The problem
Standing up a new facility on Dynamics 365 F&O is mostly a data problem wearing an ERP costume. Everything the business runs on — customers, vendors, parts, BOMs, inventory — has to move into the new system in a shape D365 accepts. And after go-live the ERP doesn't get to live alone: the departmental and shop-floor systems that actually run production are still there, and the two sides have to agree about reality, automatically, all day.
What I built
- The data entities that made migration and integration possible — X++ extensions and custom entities wherever the standard ones didn't cover what the business needed, which was often.
- Integration workflows on Azure Logic Apps and Power Automate, plus PowerApps filling functional gaps around the ERP.
- Added functionality inside D365 where the standard product came up short — extending processes rather than working around them.
- REST data contracts and ETL connecting D365 to the manufacturing systems on the floor.
One loop, end to end: incoming inspection
The example I'd point an interviewer at. Components arriving at receiving couldn't be trusted into stock until incoming inspection passed them — but receiving happened in D365, and inspection happened in FactoryLogix, the MES owned by a different department.
The flow I built: when D365 receives components, it creates a quality order. A data entity carries that order out to FactoryLogix, where inspectors do their pass/fail work in the tool they already use. The result comes back through a data entity and updates the quality order in D365 — so material moves to stock only when inspection says so, and nobody on either side had to leave their own system or re-key anything.
Decisions that mattered
Data entities as the contract between systems. Everything crossing the ERP boundary went through them — no direct database writes, no side channels. That kept the integrations on Microsoft's supported surface, which is what lets an ERP take updates without the integrations shattering.
Extend the standard process instead of replacing it. The inspection loop hangs new behavior off D365's own quality orders rather than inventing a parallel quality process — D365 stays the system of record, and the inspection department keeps the tool it already knows.
Outcome
The facility ran on D365 F&O with the shop floor and the ERP exchanging data automatically — receiving, inspection, and the daily churn of manufacturing data flowing between systems without re-keying.