In the previous post I summarized the key features of why you should choose Talent. Now we move on to the first and one of the biggest points. The echo-system that Microsoft is building is unique and one of a kind! It makes life for us consultants way better by making sure every system is talking the same “language” and seamlessly connecting several systems.
So, how does this help you with Talent? You have several other Microsoft applications that are or can be connected to Talent as a standard, a lot of what you define as needs which Talent can’t solve for you, one or more of the other applications can solve for you.
As you can se in the picture below, Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a massive echo-system, connected to the other applications from Microsoft
If Talent doesn’t fit all your needs, the possibility to be able to extend Talent with the Power Platform to fit your need is a very good reason to choose Talent. The Power Platform is unique from Microsoft and makes life as a consultant, IT-administrator and user of the applications much better!

Some of the more important applications you can connect Talent to are listed below.
Common Data Service

Talent is as Customer Engagement/CRM and Finance & Operations/AX/ERP built on the common data service (CDS). This makes connecting the applications a lot easier, not as it was before with several different custom connectors and with a lot of trouble and cost!
You can also get out-of-the-box connectors between the applications (as if May 2019 it’s between Talent and Finance & Operations and between Finance & Operations and CE/CRM. Business Central is the only business application from Microsoft currently not built on the CDS.
Microsoft defines Common Data Service as follows:
Common Data Service lets you securely store and manage data that’s used by business applications. Data within Common Data Service is stored within a set of entities. An entity is a set of records used to store data, similar to how a table stores data within a database.
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Read more about the CDS on Microsoft Docs
Office 365

As you are connected with Office 365, Talent use the user administration in Office 365. You do user registration and give them license, just as you would every other Microsoft system you have.
When you are scheduling an interview with a candidate in Attract, Artificial Intelligence uses Office 365 and searches through the interviewers calendar to give you the most suitable time to schedule an interview without you having to do the job yourself thus saving you time.
The connection with Office 365 also makes it easier to setup the notifications in Talent, because you don’t have to make your own connection. You can connect Talent to SharePoint to store your documents, and use Excel for administration of data in Talent.
Microsoft defines Office 365 as follows:
Microsoft Office 365 provides powerful online cloud services that enable collaboration, security and compliance, mobility, and intelligence and analytics.
Microsoft
Read more about Office 365 on Microsoft Docs
Microsoft Flow
Microsoft Flow is Microsofts workflow automation, which can help you create automation for collecting data, creating documents, deleting information and all sorts of other automation you need in connection with Talent. You can also use Flow to connect and update other systems to or from Talent.
Microsoft defines Flow as follows:
Microsoft Flow is a service that helps you create automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data and more.
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Read more about Microsoft Flow on Microsoft Docs
PowerApps
Everything Talent doesn’t do, you can do in a PowerApp, well almost. You can build a PowerApp and show it in Talent and/or Finance & Operations and/or CRM and/or SharePoint. This way you can for example get an employee to register data in various systems. You can create a PowerApp in Onboarding to get your employee to fill inn all needed information or choose their new computer.
Microsoft defines PowerApps as follows:
PowerApps is a suite of apps, services, connectors and data platform that provides a rapid application development environment to build custom apps for your business needs.
Microsoft
Read more about PowerApps on Microsoft Docs
PowerBI
Analytics is important for every part of the business, if you don’t know what works and what doesn’t how are you supposed to get better? There are some predefined PowerBI reports in Talent. By connecting Talent and other relevant systems with PowerBI it opens a whole new world of possibilities for in-dept reports, this gives you a foundation to make business decisions based on data from your company.
Microsoft defines PowerBI as follows:
Power BI is a business analytics solution that lets you visualize your data and share insights across your organization, or embed them in your app or website. Connect to hundreds of data sources and bring your data to life with live dashboards and reports.
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Read more about PowerBI on Microsoft Docs
Forms Pro

It could be that you want to make your candidates for a new job complete a survey befor you have them in for an interview to make sure they are a good fit for your company, Microsoft Forms Pro is the way to do this. Or if you want to send out an employee survey you could use Forms Pro
Microsoft defines Forms Pro as follows:
Forms Pro is a simple yet comprehensive survey solution that builds on the current survey-creation experience of Microsoft Forms in Office 365. It offers new capabilities that make capturing and analyzing customer and employee feedback simpler than ever.
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Many thanks Malin for your valuable posts. Really, I will consider you as a direct reference for learning MS Talent, as I am HCM consultant who wants to specializes in MS Dynamics Talent. please keep going 🙂
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Thank you for the kind comment, I truly appreciate you taking your time giving feedback!
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