Data visualizations have received their fair share of discussions at Microsoft Build 2017. One particular project did catch my attention – Adaptive Cards.

What are Adaptive Cards

Adaptive Cards are an open card exchange format enabling developers to exchange UI content in a common and consistent way.

Why is it important to us?

In Dynamics 365 / CRM world data exchange has always been a challenge. At best we would export data into Excel or, if recipient is an authorized Dynamics 365 user, we would send them a long URL to open the same record using the same UI.

There is no adaptibility as far as the target environment is concerned, the approaches simply rely on Dynamics 365 to handle different data representations.

Adaptive Cards allow interactive content rendering within a host application, automatically adapting to the look and feel of the host.

Users win because everything feels familiar. Host apps win because they control the user experience. And Card Authors win because their content gets broader reach without any additional work.

10 minutes no code demo

As you can see, ability to present Dynamics 365 information in a target environment looks very natural. However, there is no reason why Dynamics 365 itself cannot be a host for Adaptive Cards, making it easier to present external information inside Dynamics 365, adapting it to our environment.

Scratch the Surface, scratch the Surface…