The Role of Success by Design, Business Process Catalog and Azure DevOps in Dynamics 365 Implementations

1. Success by Design: The Implementation Framework
2. Business Process Catalog: The Business Process Model
3. Business Process Catalog in Azure DevOps
4. Connecting BPC with Implementation Deliverables in Azure DevOps
5. Maintaining and Updating the BPC
6. The Complete Dynamics 365 Implementation Picture
7. From LCS to Today's Dynamics 365 Implementation Approach
8. BPC as a Foundation for AI-Assisted Implementations
Useful MS Learn Links
See Also

Microsoft provides several frameworks, tools and resources for Dynamics 365 implementations: Success by Design, the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal, the Business Process Catalog, and the Azure DevOps implementation template.

They serve different purposes but work together as part of Microsoft's process-focused implementation approach to Dynamics 365.

1. Success by Design: The Implementation Framework

Success by Design is Microsoft's implementation framework for Dynamics 365. It provides guidance and recommended practices for architecting, building, testing and deploying Dynamics 365 solutions.

The Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal helps customers and partners apply this framework to an actual implementation project. It provides project profiling, tailored implementation guidance, project reviews, telemetry and other tools supporting the implementation.

In simple terms:

Success by Design
Microsoft implementation framework
↓
Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal
Apply the framework to an implementation project

2. Business Process Catalog: The Business Process Model

The Dynamics 365 Business Process Catalog (BPC) provides Microsoft's standard catalog of business processes across Dynamics 365 apps and services.

It organizes business processes into six levels:

End-to-End Process
→ Business Process Area
→ Business Process
→ Scenario
→ System Process
→ Test Case

The BPC provides a common starting point for defining the business processes that are in scope for an implementation.

The Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal also uses BPC process information during project profiling.

Since July 2026, the Implementation Portal also provides Mavim-powered BPC process visualization during project profiling, helping implementation teams understand the process context while defining project scope.

3. Business Process Catalog in Azure DevOps

Microsoft provides the Business Process Catalog as an Excel-based Azure DevOps template that can be imported into the implementation backlog.

The BPC hierarchy then becomes a structured hierarchy of Azure DevOps Work Items:

Business Process Catalog = Standard business-process model and implementation scope
↓
BPC Excel workbook / Azure DevOps template
↓
Azure DevOps
↓
BPC tree = Work Items describing business processes in scope for the implementation project

The BPC tree can then be used throughout the implementation for process scoping, requirements, fit/gap analysis, planning and testing.

4. Connecting BPC with Implementation Deliverables in Azure DevOps

The Microsoft Azure DevOps model goes beyond the Business Process Catalog tree.

It also provides a separate Deliverables tree, which organizes the concrete work required to implement and tailor the Dynamics 365 solution.

Microsoft provides predefined Deliverables and Work Item Types such as Configuration, Report, Enhancement, Integration and Testing. Implementation teams can use the predefined Deliverables and create additional ones required for the implementation project.

Deliverables can be linked to the related business processes, providing traceability between the business-process scope and the work required to implement it.

5. Maintaining and Updating the BPC

Microsoft updates the Business Process Catalog at least four times per year. New releases can introduce new and updated processes as well as deprecated and deleted catalog entries.

This becomes important when a partner or customer has already extended the BPC with its own industry, solution-specific or project-specific content.

When the BPC is maintained in Azure DevOps, Microsoft recommends carefully analyzing new BPC releases and selectively applying relevant changes to an existing project. Learn more >>

Since March 2026, Microsoft also provides the BPC as a Mavim database package and maintains the catalog directly in Mavim as its system of record. Mavim is a Business Process Management platform for maintaining, extending and governing business process models. It is a separately licensed product provided by Microsoft ISV partner Mavim. Learn more >>

6. The Complete Dynamics 365 Implementation Picture

The complete picture looks like this:

Success by Design = Microsoft implementation framework
↓ applied through

Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal = Project profile, guidance, reviews, telemetry and readiness
↓ uses BPC for project profiling

Business Process Catalog = Standard business-process model and implementation scope
↓ provided as

BPC Excel workbook / Azure DevOps template
↓ imported into

Azure DevOps containing:
BPC tree = Work Items describing business processes in scope for the implementation project
↕ linked to
Deliverables tree = Work Items describing concrete implementation work: Configuration / Report / Enhancement / Integration / Testing...

Together, these components connect Microsoft's implementation guidance with business-process scoping and the concrete work performed during a Dynamics 365 implementation.

7. From LCS to Today's Dynamics 365 Implementation Approach

For many years, implementations of Dynamics 365 finance and operations apps were centered around Lifecycle Services (LCS).

LCS combined many different aspects of the application lifecycle in one place, including implementation projects, Methodologies, Business Process Modeler (BPM), environment management, software deployment and support.

This model is now changing as part of Microsoft's One Dynamics One Platform direction.

Instead of moving everything from LCS into a single replacement, Microsoft is distributing these responsibilities across several services:

LCS Methodology and project settings
→ Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal / Azure DevOps

LCS Business Process Modeler (BPM)
→ Business Process Catalog (BPC)

LCS environment administration and lifecycle management
→ Power Platform admin center (PPAC)

At the same time, Success by Design, developed from Microsoft's FastTrack experience, provides the implementation framework and guidance behind this approach.

These components are becoming increasingly connected. For example, Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal projects can now be created automatically from environment groups in PPAC, while BPC processes are used directly during project profiling in the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal.

What About Business Central?

The picture is slightly different for Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Business Central does not use the F&O LCS implementation model, and its environments are managed through the Business Central admin center.

However, the Business Process Catalog is not limited to finance and operations and customer engagement apps. The BPC is a cross-Dynamics 365 catalog and includes Business Central Scenarios and System Processes.

8. BPC as a Foundation for AI-Assisted Implementations

Microsoft is also positioning the Business Process Catalog as a foundation for future AI- and agent-assisted Dynamics 365 implementations.

Because BPC provides structured information about business processes, Scenarios, System Processes and Test Cases, AI can reason over the business-process context of an implementation rather than only over application metadata and data.

Microsoft already describes future AI-powered experiences that reason over structured business process information and agent-assisted implementation experiences built on a shared process model. The current BPC model also includes guidance for agent-supported Scenarios, agent-driven System Processes and AI/Agent evaluation in Test Cases.

In this way, BPC can provide an important context layer between business processes, Dynamics 365 and AI agents.

Useful MS Learn Links

Dynamics 365 Implementation Guide: best starting point for the overall Microsoft implementation approach and its relationship with Success by Design.
Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal overview: explains how the Implementation Portal applies Success by Design to actual implementation projects.
Introduction to the Business Process Catalog: core BPC explanation, including its purpose and use in implementation projects.
Business Processes in Dynamics 365: overview page for BPC documentation, individual end-to-end processes, importing to Azure DevOps and related guidance.
Use the Business Process Catalog as a Template in Azure DevOps Services: describes the BPC Excel workbook importable into Azure DevOps.
Deliverables and Work Item Types in Azure DevOps: explains the Deliverables tree, predefined Deliverables, and Work Item Types such as Report, Configuration, Integration, Enhancement and Testing.
What's New in the Business Process Catalog, July 2026: documents the current BPC Excel/Azure DevOps template and the new BPC visualization in the Implementation Portal.