figure is probably outdated. That said, you still need to configure some settings in the old interface as of this writing. This problem is expected to disappear completely at some point; in fact, you can handle configurations in either the old or new interface, but the new interface is far more intuitive and easier to use.

In this article, I show you how to set up and manage Dataverse; the article that follows (Microsoft Power Pages) shows you how to access Dataverse with Power Pages.

Database as a Hub

Because Dataverse is fully integrated into the Microsoft Power Platform, companies can manage and store their data in a central location and use the data in various applications and analyses. Various programs access Dataverse, including the Dynamics 365 product range, Power Apps, Power Pages, and Power BI. Dataverse offers a uniform and secure data structure that simplifies data management and improves interoperability between different applications.

However, these