Education accelerator gets new sample applications and updated data model

Educational institutions are looking for modern data solutions that improve their ability to accurately assess and quickly respond to students’ and educators’ needs. We designed the Microsoft Dynamics 365 education accelerator to help partners expedite the development of these solutions. The December release includes new sample applications and data model enhancements that partners can use as a blueprint for their development work with education customers.

What’s new in the December release of the education accelerator

• New sample program registration portal for students and program management app for administrators
• Enhancements to the data model to:
  • Better align with Open Education Analytics (OEA) and industry standards
  • Respond to partner feedback about previous releases

New sample program registration portal and program management app

Partners can use the education data model, Power Pages, and a model-driven application to deliver a streamlined program registration solution to their education customers. The program registration solution is completely customizable. Education customers can use it to manage registration for a variety of academic and non-academic programs, such as tutoring services, sports teams, and community service opportunities.

Education accelerator data model better aligns with OEA and industry standards

OEA is a process to get started on the data modernization and artificial intelligence journey. Developed by education systems in collaboration with Microsoft Education, the OEA framework includes modules for the Ed-Fi and Schools Interoperability Framework data standards.

The OEA framework uses Azure Synapse Analytics, an analytical data store, while the education accelerator uses Dataverse, a transactional data store. The enhanced data model brings analytical and transactional data together in one platform, enabling partners to build solutions that align with industry data standards.

More data model enhancements based on partner feedback

The December release also includes enhancements that Microsoft partners requested:

• Combined K-12 and Higher Education data models
• New Course Requirement entity and enhanced Program Requirements entity
• New Grade Scale entity and calculations for course credits attempted and earned, grade points, and grade point average (GPA)
• Enhanced entity definitions, attribute definitions, and sample data
• Deprecated free-form text fields where relationships exist or we could use a lookup

Next steps

Get started right away with version 5.0 of the education accelerator on Microsoft AppSource. The data model, solutions, sample applications and data, Power BI reports, and UX controls that come with the education accelerator are available to any Microsoft Power Platform developer.

Read the documentation: Dynamics 365 education accelerator | Microsoft Learn

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