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Microsoft Dataverse Training Common Data Service – CDS or Common Data Service is now known as Microsoft Dataverse as of November 2020. This article mainly goes over the very important terminology changes like how CDS or Common Data Service is now known as Dataverse.

This article was initially authored on December 11, 2020 but the terminology changes are documented by Microsoft to have taken place in November 2020 and were actually observed and confirmed as live around then as well according to Dynamics Edge.

According to Microsoft and confirmed by Dynamics Edge: as of November 2020 Common Data Service has definitely been renamed to Microsoft Dataverse as is now known by that name.

Terminology updates related to Common Data Service and Dataverse

Based on a variety of customer feedback as well as research conducted by Microsoft, there is the following changes you should know that have been made regarding Common Data Service.

As of November 2020 Microsoft has made a series of very important terminology changes you should know about in Dataverse to be much more intuitive and also in order to make this powerful platform’s usage more productive. That is why it is called Microsoft Power Platform Dataverse now. This was formerly known as Power Platform Common Data Service or CDS just prior to this major terminology change. This is really a breakthrough because it enables many more people than ever before, in 2020 and 2021 and even beyond, to identify more readily with the true power of Power Platform! The specific terminology updates are enumerated in the below paragraph, and Microsoft is currently in progress regarding rolling all of those name changes out across the entire Microsoft Power Platform spectrum of products.

Terminology changes

• You may have known of the concept of Entity or Entities
  • this is now known as Table or Tables.
• Previously you have been familiar with Field or Fields or Attribute or Attributes
  • Now this is Column or Columns
• Before you might have become knowledgeable regarding Record or Records
  • At this time, this is now known as Row or Rows
• So previously you might have become familiar with the terms Option set or Option Sets as well as Multi select Option Sets or Picklist or Picklists
  • These are now known as Choice or Choices
• Ever heard of Two Options ?
  • Now, this is known as a Yes/No

Also please make a note that for APIs or messages in Dataverse web services or the Dataverse Web API, the words like Entity that may appear in there like CreateEntityRequest or CreateAttributeRequest – these will not change to the new terminology

From docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/common-data-service/data-platform-intro:

Dynamics 365 and Dataverse Applications

Dynamics 365 applications including ones like Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Talent or Dynamics 365 Sales, also use Dataverse directly in order to secure and even store the data being used. This powerful kind of data integration in the single data store, empowers you with a unique ability to build apps more rapidly and at higher quality by using Dataverse and Power Apps directly with your core business data in Power Platform, as it is already used within Dynamics 365, and this way, you can do this without the need for any "integrations" in many cases.

You can construct valuable and useful apps directly using your Dynamics 365 data in the dataverse data storage. You can build apps quickly within Power Apps or for scenarios that do need integration, this is made easier too by using the extensible Power Platform. This lets anywhere from novice, intermediate, and professional developers programmatically interact with metadata and data , create custom connectors, integrate with external data, and apply business logic. Some of this requires no code or low code, meaning that Microsoft Power Platform technology offers a unique opportunity in that even beginners or novices can still do some of these things in some cases!

You can manage reusable rules and business logic – there is a set of common logic and Business Rules – those already defined in your Dataverse Tables can actually be applied to apps that are created with Power Apps to ensure data consistency – regardless of how your particular users access the data or even which specific app they use to do so.

Skills are definitely reusable between Dynamics 365 and Power Apps – anyone out there who may be skilled in Power Apps or Dynamics 365, can now hear the great news – you can really leverage those particular kinds of skills across the entire Dataverse in Power Platform. Whether you are creating forms, charts, tables, relationships and more, you may find that performing these kinds of things tend to be common patterns that you can learn and apply across your applications related to Dataverse and Dynamics 365.

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