Microsoft Dataverse

Microsoft Dataverse is the data platform that sits under Dynamics 365's CRM-side apps (Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Operations, Customer Insights) and the Power Platform. It provides a managed relational database with tables, relationships, role-based security, business rules, calculated and rollup columns, server-side workflows, and a standardised Open Data (OData) Web API. Dataverse comes with a starter schema known as the Common Data Model that defines tables like Account, Contact, and User. Storage and API capacity are licensed through Dataverse capacity, included in most Dynamics 365 and Power Apps subscriptions.

In practice, "Dataverse underneath" is what makes the CRM-side Dynamics 365 apps interoperate without integration: an Account record created in the Sales app is the exact same row a Customer Service agent, a Field Service dispatcher, and a Power Apps canvas app all read and write, because they're all querying the same table through the same platform, not synchronising copies of it. This is the single most important architectural fact distinguishing the CRM side of Dynamics 365 from Business Central or Finance and Operations, which each have their own separate database and reach Dataverse-based apps only through an integration like dual-write.

Where confusion arises: Dataverse security, plug-ins, and the Web API are genuinely platform-level concepts that apply identically whether the app on top is a licensed Dynamics 365 app or a custom Power App built by an internal maker — understanding Dataverse's security model and data model is what separates someone who can configure one specific app from someone who can architect across the whole CRM-side portfolio.