With the Dynamics 365 App Designer, you can easily create your own apps within Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement . However, don’t confuse the App Designer with Microsoft PowerApps or the Microsoft Power Platform. This does not involve creating applications with completely new functionalities or interfaces to other applications. Nevertheless, standard Dynamics 365 customization is possible from within the App Designer. Rather, the App Designer helps you build a new, separate area—including its own navigation—that serves a specific purpose. Such as the existing Microsoft applications Dynamics 365 for Sales or Dynamics 365 for Field Service.
Creating an app with Dynamics App Designer
The scenario for our app is as follows: A marketing employee should be able to create or edit companies and contacts, then group these records into marketing lists and send emails via ClickDimensions. As you can see, it’s easy to use third-party entities in the App Designer.
1. Click on Settings, then click on My Apps.
2. Click the plus icon on the right.
3. The App Designer will open. First, you’ll need to name the app. You can add a description if you’d like. The app’s URL will be provided to you immediately.
4. The App Editor will then open. You can specify which dashboards and business process flows should be available for the application.
5. To add an existing entity, click the plus sign in the upper-left corner.
6. Select the entities you want to include in your application. Alternatively, you can create new entities using standard Customizing. In this case, we’ll add Companies, Contacts, Marketing Lists, and the Email Send entity from ClickDimensions.
7. For each entity, you can specify which forms, views, charts, or dashboards should be available.
8. Once you have made your selection, you can save the app and have it validated. During this process, the components are checked for completeness and dependencies.
9. If you have not fully edited a component or if there are dependencies on missing components, you will receive an error message. In our case, this involves the site map (navigation) and dependencies related to the forms. Add the missing dependencies and then edit the site map.
10. In the Sitemap Designer, name or define the area, group, and subarea. Save and publish the sitemap.
11. Save and validate the app again. If you no longer receive any error messages, you can publish the app.
12. your app is now available for selection and can be used. Note: The last picture is a screenshot from the Dynamics 365 with unified interface.
Reduce the complexity of your system with Dynamics App Designer
With the Dynamics 365 App Designer, you can quickly and easily reduce the complexity of your system. Provide your teams and employees with only the entities and features they truly need. Now, some of you might be thinking: Wait a minute, isn’t that also possible using security roles? Yes, it is. However, this approach can be very time-consuming. So, if you want to keep the effort to a minimum, we recommend using the Dynamics App Designer and blocking the remaining applications for the user via security roles.
