Data model is the process of analyzing and defining the data structures as per your solution requirement. Similar to earlier version of AX, in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Enterprise edition you can create or extend existing data model using extended data types, base enums, tables, views, and data entities. Data entities are new artifacts introduced in operations. Data entities provides abstraction from the physical implementation of database tables and hide the relational model by flattening out the schema. Either you are ISV building vertical solution or customer or partner developing custom solution, create appropriate data entities to cover your custom data model. Simply creating data entities enables the following possibilities by default:

• Ability to use data entities for configuration and data migration
• Use data entities as OData services and recurring Integration
• Office integration
• Analytics and Power BI

If you need to extend the existing data models, many extensibility features are supported on data models elements for example, extending base enums, changing properties, adding relations, creating new field in tables, views, and so on.