An Overview of Dynamics 365 Industry Accelerators

Now, what are these Industry Accelerators?

Microsft has been gathering feedback from SI, ISV and Partners and hence they have released Industry Accelerators to rapidly build industry-focused solutions on top of our Business Application and Intelligence Platforms.
These accelerators extend the Common Data Model to include new entities to support a data schema for concepts within specific industries.

What’s in for the ISV & Partners?

These Industry Accelerators build on top of Microsoft’s Power Platform creates a unique opportunity for ISVs to provide solutions for different scenarios and levels of development.

As depicted in the above diagram, ISV’s and Partners will have multiple opportunities to deliver industry-focused apps and solutions. These opportunities exist despite the fact whether you’re building a solution directly on PowerApps (Common Data Service) or using Customer Engagement Apps. Each level allows a further extension to the next level’s opportunities. Thus, these accelerators provide opportunities to rapidly build vertical, industry-focused apps, as well as enabling SIs who can help scale and support these new apps and solutions.

How to add them to our environment?

Industry Accelerator can be added from App Source. These are available for a test drive too.

My thoughts on choosing the right app for your solution:

1. Start thinking from the minimal level like Power Platform License, then Dynamics 365 Professional License and so on.

Instead of thinking from Dynamics 365 (CRM) perspective, we need to start thinking whether the Power Platform license can be used to deliver the solution or not. With the new licensing model, we should always consider using the minimal licensing plan to fulfil user’s requirement instead of going directly with the Enterprise License. Even users going to ask us why we recommend License A instead of License B, so we need to plan it accordingly.
I would say that we should consider using Power Platform license if:

• We are going to design the system using Core CDM entities like contact and account, and custom entities. There is no meaning in buying Sales, Services or any other First Party App if we are not going to use them properly.
• Our customer is more focused on Power Apps instead of using Dynamics features.

2. Choose between a Custom Solution or Industry Accelerator

Now, as far as my knowledge goes, to use Dynamics 365 Industry Accelerators, we need Dynamics 365 license and environment. Once you have an environment, install an Industry Accelerator relevant to your industry.
Try to learn and analyse the solution like what the new entities, attributes, process etc. are included in that accelerator. It may or may not solve your problem but:
1. It will help you understand how to design a solution for a particular industry.
2. It will guide you through all the Standard and Regulations you might need to follow to design your system so that it’s compatible to exchange information with similar systems.

Summary:

• Dynamics 365 Industry Accelerators are open and free (available on GitHub)
• Microsoft has collaborated with Industry Partners to build these extensions to meet the specific needs of the industry.
• They follow the global standards and regulations which enables them to exchange information seamlessly with other systems.
• These accelerators can help to save time by allowing teams to focus more on business logic instead of developing everything from scratch

Most important as they are free, just use them or learn from them.

I hope I was able to bring your attention to something interesting and it might help you in your future project.
Till then, Cheers! 😉

References:

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/common-data-model/industry-accelerators
• https://github.com/microsoft/Dynamics-365-Industry-Accelerators