Very soon it will be possible to manage all functions from one single platform Microsoft has decided to unify all Dynamics 365 operations within Power Platform. In short, it seems that Microsoft seeks to simplify and facilitate the lives of users and this implies something important...The disappearance of the old Lifecycle Services (LCS).
With this change, we will be able to greatly benefit from all the advantages that Power Platform offers. Among them, the complete integration with Dataverse and the ability to create and use solutions.
Regarding licenses, roles and services, Microsoft also offers some significant changes:
- Manage who can create environments. By default, anyone in the tenant has the ability to create environments. However, this can be restricted to administrative roles only and create a workflow for requests.
- Service administrators. They can be assigned from the M365 Admin Center or from the Azure portal. This type of administrators will have two levels:
- Dynamics 365 Administrator – You will be able to manage Trials, Sandbox, production environments, install applications, manage environment configuration and its groups.
- Power Platform Administrator – You will have all the functions of a Dynamics 365 administrator, but adding other extra functions such as managing tenant configuration, governance policies and billing.
- Environment administrators. Unlike service administrators who will have a complete view of the environments and their resources, environment administrators will only be able to see the environments where they are administrators.
- Each environment will include Dataverse, Power Platform Low-Code applications, AI chatbots, and add-ins to run in Dynamics 365 F&O.
- Purchase model. Customers will be able to create environments on demand, rather than purchasing entire environments for fixed monthly fees. There is no set number of environments a customer can have, but at least 1 GB of Dataverse and 1 GB of operations database capacity, plus available file capacity, are required.
Although at the moment this functionality is only in preview and with limitations, Microsoft offers us two alternatives to try it:
- Option 1- Create a new environment through templates.
In this case, by templates Microsoft refers to already published application packages. They are a guide to know exactly which applications you should install, offering quick implementation and saving resources by not having to install them manually in a specific order. For example, you can select the Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations template, which covers the Finance, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, and Project Operations applications.
- Option 2- Installing the provisioning application in an existing environment.
If you already have a Power Platform environment with a database in Dataverse, you can add an extra module without having to create a separate environment that requires a more complex integration. To do this, you would select the environment, navigate to the Resources > Dynamics 365 Applications page, and choose the Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Provisioning Application. This application will allow you to select the finance and operations applications that you want to install in your environment.
What do you think of these changes? We leave you a very complete video with all the details in case you are left wanting more.
Unified Admin Experience for Finance and Operations | D365 Tech Talk (youtube.com)