Plan and prepare for Microsoft Dataverse in 2024 release wave 2

Overview

Microsoft Dataverse is a low-code data platform that allows you to easily build scalable and interconnected copilot-enabled applications, automations, and agents. Here are some of the key capabilities of Dataverse:

• Do more with data. Easily utilize data and metadata from disparate sources for generative AI workflows and copilot applications.

• Enrich your copilot experience. Integrate, search, and act on the data you use daily.

• Enrich your copilot experience. Create dynamic prompts with grounded enterprise data using Azure Open AI large language models (LLM) and connect to external sources.

• Build custom actions. Build custom connectors, plugins, and custom APIs that package business logic and services into your business process.

• Proactive data security. Assess, act, and proactively safeguard your data with advanced security features.

• Fully managed, fully integrated. Get built-in support for enterprise application lifecycle management across Power Platform ecosystem.

• End-to-end security. Protect your data with a robust security management infrastructure that provides critical security and compliance capabilities-advanced encryption, rich access control, and deep integration with Microsoft Entra ID. Build on trust with advanced security features and interoperation with Microsoft Sentinel.

• Compliance capabilities. Get audit logs of all AI data access with Microsoft Purview.

Updates to Microsoft Dataverse 2024 release wave 2

Investment areas

Build your low code hyperscale backend on Dataverse
Acceleration of low-code experiences for apps built on Dataverse will take a leap this semester. Makers will be able to create reusable low-code business logic in Dataverse that is cataloged, enabling other makers in the organization to discover and use their apps. These reusable actions can also be used by copying and pasting Power Fx logic from a canvas app into Dataverse actions, by calling directly into connector actions to run external business logic, thereby increasing the value of maker investments in the organization. These actions will then be available across Power Platform.

Data workspace
As customers embark on the copilot journey, their enterprise data will play a pivotal role in ensuring a successful adoption of reliable copilot-enabled applications.

With data workspace features, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform customers can leverage the AI-assisted mapping feature that simplifies the integration of external data into existing Dataverse tables, enhancing the data management process. It includes assisted mapping for standard dataflows and the ability to bypass business logic, ensuring a faster and smoother data migration experience. The consolidated experience for loading data from Excel directly into a Dataverse table or the integration of Fabric One Lake as a data source with a no ETL-no copy approach will simplify your data import and export strategy.

Additionally, the product provides integrated experiences to upgrade from Export to Data Lake, maintains security role privileges for better ALM solution imports, and allows for masking sensitive data with column-level security. Besides this, security features like preventing data exfiltration with app access and user-level controls, along with the ability to scan files and attachments for viruses and malware, ensure robust protection. The modernization of sharing apps and data access, along with the ability to share system views with security roles, reflects a focus on collaboration and accessibility.

Extend your copilots with knowledge and actions
Microsoft Dataverse enables customers to extend their Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and custom copilots authored in Microsoft Copilot Studio, using plug-ins for actions and grounding in enterprise knowledge sources to improve reliability and quality of responses.

Adding actions and specific knowledge are one of the best ways to extend your copilot. You can connect external systems, write specific instructions, or set up specific references. Plugins are the most popular version of an action, and you can leverage the existing plugins available in Copilot Studio or create your own. These plugins have specific descriptions that you set to help copilot call them. Additionally, if you're looking to modify the way in which you or your users interact with copilot, you can create prompts. These prompts give specific instructions and can even be used to ground Dataverse data into the copilot.

Knowledge center, powered by Dataverse, in Microsoft Copilot Studio is the central place to add and manage all your data sources and knowledge sources across all the three clouds with your copilot:

• Operational data (Dataverse)
• Productivity data (Microsoft 365)
• Analytical insights (Microsoft Fabric)

Using simple configurations and natural language, copilot makers can now use knowledge centers to ground all your copilot experiences to knowledge sources of your choice, thereby enabling customers to unlock more value from their enterprise data estate. Besides Microsoft data sources, this knowledge experience will also be the single place within a copilot where other knowledge sources like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Zendesk, and others, can also be provided to the custom copilot to ground the copilot experience.

Improved enterprise experiences in Power Platform
By improving the experiences for building apps, flows, and solutions with the use of templates and standard components, as well as improving the way data is connected, mapped and used, enterprise organizations will discover more delightful experiences across Power Platform and Microsoft Dataverse.

To learn more about the entire set of capabilities being delivered during this release wave, check out the release plan for Microsoft Dataverse below:

For application administrators

User-impacting features to the user experience enabled automatically
User-impacting features should be reviewed by application administrators. This facilitates release change management and enables successful onboarding of new capabilities released to market. For the complete list, look for all features tagged "Users, automatically" in the release plan.

Features that must be enabled by application administrators
This release wave contains features that must be enabled or configured by administrators, makers, or business analysts to be available for their users. For the complete list, look for all features tagged "Users by admins, makers, or analysts" in the release plan.