Sync Dataverse for teams with Dataverse

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Assuming I have already a dataverse environment with Dynamics 365 and I create a new dataverse for teams environment for guests.

Can I sync contacts between the 2 dataverse environments?

Do the licenses included in Dynamics ( or a separated Powerapps license) allow me to sync the data?

Can we use the dataverse for teams as an Extranet by synching data from the CRM to Teams?

Thanks in advance for the clarification.

jerome

[dpoggemann]

hi @Anonymous ,

Here is my current understanding (although we know this is Microsoft so it can change 😃)

1.  You can export data from dataverse for teams to a standard dataverse environment but this would be a premium connector so the user running the flow or dataflow would need a license to get the data into the dataverse environment.

2.  Same answer for syncing contacts as this would be a configured dataflow or flow

3.  Overall, I think the general answer (currently) is yes.  The external guests would need to access through the team as this is the limitation and they could store the data to the dataverse for teams and you could have a process sync this to dataverse.   Overall to remove all this syncing etc. you might want to look at the Power Apps Portals but this does come with a cost from a licensing perspective.

Hope this helps, if so, please mark accepted.

Thanks much,

Drew

[EricRegnier]

Hi @Anonymous,

To answers your specific questions and to supplement on the previous post:

1. Syncing: unfortunately Dataflows are not yet supported for Dataverse for Teams (@dpoggemann FYI). The only way to sync contacts from both type of environments would be with Power Automate using the "Common Data Service (current environment)" connector.
2. Licensing: current Power Apps per app / per user (or any Dynamics 365) licenses are valid for Dataverse for Teams with no additional license required including syncing with Power Automate.
3. Extranet: would it be possible to elaborate a little on this requirement? If it's like an external portal for external users (non employee) @dpoggemann is correct with Power Apps Portal.

Hope this helps...

[Anonymous]

Hello,

My objective is to create an External portal included in Teams (so for external/guest users). I cannot use Power Apps portal or give access to Power apps on D365 because the price for 2000 external users will be very high. My first idea is to sync ( with Power Automate) data from D365 to SharePoint lists and embedded SharePoint pages in Teams. The solution seems OK but I would like to know if Dataverse for Teams could be another option.

The guests should be able to see data coming from the D365 Dataverse. And some specific guests have more rights and could create new contacts into Dynamics.

So my Idea was to sync/copy Dynamics data between D365 Dataverse and Dataverse for Teams.

• Sync D365 data with Power automate from dataverse to dataverse for teams
• create a power app to display these data for the guests (no license necessary...). Power apps allows more flexibility to create custom pages than SharePoint
• all guests users will be able to see their specific data ( filtered data by user) in the embedded Power App in Teams.
• some guests will be able to create new records ( or update them) in Dataverse for Teams
• Use Power Automate to sync these new records ( or update records) to the Dynamics Dataverse ( possibly with a validation step)
• I will also use Power Apps to manage  from D365 Dataverse the access for guests (dataverse for Teams data and Microsoft 365 groups).

Could Dataverse for Teams be used in that way?

[dpoggemann]

hi @Anonymous,

Overall I don't see anything in your approach that would not work and it might accomplish your business requirements although Microsoft can be complicated here.  One concern I have is that Microsoft does change their licensing every once in a while (i.e. Dynamics 365 Portal that was free for your customers moving to be charged in the Power Apps Portal world...) and this is a risk you take with the model as you articulate.

Thanks,

Drew

[EricRegnier]

A few potential issues/notes to be aware of based on what you mentioned: 

• For Power Apps Portals, license is not per user but per page views, therefore regardless amount of users, 5000 or 5 it's based on the usage. This might simplify your overall solution and reducing the need for bi-directional integration and separate licenses for your guests (see below). If license cost is a concern, contact your local Microsoft representative, they might be able to help out 🙂
• Guest access you will still need Power Apps licenses for your guest to access and edit data the Power Apps (Dataverse) for Teams. Be careful not to run in licensing multiplexing scenarios. Jukka has a very good blog to explaining multiplexing: https://jukkaniiranen.com/2020/05/why-power-platform-licensing-is-complex-part-2-multiplexing/ 
• Might have limitation with SharePoint as a data source as it doesn't support relational data models, limit on max records and little/no deployment support to other environments (i.e. from Dev to Prod)

Hope this helps...

[dpoggemann]

Hi @EricRegnier,

A couple things to hopefully clarify, or maybe I am confused on the licensing...

1.  Power Apps Portals has two components to the licensing for authenticated and unauthenticated users.  Authenticated users are actually priced based on "logins per month" where you get 100 login sessions per month for $200.  A login session is a user login for that day so the user can login / logout multiple times in the day and it will count as a single login session.  This pricing is tiered with 1,000 logins and 5,000 logins the price is reduced for each of these levels and applied to all units purchased.  The unauthenticated licensing is based on the page views as you mentioned.

2.  The major area where I thought I understood and I think I was wrong is that Dataverse for Teams does allow guest users to access the application within the team.   See the documentation here.  Guests can be invited but with limited capabilities as identified below.  This is why @Anonymous is heading down this path as an option for his customer.  

Do you have anything definitive @EricRegnier that this is not allowed because I can not find anything...  I am going to setup a test to verify the functionality but it appears this is much different than I thought in the past.

Thanks much,

Drew

[EricRegnier]

For Portal license, thanks for correcting, too many enterprise agreements to follow 😐 The retail portal licensing is per login, and per page view for anonymous users.

For Dataverse for Teams, it is my understand and what I've been told by Microsoft that limited functionality (i.e. read-only) for guest. Based on the use cases Jerome mentioned, seems to be subject to Power Apps licensing and possibly multiplexing. The system will not prevent that functionality (yet), but if there's a licensing audit, it can possibly be non-compliant. The best is to get in contact with local Microsoft representative to clarify that...

In general @Anonymous, I would recommend not to have a licensing architecture (I know, easier said!). Microsoft licensing is complex and continuously changing so eventually you might be hit with higher/lower licensing cost. MS is trying to have a similar licensing cost based on the functionality regardless of the technical solutions so that customers don't circumvent licensing.

Hope this clarifies a little....