Dynamics 365 foundations

What Dynamics 365 is, how the apps fit together, how they are licensed, and the platform, security, and Copilot layers underneath every implementation.

43 guides · Last updated 2026-09-06

Dynamics 365 is a portfolio, not a product. The name covers an SMB ERP (Business Central), an enterprise ERP pair (Finance and Supply Chain Management), a family of CRM apps on Dataverse (Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Customer Insights, Project Operations), and the Power Platform that extends all of them. The guides in this section are the map: which app does what, which ones share a database and which ones merely integrate, and how the licensing shape follows from that architecture.

Start with the product family tour and the app-connection guide if you are orienting yourself, or go straight to the product chooser and edition comparison if you have a decision to make. The rest of the section covers the cross-cutting concerns that every Dynamics 365 estate inherits — identity and conditional access, Purview and data protection, Teams and mobile, Copilot across the apps, and the industry clouds Microsoft packages on top.

Everything here is written for the buyer, sponsor, or architect who needs the shape of the platform before the detail. The product-specific sections — Business Central, Finance and Supply Chain, Customer Engagement, Power Platform — pick up where these guides leave off.

A reasonable reading order for someone evaluating the whole portfolio: the product family tour, then app connections, then the edition comparison and licensing guide together — pricing only makes sense once you know which apps you actually need. From there, TCO modelling and the roadmap-considerations guide frame the multi-year decision, and the security and compliance guides (conditional access, Purview, Defender) matter the moment more than one app is in scope, since identity and data protection are configured once at the tenant level, not per app. The comparisons most relevant here sit one level down, inside each product section — Business Central versus NAV or Finance and Operations, Sales versus Salesforce, and so on — because a fair comparison needs the product-specific detail this section deliberately stays above.

Start here

  1. 1What is Dynamics 365?A clear overview of Microsoft Dynamics 365 — what it is, who it's for, how the apps fit together, and what a real implementation looks like.
  2. 2The Dynamics 365 product familyA guided tour of every app in Dynamics 365 — ERP, CRM, marketing, retail, HR — what each one actually does.
  3. 3How Dynamics 365 apps connectThe shared platform that ties Dynamics 365 together — which connections are tight, which are loose.
  4. 4How to choose the right Dynamics 365 productA practical framework for picking the right Dynamics 365 apps — by company size, industry, complexity, and starting point.
  5. 5Dynamics 365 licensing explainedThe whole Dynamics 365 licensing model in one place — base and attach licences, per-user tiers, Team Members, device licences.
  6. 6Dynamics 365 edition comparisonHow to compare Dynamics 365 editions across products — Essential / Premium tiers, Business Central tiers, F&O tiers, and the decision frameworks per scenario.
  7. 7Dynamics 365 and the Power PlatformHow the Power Platform extends, automates, analyses, and surfaces AI on top of every Dynamics 365 app.
  8. 8Copilot across Dynamics 365How Copilot works across every Dynamics 365 app — Sales, Service, Field Service, Finance, Supply Chain, Business Central, Project Operations.
  9. 9Dynamics 365 TCO modellingHow to model total cost of ownership for Dynamics 365 — license, implementation, operations, evolution, and the 5-year picture.
  10. 10Dynamics 365 2026 wave 2 release highlightsThe October 2026 update cycle is the first without a formal release wave plan — what Microsoft changed, what still ships.

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