Dynamics 365 government accelerator helps agencies deliver mission-focused digital government services

Governments are increasingly turning to data to address their most urgent issues. But many struggle to unlock the value of their business data to meet the challenges facing their communities. Housing, economic recovery, public safety, and infrastructure are more complex, requiring coordination and data-sharing among many departments and agencies. The pandemic has only reinforced this challenge to turn to digital government services and programs to meet changing expectations and new social norms.

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 government accelerator acts as an information blueprint for partners and developers who are building solutions for government organizations to advance their missions in an all-digital world. An industry-specific data model and building blocks fast-track the development of government business processes and applications in the areas of public finance, public health and social services, public safety and justice, and critical infrastructure. It’s available as a standalone data model that partners can use and build on.

The first release of the government data model supports use cases centered around policy, services, programs, benefits, eligibility, licenses, permits, grants, and more. This standardized data blueprint improves interoperability by unifying and shaping the data in a consistent way for easy use across government applications, processes, and workflows in Microsoft Power Platform, Dynamics 365, and the entire Microsoft technology stack. With a shared understanding of the data, partners and developers can use these data elements to accelerate their time to value and deliver mission-focused solutions for government agencies.

In addition to the data model, the government accelerator includes:

• A customizable Power Apps sample portal that residents and businesses can use to apply for government services, programs, and benefits.

• A customizable sample app for digital government services, programs, and benefits to show how Power Platform and Dynamics 365 can use the data model to manage applications and approvals, and transform government programs and services.

• Partner and developer documentation, reference guides, entity relationship diagrams, and metadata documentation on the data model, all available on GitHub.

The government data model was built in collaboration with over a dozen partners, including the following founding partners.

Arctic IT is excited to partner with Microsoft on the development of a data model designed for the needs of government organizations. The new data model allows Arctic IT to start with a defined data structure that will enable our government clients to bring multiple departments to work together like never before. This government data model will open opportunities to generate greater citizen insights and actions to improve service delivery and help deliver mission-focused solutions.

Bryan Schmidt, Principal Solution Architect, Arctic IT

We are excited to partner with Microsoft on this project, it’s been great to collaborate with the team on a common data model for government and the public sector. This alignment not only helps build on our partnership with Microsoft, but also provides great value to our joint Government clients using Dynamics 365 and Power Apps. It will enable government organisations to increase productivity, accelerate time to value, and deepen trust.

Jacques Le Grange, Principal Consultant, The Factor

When it comes time to provide the customer with the detailed documentation needed to properly scope out an implementation, the Microsoft Public Sector data models aid in the solution design process and provide a way to respond much faster and more economically to the customer.

Adam Brun, Public Sector Industry Lead – Ellipse Solutions

Having a Public Sector unified data platform provides consistency and assists our government clients to deliver on their initiatives more effectively. IBM is partnering with Microsoft to deliver a data model that will allow us to bring our clients’ data and applications together enabling us to deliver government solutions on Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.

Darren Clark, Associate Partner, IBM Consulting

Using federal or state funds to deliver grants and other assistance to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies is a complicated process. The number of stakeholders involved, type of recipients, size of transactions, use of disparate systems, and lack of a common data model present challenges for which many state and local governments are not prepared.

These challenges along with the demand for speed, efficiency, and compliance must be met with feature-rich enterprise solutions that can scale to support future programs. Stralto has implemented enterprise grant management solutions on the Dynamics 365 and Power App platform, and we are excited to partner with Microsoft on a government data model that will help improve interoperability and break down the siloed information so agencies can deliver improved experiences.

Shane Lucas, President, Stralto, Inc.

Next steps

• To learn about and explore the Dynamics 365 government accelerator, get it now on AppSource or download it from GitHub.

• Read the government accelerator documentation.

• Learn more about our intelligent government solutions to see how Microsoft and our partners drive economic growth and development, enable personalized digital experiences, deliver trusted and secure services, and build a resilient, sustainable future for many government agencies around the world.