MICROSOFT DATAVERSE: What Is It and All to Know?

The cloud-based storage platform formerly known as the Common Data Service has a new name: Microsoft Dataverse. Dataverse’s data management and storage security features make it ideal for use in enterprise software. Known as Microsoft Dataverse for Teams, it provides a low-code, integrated data platform. Anyone with a Microsoft Power Platform or Dynamics 365 license can use Microsoft Dataverse databases, and their users’ data is automatically synced. Microsoft Dataverse for Team access, on the other hand, is limited.

Microsoft Dataverse

Dataverse employs a variety of tables to store data. Rows, also referred to as records, and columns, also referred to as fields or attributes, make up a table. The table’s columns hold name, age, salary, etc. Dataverse comes with a basic set of pre-built default tables that cover common use cases, but you can also create custom tables specific to your business and use Power Query to feed them with data. Developers of mobile applications can use Power Apps to build sophisticated applications that make use of this data.

Microsoft Dataverse, formerly Common Data Service, lets users manage commercial software data online. The Microsoft Power Platform enables enterprise application development, workflow optimization, and data analysis. A structured and secure platform for data management and storage is what Microsoft Dataverse aims to offer within the Power Platform ecosystem.

Businesses use Microsoft Dataverse, which is a low-code cloud-based data platform, because it is useful and flexible for managing and storing data. To be the leading business data repository, it has massive scalability and cutting-edge security.

Benefits of Dataverse

Data has taken on a central role in today’s technologically advanced business world. It offers data-driven insights for strategic business planning and well-informed decision-making. The value of data is limited only by the effort put into collecting, storing, analyzing, and presenting it. The necessary infrastructure is provided by Microsoft Dataverse. It is also possible to create virtual tables to connect Power Platform with business data.

Dataverse stores data securely in the cloud using pre-built and customized tables. With tables, you can define the data in your organization in a way that is useful for apps. If you are unsure whether tables are the best choice for you, take into account these advantages.

#1. Data Exchange in Real Time

if your business makes use of Dynamics 365. Your employees will not have to switch between countless tabs or occasionally deal with tedious paperwork thanks to Dataverse, which enables seamless data sharing between Dynamic 365 apps. This enables them to make wise decisions based on current data instead of just assumptions or guesswork.

Smart choices involve less talking and more doing. It denotes productive, adaptable workflows that advance your company’s objectives.

#2. Numerous Integration Options

Dataverse does not have a competitor in terms of integrations. About your productivity stack, the platform works with almost all business applications. This makes it possible to manually integrate data as well as to use pre-made connectors, like the Dynamics 365 Connector or the Microsoft Dataverse Connector.

These integrations make it incredibly simple to implement many enterprise-level scenarios. That covers everything from providing a secure storage platform to power the development of adaptable canvas apps to retrieving private information stored on spreadsheets in an email.

Gain access to your Dynamics 365 data. Additionally, Dataverse stores the information from your Dynamics 365 applications, making it simple for you to build apps that use Dynamics 365 data and grow your apps with Power Apps.

Features of Dataverse

#1. Security

To safeguard user privacy and data integrity while facilitating effective data access, Dataverse has a robust security model. Power Platform environments allow for granular control over data access by business units, roles, rows, and columns. Security in Dataverse is pre-built at the platform level rather than the application level. In other words, you can set up security roles for a user, and those roles will apply to any application they use to access Dataverse.

#2. Dataverse API

The functionality of Dataverse’s API (application programming interface) is extensive. By doing this, you can directly communicate with Dataverse through your Power Platform applications, including Power Automate, Power Apps, Power BI, and Power Virtual Agents. Through a WebAPI, software written in languages or tools other than Power Platform can communicate with Dataverse.

#3. Data Integration for Dataverse

Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Virtual Agents all have access to the data in Dynamics 365 thanks to Dataverse’s ability to aggregate information from multiple sources.

#4. Availability

The 99.9% service availability of Microsoft Dataverse is more than adequate for enterprise-level operations. The solution comes with entitlement limits pre-installed to guarantee the highest service quality and availability. An entitlement limit is the number of requests a user can make in a certain amount of time.To prevent service interruptions, the solution also has an automatic malware detection feature.

#5. Capacity Add-ons

When a business requires more capacity, it can purchase extra requests using the capacity add-on feature. Each add-on makes 10,000 extra requests every day. Additionally, you have the choice of purchasing additional capacity add-ons.

#6. Analytics

Microsoft Dataverse gives you access to a variety of reports and analytics tools that can help you learn important things. You can make graphs, tables, dashboards that you can interact with, and reports using these tools. An AI builder helps with process automation. The AI builder is simple to use and almost no coding is necessary.

#7. User-Friendly Interface

Dataverse prioritizes usability, but like any powerful platform, a user’s perception of how easy it is to use depends on their technical knowledge and use case.

Dataverse offers a user-friendly interface for non-technical end users by integrating with well-known Microsoft products like Power Apps, Power BI, and Power Automate.

Users can build apps, automate workflows, and generate reports using these tools without having a strong technical background thanks to their low-code/no-code capabilities.

Microsoft Dataverse for Teams

The features of Microsoft Dataverse for Teams include relational data storage, rich data types, and one-click solution deployment. All users can create and deploy apps quickly thanks to Dataverse for Teams. Dataverse for Teams offers several advantages, such as:

Support for creating low-code and no-code applications flows, and chatbots for Teams.
Both Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365 depend on the same platform’s primary data capabilities.
Enterprise-ready rich data types, single-click solution deployment, and storage.
A new visual editor that makes it even simpler to create and fill tables with information.
Easy-to-use, Teams-compatible enterprise security.
Consist of the majority of current Teams licenses.
2 GB of storage per team, with a capacity for 1 million rows.
Support for 5 teams plus 1 extra team for each 20 licensed users.
Being able to transition to Dataverse.

Tables in Dataverse for Teams

Using Dataverse for Teams Dataverse for Teams tables enables the creation, augmentation, and query of data. Tables represent various types of crucial entities for an organization, such as one for storing products and another for storing orders. These tables each have columns with information about the table’s subject. All of these tables have subject-specific columns. In addition, applications typically make use of multiple tables within a solution. This new visual editor makes working with these tables even simpler by allowing you to create and populate them.

Security in Dataverse for Teams

Developers without coding experience can secure these tables and their programs with enterprise-grade security. Dataverse for Teams, like Teams, prioritizes Owners, Members, and Guests for security. You can command and oversee the environment of Dataverse for Teams using the Power Platform admin center.

Furthermore, Dataverse for Teams centralizes data modeling and use across these interfaces. Dataverse for Teams offers a focused set of the features frequently required for developing apps, flows, and other Team-based projects. You can upgrade from Dataverse for Teams to Dataverse if your organization needs granular security and governance controls or more data than the environment’s 1 million row limit.

Microsoft Teams users can access the Database for Teams platform for building workflows and apps in Teams. You do not, however, have access to all of Microsoft Dataverse’s more sophisticated features when using Microsoft Dataverse for Teams. Managed data lakes, non-relational storage, and advanced data types are a few of the tools they include. There are also restrictions on data visualization, plug-ins, and API access.

Furthermore, Dataverse for Teams has a different environment than Dataverse, which offers an unlimited number of environments. Server-side sync, activity logging, and field-level security are a few of the cutting-edge security and integration features that are absent from Dataverse for Teams.

Dataverse vs Dataverse for teams

Microsoft Dataverse’s primary premium edition provides sophisticated functionalities and integrations. Although the Dataverse for Teams edition has some restrictions, it still gives users the chance to begin working with Dataverse-supported Power Apps development.

#1. Integration

Connectors serve as the main delivery method for integration with Dataverse for Teams. Users can connect to a Dataverse for Teams environment thanks to its support for both standard connectors and the Dataverse connector. Users who have Premium licenses have complete access to the more than 350 standard and premium connectors. You can do things like add data to tables or retrieve data from them in Dataverse for Teams, run workflows when the data in those tables changes, and incorporate that data into the logic of those workflows.

Connectors are another feature of Dataverse. The integrated features of Dataverse also allow for the export of data to a data lake and the publication of events using webhooks, a service bus, or an event hub. Additionally, Dataverse supports TDS, which enables integration with SQL Server.

Dataverse can synchronize with POP3 or Exchange using Server-side Synchronization and Azure SQL Database using Data Export Service.

#2. Security

The security model required to support this is simple to use since collaboration in Teams involves both internal and external users of your company. Dataverse for Teams preconfigures security roles for owners, members, and guests.

Dataverse has more admin and user role options because it is not Teams-specific. Among the many additional security are support for legacy authentication, customer-managed keys, field-level security, hierarchical security, sharing, and organizational security.

#3. Environments

Dataverse and Dataverse for Teams store data differently. Dataverse for Teams builds a special environment where you can develop data, apps, chatbots, and workflows for each team in Teams. Environments enable backups, point-in-time restoration, and disaster recovery. Dataverse for Teams measures team capacity with relational, image, and file data. A team’s 2 GB storage space typically has room for 1 million rows of data.

Dataverse for Teams simplifies management by connecting the environment’s lifecycle to the team. For example, deleting a team also deletes its environment.

Dataverse supports an unlimited number of environments as well as features relevant to multiple environments such as copy and resets, whereas Dataverse for Teams focuses on one environment per team for up to 10,000 teams.

Microsoft Dataverse Pricing

A premium Power Apps subscription includes access to Microsoft Dataverse, which is a paid program. Only purchasing Microsoft Dataverse products is not possible. To purchase it, you must purchase one of Power Apps’ premium plans.

Starting price: $5 per user per app per month

Key features:

Supports Microsoft Power Platform app integration.
Provides access to application programming interfaces.
Delivers 99.9% of the time.
A pay-as-you-go option with a monthly user cost of $120 is available.

Examine the features of Microsoft Dataverse by taking advantage of the free 30-day trial.

Pay-as-you-go plan

The monthly cost of this plan is $120 for each active user of each app. To pay, you must have a Microsoft Azure subscription. Pay-as-you-go should be the option of choice for companies that require the adaptability and agility to only pay for an app when it is used during a specific month.

Subscription plan

Businesses that require dependable user-based licensing should opt for the subscription plan. There are two types of subscription plans:

Per-app plan: $5 a month for each user of each app. Each user is allowed one app. Monthly service credits for 250 AI Builders are included in this plan.
Plan for each user: A fixed $20 monthly fee for as many apps as needed. This package comes with 500 AI Builder service credits each month.

Microsoft Dataverse Licensing

Dataverse databases are used by anyone with a Microsoft Power Platform or Dynamics 365 licensing, and their users’ data is automatically synchronized. Users are not automatically synchronized into Dataverse for Office licenses with Dataverse service plans, though, until the user accesses the Office application. The user will then have access to Dataverse tables and rows by any additional security roles and privileges that the administrator granted them.

More Microsoft programs, including Microsoft Project, are utilizing Dataverse as it expands. To make these Microsoft applications available, specific Microsoft 365 licenses get restricted Dataverse functionality. To do this, the Microsoft 365 licenses are upgraded to include a new service plan called “Dataverse.” The new service plan can be viewed in the Microsoft 365 admin center by selecting a user, going to the Licenses and Apps tab, scrolling down, and expanding the Apps section.

With the help of Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and Power Pages, users can create and use apps, bots, and custom websites that can access data from sources other than Microsoft 365, such as Salesforce and on-premises data sources. These plans also give you access to Dataverse for managing and storing data. The Microsoft Power Platform Licensing Guide provides more information about the features and costs of what the Power Platform has to offer.

Is MS Dataverse a Database?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 hosts a relational database called The Dataverse. It keeps its information in tables, just like any other database. A cloud-based solution called Microsoft Dataverse makes it simple to organize different types of data and business logic to support linked applications and other things.

What is the Role of Dataverse?

The data that is already available from the Dynamics 365 applications can be combined with data from other sources into a single store by using Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Virtual Agents.

When combined with other Microsoft services and tools, Dataverse enables users to quickly create unique entities, forms, and views. Roles are given to the group in Microsoft Dataverse by the project administrator. These roles determine the level of access that each user has to the project. These security roles may be directly linked to individuals, or they may be linked to organizations, teams, and business units within the Dataverse.

Is Dataverse Free to Use?

It is not free to use Microsoft Dataverse. The license for Premium Power Apps or Power Automate must be purchased. With the purchase of a Power Apps premium subscription, users can access Microsoft Dataverse, a paid app. The free version of Dataverse, dubbed Dataverse for Teams, offers only a portion of the full features and has a constrained storage space. The full, premium version of Dataverse from Microsoft is designed for programmers and more complex data processing tasks.

Is Dataverse a cloud Database?

The cloud-based storage platform formerly known as the Common Data Service has a new name: Microsoft Dataverse. Dataverse enables secure data management and archiving for your business applications, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. Microsoft Dataverse offers cloud storage for your data. Businesses can store and manage their data securely with the help of Microsoft Dataverse, a powerful cloud-based database platform.

How Do I Get Data From Dataverse?

#1. Import using a connector

Using a connector, you can import data from a variety of sources, including Microsoft Excel, Azure, SQL Server databases, SharePoint, Access, OData, and more.

#2. Sign into Power Apps

Select Tables from the left navigation pane.
Choosing “More” will allow you to find the desired item if it is not in the left navigation pane.
Select Data > Get data > Get data.
The connector you want to use to import data should be chosen from the list of data sources.

#3. Export data

You can export the data from a table. The data is exported in comma-separated value (CSV) format. When you export data from multiple tables, the information from each table is split into a different CSV file.

Sign in to Power Apps and choose Tables from the left navigation pane.
Choose “More” and then choose the desired item if it is not in the left navigation pane.
Select Export > Export data.
Then click Export data after selecting the tables you wish to export information from.

After the export process has been completed successfully, click Download exported data to download the CSV file to the download location you have set in your web browser. Keep in mind that the time limit for exports is 12 minutes. The export will fail if there is more data exported than 12 minutes can handle. If this happens, export the data in smaller chunks.

Conclusion

For managing and storing data, Dataverse provides a scalable and secure environment. Microsoft Dataverse has the potential to revolutionize the way businesses operate thanks to its robust feature set, flexible pricing options, and ability to integrate with Microsoft Power Platform applications. With the help of customization tools, a company can modify the solution to suit its needs and a wide range of use cases.