Reshape the future of work with Microsoft Dataverse for Teams—now generally available

Common Data Service, the sophisticated and secure backbone that powers Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, has been renamed to Microsoft Dataverse. This low-code data platform is rapidly changing the way organizations around the world build apps and innovate business processes. A fresh name is just one part of a broader effort introduce the power of what Dataverse can do to individuals and organizations around the world.

Another key part of that strategy is Microsoft Dataverse for Teams—the essential subset of Dataverse capabilities included as a powerful, built-in data platform for millions of Teams users at no additional cost. We’re happy to announce that Dataverse for Teams is now generally available, along with a suite of embedded Microsoft Power Platform tools that make it easy for customers to build low-code apps, automate processes, and deploy chatbots without leaving Teams.

Since these embedded capabilities entered preview in September, we’ve seen more than double the number of organizations that are using Power Platform in Teams to transform business processes in the digital workspace. Much of this expansion is driven by the approachability of Dataverse for Teams as a low-code back end: customers have already trusted more than 20 terabytes of data in Dataverse for Teams in less than two months of preview alone.

These organizations are empowering their users to save time and solve their toughest challenges, all without leaving Microsoft Teams. T-Mobile, the second largest wireless provider in the US with over 98 million customers, is one such company that is transforming its business with Power Platform and Teams. Brian Hodel, a Senior Developer explains how T-Mobile empowers their employees to create their own solutions and solve business challenges:

Microsoft Dataverse for Teams together with Microsoft Power Platform is a game changer. This powerful combination empowers everyone to work together and solve business challenges that meet the needs of a swiftly changing work environment. Where there used to be no way to easily centralize processes, now everyone has a single source of truth with centralized data and is better positioned to solve business challenges by building apps and bots at scale and innovate more rapidly.”—Brian Hodel, Senior Developer, T-Mobile

Save time with Power Apps in Teams

With the embedded Power Apps Studio in Teams, it’s now easier than ever to create, edit, and share low-code apps that connect to data from Dataverse or more than 400 other data sources. With native responsive layouts and fluent controls to provide elevated image and video experiences, Teams users can easily create sophisticated custom applications within the Teams app. Telstra, the largest communications company in Australia, is using Teams and Power Platform to empower their field technicians and drive innovation across their operations:

We are really excited about Microsoft Dataverse for Teams, which will provide our end users with a seamless integrated experience along with access to scalable datasets, enterprise security features and the ability for all teams users to now become citizen developers and solve business problems from within Teams.”—Nathan Backers, Lead of PowerFactory, Global Business Services

Infuse teamwork with insight using the Power BI app in Teams

Now, licensed Microsoft Power BI users can enjoy the full capabilities of Power BI in Teams with the Power BI Teams App. We’ve created a new experience that centralizes data, reporting, and insights from across the organization in a consumable, shareable way.  Users can analyze and connect to usage in Dataverse for Teams, enabling seamless access to insights all where users are working and collaborating.  Suffolk Professional Services, known for iconic projects like the tallest residential tower in Boston and a guitar-shaped hotel in Florida, uses Microsoft Teams and Power BI together to make better decisions fast and collaborate from the jobsite to the head office:

We have some very bright engineers in our IT Collaboration team who looked at Microsoft Teams and saw a lot of potential there. We’re using Power Platform and Microsoft apps to create an entire suite of task management tools for construction crews.”—Ajoy Bhattacharya, Senior Director of Innovation and New Technology, Suffolk Professional Services

Help for everyone with Microsoft Power Virtual Agents

Power Virtual Agents for Teams, together with the embedded authoring studio, is now generally available. Teams users can leverage seeded capabilities in-app so everyone can easily build, share, and use chatbots to scale support across organizations. Many organizations, including the City of Ottawa, are using Power Virtual Agents and Teams to address a wide range of employee queries:

In response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, our governmental organization had to quickly transition from an office-oriented role to a work from home role. By utilizing Teams and Power Virtual Agents, we were quickly able to deploy what we dubbed “OBot”, a Power Virtual Agents based internal bot for employees deployed via Teams that provides quick answers and how-tos for all work from home related issues, easing the support burden for not only the IT service desk, but also to support HR and other departments.”—Gary Belcourt, Solution Project Manager, City of Ottawa

HR and FAQ bots that connect Power Virtual Agents to company data via Microsoft Dataverse for Teams will save an organization time and money.

Optimize repetitive processes with Microsoft Power Automate

It’s also never been easier for customers to get started with Power Automate in Teams with a new homepage view in the new in Teams app.  With a new Create experience in Teams oriented around templates, it’s easy to build new flows. With the new API-M connector for Power Automate, you can integrate to existing systems, services, and data connected to Azure API Management Service. Whether you want to automatically schedule one-on-one calls or set up approval flows, Power Automate and Teams can help you save time and focus on higher value add work.

Govern and secure low code in Teams

Microsoft Dataverse for Teams honors the existing data governance paradigms of Power Platform and enables access control in the Teams Admin Center like any other Teams feature. The Power Platform admin center provides more detail, including monitoring dedicated capacity utilization and DLP policies.

Microsoft Dataverse for Teams greatly simplifies environment lifecycle management and user security role management by aligning to Teams constructs. Learn additional details of the automated role management for Dataverse.

Get started with pre-built templates

We are seeing incredible traction with the out-of-the-box app templates such as the “Ideas” App. This solution ensures that all team members have a platform to propose and share ideas. Templates can be used as-is or easily customized with low code Power Platform tools and deployed in one click. Customers start to immediately see value by quickly implementing a framework for innovation and ideation. Learn more about Employee Ideas and other pre-built templates.

Continue reading

To learn more about the respective capabilities of Microsoft Dataverse and Dataverse for Teams, read our blog, “A Closer Look at Data Platform Capabilities in Project Oakdale.”

To learn more about Teams and API management for professional developers, read our blog, “Achieve your app development goals with Power Platform and Azure.”

We are also updating terminology in Microsoft Dataverse to make it more intuitive for all users, including the millions of future citizen developers currently using Teams. To learn more about these changes, see the terminology documentation.