What is the difference between Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and Dynamics 365 CRM?
By Emil Björk · Microsoft business apps consultant, Gothenburg
They refer to the same group of apps under two different names. 'Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement' (CE) was Microsoft's own umbrella term for Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Marketing, and Project Service Automation, all built on Dataverse; Microsoft has since moved away from that umbrella branding in favour of naming each app directly. 'Dynamics 365 CRM' is not an official Microsoft product name at all — it's the term most people still search and say out of habit from the pre-2016 'Dynamics CRM' era.
Understanding this saves real confusion when reading older documentation, job postings, or partner materials — 'CE' and 'CRM' both point at the same Dataverse-based app family that today's official materials refer to by individual app name (Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, and so on).
The practical effect: don't expect to find a single licence or admin centre called 'Customer Engagement' or 'CRM' in the current product — buy and licence Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, and the rest as the named apps they are today, and treat the older umbrella terms as historical shorthand rather than something to search for in the Microsoft admin centre.
Go deeper
- What 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.
- The Dynamics 365 product familyA guided tour of every app in Dynamics 365 — ERP, CRM, marketing, retail, HR — what each one actually does.
- Power Apps vs Dynamics 365 CRMPower Apps vs Dynamics 365 CRM: both run on Dataverse — when to buy the packaged Sales or Service app and when to build a custom model-driven app instead.