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Introduction
When as a consultant you need to present the full capabilities of the Business Central to a potential customer, you should not overlook the Microsoft CDX (Microsoft Customer Digital Experiences) service. With Microsoft CDX, you can easily create a demo environment in which you will be able to demonstrate the capabilities of not only Business Central but also other related services and products from the entire Microsoft business software suite. In this step-by-step guide, you will learn how to do it.
What is Microsoft CDX?
Microsoft CDX (Microsoft Customer Digital Experiences) is a service that allows for easy creation and management of demo environments in the cloud, designed to showcase Microsoft business software capabilities to end customers. CDX is available at: cdx.transform.microsoft.com ↗. Because of this intended purpose, the ability to create an environment in this option is only available to Partners.
Depending on the selected content package, the created environment will have access to a wide range of Microsoft cloud services and products along with appropriately prepared data! A separate fictitious tenant is created on Azure (without a subscription to Azure services, but there is an option to use a free $200 subscription) for a fictitious company called Contoso, a set of fictitious users in the tenant, email accounts for these users in Exchange Online, Office E5 licenses, Power Platform licenses.
With a content package suitable for Business Central, the created demo environment allows for the exploration of the full capabilities of the entire system in it’s online version (with Premium license capabilities). It also contains demo data to demonstrate scenarios that’s using BC integration with other Microsoft services, such as: an Outlook email account with additional functionality for BC, teams on MS Teams that can have access to BC, BC-related workflows in Power Automate, etc.
Ways to create a BC test environment
The above description of what CDX is partially comes from the article Ways to create a BC test environment, where I described different ways to create environments for test or demo purposes. It is worth reading the above article to get an overview of the possibilities and ensure that the demo environment on CDX is exactly what you need.
Step 1: Log in to the CDX portal
Start by logging into the CDX portal, available at: cdx.transform.microsoft.com ↗ using your Microsoft business account that is associated with the Partner account. This is a mandatory requirement – the Microsoft CDX service is only available to Partners.
CDX works best with Microsoft Edge
If you receive a message about lack of permissions and/or lack of association of your account with the Partner organization, even when you are trying to log in with your business account, which is surely associated with the Partner account, try logging into the CDX portal using the Microsoft Edge browser.
Step 2: Create a new environment
After logging in, go to the My Environments section. A page with a list of tenants you have previously created will appear (and of course, it will be empty if you are doing this for the first time). Press the Create Tenant button on the right above the list to proceed to the options for creating a new tenant.
Step 3: Select options
- Select tenant type in the Type field = Quick Tenant (it is very likely that you will not have any other choice here, the Custom Tenant option is only available for Microsoft employees).
- Then select the lifespan for your tenant in the Select period field from the options: 90 days or 1 year. Remember, you will be able to create a tenant for the specified lifespan within the limits imposed on Partners.
Limits in Microsoft CDX
Standard limits for a CDX user associated with a Partner account include the ability to create up to 5 simultaneous demo environments with a lifespan of 90 days and 1 demo environment with a lifespan of 1 year. If you need to create another environment, you must delete one of the previous ones.
Update: starting in April 2024, Microsoft has changed (limited) the environment creation limits for Partners up to only 1 simultaneous demo environment with a lifespan of 90 days 😞.
Limits assigned to your Partner are visible in the My Environments section → Roles & Limits tab. Remember, however, that the limits assigned to the Partner account apply separately to each user (they do not add up).
- Then select the tenant location in the Select tenant location field.
Dependencies between tenant location and BC local version
In the context of Business Central itself, choosing the tenant location for the environment can be quite crucial. I have the impression that the tenant location also determines the BC localization version that we will be able to run on this tenant.
For example, choosing the North America location will allows you to run BC with the BaseApp version US, choosing the United Kingdom will allows you to run BC in the GB version, etc. On the other hand, I have noticed that the choice of Country or Region during the BC trial registration stage (which will be covered in further steps) also affects which BC localization version will be run… Unfortunately, I did not conduct enough tests on created tenants in different locations to clearly reveal these dependencies to you (sorry, maybe someday).
- Select the content package in the Select your content pack field. The appropriate package for the Business Central demo environment will naturally be the package named Dynamics 365 Business Central – press the Create Tenant button next to the package title and description.
Dependencies between lifespan, location, and packages
Not all content packages are available for all combinations of selected options in the Select period and Select tenant location fields. If the Dynamics 365 Business Central package is not available for the selected period and location, try changing the location selection.
Not only the Business Central package
The fact is that we can also run Business Central on tenants created within other content packages than Dynamics 365 Business Central package. We can choose the Microsoft 365 Enterprise Demo Content package for instance. The scope of demo data will certainly be slightly different, but it can be a good solution when the dedicated BC package is not available for a given period and/or location.
- Confirm agreement to the Terms of Use of the Microsoft CDX service and press Accept and Continue.
Step 4: Wait for the environment to be created
After pressing the Accept and Continue button, the environment creation process will begin and a progress window will appear. The process can take from a few minutes to a few hours, although it has never taken more than 1-2 minutes for me.
The completion of the environment creation process will be confirmed with a summary screen with all the details about created environment.
You can return to the summary screen whenever you want
The summary screen and details of the created environment contain many useful information and also allow you to view credentials for the environment. You can always return to this information at any time from the list of tenants in the My Environments section of the CDX portal – just click on the name of the selected tenant.
You can edit the name of the tenant which allows you to quickly distinguish this environment from your other environments in CDX. You can also add a note to the environment (at the bottom of the page). Some content packages allow you to add additional content from this page, in the Additional Content section (the Dynamics 365 Business Central package does not have any additional options here).
Most importantly, the environment details page also shows the credentials for the administrator account created in the environment, as well as the credentials for the created demo user accounts. There are buttons next to both the usernames and passwords to copy the name/password to the clipboard (very handy).
Subdomain for the tenant
For the purpose of creating the tenant and user accounts, a subdomain CRMbc*.onmicrosoft.com or M365x*.onmicrosoft.com (for the Microsoft 365 Enterprise Demo Content package) was also created, where * is an automatically generated number, unique to the environment.
From now on, you can use the received administrator credentials to log in to the M365 admin center, where at admin.microsoft.com ↗ you can manage demo user accounts, create new users, assign licenses and also check when the environment will expire.
You can also log in with the administrator credentials to the Azure Portal at portal.azure.com ↗, where you can configure additional cloud services and start a free trial for Azure services subscription worth $200 (of course if you need it for your demo).
But where is Business Central?!
The tenant created within the *.onmicrosoft.com subdomain does NOT have the Business Central system running (even with the Dynamics 365 Business Central content package) immediately after creation, nor any other application from the Dynamics family. However, it is prepared for it. Just register for a BC trial using the credentials of the administrator account of our new environment.
InPrivate or Workspaces
Perform all the following steps in a browser (preferably Microsoft Edge) using InPrivate browsing mode so that your real business credentials, which may be remembered by the browser, do not attempt to automatically log you into the created CDX environment – where they simply won’t work.
Another (and even better) way, which will isolate your real credentials from those received for the new environment, and also simultaneously increase your productivity, is to use Workspaces ↗ available in the Edge browser. Workspaces have isolated memory for logins and passwords as well as cookies. Creating a separate Workspace for each of your environment will allow saving administrator credentials and enable faster, more convenient workflow.
- With InPrivate mode or in a separate Workspace, go to the BC trial registration form page available at: aka.ms/BCTrial ↗ or at the address provided in the description of the Dynamics 365 Business Central content package.
- In the Email field, enter the email address of the administrator credentials of the CDX environment that were visible on the summary screen and details of the created environment, then press the Next button.
- The form will identify the account as an administrator in an existing Microsoft tenant and ask you to log in. Press the Sign In button and log in with the administrator credentials.
- Select the country or region (consistent with the tenant’s location) for the BC trial in the Country or Region field and enter the business phone number in the Business phone number field, then press the Get Started button.
- In the next step, you can specify users (from the demo user accounts) that you would like to invite to the BC trial and assign them a user account in BC and a license. You can skip this step and assign BC licenses later in the M365 admin center at admin.microsoft.com ↗.
- Clicking the Get Started button will launch the Business Central trial on the CDX environment. Starting BC may take a few minutes; during initialization, you will be asked to participate in a short survey that may pre-configure your user settings in BC. You can skip the survey.
- After a while, you will be logged into the latest released version of Business Central.
- It’s worth bookmarking the direct link to Business Central containing the BC tenant ID to facilitate future logins.
Step 6: Personalization of the demo environment
Now you should personalize the demo environment for the customer you intend to demonstrate the capabilities of Business Central to. Here are a few examples of what you can do:
- Install your own PTE extensions and any ISV extensions that you want to show to the customer. Also install localization extensions if needed.
Installing extensions
Similarly to the production online BC environments, you can also install your own PTE extensions on demo environments created on CDX by importing the .app package, as well as ISV extensions directly from the Microsoft AppSource ↗ store. However, you will not be able to install ISV extensions for which you have a so-called “runtime app” (an application compiled into an .app package).
Beware of extensions without free trial / get it now
Therefore, it is a bit difficult to install an ISV extension on the CDX demo environment, which is not distributed in AppSource as free (Get it now) or under free trial basis (instead, there is a button on the AppSource application card to leave contact information – Contact me). This method of distribution on AppSource may possibly be reasonable for applications that require special attention, for example, applications that require additional external setup to be able to run or applications that should not be used without appropriate guidance from the vendor. However, for all other cases, ISVs should not use this method of listing applications in AppSource.
For Partners in Poland who want to create a Polish demonstration environment, this is particularly painful, because available Polish localization extensions, i.e. Polish Localization (from IT.integro) or Localization for Poland (from Companial) are distributed in this way.
To install such applications anyway, you need to get the application ID specified in the application manifest (in the app.json file) – it is also visible in the AppSource application card’s URL – and then use it while installing the application with the admin center API (MS Learn ↗) or even more easily by running a well-prepared direct URL (MS Learn ↗):
https://businesscentral.dynamics.com/<tenant-id>/?noSignUpCheck=1&filter=%27ID%27%20IS%20%27<app-id>%27&page=2503where <tenant-id> should be replaced with the CDX environment tenant ID on which we want to install the application, and <app-id> with the AppSource application ID of the application we want to install.
- Change the company name, logo, and details in Company Information and import your own Configuration Packages with sample customers, vendors and items consistent with the company’s profile or even as the customer for a sample of their real (or real-ish) data.
- Complete the functional and accounting settings for each business process scenario you want to demonstrate during the presentation. Use your knowledge about the customer, base it on real-life examples and authentic problems that the customer is facing with their current ERP system. Remember to test the settings and go through each process before the presentation (at least a few times)!
- Select a few of the demo user accounts, assign them BC licenses, and assign them with BC roles corresponding to those they hold in the organization (you can check this in the M365 admin center at admin.microsoft.com ↗). Include their “virtual” participation into your presentation. Switch between users using the aforementioned Workspaces in the Edge browser. This will diversify the presentation and credibly demonstrate the benefits of BC workflows.
- Configure and test BC integrations with other Microsoft services and products such as: Outlook (the BC add-in for Outlook is really liked by customer), MS Teams (benefits of communication between employees or teams with the context that comes directly from BC), Power Automate (for quickly creating workflows or approvals that involves BC but can go outside of it), or others… I always mention these three because they are my favorite MS integrations with BC ;).
Good luck with your demo presentations! 💪
