Can Dynamics 365 Sales and Salesforce run side by side?
By Emil Björk · Microsoft business apps consultant, Gothenburg
Yes, and it's more common than a clean switch — many companies run both during a phased migration, or permanently when different business units or acquired companies standardised on different platforms. The integration pattern (which system masters which data) is the real design decision, not whether coexistence is technically possible.
The most common coexistence pattern syncs core account and contact data bidirectionally while each system keeps its own opportunity or case data as the system of record for its own process — avoiding a full data merge while still giving both teams a consistent customer view.
Coexistence is also the normal state during a migration in either direction: cutting over a full sales organisation in one weekend is rare, so most projects run parallel for a defined period with a clear data-ownership rule for the transition window, then decommission the losing system once the new one is trusted.
Go deeper
- Integrating Dynamics 365 Sales with SalesforceHow to run Dynamics 365 Sales alongside Salesforce during a migration or a long-term split — sync patterns, system-of-record rules, and what breaks in practice.
- Dynamics 365 Sales vs Salesforce Sales CloudDynamics 365 Sales vs Salesforce Sales Cloud: where each wins, where the differences are real, and how the decision usually gets made in practice.