Four things to know and five things to do following the big Microsoft Dataflex + Teams announcement

Today’s public announcement of new Microsoft Dataflex and the re-branding of the former “Common Data Service” (CDS) as Microsoft Dataflex Pro is one of—if not the—most profound Microsoft product evolutions of 2020. There will be significant discussion and work on this in the weeks and months ahead, but for now I’d like to help folks contextualize this new development by asking two questions: What should I be thinking big picture with the launch of Microsoft Dataflex, and what should I do next to make sure my organization is ready?

What should I know big picture with the launch of Microsoft Dataflex?

Dataflex is a huge upgrade in functionality via Microsoft 365.

Read the official announcement for a preview of the functionality, but suffice it to say that Dataflex is—finally—a true relational database inside of Microsoft Teams. Paired with Power Apps the three become the new platform of choice for building productivity grade applications for use by individuals, teams, and business groups. And, per the aforementioned Microsoft announcement, it’s embedded in the Teams application that organizations already have via their M365 licensing. (Direct quote: “Microsoft Dataflex delivers a built-in, low-code data platform for Teams, and provides relational data storage, rich data types, enterprise grade governance, and one-click solution deployment.”)

The application development landscape is therefor permanently changed.

Many organizations have to this point continued building their applications atop SharePoint (lists) as their data source because they felt licensing of the former “CDS” was cost-prohibitive, whereas SharePoint is included in M365 licensing. The inclusion of Dataflex in Teams should allow organizations to transition the data source of most apps to a relational data service that fits seamlessly in Microsoft’s modern data ecosystem (more on that in a moment), all but eliminating the use case for building apps atop SharePoint. I have said often that a global community of brilliant people have spent years stretching SharePoint far beyond what it was originally intended to do. With DataFlex + Teams, Microsoft is now saying “here, have this thing that you always wanted SharePoint to be!” There may be some edge cases going forward where SharePoint could remain the best option for your data source, but I suspect this will mostly be where a legacy investment in that approach is already a sunk cost (incidentally, the coming of Microsoft Lists is likely to further alter the calculus away from SharePoint as well). Otherwise, it is safe to say that the age of the “SharePoint app” is behind us.

The low-code cloud transformation concept has matured significantly.

I’ve been taking about “low-code cloud transformation” for some time now, and I mentioned “Microsoft’s modern data ecosystem” above. For several years, though, the struggle has been that many apps that begin life as a productivity app—often built by a “citizen developer” and often using SharePoint as a data source—presented challenges when the app grew in business impact, complexity, or scope to become important or even critical to the organization (more on this in the “Environmental Architecture Model” found in the Power Platform Adoption Framework). In other words, there was no data architecture continuity for apps built on SharePoint alongside more robust data services (e.g. CDS or Azure SQL) without making significant changes to the data architecture of the app itself, and there was no “easy button” to move the solution from one construct to the other. The Dataflex to Dataflex Pro spectrum finally unifies the end-to-end maturity of apps across the entire Power Platform and M365 stack. That seamlessness is an absolute game changer for low-code cloud transformation.

There are profound implications for enterprise adoption, management, and governance of both Power Platform and Teams.

Teams and Power Platform can no longer be adopted, managed, and governed as separate entities. Adopting Teams will now begin to generate Dataflex environments and Power Apps, whilst significant app development will now be occurring inside of Teams. We were already moving in this direction, but Microsoft has now put the pedal to the floor on this trend. When Dataflex hits public preview and then general availability, we will see a proliferation of applications built on Dataflex. We’re going to have to manage that overnight proliferation, and you can expect the Power Platform Adoption Framework team to update our guidance in the Environmental Architecture Model very soon.

What should I do next, to make sure my organization is ahead of the curve?

Don’t panic. This is a good thing!

First—whether you’re already heavily invested in Teams, Power Platform, or SharePoint—don’t panic. Dataflex and Dataflex Pro are significant new capability embedded in the Teams you’re already using. Breath easy 😎

In general, plan to stop using SharePoint for application development.

The most significant behavior change for most organizations will be a transition from developing your apps inside of SharePoint with lists as data source to now developing your apps inside of Teams with Dataflex as your data source. This is a particularly important change for organizations who are presently modernizing workloads from legacy technologies such as InfoPath or SharePoint workflows into Power Apps and Power Automate. Your new target architecture for those productivity grade workloads should (generally) now be Teams + Dataflex + Power Apps and Power Automate. Your target architecture for more critical workloads will remain Dataflex Pro (albeit with the name change from CDS) and / or Azure SQL + Power Apps + Power Automate.

Coordinate efforts between your Power Platform and Teams governance gurus.

We’ve advised in the past that there’s “risk in combining the duties of the Power Platform CoE with those of the organization’s Office 365 team”. The thinking behind that (read the link) stands, though now the need for those teams to work in lockstep around Power Platform + Teams governance has grown significantly. See my earlier explanation. IT organizations must get these people together and create a non-negotiable expectation for collaboration between the two on how to govern the creation and management of teams in concert with the Dataflex environments that those teams will now create.

Get serious about adopting Power Platform AND Teams, particularly if you’ve got your foot in one but not the other.

For the same reasons stated above, if you are presently in the midst of adopting Teams OR Power Platform, you need to pivot to adopting at least some elements of both. The Power Platform Adoption Framework provides guidance on the latter, and again we will be updating it shortly with new strategic guidance in the age of Dataflex. Get in touch with me if you’re an enterprise organization seeking help with this.

Call your Microsoft Partner.

Microsoft has an aggressive timeline for rolling this out. I cannot stress enough the importance of engaging your Microsoft Partner in getting ahead of the curve NOW. Expect (demand) strategic expertise of that partner. They should know what’s going on here and be able to help you quickly apply that to your adoption, management, governance, and ongoing app development around this technology.

Bottom Line

I’m excited. The entire Microsoft community is excited. Yesterday (20 July 2020) was the 51st anniversary of humans landing on the moon. And whilst we’re not talking in cosmic terms, today we’ve been treated to quite a giant leap for the future of remote work, application development, and low-code cloud transformation across the three clouds.