What is Dataverse and what is it used for?

Malin MartnesCustomer Insights4 hours ago15 Views

Copilot answer

Dataverse is a cloud-based, low-code data platform that stores and manages business data in structured tables.

It provides a secure, governed common data model with built-in business logic, role-based security, and integration points across Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365.

Organizations use Dataverse as a single source of truth to power apps, automations, and reports while enforcing consistent rules and access controls.

Explain it to me like I’m 10 years old

Dataverse is like a giant, super-organized toy box where each kind of toy has its own labeled bin so you can find things fast.

Apps and automations are like your friends who come to the toy box to grab exactly the toys they need without making a mess.

It also has locks and rules so only the right people can take or change certain toys and everything stays tidy and fair.

Specialist answer

Heidi Neuhauser – Vice President reenhanced;

Dataverse is Microsoft’s cloud-based data platform that is the core of the Power Platform and Dynamics 365 CRM systems.

It’s used to store data, then layer apps and visualizations on top to create actionable insights.

More than anything, it has the toolkit available that allows solutions to be tailored to enhance user adoption (and happiness!) for technology.

Ian Ceicys – Principal Technical Program Manager at Microsoft – leads a product led growth (PLG) initiative for Microsoft Dataverse;

A customer would use Microsoft Dataverse to securely store, manage, and integrate data across business apps—keeping entities, relationships, and business logic in one consistent data layer.

They’d build low-code or pro-code apps (using Power Apps, Power Automate, etc.) that tap into that data, triggering workflows, automations, and UIs that reflect business rules.

They’d also enforce data security, governance, and role-based access, so only the right people and systems see or edit the right pieces of data.

Explain it like it’s my first day on the job

Dataverse is a database in the cloud where information about your customers, contacts, members or any other information you want to keep track of is stored.

Maybe you want to keep track of your employees and what certifications they have. Maybe you want to keep track of who your customers are.

If you have Dynamics 365 as your CRM system, that is built on Dataverse.

You store information in something called tables, tables can be accounts for companies and contacts for people. In the tables, information about each table is stored in columns. So the name of the person is a column on the table. It can look something like this:

The table contact with columns

These tables can have relation to each other. A contact can work for a company (account), the database then need a relationship between contact and account. This makes it a relational database.

You will never get a blank database with Dataverse, it always have the common data model (CDM) as a starting point. The common data model is a ready set of tables and setup that Dataverse is built on. Because Dataverse is always build on CDM you always have the same set of standard tables you’ll always find in any Dataverse solution. When you’re building your own data model, you should always try to use the CDM tables first, before you create your own, this because of logic that’s already in the system

Depending on what you want to have control over, you build the database to hold the information that you need. It can be a simple need of keeping track of your customers, or it can be a super complex solution. Dataverse is the place where you can store all information you need.

Security is built in with Dataverse, it’s not something you have to create extra or worry about, it’s all there from the start, you just need to customize it to fit your needs.

Use cases with large customers

All around the world some of the biggest companies are leveraging Dataverse. All Dynamics 365 apps uses Dataverse, and a lot of Canvas apps are all using Dataverse. Several banks and insurance companies have their customer information stored in Dataverse. What you often see and hear stories about, are the apps on top of Dataverse, but know Dataverse is the gold beneath the apps!

Use cases with small customers

My company is a one person company, and I store all my customer and customers information in Dataverse. It’s super simple and I don’t need much more information than who the contact person is, which company I have an agreement with and my rate. It’s still super useful for keeping track of who I’m working with and who I’ve worked with in the past.